Page 136

“I didn’t mind that Adam had married. I minded that it was you.” It was something she hadn’t even admitted to herself. In a rush, Emily said, “I knew I should be glad that the two people I cared for more than anyone had found happiness with each other. But—I didn’t think you would suit. And I minded that I didn’t come first with you anymore.”

“You were right. We didn’t suit.” Laura’s voice was very small. She stared down at her wedding ring. The polish had already worn off; it looked battered and dim. “Poor Adam. He deserved better.”

“For what it’s worth, he was very proud of having won you. Even if you had nothing to say to each other in private, he liked to have you on his arm. He boasted like anything about you.” Emily pulled herself up to standing. “I suppose you’ll go back to Bristol now?”

Laura put her hands protectively to her stomach. “I couldn’t possibly go anywhere until after the baby. And then . . . I wouldn’t want to risk the child in travel. In a year, perhaps. Or two.”

“I shouldn’t want to live with Aunt Millicent either,” said Emily frankly. “I suppose I should find our hostess. Do you know where she might be?”

“In the pest house.” Laura grimaced. “I mean, the infirmary.”

“Pest house is probably about right at the moment,” said Emily.

Laura took the hand Emily offered her and hauled herself out of the chair. “She’s been there since the sickness started. She’s had her meals sent and won’t let any of us near her.”

“She’ll let me,” said Emily.

Laura’s lips twitched. The smile started small and then spread against her friend’s thin face, transforming it. “Oh, Emily, I have missed you.”

“I’ve missed you too,” said Emily. All the weight of everything she hadn’t told Laura pressed around her. Nathaniel, her grandparents, Nathaniel. But there was sickness at Beckles and Laura was with child and had just lost her husband and there could really be only so many revelations in one day. “I’ll just go see what I can do to help. Is there anything you need?”

“No, I’m quite all right. You will take care?”

“You don’t need to worry about me,” said Emily firmly. “It can’t possibly be as bad as Bridgetown.”

It was worse. Or, at least, the smell was. The pest house had never been designed for such extensive or extended occupancy. It was a one-roomed hut, of the sort the servants lived in. Under ordinary circumstances, it was equipped as a sort of consulting room–cum–infirmary, with a single cot, a table, a chair, and a row of deeply outdated medical texts, including Buchan’s Domestic Medicine, which attributed cholera to the unhealthy habit of eating cold cucumbers.

The smell assaulted Emily as soon as she stepped inside, not just the normal putridity of excrescence but an acrid aroma that seemed to strip the inside of her nose.

A woman was standing in between two tightly jammed rows of cots, her hair wrapped in a kerchief, her gown swathed in an apron. Emily would never have recognized her, but for the diamonds in her ears.

“So you’re back, are you?” Mrs. Davenant rasped.

Emily scrubbed at her eyes with the backs of her hands. She couldn’t blame Mrs. Davenant for sounding like that; her own throat was stinging. “What on earth is that smell?”

Mrs. Davenant came to join Emily in the doorway, leaning heavily against the wall. Her face was gray beneath her brightly patterned kerchief. “Turpentine wraps to induce a sweat. If they sweat they live.”

Emily peered over her shoulder. “Is it cholera?”

“No, it’s dyspepsia. Of course it’s cholera. MacAndrews was the first to succumb, the useless old fool.”

There were aprons hanging on a hook by the wall. Emily helped herself to one, tying the straps behind her back. “How bad is it?”

“We’ve had ten deaths. Mimbo, Hannah, Joe Horner, Hagar, Rose . . . I saw them all born. Mary Frances, that’s Johnny Cooper’s girl. Little Henry, Quasheba, Philly Ann, Charity. And we’ve twelve more sick.” She turned away, but not before Emily saw the tears seeping from her eyes, tears of exhaustion and loss.

“What have you done, other than turpentine?” asked Emily briskly.

Mrs. Davenant drew a rasping breath and then straightened, painfully. “Pomegranate skin, to check the effusions. A decoction of Christmas bush. You pound the leaves in a clean cloth and mix it with salt and a little rum—Nanny Bell taught me. But you wouldn’t know Nanny Bell. She was before your time.”

“I’ve found laudanum helps, a little.” Emily moved past Mrs. Davenant into the room. There were patients in all stages of the disease, including, she noticed, with a tightening of her chest, Katy’s little girl, who was curled on her side, clutching a rag doll. “You’ve a fire lit to boil water?”

Mrs. Davenant had been sagging against the wall. At Emily’s comment, she drew herself up. “Why would I do a fool thing like that?”

“If you’ve read Dr. Snow’s 1849 paper,” said Emily, moving from bed to bed, checking heads and making notes of sheets to change, “On the Mode of Communication of Cholera, he advises boiling all water before use, on the grounds that—”

“Stop. I’ll light a fire to boil water; it’s little price to pay to prevent you quoting learned authorities at me. I’ve more faith in Nanny Bell than any doctor in Christendom but if a little boiled water will make you happy, boil your water. It can’t do nearly as much harm as MacAndrews’s remedies.” Mrs. Davenant got the words out with difficulty; there was a sheen of sweat across her forehead.

Emily moved quickly toward her, afraid she might faint. “You don’t look well.”