by Pat Bourke
Postmen were given cards to distribute along their routes for people to fill out and leave at the door if they needed help. Church groups, clubs and associations were advertising for volunteers to nurse the sick or prepare food in hastily set-up soup kitchens. Anxious workers faced difficult choices: stay home and lose a day’s wages, or go out and risk contracting the Spanish Flu. Either way, families were in jeopardy.
But it was Parker’s worrying about his health that unnerved Meredith. He no longer derided newspaper coverage of the Spanish Flu as “hysterical nonsense.” Instead, he searched the newspaper for preventives. He sprinkled hot coals with brown sugar and sulfur, and then inhaled the choking smoke while Meredith fled with her apron over her nose. He tied a handkerchief overtop of the gauze mask from the hospital “for extra protection against airborne germs.” The bulky combination made him sound as if he were speaking from behind a pillow. He even asked Meredith whether Mrs. Butters kept a store of goose grease so he could make a poultice for his chest. He seemed to put his faith in every so-called cure-all, even though the medical authorities said such measures were unlikely to help.
Maggie pointedly kept as far away as she could from Harry and Mrs. Butters, but Jack played games with Harry to keep him quiet. He seemed to take the responsibility of being in charge seriously. He wasn’t turning out to be as self-centered as Meredith had thought.
Parker had taken Jack’s offer to play with Harry as an opportunity to announce that he had one of his headaches and needed to spend some time in a darkened room. Meredith resented that, even though she knew he was entitled to a rest after sitting up with Mrs. Butters during the night. However, there was nothing she could do about it, so she decided she’d browse the cook’s dog-eared copy of Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management while she sat with Mrs. Butters.
She settled into the chair by the settee and opened the book to the chapter on soup.
“The principal art in composing good rich soup,” she read, “is to so proportion the several ingredients that the flavor of one shall not predominate over another, and that all the articles of which it is composed shall form an agreeable whole.”
Meredith was pondering why her soup definitely had not formed “an agreeable whole” when the doorbell sounded. Parker generally answered the front door, but he was unlikely to hear it upstairs. Mrs. Butters seemed settled, so Meredith headed for the front door as the doorbell sounded again. She smoothed her hair, straightened her apron and tugged her sleeves down. She debated leaving her mask in place, but took it off instead and stuffed it in the pocket of her apron.
When she opened the door, she found Mrs. Stinson standing on the verandah in a trim navy coat, a glossy, black bird wing front and center on her stylish hat.
“Don’t stand there gawping, girl. I can see you are not used to greeting visitors.” Mrs. Stinson swept past Meredith and into the front hall.
The doctor had said no visitors. “I’m sorry, Mrs. Stinson, you can’t—”
“Where is the butler?” Mrs. Stinson’s sharp eyes darted around the hallway.
“Parker’s not available right now, ma’am, but—”
“No matter. The cook will be expecting me.” She ran a gloved finger along the mantel of the hall fireplace, and then frowned as she examined it. “My clients know I am diligent in ensuring that the new help meets expectations.”
She means me, Meredith thought resentfully. She’ll be calling me “Margaret” any minute. “Mrs. Butters is sick,” she said carefully.
Mrs. Stinson paused in her tour of inspection. “Sick? Well-bred people don’t say ‘sick,’ Margaret, they say ‘indisposed.’”
“I’m sorry, ma’am. Mrs. Butters is indisposed.”
“That’s better. I hope it is nothing serious?”
Meredith hesitated, but only for a moment. “Dr. Waterton thinks she has the Spanish Influenza.”
“Oh, my goodness!” Mrs. Stinson’s hand flew to her mouth. “I didn’t think…How could…? And in Rosedale…” Mrs. Stinson backed away. “And you might be…in Rosedale!”
She yanked the front door open, and nearly leapt onto the verandah. “I’ll call some other time,” she said quickly, then scuttled down the steps and along the path to the waiting cab like a beetle scurrying for cover.
“Crabby old cow!”
Meredith looked up to see Jack grinning down at her from the top of the stairs.
“You gave her a scare,” Jack said.
“I did, didn’t I?” Meredith couldn’t help a grin of her own as Jack took the steps two at a time and joined her in the open doorway. Mama would say it wasn’t right to upset people, but how could Mrs. Stinson believe that people in Rosedale would escape the Spanish Flu? Did she really think money and mansions would keep people safe?
They watched a pair of black horses round the corner, harnesses jingling, tall black plumes waving from silver head plates. The driver was sitting up tall on the bench of the wagon in his black suit and top hat. A small, white coffin topped with a spray of creamy lilies lay in the back of the wagon. A second pair and wagon followed the first, this one carrying a longer gray coffin, also draped in lilies. A single automobile completed the procession.
A double funeral, thought Meredith, shivering, the white casket for a child, the gray one for a mother, maybe, or a father. People all over the city were dying from the Spanish Flu.
Meredith knew about death and funerals—Papa, of course, and Granddad—but the portrait of Mrs. Waterton looking down at them from across the hall reminded her that Jack and his family did, too.
They drew back into the house as Meredith closed the heavy door. She prayed that the click of the latch would keep them safe.
Chapter 21
Somehow they made it through the night. Parker mostly kept his distance by tending to Harry upstairs, leaving Meredith to worry over Mrs. Butters’ increasingly wheezy breathing. He telephoned the hospital periodically to try and contact Dr. Waterton, but the nurses scolded him that the lines needed to be kept free for more urgent calls.
“As if I’m wasting their time,” Parker had complained to Meredith that morning. “As if I didn’t have the sense to know what is, and is not, appropriate.”
That had been hours ago, and she hadn’t seen him since. Now she was unpacking a box of groceries at the kitchen table. The store had sent everything she’d asked Parker to order: eggs, onions, bread, tea, carrots, beans, ham, apples, and a small packet of sugar.
“Where’s Parker?”
Meredith looked up to see Jack framed in the kitchen doorway. She was glad to have some company at last. “Upstairs, I think.”
“Harry’s throwing soldiers around his room,” Maggie announced, pushing past Jack into the kitchen. Meredith definitely wasn’t happy to see her.
“Blast that Harry!” Jack frowned. “He’s more work now that he’s feeling better. You could at least take a turn sitting with him, Maggie.”
“He doesn’t want me,” Maggie replied airily. She reached for one of the apples Meredith had set in a blue bowl on the kitchen table. “He wants to play some game with you.”
“I’m looking for Parker,” Jack said.
“Sure you are, here in the kitchen with Marjorie, or whatever her name is.” Maggie waved her hand in Meredith’s direction. “If you’re really looking for him, send her up to see if he’s in his room.”
Maggie talked as if Meredith was a chair or a table, something to be used when needed, not a person with feelings and a mind of her own.
“I should send you up instead,” Jack said to his sister, “seeing as Meredith’s busy.”
Maggie ignored him and leveled her gaze at Meredith. “Don’t think he likes you,” she said, each word honed to a point. “Jack flirts with all the kitchen girls. It’s pathetic how they all fall for it.”
They
all fall for it.
Had Jack been flirting with her? Maybe at first—when he’d stood so close the night before the party, when he’d made a game of tugging at her skirt—but Meredith was certain he’d been different lately. He talked to her and seemed to really listen to her replies, as if she had something to say. But now she wondered whether it was just a game he was playing.
Maggie started for the back stairs. “I’ll see if I can find Parker for you, Jack,” she said, sweetly, but there were barbs on those words, too. “I’d hate for you to cut short your cozy time with Marilla there.”
Meredith squirmed. Maggie had done it again, twisted a perfectly ordinary conversation between her and Jack into something small and mean.
Meredith startled when Jack touched her arm.
“Don’t listen to her,” he said. “Maggie’s a troublemaker.”
He certainly looked sincere, but Meredith didn’t know what to believe. Was he flirting? How would she tell?
“I’d better go up to Harry,” Jack was saying, “before he causes real damage. He could singlehandedly put an end to the war by launching those lead soldiers of his at the Huns! I wish he’d let Maggie sit with him, but—”
A scream from upstairs stopped Jack’s words, and then sent him pounding up the back stairs. Meredith raced after him all the way to the third floor where Maggie stood shrieking in the hallway outside Parker’s room, her hands over her eyes.
“Stop, Maggie!” Jack pried her hands from her face. “What is it?”
Maggie snatched her hands from his grasp and twisted away, sobbing. Meredith took a deep breath and moved to the doorway of Parker’s room.
Parker was slumped over the writing desk by the window, his head on the desk top, his face turned toward the door. His eyes were closed. Something dark had spilled across the top of the desk. At first, Meredith thought he’d knocked over his inkwell.
Then she realized it wasn’t ink.
She’d never seen so much blood: a lake spreading outward from Parker’s cheek, a thin stream spilling over the edge of the desk onto the floor, spattering Parker’s shoes. She leaned against the door frame to stop her head from spinning.
“Can you see where’s it coming from?” Jack stood beside her now. Maggie was whimpering from somewhere behind them.
“I’m not sure,” Meredith said, her stomach churning. “His nose?”
Jack stepped past her and grabbed a towel from the washstand in the corner. He pressed the towel against Parker’s nose. Blood from the table top seeped into the rough fabric.
“Do you think it’s the Spanish Flu?” Jack asked, pulling his mask into place with his other hand.
“Maybe.” Meredith said, tugging hers up, too, and trying to remember what she’d read in the newspaper.
Jack gingerly lifted the towel away from Parker’s face. A thin red stream trickled from one nostril. “You’re right, it’s his nose. Looks like it’s stopping.” His words were muffled by his mask. “I suppose we should move him.”
He shook the butler’s shoulder. “Parker! Can you sit up?”
Parker moaned.
“Steady his head,” Jack said to Meredith, handing her the towel.
Meredith held it to Parker’s nose and slid her other hand under Parker’s bald head, her fingers recoiling from the blood on the table top. She wanted to scream, but she bit down hard instead. She told herself it was no worse than cutting up meat for stew: there was always blood on the cutting board. “Ready,” she said, through clenched teeth.
Jack positioned himself behind the chair and slipped his hands under Parker’s shoulders. “Let’s get him to the bed.”
Parker spluttered as Jack hauled him out of the chair. Blood peppered Parker’s shirt front and dripped onto her sleeve as Meredith struggled to keep hold of his blood-slicked head. Between them, they shuffled him over to the narrow bed against the wall, Parker stumbling between them.
Parker coughed as they lowered him to the mattress, and Meredith squealed as a dark gob of congealed blood splatted onto her apron. Gurgling noises came from his throat.
“He’s choking!” Meredith cried. “Sit him up!”
They heaved him to a sitting position. Parker’s eyes opened briefly, widened, then fluttered closed.
“He’s bleeding again.” Jack wedged the thin pillow behind Parker’s back, while Meredith pressed the towel to his nose, trying to keep her fingers from touching his skin. She thought she might throw up if her fingers got bloody again.
“You wouldn’t think he’d have any left,” Jack muttered.
“Is Parker sick?” Harry stood in the doorway, wrapped in a blue blanket. Maggie stood behind him, her eyes fastened on Parker. She’d stopped crying.
“He shouldn’t see this,” Meredith whispered to Jack. “It’ll give him nightmares.”
“You were told to stay in bed, Harry.” Jack crossed the room and knelt in front of his brother.
“I heard noises and I didn’t know where you were.” Harry fingered the satin edging of his blanket. “Is Parker sick?”
“Yes,” Jack said. “Now go back to your room. I’ll come in a minute.”
“I can’t. My legs are wobbly again,” Harry said. He sank to the floor and leaned against the door frame. The blue veins at his temples showed through his pale skin.
“Take Harry downstairs, Maggie,” Jack said.
Maggie shook her head.
“I don’t want her,” Harry said.
Jack looked at his sister for a long moment. “Fine. Don’t even try to help.” He held his arms out to his brother. “Come on, Harry.” He bundled the little boy and his blanket into his arms, but Maggie blocked his way.
“You realize we’ll have to watch Parker now, too!” she cried, her words echoing in the hallway.
Harry, Mrs. Butters, now Parker. The look on Jack’s face reflected what Meredith was thinking: How would they manage? And who’d be next?
Chapter 22
Meredith lugged the nearly full coal scuttle through the back hall that evening, thinking that the prospect of mice or worse in the cellar was the least of her worries. At least, keeping busy prevented her thoughts from endlessly circling the memory of Parker’s face lying in a pool of blood. She’d scrubbed her hands for a long time afterward to remove all traces of that blood.
Jack had been telephoning the hospital, but on the rare occasions when he managed to get through, he’d been scolded for tying up the line. He achieved one small victory, however, when he at last persuaded Maggie to sit with Harry. Harry didn’t really need anyone watching him while he slept, but Maggie made a fuss about how much she was helping.
Meredith was convinced Maggie had chosen to sit with Harry to avoid the unpleasantness of caring for Mrs. Butters or Parker. It was fine for Maggie to play the fine lady, but some people weren’t given a choice about what they did.
Jack had insisted on cleaning up the mess in Parker’s room. Meredith had been impressed by how he’d scrubbed the desk and the floor to remove all traces of blood. However, Parker’s ruined clothing defeated Meredith. She finally rolled his blood-stained shirt and singlet into a ball along with her spattered apron and Jack’s shirt and stashed them in the laundry hamper. Mrs. O’Hagan could tackle them when life returned to normal.
Mrs. Butters had been sleeping restlessly on the settee, the blanket Meredith had tucked around her rising and falling with every rasping breath. Jack had assured Meredith he’d keep an eye on Parker, so Meredith was free to doze in the chair beside Mrs. Butters all afternoon, too afraid to leave the cook’s side in case the awful choking started again.
But dozing in the chair wasn’t proper sleeping, and now Meredith’s brain felt like cotton wool. She was shoveling the night’s load of coal into the firebox of the range when Maggie and Jack burst into the kitchen.
>
“Send her!” Maggie shouted, pointing to Meredith.
“No!” Jack roared.
“I don’t care what you say or do,” Maggie shot back. “I’m not going up there! I’ve got my hands full with Harry.”
“We’ve all got our hands full,” Jack said. “That’s no excuse.”
“I’ll tell you what’s no excuse: there’s no excuse for not taking them to the hospital!” Maggie’s eyes were blazing.
“Father said we’re to stay, so we’re staying.” Jack crossed his arms and drew himself up so that he towered over his sister. “And until he tells me something different, I don’t want to hear any more about it!”
“Jack, listen to me!” Maggie took a deep breath. “Papa doesn’t know Parker’s sick, he thinks Parker is helping manage things here. How do you know what he’d tell us to do now? Ask her,” Maggie said, pointing her chin at Meredith. “I bet she agrees with me.”
Jack glared at his sister, and then stormed out of the kitchen, ignoring Meredith completely. She’d thought she and Jack were allies of a sort, working together, doing what had to be done. It had been the only good thing that had come out of this awful day, and now even that had fizzled. Jack clearly hadn’t seen it the way she did.
“He makes me so mad I could punch him!” Maggie exclaimed, dropping into a chair at the table. “But I suppose you think he’s right?”
Meredith scooped the last few coals into the range while she sorted out her thoughts. “I don’t know who’s right,” she said at last.
She hung the scoop on the iron rack at the side of the stove and brushed traces of coal dust from her skirt. “He’s only doing what your father told him to do. It’s hard to know what the right thing is now that Parker’s sick.”
“Jack’s being stupid,” Maggie grumbled, but she looked drained of the anger that had fuelled her a moment ago. She chose a red apple from the bowl on the table and rubbed it against her skirt. “And he’s even more stupid if he can’t see that.” She bit into the apple, sending a spurt of juice dribbling down her chin.