by Wilbur Smith
“Papa, are you sick too?” She started towards him, then shrank back as he opened his mouth and a solid stream of bile-brown vomit burst through his lips and splashed across the scrubbed wooden tabletop. Then he slumped out of his chair on to the stone-flagged floor. He was too heavy for her to lift, or even to drag up the stairs, so she tended him where he lay, cleaning away the vomit and liquid excrement, sponging him with icy lake water to bring down the fever. But she could not bring herself to take the razor to him. Two days later he died on the kitchen floor.
“I have to be brave now. I am not a baby, I’m ten years old,” she told herself. “There is nobody to help me. I have to take care of Papa myself.”
She went down into the orchard. The spade was lying beside her mother’s grave, where her father had dropped it. She began to dig. It was hard, slow work. When the grave was deep, and her thin, childish arms did not have the strength to throw up the wet earth, she fetched an apple basket from the kitchen, filled it with earth and pulled up each basketload from the bottom of the grave with a rope. When darkness fell she worked on in the grave by lantern-light. When it was as deep as she was tall, she went back to where her father lay and tried to drag him to the door. She was exhausted, her hands were raw and blistered from the handle of the spade, and she could not move him. She spread a blanket over him to cover his pale, blotched skin and staring eyes, then lay down beside him and slept until morning.
When she woke, sunlight was streaming through the window into her eyes. She got up and cut a slice from the ham hanging in the pantry and a wedge of cheese. She ate them with a hunk of dry bread. Then she went up to the stables at the rear of the big house. She remembered that she had been forbidden to go there, so she crept down behind the hedge. The stables were deserted and she realized that the grooms must have fled with the other servants. She ducked through the secret hole in the hedge that she and Petronella had discovered. The horses were still in their stalls, unfed and unwatered. She opened the doors and shooed them out into the paddock. Immediately they galloped straight down to the lake shore and lined up along the edge to drink.
She fetched a halter from the tack room, and went to Petronella’s pony while it was still drinking. Petronella had allowed her to ride the pony whenever she wanted to, so the animal recognized and trusted her. As soon as it lifted its head, water dripping from its muzzle, Louisa slipped the halter over its ears, and led it back to the cottage. The back door was wide enough for the pony to pass through.
For a long while Louisa hesitated while she tried to think of some more respectful manner in which to take her father to his grave, but in the end she found a rope, hitched it to his heels and the pony dragged him into the orchard, with his head bouncing over the uneven ground. As he slipped over the lip of the shallow grave Louisa wept for him for the last time. She took the halter off the pony and turned the animal loose in the paddock. Then she climbed down beside her father and tried to arrange his limbs neatly, but they were rigid. She left him as he lay, went out into the field, gathered another armful of flowers and strewed them over his body. She knelt beside the open grave and, in a high, sweet voice, sang the first verse of “The Lord Is My Shepherd” in English, as her mother had taught her. Then she began to shovel the earth on top of him. By the time she had filled in the last spadeful night had fallen and she crept back to the cottage, emotionally and physically numbed with exhaustion.
She had neither the strength nor the desire to eat, nor even to climb the stairs to her bed. She lay down next to the hearth and, almost immediately, fell into a deathlike sleep. She woke before morning, consumed by thirst and with a headache that felt as though her skull was about to burst open. When she tried to rise she staggered and fell against the wall. She was nauseous and giddy, her bladder swollen and painful. She tried to make her way out into the garden to relieve herself, but a wave of nausea swept over her. She doubled over slowly and vomited in the middle of the kitchen floor, then with horror stared down at the steaming puddle between her feet. She staggered to the row of her mother’s copper pots, which hung on hooks along the far wall, and looked at her reflection in the polished bottom of one. Slowly and reluctantly she touched her throat and stared at the rosy necklace that adorned her milky skin.
Her legs gave way and she subsided on to the stone flags. Dark clouds of despair gathered in her mind and her vision faded. Then, suddenly, she discovered a spark still burning in the darkness, a tiny spark of strength and determination. She clung to it, shielding it like a lamp flame fluttering in a high wind. It helped her to drive back the darkness.
“I have to think,” she whispered to herself. “I have to stand up. I know what will happen, just the way it did to Mama and Papa. I have to get ready.” Using the wall she pulled herself to her feet, and stood swaying. “I must hurry. I can feel it coming quickly.” She remembered the terrible thirst that had consumed her dying parents. “Water!” she whispered. She staggered with the empty water bucket to the pump in the yard. Each stroke of the long handle was a trial of her strength and courage. “Not everyone dies,” she whispered to herself, as she worked. “I heard the grown-ups talking. They say that some of the young, strong ones live. They don’t die.” Water flowed into the bucket. “I won’t die. I won’t! I won’t!”
When the bucket was full she staggered to the rabbit hutch, then to the chicken run, and released all the animals and fowls to fend for themselves. “I am not going to be able to take care of you,” she explained to them.
Carrying the water bucket, she staggered unsteadily back to the kitchen, water slopping down her legs. She placed the bucket beside the hearth with a copper dipper hooked over the side. “Food!” she murmured, through the giddy mirages in her head. She fetched the remains of the cheese and ham and a basket of apples from the pantry and placed them where she could reach them.
“Cold. It will be cold at night.” She dragged herself to the linen chest where her mother had kept what remained of her dowry, took out a bundle of woollen blankets and a sheepskin rug and laid them out beside the hearth. Then she fetched an armful of firewood from the stack in the corner and, as the shivering fits began, she built up the fire.
“The door! Lock the door!” She had heard that in the city starving pigs and dogs had broken into the houses where people lay too sick to defend themselves. The animals had eaten them alive. She closed the door and placed the locking bar in the brackets. She found her father’s axe and a carving knife, and laid them beside her mattress.
There were rats in the thatch and the walls of the cottage. She had heard them scurrying about in the night, and her mother had complained of their nocturnal depredations in her pantry. Petronella had described to Louisa how a huge rat had got into the nursery of the big house while the new nursemaid was drunk on gin. Her father had found the horrid beast in her little sister’s cot and had ordered the grooms to thrash the drunken nurse. The wretched woman’s screams had penetrated the classroom, and the children had exchanged glances of delicious horror as they listened. Now Louisa’s skin crawled at the thought of lying helpless under a rat’s razor fangs.
With the last of her strength she brought down the largest of her mother’s copper pots from its hook on the wall, and placed it in the corner with the lid in place. She was a fastidious child, and the thought of fouling herself as her parents had done was abhorrent to her.
“That’s all I can do,” she whispered, and collapsed on to the sheepskin. Dark clouds swirled in her head and her blood seemed to boil in her veins with the heat of fever. “Our Father, which art in heaven…” She recited the prayer in English, as her mother had taught her, but the sweltering darkness overwhelmed her.
Perhaps an eternity passed before she rose slowly to the surface of her mind, like a swimmer coming up from great depth. The darkness gave way to a blinding white light. Like sunlight on a snowfield, it dazzled and blinded her. The cold came out of the light, chilling her blood and frosting her bones, so she shivered wildly.
She remembered overhearing her father talking to her mother, “Diarrhoea is the worst sign. Those who survive do not scour their bowels.”
“It’s a sign from Jesus,” Louisa whispered to herself, through chattering teeth. “I did not dirty myself. I am not going to die.” Then the scalding heat came back to burn away the cold and the white light. She tossed on the mattress in delirium, crying to her father and her mother, and to Jesus. Thirst woke her: it was a fire in her throat and her tongue filled her parched mouth like a sun-heated stone. She fought to raise herself on one elbow and reach for the water dipper. On the first attempt she spilled most of it over her chest, then choked and gasped on what remained in the copper dipper. The few mouthfuls that she was able to swallow renewed her strength miraculously. On her next attempt she forced down the entire contents of the dipper. She rested again, then drank another dipperful. She was satiated at last and the fires in her blood for the moment seemed quenched. She curled under the sheepskin, her belly bulging with the water she had drunk. This time the sleep that overcame her was deep but natural.
Pain roused her. She did not know where she was, or what had caused it. Then she heard a harsh ripping sound close at hand. She opened her eyes and looked down. One of her feet protruded from under the sheepskin. Hunched over her bare foot was something as big as a tomcat, grey and hairy. For a moment she did not know what it was, but then the tearing sound came again and the pain. She wanted to kick out at it, or scream, but she was frozen with terror. This was her worst nightmare come true.
The creature lifted its head and peered at her with bright, beadlike eyes. It wiggled the whiskers on its long, pointed nose, and the sharp curved fangs that overlapped its lower lip were rosy pink with her blood. It had been gnawing at her ankle. The little girl and the rat stared at each other, but Louisa was still paralysed with horror. The rat lowered its head and bit into her flesh again. Slowly Louisa reached out for the carving knife beside her head. With the speed of a cat she slashed out at the foul creature. The rat was almost as quick: it leaped high in the air, but the point of the knife split open its belly. It squealed, and flopped over.
Louisa dropped the knife and watched, wide-eyed, as the rat dragged itself across the stone floor, the slimy purple tangle of its entrails slithering after it. She was panting and it took a long time for her heart to slow and her breathing to settle. Then she found that the shock had made her feel stronger. She sat up and examined her injured foot. The bites were deep. She tore a strip off her petticoat and wrapped it round her ankle. Then she realized she was hungry. She crawled to the table and pulled herself up. The rat had been at the ham, but she hacked away the chewed area, and cut a thick slice, and placed it on a slab of bread. Green mould was already growing on the cheese, evidence of how long she had lain unconscious on the hearth. Mould and all, it was delicious. She drank the last dipperful of water. She wished she could replenish the bucket, but she knew she was not strong enough, and she was afraid to open the door.
She dragged herself to the big copper pot in the corner and squatted over it. While she piddled, she lifted her skirt high and examined her lower belly. It was smooth and unblemished, her innocent little cleft naked of hair. But she stared at the swollen buboes in her groin. They were hard as acorns and painful when she touched them, but not the same terrifying colour or size of those that had killed her mother. She thought about the razor, but knew she did not have the courage to do that to herself.
“I am not going to die!” For the first time she truly believed it. She smoothed down her skirt and crawled back to her mattress. With the carving knife clutched in her hand she slept again. After that, the days and nights mingled into a dreamlike succession of sleeping and brief intervals of wakefulness. Gradually these periods became longer. Each time she woke she felt stronger, more able to care for herself. When she used the pot in the corner she discovered that the buboes had subsided and had changed from red to pink. They were not nearly so painful when she touched them, but she knew she had to drink.
She summoned every last shred of her courage and strength, tottered out into the yard and refilled the water bucket. Then she locked herself into the kitchen again. When the ham was just a bare bone and the apple basket was empty, she found that she was strong enough to make her way into the garden, where she pulled up a basketful of turnips and potatoes. She rekindled the fire with her father’s flint, and cooked a stew of vegetables flavoured with the ham bone. The food was delicious, and the strength flowed back into her. Each morning after that she set herself a task for the day.
On the first she emptied the copper vessel she had been using as a chamber-pot into her father’s compost pit, then washed it out with lye and hot water, and hung it back on its hook. She knew her mother would have wanted that. The effort exhausted her and she crept back to the sheepskin.
The next morning she felt strong enough to fill the bucket from the pump, strip off her filthy clothing and wash herself from head to toe with a ladleful of the precious soap her mother made by boiling sheep’s fat and wood ash together. She was delighted to find that the buboes in her groin had almost disappeared. With her fingertips she could press them quite hard and the pain was bearable. When her skin was pink and glowing, she scrubbed her teeth with a finger dipped in salt and dressed the rat bite on her leg from her mother’s medicine chest. Then she chose fresh clothes from the linen chest.
The next day she was hungry again. She caught one of the rabbits that were hopping trustingly around the garden, held it up by the ears, steeled herself, and broke its neck with the stick her father had kept for that purpose. She gutted and skinned the carcass as her mother had taught her, then quartered it and placed it in the pot with onions and potatoes. When she had eaten it, she sucked the bones white.
The following morning she went down to the bottom of the orchard and spent the morning tidying and tending her parents’ graves. Until now she had not left the security of the cottage garden, but she gathered her courage, climbed through the hole in the hedge and crept up to the greenhouse. She made certain that no one was anywhere to be seen. The estate seemed deserted still. She picked out some of the choicest blooms from the vast array on the shelves, placed them in a handcart, trundled them back to the cottage and planted them in the newly smoothed earth of the graves. She chatted away to her parents as she worked, telling them every detail of her ordeal, about the rat, and the rabbit, and how she had cooked the stew in the black three-legged pot.
“I am so sorry I used your best copper pot, Mama,” she hung her head in shame, “but I have washed it and hung it back on the wall.”
When the graves had been decorated to her satisfaction curiosity rose in her again. Once more she slipped through the hedge and took a circuitous route through the plantation of fir trees until she could approach the big house from the south side. It was silent and bleak: all the windows were shuttered. When she sidled up cautiously to the front door she found that it was locked and barred. She stared at the cross that someone had sketched crudely on the door in red. The paint had run like tears of blood down the panel. It was the plague warning.
Suddenly she felt lonely and bereft. She sat down on the steps that led up to the doorway. “I think I’m the only person left alive in the world. All the others are dead.”
At last she stood up and, made bold by desperation, ran round to the back door, which led to the kitchen and the servants’ quarters. She tried it. To her astonishment it swung open. “Hello!” she called. “Is anyone there? Stals! Hans! Where are you?”
The kitchen was deserted. She went through to the scullery and stuck her head through the
door. “Hello!” There was no answer. She went through the entire house, searching every room, but they were all deserted. Everywhere there was evidence of the family’s hasty departure. She left everything untouched and closed the kitchen door carefully when she left.
On the way back to the cottage a thought occurred to her. She turned off the path and went down to the chapel at the end of the rose garden. Some of the headstones in the cemetery were two hundred years old and covered with green moss, but near the door there was a line of new graves. The headstones had not yet been set in place. The posies of flowers on them had faded and withered. Names and final messages were printed on black-edged cards on each pile of fresh earth. The ink had run in the rain, but Louisa could still read the names. She found one that read “Petronella Katrina Susanna van Ritters.” Her friend lay between two of her younger brothers.
Louisa ran back to the cottage, and that night she sobbed herself to sleep. When she woke she felt sick and weak again, and her sorrow and loneliness had returned in full measure. She dragged herself out into the yard and washed her face and hands under the pump. Then, abruptly, she lifted her face, water running into her eyes and dripping off her chin. She cocked her head and, slowly, an expression of delight lit her face. Her eyes sparkled with blue lights. “People!” she said aloud. “Voices.” They were faint, and came from the direction of the big house. “They have come back. I am not alone any more.”
Her face still wet, she raced to the hole in the hedge, jumped through and set off towards the big house. The sound of voices grew louder as she approached. At the potting shed she paused to catch her breath. She was about to run out on to the lawns, when some instinct warned her to be cautious. She hesitated, then put her head slowly round the corner of the red-brick wall. A chill of horror ran up her spine.