New World, New Love (11 page)

He made a comical grimace. ‘It made no difference to the Revolutionaries that I was the black sheep of the family. I shared the same blue-blooded lineage as my arrogant brother at Versailles and that was enough to condemn me.’

Although Louise still saw Hortense de Valverde from time to time, she much preferred gatherings, such as at Richard’s house, where, often with the exception of Charles and herself, everybody else was American. E ´migrés were too prone to talk about the past and lament at length the grandeur that had gone for ever. Sometimes she wondered if in trying not to look back she was attempting to shut out a deep-seated dread that something from those awful days of the Reign of Terror could still reach out to her. She had not forgotten an old nightmare about her escape, although mercifully it had never returned. Once or twice she had been tempted to discuss it with Charles, but had decided against it as being too trivial.

To Delphine’s joy the day came at last when Monsieur Rousselot told her she could assist him at one of his classes. She found herself in the role of partner to a motley collection of people in the familiar steps of the various minuets, gavottes, gigues and the contredanse among many others. Her determination never to be demoted to the infants again made her uncharacteristically considerate and encouraging, and always with a smile, no matter how clumsy the dancer.

Her ambition was to partner at the evening balls, but these were discontinued until the autumn when the heat began to blast down on the city and many left with their children for homes in the country. The classes quickly depleted until Monsieur Rousselot lowered his prices for the summer, which brought in pupils from less affluent families. Then Delphine was invited by Mr Hammond to go with his wife and daughter to spend a month in the country with his cousin and his family.

‘You’ll love it there,’ Margaret enthused. ‘Picnics and hayrides and summer parties. I’ve always been too shy to enjoy it in the past, but with you it will all be different. We’ll have such fun!’

Delphine thought uneasily that Margaret was becoming far more outgoing than her parents suspected, always keeping a demure attitude in their presence. She knew Margaret’s parents considered her a good influence on Margaret and she hoped the girl wouldn’t do anything foolish that would put an end to the social life she was having with the Hammonds. The new invitation was tempting, but she could not risk losing her post at the dancing school. If she could count on meeting a rich young man in the country, she would leave. But the Hammonds, although very comfortably off, were not in the very wealthy circle in which she wanted to marry.

When Louise was told about the invitation, she suggested that Delphine should ask the dancing master if he could spare her from the classes for a week. ‘There’s no harm in asking and he knows how hard you have been working. I’d like you to have some country air. Charles says there are all sorts of sicknesses about, now that the weather has become so exceptionally hot.’

The next morning when Delphine arrived for work she was told to go immediately to Monsieur Rousselot’s office. He waved her to a seat, but before she had a chance to speak he rose from his desk, came round to the front and perched his weight on it.

‘I had some serious news brought to me this morning,’ he began. ‘Two cases of yellow fever have broken out in the city. I’ve been told that this will send even more people fleeing out of New York and my classes will dwindle to nothing. I believe it’s some years since there has been more than a handful of cases, but it is a contagion that seems to strike fear into everybody.’ He sighed. ‘It means reducing the number of my instructresses. As you were the last to join my establishment, I’m afraid you have to be the first to leave it. But,’ he added to soften the blow, ‘you may return in the autumn when the danger is past. To compensate, I will allow you to partner at the balls. You have been here long enough to know that your ball gowns must be elegant and not in any way flamboyant.’

Delphine looked down at her hands to hide her glee. How lucky she was that this had happened! She would be able to spend the whole month with Margaret after all. Composing her face into a regretful expression, she looked up at the dancing master again. ‘Naturally I shall miss teaching my pupils, but I shall look forward to coming back in the autumn.’

Louise helped Delphine to pack, folding the silk gowns carefully. They had bought a large, battered old trunk for almost nothing and Delphine crammed it with all her clothes, saying she would need everything. Louise was thankful her sister was leaving the city and would be out of danger. Cousin Madeleine’s tragic bereavement was very much in her mind. For herself she had no qualms. She had nursed those with fevers at the convent and had long believed herself to be immune to infections. It was with relief that she waved Delphine off with Mrs Hammond and Margaret in their carriage.

By the time Delphine had been gone for almost a week Louise was becoming more used to the apartment being so quiet; even Sunday was to have a different routine. Normally they went together to morning service at Trinity Church before Delphine set off to lunch with the Hammonds while she went to meet Charles.

When Sunday morning came Louise awoke with a bad headache and had to rest longer in bed before it eased enough for her to get up to wash and dress. She was unable to eat any breakfast, a wave of nausea sweeping over her, and she wondered what she had eaten that could have upset her. Once, as she turned quickly, she became so dizzy that she almost fell. She would just have to rest today. Charles would surely come all the way to her. At least when he came he would fetch some physic from his surgery to help her.

An hour later she had collapsed on to her bed, shivering violently with fever, her headache almost unbearable. She slept and woke again to shooting pains in her head. Although desperate for a drink of cold water she did not have the strength to move until she remembered that her door was locked and when Charles came he might think he had missed her along their route.

Slowly, stopping to rest in exhaustion on the way, she crawled on her hands and knees across to the door and unlocked it. Sweat was pouring from her and it took her even longer to get back on to her bed. She realized how ill she was and the thought crossed her mind that if Charles had an emergency to deal with she could lie there and die, for there was nobody in the rest of the house who would realize anything was wrong.

Whenever she managed to lift her head to look at the wall clock, she cried out involuntarily in pain. The hour when she should have been meeting Charles came and went, the day creeping on until she realized he was not coming. By that time she was drifting in and out of the many strange shapes and colours floating all around her and it was a relief to slip away through their patterns into oblivion.

It was at that time that Charles finished an exhausting day after an interrupted night’s sleep. He had been called out twice to what he had diagnosed immediately as yellow fever. Although he had no previous experience of the contagion he had read about it and discussed the symptoms and treatment with an American doctor at one of Richard’s gatherings. He was told that in the last bad epidemic in New York, which happened many years ago, those afflicted were moved out of the city into hastily erected canvas shelters to avoid the spread of it.

‘A sensible precaution in some ways,’ Charles had acknowledged, frowning.

‘That’s what has been done during epidemics in the South, where the hot and humid climate fosters an outbreak. It can spread like wildfire. There’s no cure. Bloodletting is all that can be done. The terrible thing is that there have been occasions when a suspected victim of the fever, becoming ill in the street, has been stoned by panic-stricken crowds to drive the poor creature out of town.’

‘What of the sick in the tents?’

The doctor hesitated. ‘I regret to say they die like flies and, most of the time, so do any family members who’ve had the courage to go with them.’

‘What of medical aid to ease the suffering?’

The doctor hesitated. ‘There are always one or two of our profession who will risk their lives in a hell of pestilence.’

It was obvious to Charles that this doctor would never be one of them. The conversation had been in his mind when he had left his Sunday morning breakfast at the summons of a wild-eyed little boy.

‘Please come, doctor! Two of my brothers are very sick. One’s turned yeller and Mom don’t know what’s wrong!’

He had grabbed up his medical bag with his herbal potions and pills and followed the child into the next street. He found both boys suffering the early symptoms of yellow fever, with painful heads, vomiting and shivering chills. One already showed a more advanced stage, with the first yellow in the skin, which came from the affected liver. He knew there was no hope. He had to tell the woman what the contagion was and she turned ashen. But she straightened her shoulders.

‘I shall do my best for my boys,’ she said bravely, tears swimming in her eyes. The fact that her five siblings were used to sleeping together in the same bed made him despair of the other three boys’ chances of escaping the contagion, but he told the mother to keep them away from the two sick children.

‘Where’s your husband?’ he asked. ‘He must help you swab the patients with cool water to get their fevers down.’

‘He’s far away on a whaling ship, but my spinster sister lives along the street and she’ll help me. We’ll manage. We’ll have to, because nobody else will come near, as it’s the yellow fever.’

He nodded. ‘I’ll look in later. The potion I gave you should ease the patients’ head pains.’

By the end of the morning he had attended three other cases of the dreaded fever and two suspected ones. Then he was called to a fatal case when a man dropped dead by the dock gates. He had great difficulty in getting the body moved, as everybody was afraid to come near. Charles was left in no doubt that he was dealing with a serious outbreak of the contagion even if it was not yet an epidemic.

He pondered over how it had come to the city. Was it by ship? That seemed the most likely conclusion. Heat in itself could not create the contagion. Why was it more prevalent in the South? What was there that hibernated the fever until it burst forth? It was something he’d like to investigate in time.

On the chance of being called out again he wrote a note to Louise, telling her what had happened and instructing her to leave immediately, adding that he would contact her soon. He pinned it to his door and returned to his desk again, writing out a report on his yellow fever cases, being duty-bound by the authorities to do it. He had almost finished when a woman came to see him. She was big and strong-looking, with straggling grey hair tucked up under a linen cap, and clad in a faded multicoloured dress.

‘You’ll be wanting my ’elp now, Doctor,’ she said, folding her arms in front of her ample waist. ‘I knows more about t’yeller fever than anyone.’

Charles sat back in his chair, quill pen in hand. ‘How is that?’

‘I nursed my pa and ma and the whole family through t’ great epidemic of thirty-odd years ago when people was dying everywhere. Cooled down the fever and drove it out. So, I’ll nurse for you now, but you’ll ’ave to pay me.’

He was interested in spite of himself, having used the same method with certain fevers in France. In spite of her rough manner and unprepossessing appearance, her cap and apron were clean as well as the nails of her work-worn hands. On a closer look he judged her to be no more than fifty, but a hard life had left its mark on her features. As for her speech, her tongue was caught up in an English dialect that he found difficult to understand. ‘What’s your name and where are you from originally?’

‘I’m Joan Townsend and I was born in Suffolk, England. I came to this country when I was a girl. Don’t say I sound as if I’m just off t’ boat, because everybody does and I wouldn’t change even if I could.’

‘Very well. Tell me where you live, Mrs Townsend. If nursing is needed anywhere, I’ll let you know.’ He would have returned to his writing, but she sat down on a chair like a hen settling on eggs and arranged her skirt neatly.

‘I’ll wait,’ she said calmly, linking her fingers together on her lap. ‘And you can call me Joan.’

Losing patience, he was about to order her out when there came a hammering on his door. He went to open it and found a distraught young man on his doorstep.

‘It’s my wife, Doctor! She has a high fever! And she’s turned a yellow colour!’

Charles hurried back into his surgery and again grabbed up his medical bag.

‘You see,’ Joan stated complacently, rising to her feet. ‘I’ll come with you.’

‘No!’ he roared, losing patience with her. ‘You’ll leave now!’

He set off at a swift pace with the young man, whose home was not far away. He found the young wife as her husband had described and hoped it was not too late to save her. He ripped away the heavy bedcovers that had been piled on top of her to drive out the fever.

‘There’s no need for these blankets! She must be cooled down. Get some cold wet cloths for her forehead.’ He gave the same instructions as he had in the homes of other patients that day. ‘I’m afraid it’s yellow fever. Get her to drink as much clean well water as possible. She will be extremely thirsty.’

He had great faith in the qualities of good water for flushing impurities out of the body, a theory not supported by any of his profession known to him. But then, neither did he believe in bleeding a patient for almost everything. As he left the young wife’s sickroom, her husband, his expression desperate, caught at his sleeve.

‘I’ve heard that one of those terrible fever camps is to be set up outside the city. They won’t try to take my wife, will they, Doctor?’

Charles answered calmly. ‘It’s not officially an epidemic yet. But if it is declared, I shall go with my patients to the isolation tents and tend to them there.’ It was a decision he had made when he had first heard of the outbreak elsewhere in the city.

When he came out of the house, Joan was waiting for him expectantly. He gave a nod. ‘Very well. Go in and help that young husband. He’s out of his head with worry.’ He shook a warning finger at her. ‘And don’t disregard any of the rules I’ve laid down with him for the treatment of his wife.’