CHAPTER 43
Constance’s face remained flushed. Her body shivered in what Analee called a fever-frost, no matter the blankets and quilts the two women laid over her. In those shivers, Constance moaned, seemingly unwilling to move her head because of the pain that extended through her neck and down her back. It seemed to Alice and Analee that the pain was all over Constance’s body. Just the readjustment of the covers or an adjustment to arrange the pillow under her neck for a bit more support elicited groans, at times an outcry, which made Alice cringe. The girls were still asleep, so Alice was the one who wet the cloths and wrung them out for Analee as she applied them to Constance’s face and neck.
Alice had seen influenza in her father once. She remembered her mother’s gentle, unceasing ministrations. Her mother had sat beside the bed all day, leaving only for brief trips to the outhouse, then again all night, sleeping in that straight-backed chair to wake at her husband’s slightest movement, to swaddle his burning head in cold cloths. It had been Alice’s job, then, like it was now, to keep fresh cold water available for the change out of the cloths. She had stayed by her mother except for her own trips to the outhouse, when she had breathed in the clean fresh air of the outdoors before opening the creaking wooden door to the fetid air inside, and then had primed the pump and hauled the pail of fresh water to her father’s bedside. She could hear the clang of it hitting the planks of the flooring, her mother shushing her as the water sloshed over the edge. Now she was in the sophisticated city of New Orleans, an adult, a skilled and talented woman, but she felt just as helpless now as she had out there on the prairie as a child.
“What do you suppose is the matter, Analee? You think this is the flu?”
Alice tucked the blankets a bit tighter around Constance’s shivering form. She touched her flushed cheeks again. So hot, so hot. People weren’t supposed to get that hot. Yet Constance shivered with cold. Analee lifted the folded cloth from Constance’s forehead, replaced it with a fresh one from Alice.
“Don’t rightly know, Miss Alice. Looks to be, but if it is, it’s fierce.” Analee changed another warm, damp cloth.
Alice made up her mind. This could not continue. “I’m going for Dr. Birdsong, Analee. It’s time.”
Analee touched her arm reassuringly.
“Thank you, Analee.” Alice turned away from the bed. “Should I get the girls up and fed before I go? You won’t be able to go downstairs to feed them if they wake and come in.”
“They’ll be all right, Miss Alice. I’ll just put them to work fetching water. They ain’t generally too hungry right away. You won’t be long, and best to get him fore he got a office full of folks.”
Alice nodded. She was disconcerted at having to leave, having to negotiate the streets of the Marigny, though they were not difficult, but she always became uneasy when she needed to remember the number of blocks before turning right, and which names of which streets came in what order. The same had been true in Chicago; she had always been on edge that she would wind up in some unfamiliar, possibly dangerous, neighborhood. The closed, organized blocks of that city seemed so systematic and easy, since they were in numerical order or followed the alphabet, so one always knew the distance and direction to the state line, for example. Why that had been important eluded her. She had learned the system yet had never quite trusted herself in a place where all you could see was the next building, next corner, and never the wide horizons far from you, the wide sky, which could orient you, make you sure of the direction you were headed. In the city she felt closed in, as one street followed the next, every turn determined by how the street was laid out, how tall the buildings were, how wide the lots. But it was the sky she missed most of all, that immense sky, which somehow grounded her, made her feel that she belonged to the earth.
For that reason, she had welcomed her few trips to the wharves here. In spite of their crowded clutter and incessant noise—the cries and commands of the longshoremen and supervisors, the bone-clenching slam of lumber and uncut sections of tree trunk, the repeating heavy thud of cotton bales, the banging of chains and boats—yes, in spite of the din, there was the sky, the sky opening out above and past that great river, past its prison of buildings and trees. The sky, no matter what color it was, no matter if it was clear or cloudy, that same sky gave her a sense of belonging to the earth.
Constance gave a small cry as Analee adjusted the damp pillow again, and Alice pulled herself back into the enclosed air of the room.
“All right. Just tell me clearly how to go.”
“You just take a right out the front gate. Go three blocks and then left. Two more blocks and it’ll be on the left. You don’t need no number. Sign at the gate say Martin D. Birdsong, Doctor of Medicine. Plain as day. You got that?”
Alice nodded and backed away from the bed. She handed Analee one last cool cloth as she repeated in her head, Right three blocks, left two blocks, like a child memorizing a nursery rhyme.
In truth, Alice had no difficulty finding Dr. Birdsong. At her knock, he answered the door himself, it being early and there being no patients yet. Before she had time to explain, this dark-haired, clean-shaven man had his bag in hand and was leading her down the front steps, then holding the gate for her. His pace was such that Alice had difficulty keeping up and answered his quickly appraising questions somewhat out of breath, but he did not slow his steps to accommodate her. By the time they had reached the house, he had pulled every detail she knew from her and had left the ones she did not tucked carefully beside the ones she did. At the gate he waited only momentarily for Alice to come through. Then Alice watched in astonishment as he simply opened the front door as if the house were his own, and mounted the stairs two at a time. As if he simply belongs here, she thought.
Alice followed more slowly, lifting her skirt with one hand to assure a firm footing, gripping the rail with the other. She could not afford another fall. She would not chance it. This child she carried was all in life that was truly hers. She had experienced the dire unpredictability of a life broken and unspooling.
Marriage held no appeal for her. Why was she even thinking such a thing? As far as she knew, she was at this moment still a married woman. There was some indication that Howard might be in New Orleans. If not presently here, at least known here. Known because he was now and then here. She would find him if she could. But for the moment she had to safely mount these stairs. And she must do what she could to care for Constance.
The children were at their stations at Analee’s feet, twisting and handing up the cool wet cloths. They jumped up at the appearance of the doctor and threw their arms around his legs, greeting him as they might an uncle. He had been their doctor all their lives and their mother’s much-loved friend. He bent to hug each of them and whispered enthusiastic praise for their help in caring for their mother. Analee and Dr. Birdsong began speaking quietly, while Alice stood aside. The doctor turned his head and made room for her in the conversation. Analee was telling him the details of Constance’s fatigue in the days leading up to the alarming onset of her fever.
The thermometer from his bag registered 104.7 degrees of fever. Alice cringed at the number, so nearly the same as her dead baby son had suffered. When she had reached out to his cradle to soothe his fretting in the middle of the night, she had cried out at the touch of his skin, so hot it had been. Now her hands went instinctively to her abdomen in a gesture of innate protection.
“You all right, Miss Alice?” said Analee.
Unaware she had inadvertently gasped aloud, Alice looked up at the two faces turned to her in surprise.
“I—I’m fine,” she said. “I just . . . Well, the degree of fever alarmed me, is all. I’m fine.”
She wanted them to turn their attention back to Constance and away from her. She had to, at some point in her life, find a way not to respond so reflexively, so intensely to reminders of Jonathan’s death. It did not serve her well. Not, at least, until she found Howard.
“That fever mighty high, Doc.” Analee changed out another cloth with Delia. “You think she got the influenza?”
“Hard to know exactly, Analee. There isn’t anything much going around these days except head colds and hay fever, a few upset stomachs. The usual, you know. Haven’t encountered any cases of influenza.”
“The yellow fever?”
“Too early in the year for that, Analee, and not hot enough, though it’s been unusually warm this winter. February felt like May, but even then, it’s not so hot as when we usually have the summer outbreaks.”
Alice reached down and took another cool cloth from Delia, handed it to Analee.
“She seems to be in a good bit of pain, Doctor,” Alice said. She was trying to hold herself together and move her thoughts away from the fever.
Dr. Birdsong leaned over and spoke. “Are you in pain, Constance? Can you tell me what hurts?”
Alice saw the empty look as Constance opened her eyes. Dr. Birdsong repeated his question. Alice smoothed the damp hair away from Constance’s burning forehead as she nodded, then wrenched in pain at the movement.
“Constance, what’s hurting?”
“Head.” Her voice was barely audible. “Neck.”
“Anything else?”
“Mm-hmm. Hurts. So bad . . .”
Dr. Birdsong lifted Constance’s wrist and counted silently. He leaned over with his stethoscope, pressed it gently, then moved it, pressed again.
“Constance, I’m going to have Analee and Alice give you something for your pain. You won’t like it, I’m afraid. It’s quite bitter and hard on the stomach. Does your stomach hurt?”
Constance nodded, then winced at the pain of moving her neck.
“Powdered salicylic acid, ladies. You will need to dissolve it in tolerably hot water. May be difficult to get down her.” He leaned toward his patient and patted her limp hand. “I’ll be back, Constance.” He stood observing her for a moment.
“Let’s step outside,” the doctor mouthed, then ushered the women out the door. “We’ll be right back, girls. I think I see a nursing career in your futures.”
In the hallway, Alice stopped between Dr. Birdsong and Analee. She felt a conflicting sense of both belonging right here and being a total outsider. They seemed to assume her presence simply as one of them, but Alice was intimidated by their familiarity with one another. They had known each other at the most basic level for years, while she felt herself a stranger to everyone, even those little girls in there.
“How many days past the Mysterieuses ball did you notice her fatigue?”
The Mysterieuses ball! How could the doctor know that? He knew she was there, in spite of the careful disguise. Alice glanced at Analee in consternation, only to see her face as stoic as ever.
“You needn’t act as if she wasn’t there, ladies. You know I was there myself. I had a dance with her, helped her into her carriage home.”
Still, Analee stood unmoved, and Alice followed her cue.
“Come now. Would you actually believe I wouldn’t know my friend since we were as young as those two little girls in there?” Birdsong shifted on his feet, appearing a bit outdone. “All right, all right. You win. I beg your pardon, ladies. Or should I beg the pardon of that young widow in there, now so ill? A widow who should be in mourning and not out at fancy balls, is that it? Especially the ball of an all-female krewe—a ground-breaking precedent, I might add, festivities making history.”
Alice stepped a bit closer to Analee. The nearby warmth of her tall body was a comfort.
“Well, then, let me rephrase my question. Let’s see, now. All right, how many days back did you begin to notice any fatigue or weakness?”
“Now that ain’t hard to answer, Dr. Birdsong. She start seeming a bit peaked maybe a week or so ago. Six, seven days before she came straight out sick and fevered.”
“Thank you, Analee. I think we can rule out influenza, then. Has she eaten any unwashed fruit or had anything to eat or drink that might have been unclean that you know of?”
When Analee shook her head, Alice felt his eyes on her.
“No, Doctor Birdsong. I’ve been with her virtually every time she’s left the house. She’s had nothing that I have not had myself.”
“And you are feeling fit?”
Alice’s hand went to her abdomen. She couldn’t help but sense he noticed. She felt herself examined under his keen medical eye.
“Yes, quite.”
“You’re sure, then?”
Alice found his insistent questioning annoying. Apparently, she had given herself away.
“I beg your pardon, Alice. I wasn’t making myself clear. The reason I’m asking these questions is that it’s possible to contract typhoid from eating anything unwashed or possibly washed in unclean water. I’m thinking there might be a strong possibility of typhoid indicated in these early symptoms. If so, all of you caring for her, plus the children, could also be in danger of catching it.”
The fear that took hold of Alice left her numb. Here, at last somewhat safe, assured of care in her pregnancy—and now this. She knew the devastations of typhoid fever from tales she had heard since she was old enough to comprehend them, tales of inordinate internal bleeding, of an old man whose bowels had torn open inside him, of a pregnant woman who had lost her baby. Alice held her hands to her belly, held herself still through an impulse to flee, stood rigidly silent. She could not stay here if Constance had typhoid fever. She could not eat in this house, play with the children. She would have to leave, seek refuge in the orphanage, after all. Was it too late already? Alice’s fingers tightened over her abdomen.
Alice could see a mirror to her alarm on Analee’s face: her rich brown color had drained to an ashen hue, her dark eyes had widened. Her hands were frozen in midair, one damp cloth hanging loosely across her palm.
“Now, don’t be alarmed quite yet, ladies,” the doctor said. “I am only asking for information. I need to rule out all possibilities.” He turned toward Analee. “Has she exhibited any stomach distress? Nausea? Vomiting? Any—” He hesitated.
Alice felt his hesitancy in a brief glance in her direction. He would likely feel comfortable with Analee, but it was doubtful that he would say more in her presence. Perhaps he hadn’t a sense of what it meant to be a prairie girl.
“Any bowel problems?” He raised his head to Analee as he said it.
Analee shook her head.
Alice sensed Analee’s discomfort, however competent she might be, and spoke up.
“No, Dr. Birdsong. There is so far only this inordinate fever and her bodily discomfort, the aching all over, but especially the terrible pain she complains of in her back and head and neck. As you can see, she’s also suffering from weakness and immense fatigue. She has pain, quite bad, in her stomach, but it doesn’t seem related to any nausea or intestinal difficulties.”
As Birdsong turned toward her, Alice detected a bit of relief on his face, both at her speaking up without embarrassment and at the absence of these symptoms of typhoid. She watched him shake his head slightly, as if in puzzlement.
“Good,” he said. “We may yet see them, and if so, Alice, I would advise you to confine yourself, with the children also, and let Analee take charge of our patient.” Birdsong shook his head, perhaps at himself. “As a matter of fact, out of an abundance of caution, Alice, let’s call the girls out now and implement this plan immediately.”
Birdsong opened the door behind them and motioned to the girls, a finger to his lips. Alice watched their concerned backward glances at their mother as they tiptoed out.
“You girls are quite the good nurses,” he said. “You must grow up quickly so I can hire you in my office. Now, for the moment, I’m worried about those dollies I know you love so much. I’m just hoping they have not fallen ill also. I wonder if you could run to your room and check on them. I’m sure they have been missing you and wondering where on earth you are and why you don’t come back to take care of them.”
“Will you make our mama well now?” Maggie asked.
“Will you, please?” Delia chimed in.
“I’ll do my very best, girls. Just like you will for your dolls. And Mama is going to need lots of rest, so we must keep the house very quiet. Can you help do that? That means your dollies can’t be crying now, so you’ll have to stay close by and keep them happy, sing to them, and tell them stories. Miss Alice is going to help you. She will be fixing meals for you, so Analee can take good care of Mama. Do you have little strollers for them?” When the girls nodded, he continued. “Maybe Miss Alice would help you take them to the park for a stroll now and then. How does that sound?”
When they all turned to Alice, she looked from one to the other and nodded, though her heart sped up at the thought of guarding them outdoors alone. The girls’ faces broke into smiles, and they headed for their playroom.
“As to treatment,” Birdsong said to the women, “for the moment, we will simply do what we can. Which, unhappily, is not much.”