September 1796, the same night
John White sits in a chair by the hearth and tries hard to concentrate on his book, not wanting to embarrass the child by staring at her. His mind swivels back to England, to his own daughter Ellen, whose illnesses he often superintended while his wife lost herself in the fogs of opium. He remembers Ellen’s fevers, the cups of cold tea he forced her to drink, her whimpers of distress that matched his own. How he misses the girl he was once so close to. If only she and her brothers could come to this new world without their mother . . .
Mary takes sips of bark tea while Miss Russell hovers behind her, hands placed on the girl’s frail shoulders. Most of the tea she pukes up into a basin beside her cup.
“Oh, Aunt Eliza, I have never before felt so wretched. Perhaps Uncle Peter can help us. You have sent for Uncle Peter, have you, Mr. White?”
“Yes, Mary. He will not be here for several hours, but I shall stay here with you and your aunt until he arrives.”
The back door opens and Job enters, his face sweaty and his breathing forced. He has evidently been riding hard.
“Dr. Kerr is a-coming from the new garrison soon?” Miss Russell whispers as Job stands by the hearth, mopping his cheeks with a towel. She has turned her back to Mary so the child, who is now puking again, will not hear. The servant nods.
“Job, Aunt must give you some of her bark tea. It’s sure to cure you of the sweats. But you’ll need this bowl to puke in.” Mary pushes the bowl of vomit towards him. Then she throws her head back and summons a gurgle of laughter. My God, she reminds me of that bronze statue of the satyr that the fishermen brought up from the bottom of the sea. But White’s happy image dissolves in the red-tinged phlegm that spews from the child’s mouth followed by another eruption of vomit.
“Off to bed now, Mary,” Miss Russell says, helping the girl to her feet and holding her close as they stumble towards the staircase. “I should not have let you get up.”
It is eight o’clock now and the sun is just dipping out of view. “Take a break now, Job,” White says. “I am here to receive the doctor and to answer any calls of distress.”
Job nods in gratitude and moves towards the door. “I am in my room above the stable, sir, if you need me.”
The ticking clock marks the arrival of darkness, and White takes a paper spill from the mantel, dips it in the hearth fire, and lights the candles in their sconces. From the room upstairs he hears the murmur of voices and prolonged bouts of coughing.
Minutes later, there comes a knock on the door. Dr. Robert Kerr at last. He’s a man well into middle age with a large nose, pursed lips, and straggly grey hair which he has tied back in a messy pigtail. Besides his medical kit, he’s carrying a large birch bark container which he sets upon the table along with a small glass bottle filled with a white powder.
“Got something to dissolve this?” he says without preliminary, looking around the room. He picks up the pot of tea, puts two large scoops of the powder into it, shakes the pot in a circular motion, and sets it back on the table.
“What is it?” But I think I know the answer.
“Calomel.”
“Mercury? You’re crazy, sir. It’s poison.”
“Who’s the doctor here? Calomel is the best purgative around.”
“Surely you’ve heard what Samuel Thomson has to say on the subject. He was here only a few weeks ago gathering—”
“A damned quack in my opinion. Let us say no more about him. Now where’s the patient? Upstairs? Let’s get to her. You take the birch bark container, if you please, and I’ll carry the rest.”
The lid on the container is slightly askew, and as White picks it up, he sees a slug squirming through the gap. He takes the lid off and looks into a mass of writhing black slugs, each about two inches in length with mustard-coloured underbellies. Good God, leeches. Only an effort of will keeps him from dropping the container.
“Careful, man, careful. I need those wigglies. They’re hungry, and in a moment they’ll be all over the girl, sucking up their supper. Just had a brainwave this afternoon. I have a couple of them secured on threads. Maybe you noticed. I intend to insert them, one at a time, into the child’s throat where they’ll feast on that bloody phlegm that’s choking her. I can pull them out when they’re sated. Now let’s get on with it.”
Kerr moves towards the staircase. White follows. What am I to do? I know one thing: I cannot put dear little Mary through this horror.
Mary’s bed faces the open door. The girl is lying, eyes closed, apparently at rest. Miss Russell is at her bedside, holding her hand.
Mary opens her eyes. She’s probably heard their footsteps. “No, no, Aunt,” she screams. “No, no, no!” With the screams comes the thick, bloody phlegm, spewing forth over the bedsheets.
White says: “Stay here, Kerr. Before you go one step farther, we must speak with the girl’s aunt.” He gestures to Miss Russell to come into the hallway where he speaks to her in an undertone. “We cannot make the child more miserable. You have called for Dr. Kerr. He has come. But now you must tell him to leave.”
“Do not listen to this man,” Kerr says. “I know what to do. Purging and bleeding form my credo. Purging and bleeding. Bleeding and purging. Get rid of the foul humours in your niece’s body. She will be better in the morning.”
White tips the birch bark container towards Miss Russell so she can see its contents. She recoils in horror.
“Think of these leeches on her arms and throat,” he says. “And in the teapot that Dr. Kerr holds is a solution of calomel. You know the word, ma’am. You know that it loosens the bowels. Mary is a wraith now. What will happen when she loses more of her bodily fluids with this barbaric treatment?”
Miss Russell has stepped away from the doctor. She folds her arms across her chest and takes a deep breath, seeming to summon courage. “I thank you for a-coming, Dr. Kerr. Send your bill, however dear it be. My brother Peter will pay. But go now.”
Kerr hovers for a moment. Then he grabs the leeches, turns, and clatters down the staircase. They listen to the kitchen door slam shut.
Mary has heard it, too. She has stopped crying. White and Miss Russell tiptoe into her bedchamber. The child is lying back against her pillow, eyes closed again. There is a ghastly pallor on her face, and her nightdress is damp with sweat. Her breathing is forced, coming through her mouth in squeaks like a flute. But she opens her eyes, and seeing White, says, smiling, “Oh, Uncle Peter, you have come at last. And you sent that horrible man away. Thank you.”
White moves close to the girl. “Yes, I am here, Mary.”
“Uncle Peter, the pigeons . . . there were so many they hid the clouds . . . so beautiful . . . I see them now . . . I’m flying away with them . . .”
Her voice trails off. Her eyes close. The phlegm seems to boil in her throat and a bloody, slimy, scabby matter dribbles down her chin. Then there is the silence of death.
* * *
White has summoned Job to make some strong hyson tea, and he and Miss Russell try to drink it. But his friend’s sobs wrack her body. Job hovers, not knowing what to do. His face is contorted with pain.
“Go back to bed, Job. When morning comes, Miss Russell will wash the body and dress it and I shall summon the rector. We shall need you then.”
After the servant leaves, White reaches for Miss Russell’s hand. She seems glad of his touch and her sobs abate.
“You must tell me something of Mary’s early life, ma’am, in those days before I knew her. You must have many memories to share with me while we hold vigil here.”
“So many memories, though I have tried mighty hard to forget some of them.”
“It was difficult to raise the child, was it? I expect you and your brother found that an infant thrust upon you was a care and worry. Take comfort, dear ma’am, from your bounty. What would have happened to the babe if she had not found a home with you after her parents were shipwrecked?”
These comments, intended to stimulate some comfortable memories, instead produce silence. What have I said? Why is she staring at me?
“I have upset you. Pray forgive me. Let us be silent then.”
“Oh, Mr. White. You of all the people I have known in this new world have been the best, the kindest. Though it puts me to the blush, I must tell you the truth. Mary is my child. Mine and Peter’s.”
He stares at her. “I do not understand, ma’am.”
Her words gush out. “Peter is my half-brother, as you know. We shared the same father, but I was the child of his second wife. I did not know Peter until I was a young woman because he had been in America with the British army for many years. When I was eighteen he came to England for a short time. I was charmed with him, sir. I was so . . . innocent . . . and he was twenty years older. He seemed such a man of the world, and though it puts me to the blush to say it, I was smitten with him—”
“Perhaps you will regret telling me this, ma’am . . .”
Miss Russell takes a deep breath, and closes her eyes. “It is a blessed relief, and I am mighty pleased to let it all out after these years of pretence. We were together for near eight weeks and then he went back to his life over the ocean. I did not see him for a decade though we wrote many a letter to each other. Then our father died. And though a daughter should not say it, he was a most evil man who gambled and left me nothing but a pile of debts and a mother who was quite mad.”
“You were attendant on your mother at the time of your father’s death and afterwards, were you not?”
Miss Russell’s eyes are still closed as if she’s back in that house in Harwich with all its stresses and grief. “Yes, sir, and I be near mad myself with the care of her. She would bite me and push me against the wall and hit me with her fists. And the day Peter arrived from America to settle our father’s debts, he found me on the floor with Mother astride me. She was near to strangling me. The maid was screaming. I thought I was near to dying . . .” Miss Russell bursts into sobs.
“And your brother rescued you?”
“He pulled her off me and forced her into a chair. She became quite silent then, saying nary a word. He sent the maid to the shop for a bottle of laudanum and when she come back, he gave my mother a large glass of wine with the potion in it and made her drink it. Oh, Mr. White, she slept for hours and I was able to get myself firmed up again and ready to deal with life. And that night, dear Peter and I . . . he comforted me, sir . . . and I will ever be grateful.”
Well I can fill in the blanks, can’t I? Aloud he says, “You must be grateful, too, to have had that lovely child with you over the years.”
“You do not condemn us, sir?”
“I am thankful to have known you and your brother and Mary. You have been my great friends in this new world.”
Miss Russell wipes her face with the napkin Job has left by her cup of tea. “You are kind, Mr. White.” She takes a deep breath. “I only wish I could have stopped the girl from running after those pigeons. I might have saved her . . . I might have—”
“You heard her last words, my friend. They were happy words. Be thankful she had those moments.” White pauses, trying to choose words that will offer some surcease for the woman’s pain. “Let us imagine that she has flown with those birds to another world, a world free of pain—”
And suddenly, they are both crying. He helps Miss Russell to her feet and places her in the comfortable rocking chair by the fire. He puts a pillow behind her neck and stands behind the chair rocking it back and forth, back and forth, back and forth . . .
When she finally falls asleep, he climbs softly up the stairs, stands in the doorway of Mary’s bedchamber and looks at the child. She seems at peace. What was that song I heard the slaves sing in the cotton fields in Jamaica? He ponders, then remembers a line: “I want to cross over into campground.” Is Mary there now with those birds she loved?
Much later, he is almost asleep, his head on the kitchen table, when he hears the kitchen door open gently. Russell has arrived.