Polly nodded, her eyes wide. For the first time since Arnold had laid his hands on her she wasn’t thinking about that night. They could all die, and what if her grandda and gran got it? They had nothing on them to fight the disease, she thought sickly. She had to get back to the farmhouse and start scouring everything like the doctor had said. ‘How long before we know who’s going to have it and who’s not?’ she asked faintly.
The doctor shrugged, his face sympathetic. ‘Could be days or weeks, that’s how this thing is. The weather is for you all, funnily enough. It’s worse in hot weather, spreads like wildfire then. You understand I’ll have to notify the authorities, Frederick? The farm will be in quarantine until you’re clear, and you can’t sell any milk or eggs, nothing, for the time being. You understand me?’ he asked again, Frederick’s face being blank. And as Frederick nodded dazedly, ‘I’ll be back tomorrow hopefully, weather permitting.’
‘Aye, aye, all right.’
‘I’ll take the child with me.’ His voice was sober. ‘And if anything similar occurs it would be best to designate a certain area for the bod — For the folk concerned.’
Frederick gaped at the doctor before bringing his mouth shut in a snap, and there was a definite note of pleading in his voice when he mumbled, ‘But it’s only the weak that don’t recover, isn’t it? And not everyone gets it.’
‘Just do what I have said and you’ll be fine.’ It was said in professional doctor mode and couldn’t have been less reassuring.
Polly left the two men talking and walked back over the banked snow and ice to the farmhouse kitchen, her head spinning. Typhoid, the dreaded word that was a curse in itself. Could her aunt’s hatred touch her from the grave? First the attack and now this. But no, no, she didn’t, she
wouldn’t
believe that. She was innocent of any wrongdoing and this was a natural calamity. She wouldn’t let Eva frighten her in death any more than she would have allowed her aunt to dominate her in life.
Betsy was elbow deep in dough at the kitchen table, her round face enquiring, as Polly opened the door. ‘Typhoid.’ It was succinct but said it all.
Betsy sucked in the air between her teeth and then let it out slowly before she said, ‘Aye, well, now we know for sure, eh, lass? We can get on with what needs to be done.’
‘There’s been one or two cases in the East End, which is where Martha must have caught it. She doesn’t know, but her brother’s dead.’
They stared at each other for a moment and then Polly said, ‘Where’s Ruth? She’s going to have to help. Emily’s worse and her mam’s feeling bad. It looks like every cottage is going to be affected.’ She didn’t say ‘And I can’t see us escaping it in here,’ but it was what they were both thinking.
Ruth was in their mother’s room, and for once Hilda wasn’t ready with a pointed remark or a jibe when Polly knocked and entered the room, but was lying very still, her eyes wide and frightened and her lips working one over the other. ‘Well?’
‘It’s typhoid.’ And as her mother’s face blanched, Polly said, ‘You are going to have to help, Ruth. Both Enoch’s daughter-in-laws are worn out, and we’ve got to keep the boiler going and the washing done. Come on.’
‘Polly, I’m feeling bad.’ Ruth’s face was as white as a sheet and Polly knew immediately her sister wasn’t lying. ‘I’ve been hot and I’ve got a headache, and . . . and I’ve been several times already this morning.’
‘Get out of this room!’
Hilda’s voice brought Ruth jumping to her feet from where she had been sitting on the side of the bed, and both the girls stared at the woman in the bed, who was now straining back against the pillows, the sheet and blankets pulled up protectively under her chin.
‘Open the window, Polly! Let some air in. How could you come in here knowing you’re sick?’ Hilda raged at Ruth. ‘Get out! Get out this instant!’
‘That’s enough.’
It wasn’t loud, but the quality of Polly’s voice silenced the hysterics. Polly put her arm round Ruth’s shaking shoulders and drew her sister to her. ‘Let’s make one thing very plain, Mother,’ she said coldly to the furious woman in the bed. ‘If you want any windows opening or if you want to eat, then you get up off your backside and do it yourself from now on. I’m going to be busy and so is everyone else who is still standing.’
She shut the door on streams of abuse, leading Ruth into her bedroom and pulling back the covers as she said quietly, ‘Get undressed and get into bed, Ruth. I’ll bring you a glass of water shortly, and . . . and don’t go into Grandda and Gran’s room.’
‘Oh, Polly.’ Ruth was sobbing unrestrainedly now, the scene with her mother having upset her as much as anything. ‘I’m not going to die, am I?’
‘Of course you are not going to die,’ Polly said firmly. ‘Get that idea right out of your head. Now do as I say and try to have a sleep.’
Once outside on the landing, Polly stood for a moment, her eyes shut and her body slumped against the stone wall. What else could happen? she asked herself desperately. In the space of a few days her world had been turned upside down. It was as though a giant hand had thrown everything up into the air and nothing of what she had known remained. Would she care if she died? She opened her eyes and stared towards the window, where she saw it was snowing again. Would she? Only yesterday, when her mind was grappling with the memory of Arnold’s body pounding into hers, she might have said no, but now, with the knowledge of death all about them, she knew she wanted to live.
She was alive and Arnold was dead. He couldn’t hurt her ever again but he could hurt Luke. She turned to the wall, pressing her hands against it and then resting her forehead on them as she prayed silently, If You’re there; if You’re really there and all this isn’t just a mistake, just folly, with no rhyme or reason to it, then keep Luke safe. Please keep him safe. And help me to forget. Blank that night from my mind, God, or else I feel I might go mad.
Chapter Nineteen
God did not blank the memory of that night from Polly’s mind, but neither did she go mad in the days that followed. Indeed, most of the time she found she was too exhausted to think at all.
Martha Croft died the morning after the doctor first called at the farm, and old Enoch followed her two hours later. Amazingly, little Ellen rallied, as did Croft’s two other children and Croft himself.
As Polly had predicted, the disease touched each of the cottages. Three days after Enoch’s death they lost one of his grandsons, but in the next cottage – where each member of the family was in bed for days – everyone slowly recovered. Emily, who had always looked as though a breath of wind could blow her away, threw off the disease quite rapidly and was able to nurse her mother – a big woman who suffered with arthritis – who died within the week.
In the farmhouse, Polly and Betsy fought first for Ruth’s life and then for those of her grandmother and grandfather. They cat-napped in the kitchen, sleeping in their clothes as they worked on and off twenty-four hours a day. Carrying slops down the stairs, changing endless beds covered in liquid filth, spooning boiled water into the invalids along with perfected beef juice, washing the bedding, nightshirts and nightgowns in the boiler, mangling and drying everything – no mean feat in the depths of winter as the rows of linen strung up in the kitchen testified – with their hands becoming so red and swollen with the constant washing that the pain was only relieved temporarily by sticking them in the snow outside until they were numb.
Alice was the first to go, just two days after she had first had the diarrhoea. She died peacefully in her sleep, but the shock was too much for Walter and his resulting heart attack was terribly final.
‘No, no, Grandda, no.’ From the moment they had been unable to wake Alice, it had been just a few minutes before Walter joined her, and Polly couldn’t take it in as she stared down at two of the people she loved best in all the world. Walter had taken his wife’s hand in his final contortions and now, as she looked at the two hands joined on the counterpane, Polly heard herself crying, ‘Why? Oh, why? It’s not fair!’ through her bitter tears.
‘No one could’ve done more for ’em, lass.’ Betsy had come to join her at the bedside. ‘There’s many would’ve put ’em in the workhouse rather than marry a man they didn’t love.’
Polly was startled into looking at her. ‘You knew?’ she hiccuped on a sob.
‘I’m not as daft as I look.’ It was stoical and would have been funny in any other circumstances.
‘Oh, Betsy.’
‘They were old, lass, an’ worn out as you might say. It was their time.’
‘But I don’t want them to go.’ She stared down into the two dear old faces, which death had made look much younger, smoothing out the lines and wrinkles. ‘What will I do without them?’ They had always loved her, unreservedly, unconditionally, and it was only now that Polly knew how much she would miss them.
‘You’ll go on, lass.’ Betsy’s voice was soft. ‘That’s your nature.’
‘And if I can’t?’ She was tired. She was so, so tired.
‘You don’t know the meanin’ of the word.’
Polly looked at her friend, a long look. ‘You’ll help me lay them out? I want them to be clean, nice, when they come for them.’
‘Aye, lass. Of course.’
Ruth cried when she was told but Polly stayed with her for some time, holding her sister close and soothing her with kindness. She let Betsy tell their mother.
Over the next three days Polly could see Ruth slipping away from them and she almost lived in her sister’s bedroom, forcing her to drink, keeping her clean, sponging her hot forehead and talking to her incessantly. It was on the fourth night after Alice and Walter’s deaths – and ten days after Ruth had first got the disease – that some pinkness returned to her face and she was able to sleep most of the night through, with Polly holding her hand as she sat in a chair by the side of her sister’s bed.
Through it all Hilda had stayed in her room, emerging only to hurry down to the kitchen for food and drink, which she had whisked back up to the bedroom, and for visits to the midden with her chamber pot, which Polly had insisted her mother empty herself from the first day the typhoid had hit the farmhouse.
‘Poll?’ It was the morning after Ruth was showing signs of pulling through, and Polly was feeding her sister beef juice as Ruth lay propped against the pillows. ‘Thank you.’
‘Thank you?’ The few hours of uninterrupted sleep in the chair by the bed had made her feel worse, not better, and Polly’s voice was drugged with exhaustion as she said, ‘What for?’
‘For . . . for being my big sister, for loving me.’
‘Of course I love you.’
‘I don’t know why.’ Ruth’s voice was weak but dogged.
‘I’ve been horrible to you.’
‘No you haven’t.’ And then, as Polly saw Ruth’s eyebrows rise, she smiled and said, ‘Well, maybe you have sometimes.’
‘Oh, Poll, I’m sorry.’ Ruth turned her head to the side and bit down hard on her lower lip.
‘Don’t be daft.’ As Polly saw tears squeeze from under Ruth’s eyelids she patted her arm, her voice soothing as she said, ‘You’re feeling low, it’s only natural. Give it a couple of days and you’ll be more like yourself.’
‘I hope not.’ It was surprising coming from Ruth. ‘I’ve found I don’t like myself very much.’
‘Well, it’s only you that can do something about that.’
‘I know it.’ Ruth stared at her, the tears continuing to trickle down her white cheeks, which seemed drawn in to her skull with the effects of the illness. ‘I don’t want to end up like Mam, Poll. I can feel meself being like her sometimes – most of the time the last few years – and even though I knew how horrible I was being I didn’t stop. But I will now, I mean it.’
‘Good.’ Polly patted her sister’s arm again. Ruth’s eyelids were already closing and she didn’t have the strength of a kitten; sleep was the best medicine at the moment. ‘You have a little nap, I’ll be back shortly.’
Polly thought about what her sister had said as she walked down the stairs with the tray containing the bowl and towel she had used to wash Ruth’s face and hands before she had fed her. Would Ruth try to change once she was feeling better? People said all sorts of things when they were at death’s door, and Ruth knew she had nearly died, but once the danger was past and things settled down again, memories were selective. Only time would tell.
For the next few days it seemed as though the farm was in a period of recovery. Ruth slept constantly and barely had the strength to raise herself on her pillows for the beef juice and boiled water and milk Polly insisted her patient swallow every couple of hours, but her sister’s cheeks were regaining some colour and the terrible gaunt, sunken look had left her face, and for this Polly was thankful, even as she grieved for her grandparents every minute she was awake. She and Betsy continued to work like horses, but with the danger past they were able to sleep in their own beds for a few hours each night, which both women desperately needed.
Hilda still wouldn’t poke her nose out of her bedroom or allow anyone in, scurrying downstairs and then back again like a frightened rabbit when she needed to empty her chamber pot or fetch food. On the fifth day after Ruth’s crisis point had passed, Polly knocked on her mother’s door, saying, ‘There’s no need for you to worry any more; the doctor has just gone and he thinks we are over it.’
‘Huh!’ The exclamation was loud and Hilda didn’t open her door. ‘Fat lot the quacks know. I remember 1895. They said the same then and that was just before the worst bout hit.’