Lake in the Clouds (84 page)

He had wanted a report on Jemima Kuick straightaway, and when she told him the truth—-Jemima seemed to have forgot the whole matter of what happened at Eagle Rock—he looked at her as if she had suddenly sprouted horns.

“More likely you’ve had your nose stuck in that sketchbook and you just didn’t pay atention.” And then seeing the look on
her face Daniel’s eyes filled with water, and Lily knew how worried he was, as worried as a boy could be.

Together they went to find Hannah in her workroom.

She was putting together the things she needed to take into the village. There was a line between her eyebrows that meant she was very worried or distracted or both, and so they waited.

Lily didn’t know anyway what she wanted to say, but it was good to be here, the three of them together.

Hannah glanced at Daniel and said, “Can you hand me that pile of rags, please? Did the two of you come to ask me about Eulalia Wilde?”

Lily most definitely did not want to hear any more about Eulalia, who had been her friend and was gone now to the shadowlands without warning. To lose an arm did not seem so very terrible now, at least for Eulalia; she could have still tended trees and danced with Obediah Cameron, who would have to marry somebody else now.

Daniel said, “Her brother doesn’t have anyone to look after him now.”

Right then Hannah put down what she had in her hands and came over to put her arms around Daniel, who was not much shorter than she was but still put his head on her shoulder and stayed that way for a long minute.

When Hannah stepped away she said, “You needn’t worry about me, Daniel. I am careful.”

Lily said, “How can you be careful when there’s sickness everywhere you go?”

“This sickness is not like last summer,” Hannah said.

“It’s not quinsy, yes. Ma told us. But it could be just as bad.”

The real question was made of bolder words:
How many will die will I get it too what if we all get sick? Why can’t you just stay here with us?

Hannah understood, as she always did, and she paused in what she was doing to sit down on her bed and draw her sister down on one side and her brother on the other. Lily liked being in the workroom with Hannah, for the comforting smells and the closeness of it, but she was so afraid of what her sister would say that she had the urge to jump up and run away.

“Some will die,” Hannah said. “How many depends on how strong the sickness is and how fast it spreads.”

“Our mother is scared. Because of Robbie.” Daniel said their little brother’s name only seldom, and Lily knew what it cost him.

“Of course,” Hannah said. “It was less than a year ago that we lost him. We are all scared, I think. It shows good common sense, as long as we do not let our fear get in the way of doing what must be done.”

Hannah saw the thoughts moving behind her little sister’s eyes, a fluttering like moths against a candlelit window at dusk. Daniel’s worry showed itself in the way he would not meet her eye. They did not understand and nothing Hannah had to say could make them understand, because it was all a mystery. Where the sickness came from, how it moved from person to person, why it killed some and not others. How she could promise them that she would not come down with it and die.

Last night, sleepless, she had sat up to look through all her notes and extracts and books by candlelight. Hoping for some hint that would make a difference. What she found was not much more than she knew from Richard, who had seen scarlet fever when he was an army surgeon and again in Albany as well.

She could look in every book ever written, speak to every doctor or healer, and no one could tell her the one thing that these children—that everyone—wanted to know: how to stop it.

Hannah would spend the day in the village doing what she could to soothe fears and lessen fevers and fortify those who were still healthy, but she did not doubt that some would die. Most of them would be children. She could not even promise that the sickness would stay away from Lake in the Clouds, even if they quarantined themselves.

Lily sighed as if Hannah had said all this out loud.

Strikes-the-Sky was on the porch when Lily and Daniel came out. He had been eating cherries, and his mouth was red with juice.

Daniel said, “You could talk her out of going to the village.”

Lily poked her brother in the arm. “You know that isn’t true, why do you say such things?”

Daniel scowled and jerked away, but he had no words to
answer her. Then he looked Strikes-the-Sky up and down and said, “We aren’t allowed to go with her because of the sickness.”

Strikes-the-Sky made a sound deep in his throat. “I will keep watch over your sister when you cannot.”

“She won’t like that,” Lily said.

“If I were you I’d keep my distance,” added Daniel.

He looked down at them both with one corner of his mouth turned up and one eyebrow—the opposite one—cocked at an angle. It was meant to be a smile but there was more to it, and Daniel took it as a sign of something else entirely.

“Is it settled between the two of you then?”

Lily saw that he wanted to hear both answers: yes, because after long discussions with Father and Grandfather Daniel had decided that the Seneca from the western edge of Hodenoshaunee lands was almost good enough for their sister; and no, because he would never knowingly agree to any plan that took her away from them, no matter how reasonable or necessary to her happiness.

“Not yet,” said Strikes-the-Sky. “But soon.”

“With the sickness in the village she won’t have any time for you.” Lily heard her own peevishness and was embarrassed, but Strikes-the-Sky did not seem to mind.

He said, “We have many years before us. A few more days will not matter at all.”

Daniel had chores still to do and he went off reluctantly, maybe, Lily thought, because he knew that she was determined to ask Strikes-the-Sky some very specific questions about his plans for their sister. She had just got up the courage to start when Joshua Hench came riding into the clearing on Uncle Todd’s great gray stallion, the one that he didn’t let anybody else saddle, much less ride.

That was the first hint that something was amiss, but if Lily wanted another one she need look no farther than the blacksmith’s expression. Joshua Hench was the quietest man Lily knew, quieter even than her grandfather, and it must mean something for him to look so unsettled.

Hannah heard him too, because she came out on the porch just as he pulled up in front of the cabin.

“The doctor sent me. Jupiter, you mind me now!” The stallion was dancing in a circle and Joshua Hench reined him in
sharply while he spoke to them over his shoulder. “That German nursemaid is come down with the canker rash, and the little baby too. Got it bad, he says, and would you come straightaway? I’ll take you down on Jupiter if you dare, he’s right peevish today.”

“The new baby,” Lily said aloud to nobody in particular. “Aunt Todd will be sad.”

Hannah didn’t have anything to say to that, but she put her hand on the back of Lily’s head and then in three steps she left the porch and launched herself up to the spot behind Joshua Hench on Jupiter’s broad back.

Strikes-the-Sky handed up her bag, and Joshua hung it over his shoulder. Hannah stuck out her hand for her basket, and he handed that up too.

For once Hannah was taller than Strikes-the-Sky and he had to tilt his head back to look into her face. Strangest of all was the way Hannah was looking at him, as if there were too many things to say and she didn’t know what words to use for any of them.

It wasn’t until they were gone in a flurry of kicking hooves that Lily could put a name to it, and then it frightened her so badly that she had to say it out loud.

“Sister’s not sure she’ll ever come home again.”

Strikes-the-Sky put a hand on her shoulder. “I will see to it that she does,” he said. “I make you that promise.”

“I did everything Dr. Todd told me,” Dolly Smythe said to Hannah. “But none of it made any difference. Oh, I wish Curiosity would come home. How will I tell Mrs. Todd?”

They were standing beside a bed in the little chamber off the nursery where the nursemaid—
Esther,
Hannah had to remind herself,
her name was Esther
—had slept. A moody girl, less than friendly, and why not? She had come so far, losing both husband and child along the way to live and die on the edge of the wilderness.

Hannah sat down heavily. She shifted Meg in her arms but there was little reaction on the small, rash-covered face. The simple heat of the baby—it was like holding a bundle of live coals—told Hannah that if there was to be any hope for her the fever must be brought down.

“Don’t worry about Kitty right now, I will talk to her. Tell me again what happened at the end.”

Dolly nodded, willing but shaken. The story was simply told: Esther had been in a fevered and uneasy sleep. She woke suddenly, sat up, and complained of a terrible pain in her head. Or at least Dolly thought that must have been what she was saying, for while she spoke German, she held her head between her hands. Then she fell back against her pillow, dead. That was not a half hour ago.

There was other news from the doctor, which Dolly related in a breathless voice. While she spoke Hannah held the baby on her lap and dribbled water onto a tongue as red as the sunrise. The baby’s throat worked, and she swallowed.

One good sign and there was another: none of the cases of scarlet fever in the village—twelve total—seemed as bad as these two right in the doctor’s home, with the exception of Isaiah Kuick. The doctor was with Molly LeBlanc, who was in a bad way with childbed fever, and when he could get away he would go see Isaac Cameron, who looked to be developing gangrene.

“Is gangrene catching?” Dolly asked her. “I never thought it was but yesterday poor Eulalia and now Mr. Cameron—”

“It is a sad coincidence,” Hannah said softly. Truth be told, she had been having the same thoughts herself. It would not do for the village to start worrying about some new kind of contagious gangrene when they were already struggling with the scarlet fever, and so she said nothing.

“The doctor asked that you go straight to the Kuicks’ when you are done here.” Before Hannah could show any surprise at such a strange order—she was the last person the widow would want to see—Dolly turned away.

“If you can excuse me for a little—” She hesitated, looking almost reluctantly at Meg and then Hannah understood. She had already decided the child could not live. It was something she had seen before: a woman who forced herself to turn away from the living to save herself the pain of another loss.

“I need to bathe her in cool water, and then I’ll bring her to you in the kitchen before I leave. Is Mrs. Todd still asleep?”

“I am right here.” From just beyond the door came Kitty’s voice, ripe with impatience. She pushed past Dolly, her morning
coat billowing around her, and came to a stop in front of the bed. For a long moment she looked at the nursemaid, and then she touched her throat with one finger.

“Dolly, you must call Anna Hauptmann or one of the other women to see to her laying-out. And ask Bump to please dig another grave. I hope Elizabeth has enough German to write to this poor girl’s family.” Her head came up suddenly and she held out her arms for Meg, her fingers jerking.

“I can tend to her, if you tell me what she needs.”

“Kitty—” Hannah began slowly, and from Dolly a low wail: “The doctor said—”

It was not often Hannah had seen Kitty truly angry, but it was impossible to mistake in the way the bones of her face seemed to shine with light. “If my husband has any objection I will deal with him directly when he comes home. Now give me the child so that I can tend to her. And do not speak to me of my own health, Hannah. I have never felt better in my life.”

There were two spots of color high on the thin cheeks, but the look in Kitty’s eyes dared Hannah to mention them.

Hannah nodded. “Let’s go into your chamber and I’ll explain what needs to be done.”

“No,” Kitty said, folding the child against her chest very gently. “Leave her to me. You have another call to make. I understand that Mr. Kuick asked for you to attend him personally.”

This time Cookie was in the kitchen. Hannah was glad to see her, and even happier to hear that she need not worry about dealing with Jemima.

“When she ain’t in the office she’s down at the mill,” Cookie said dryly. “Trying to run things in the overseer’s place.” The small mouth puckered as if she had something sweet-sour on her tongue.

“And Mr. Kuick?”

Cookie hesitated. “Becca’s in there with him now. He’s in a bad way, but you’ll see that yourself.”

“The doctor said he asked for me.”

“He did.” Cookie flicked floury fingers over the dough on the table. “If you’re going to ask me why, I really don’ know.”

“And his mother?”

Cookie smiled. “You don’t have to worry about the widow none, she’s so full of laudanum she wouldn’t care if another Indian come to lay hisself down right next to her.”

Becca met her at the chamber door with such relief in her expression that Hannah was sorry she had delayed so long.

“He is a little improved,” she whispered. “At least, it seems to me that his fever has let up a bit. He’s sweat through the linen again, I have to go fetch more.” And she slipped away down the hall at a trot.

From the bed Isaiah Kuick said, “Miss Bonner. Thank you very much for coming.” His voice was raw and hoarse with fever, but he made an effort to smile at her.

Hannah sat down beside him on a small chair with a curved back. Under a heavy load of blankets Jemima Kuick’s husband shivered so that the bed frame shook. His hair was wet through with sweat, and when she put her hand on his forehead she had to stop herself from pulling away in surprise.

“Didn’t know a human being could get so hot,” he croaked. His breath came shallow, with a wheezing sound that meant his lungs could not do their work.
Pneumonia right and left,
Richard Todd had reported and Hannah knew what she would hear should she put her ear to his chest.

“It would be better if you saved your voice,” she said, taking a rag from the bowl of water on the table to wipe his face.