A southwesterly gale broke during the night and blew for twenty hours. There was a brief quiet spell and then the wind went up again from the north, bitterly cold, and whipping rain and sleet and snow flurries before it. New Year’s Day 1790, which was a Friday, dawned at the height of the gale.
They had gone to bed early as Demelza was tired. She had had a broken night the night before, Julia being fretful with teeth.
All night the wind thundered and screamed—with that thin, cold whistling scream that was a sure sign of a “norther.” All night rain and hail thrashed on the windows facing the sea, and there were cloths laid along the window bottoms to catch the rain that was beaten in. It was cold even in bed with the curtains drawn, and Ross had made up a great fire in the parlor below to give a little extra heat. It was useless to light a fire in the bedroom grate, for all the smoke blew down the chimney.
Ross woke to the sound of Julia’s crying. It reached very thinly to him for the wind was rampant, and he decided, as Demelza had not heard, to slip out himself and see if he could quiet the child. He sat up slowly and then knew that Demelza was not beside him.
He parted the curtains, and the cold draft of the wind wafted upon his face. Demelza was sitting by the cot. A candle dripped and guttered on the table near. He made a little hissing sound to attract her attention, and she turned her head.
“What is it?” he asked.
“I don’t rightly know, Ross. The teeth, I b’lieve.”
“You will catch a consumption sitting there. Put on your gown.”
“No, I am not cold.”
“She is cold. Bring her into this bed.”
Her answer was drowned by a sudden storm of hail on the window. It stopped all talk. He got out of bed, struggled into his gown, and took up hers. He went over to her and put it about her shoulders. They peered down at the child.
Julia was awake, but her plump little face was flushed, and when she cried, her whimper seemed to end in a sudden dry cough.
“She has a fever,” Ross shouted.
“I think it is a teething fever, I think…”
The hail stopped as suddenly as it had begun and the scream of the wind seemed like silence after it.
“It will be as well to have her with us tonight,” Demelza said. She bent forward, it seemed to him, and picked up the child. Her dressing gown slipped off and lay on the floor.
He followed her back to the bed and they put Julia in it.
“I will just get a drink of water,” she said.
He watched her go over to the jug and pour some out. She drank a little slowly, and took some more. Her shadow lurched and eddied on the wall. Suddenly he was up beside her.
“What is the matter?”
She looked at him. “I think I have caught a cold.”
He put a hand on hers. Although the icy breeze was in the room her hand was hot and sweaty.
“How long have you been like this?”
“All night. I felt it coming last evening.”
He stared at her. In the shadowed light he could see her face. He caught at the high frilly collar of her nightdress and pulled it back.
“Your neck is swollen,” he said.
She stepped back from him and buried her face in her hands.
“My head,” she whispered, “is that bad.”
• • •
He had roused the Gimletts. He had carried the child and Demelza down into the parlor and wrapped them in blankets before the drowsy fire. Gimlett he had sent for Dwight. Mrs. Gimlett was making up the bed in Joshua’s old room. There, there was a fire grate that would not smoke, and the only window faced south—a more habitable sickroom in such a gale.
He found time to be grateful for having changed the Paynters for the Gimletts. No grudging, grumbling service, no self-pitying lamentation on their own ill luck.
While he sat there talking in the parlor, talking softly to Demelza and telling her that Julia was a sturdy child and would come through quick enough, his mind was full of bitter thoughts. They flooded over him in waves, threatening to drown common sense and cool reason. He could have torn at himself in his distress. Demelza had run her head recklessly into the noose. The obligations of relationship…
No, not that. Although he could not see through to the source of her generous impulses, he knew it was much more than that. All those things were tied together in her heart: her share in Verity’s flight, his quarrel with Francis, his quarrel with her, the failure of the copper company, her visit to the sick house of Trenwith. They could not be seen separately, and in a queer way the responsibility for her illness seemed not only hers but his.
But he had not shown his anxiety or resentment three days before; he could not possibly show it then. Instead, he wiped her forehead and joked with her and watched over Julia, who slept after a bout of crying.
Presently he went out to help Jane Gimlett. A fire was burning already in the downstairs bedroom, and he saw that Jane had stripped the bed upstairs to make up that one so there should be no risk of damp. While he was helping Demelza to bed, the whole house echoed and drummed, carpets flapped and pictures rattled. Then the front door was shut again and Dwight Enys was taking off his wet cloak in the hall.
He came through and Ross held a candle while he examined Demelza’s throat; he timed her heart with his pulse watch, asked one or two questions, turned to the child. Demelza lay quiet in the great box bed and watched him. After a few minutes, he went out into the hall for his bag, and Ross followed him.
“Well?” said Ross.
“They both have it.”
“You mean the malignant sore throat?”
“The symptoms are unmistakable. Your wife’s are further advanced than the baby’s. Even to the pink finger ends.”
Dwight would have avoided his eyes and gone back into the room, but Ross stopped him.
“How bad is this going to be?”
“I don’t know, Ross. Some get past the acute stage quick, but recovery is always a long job, three to six weeks.”
“Oh, the length of recovery is nothing,” Ross said.
Dwight patted his arm. “I know that. I know.”
“The treatment?”
“There is little we can do; so much hangs on the patient. I have had some success with milk—boiled, always boiled, and allowed to cool until it is tepid. It sustains the patient. No solids. Keep them very flat, and no exertion or excitement. The heart should have the least possible work. Perhaps some spirits of sea salt painted on the throat. I do not believe in bloodletting.”
“Does the crisis come soon?”
“No, no. A day or two. In the meantime be patient and have a good heart. They stand so much better a chance than the cottage people, who are half starved and usually without fire and light.”
“Yes,” said Ross, remembering Dwight’s words a few mornings before. “The results are always unpredictable,” he had said. “Sometimes the strong will go and the weak survive.”