The Quarantine Station

by Michelle Montebello

  Eager to leave, she gathered up his bed linen and pillows, piling them by the door ready to transfer to the verandah. She crouched beneath the bed and retrieved his chamber pot, ammonia filling her nostrils.

  It was while she was down there, pulling the pot out and trying not to spill the contents, that she heard three gentle knocks against the wall.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  She froze. She knew the duchess was on the other side, lying in bed, recovering from her bronchial problems, but never had she tried to get Rose’s attention before.

  Then she heard another set of knocks, like delicate knuckles rapping the plaster.

  Knock, knock, knock.

  She raised her hand to the wall and knocked back. Three more came in reply. The duchess was making contact.

  Slowly, Rose opened the duke’s bedroom door and walked back out into the living room. He was no longer at the table, the front door was open and she could see him standing on the verandah drinking his tea.

  Rose crept towards the duchess’s closed door and knocked.

  ‘Come in,’ a soft voice said from inside, as though she’d been expected.

  She opened the door and curtseyed. Lying in bed, like a fragile porcelain doll, was a woman with hollow cheeks and long dark hair fanned out around her. And, just like the duke, she had the brightest blue eyes.

  The room had a strong odour of onions, several of them laid out to absorb the illness. They were on the dresser, the cupboard, the window sill and the bedside table.

  ‘Do not linger,’ the duchess said, her voice so faint Rose had to strain to hear it.

  She closed the door and moved a little closer to the bed. The duchess gave a wheezy cough, struggling for breath.

  ‘Your Grace, let me sit you up. You’ll be able to breathe better.’

  The duchess nodded and Rose stepped forward, propping up the pillows and assisting her into a sitting position.

  ‘How is that?’

  ‘Better, thank you.’ The duchess eyed her. ‘So you are Rose?’

  ‘Yes, Your Grace.’ Rose poured a glass of water and helped her take a sip.

  ‘I recognise your voice,’ she said, swallowing with effort. ‘You’re the lass I hear through the walls, the one with the opinions. The one my husband is so fond of.’

  Rose placed the glass back on the side table and clasped her hands together. ‘Are you comfortable, Your Grace? Shall I fetch the doctor?’

  The duchess coughed thickly again. ‘No, no. I’m sick of doctors. Poking and prodding and making me inhale things. Please, sit with me a moment. I’d like to talk.’

  Rose pulled up a chair and sat.

  ‘You’re from London,’ the duchess stated.

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘My husband adores London. He’s originally from Knightsbridge, though you probably already knew that.’

  Rose didn’t acknowledge the implication.

  ‘You are a beautiful thing indeed.’ She stared at her. ‘Young, healthy, lovely to look at. All the things my husband appreciates. You’re not the first pretty lass to catch his eye, nor will you be the last.’

  ‘Your Grace, I assure you—’

  The duchess waved her hand to silence her. ‘I don’t care for your assurances. My husband can be charming. I know that better than anyone.’

  ‘I have no interest in your husband,’ Rose said boldly.

  The duchess stared at her. ‘You’re certainly not shy. I can see where the attraction lies―a woman my husband can’t tame. He didn’t cope well while you were away. He was terribly cruel to the fat girl.

  ‘I heard it all through the walls. I hear everything. That’s the only way he and I communicate these days, through the doors and walls. He’s too afraid to come in here, too afraid to touch me. We haven’t been intimate in a long time.’

  Her candour surprised Rose.

  ‘I want to show you something.’ She lifted a necklace out from her nightgown and held it up for Rose to see. It was the largest, brightest emerald she had ever laid eyes on; a magnificent green stone, suspended from a delicate gold chain.

  ‘It’s exquisite,’ Rose said.

  ‘It’s an emerald, the birthstone of May, also known as the stone of successful love.’ She laughed dryly. ‘Successful love. What an irony.’

  ‘It’s the loveliest thing I’ve ever seen.’

  ‘It was my grandmother’s, handed down to my mother, then to me. I’m supposed to pass it on to my own daughter, though I fear the window to bear children is drawing to a close.’

  ‘Your illness is a bump in the road, Your Grace. Once you’ve recovered and returned to England, I’m sure things will be better.’

  The duchess laughed mirthlessly. ‘I’ve been sick a long time. I won’t ever recover, not fully, just enough to function. My husband visits my bed only when he can’t find another. I suppose, like the fat girl with the scabbed hands, I repulse him. There’s no desire there, no wild abundant joy at being in each other’s company. We’re merely strangers, tied to each other by a union neither of us wanted.’

  ‘I’m sure he loves you very much,’ Rose said, though the words fell flat.

  The duchess arched an eyebrow. ‘He wants an heir. That’s the only reason he ever visits my bed.’ Her voice was sad as she tucked the stone back into her nightgown.

  Rose stood from her chair. ‘I should take my leave, Your Grace.’

  The duchess reached out pale fingers and clutched her wrist. Her grasp was surprisingly firm. ‘I want you to remember your place, parlourmaid, and resist my husband. Mark my words, he will try to have you, but I am always listening. And if you indulge him, if you take away my chance to pass my stone on, I will have you sent back to the slums of Bethnal Green quicker than you can blink your pretty eyes.’

  Her hand fell and her head lolled to the side, spent from the energy mustered to utter her threats.

  Rose, still feeling the duchess’s nails in her skin, backed away from the bed and quickly left the room, closing the door behind her.

  She was relieved to see the duke on the verandah with Doctor Holland and took the opportunity to step unseen back into his bedroom, rustle up the linen and collect the chamber pot. She passed them as they stepped into the cottage and she stepped out.

  Quickly she beat the pillows, emptied the pot and remade the bed. And, grateful that he was still occupied with the doctor, she slipped away and hurried back down to first class with the trolley.

  The duke’s cottage became a silent battleground borne from the marital woes of the duke and duchess, and Rose found herself planted firmly in the middle of it.

  The duke, with his increasingly childlike behaviour, bounced around like an energetic puppy whenever Rose arrived. But she knew the duchess was listening closely, scrutinising every word from behind the wall, and so she took great steps to ensure her conversations during service were professional. At times, her aloofness seemed to confuse the duke and he became petulant and prone to outbursts that were hardly acceptable for a grown man.

  ‘Rose, what have I done?’ he wailed theatrically when she wouldn’t participate in discussion. ‘Please, sit down and talk to me. We can talk about anything you like. Anything at all!’

  ‘You haven’t done anything. Please mind your voice. Your wife is in the next room.’

  ‘Oh don’t worry about her. She’s too sick to hear anything. Come, have a cup of tea. I’ve missed you since this morning.’

  And so it would go on, day after day, the duke pleading with her to sit and talk with him and Rose resisting.

  She blamed herself in many ways. She’d encouraged this behaviour. It had been flattering for a nobleman to want to hear her opinion on matters. Matters of which a woman, one in service particularly, should not have an opinion. And in those early days, his wife had not been listening in the next room and so yes, perhaps Rose had forgotten her place. Trying to correct the matter was becoming as difficult as prying boiled sweets from a child’s hand.

 
; After some weeks, the duke grew quiet and introspective. He hardly ate and Rose was caught somewhere between moral ethics and the conversational needs of a lonely man.

  ‘There are many things to enjoy outside,’ she said encouragingly, one afternoon over tea when he was looking particularly glum. ‘You could join the other passengers in the dining room or partake in a game of cricket. Main Axial Road too, is lively during the day.’

  His reply was always the same. He didn’t want to leave the cottage, didn’t feel like socialising. He was choosing to isolate himself, a strange irony given where they were.

  With the duchess’s health neither better nor worse, he had begun to speak of their return to England; music to Rose’s ears. He had her darn some of his shirts and socks and prepare their suitcases for packing. He even perked up a little and was starting to eat again at the thought of going home.

  But by the second week of October, the duchess’s health declined again.

  Rose had arrived back at the cottage for the lunch service and was serving the duke lamb stew when they heard the duchess moaning from behind the wall. They exchanged a look and he nodded for her to check.

  Rose knocked on the bedroom door and entered. She saw the duchess on her side, thick coughs racking her small frame and a handkerchief in her hand, soaked with bloodied mucus. Her skin was pale and clammy and when Rose placed a hand to her forehead, it was burning.

  She retreated quickly back to the living room where the duke was eating his lunch. ‘The duchess isn’t well. She’s running a fever.’

  He waved his hand. ‘She’s always unwell.’

  ‘She’s coughing up blood, Your Grace. I’m going to fetch the doctor.’ Rose didn’t wait for a reply. She dashed out of the cottage and ran along the stretch of road that carried her past the morgue and laboratory to the hospital.

  Her lungs were screaming by the time she arrived at the perimeter and she was clutching a stitch in her side when she finally found Dolly, who summoned Doctor Holland.

  Together they rushed back to the cottage to find the duke waiting outside on the verandah smoking a pipe.

  ‘She’s coughing quite thickly and can’t catch her breath,’ he informed them as they hurried up the steps and into the living room. ‘I do say I hope this doesn’t place our travel plans in jeopardy. I was hoping to sail on Friday.’

  Doctor Holland and Dolly disappeared into the bedroom and closed the door. Rose remained in the living room with the duke as the first signs of worry started to crease his brow.

  ‘We will be able to sail, won’t we Rose?’

  ‘I’m not sure, Your Grace. She didn’t look well.’

  He sat down at the table with slumped shoulders.

  ‘Let me pour you some tea,’ she said kindly. ‘Mrs March put a slice of lemon cake on the trolley for you to have after lunch. I’m sure it’s here somewhere.’

  The duke reached out and grabbed her hand. Rose held her breath as he closed his fingers around it and squeezed. ‘I just want to go home,’ he said in that childlike manner she recognised.

  She gave his hand a small squeeze back. ‘I know, Your Grace. And you will.’ She gave him a reassuring smile. ‘Now, let me find you that cake.’

  The duchess wasn’t able to sail; she had contracted bacterial pneumonia. The doctor couldn’t be certain how she had caught it, only that her illnesses were so chronic they seemed to stretch into one continuous affliction.

  ‘We’re giving her oxygen by mask and cinnamon powder in warm milk to reduce the fever,’ Doctor Holland told Rose and the duke that evening. ‘Some extra onions around the room will help too.’

  Rose nodded. She would collect them from Mrs March’s kitchen in the morning.

  ‘When will she be well enough to sail?’ the duke asked.

  ‘I can’t say for certain,’ the doctor said. ‘She’s weak and the journey to England is arduous.’

  The duke sighed audibly. ‘I will never get out of here.’

  Doctor Holland exchanged a look with Rose. ‘I’ll leave a nurse here overnight and I’ll be back tomorrow.’

  ‘Thank you, Doctor,’ Rose said.

  The following morning, armed with a bag of onions, Rose walked quietly around the duchess’s room while she slept and replaced the old ones with the new, adding a few extra. The night nurse had departed already and her replacement was due to arrive with the doctor.

  Rose cleaned out the chamber pot and refilled the ewer with water, noticing traces of valerian root by the bed and realising the night nurse must have administered the herb, sending the duchess into a deep sleep.

  The duke was quiet that morning and Rose left him to pick at his breakfast while she tended to his room. She was stripping the linen from his bed when she heard movement by the door.

  ‘I’ll just be a moment, Your Grace.’

  Footsteps approached from behind. She felt the duke’s hands rest on her hips then slip around her waist, pulling her in close.

  Rose’s breath caught in her lungs and she froze. She could feel the duke’s breath on her neck. He smelt of tea and tobacco.

  His face moved to her hair and he inhaled deeply. ‘You smell heavenly, Rose. Just like peonies.’

  She spun around. ‘What are you doing?’

  He moved forward, pinning her against the wall with his body and in that moment, when she felt him against her, she realised his intentions. ‘You are the prettiest rose I’ve ever seen. I just want to touch you.’

  ‘Your Grace!’ She pushed him away but he came back again, pressing himself into her. She swallowed hard, trepidation coursing through her.

  They were alone in a cottage up on a hill, she and the duke in the dressing room and the duchess next door in a valerian-induced sleep. Rose could scream but would anyone hear her?

  ‘Oh, Rose, it has been so long since I’ve touched a woman.’ He buried his face in her cleavage. ‘You are beautiful indeed.’

  ‘Please, Your Grace. Your wife is in the next room.’

  ‘She’s fast asleep. She won’t hear a thing.’ He stooped to place his hand under her uniform and travel it up her thigh, his breath heavy, full of desire. ‘Rose, I have wanted you for so long. Do you have any idea what you do to me?’ He reached inside her underwear and she cried out in alarm. ‘Don’t fight it. You will like it all the more if you just let me have you.’

  Rose was gripped with paralysing fear as he pushed her onto the bed, falling on top of her with crushing weight. She could feel him struggling with the belt and button of his pants, freeing himself with one hand and pushing her uniform up with the other.

  ‘Stop, Your Grace, please!’ She struggled with all her might, but he was strong and she was no match for his strength.

  The sound of her sobs were muffled as he lay on top of her, rubbing himself against her legs. Then, with a primitive instinct she didn’t realise she possessed, she brought her knee up hard between his thighs.

  He let out a howl, clutching his groin and rolling off her in pain. Scrambling to her feet, she tugged her uniform down and ran out of the room. On the verandah, she almost collided with Doctor Holland and Nurse Dolly who both looked astounded at the sight of her; wild hair, apron askew and tears streaming down her face.

  She muttered an apology, pushed past them and hurried down the steps.

  Rose burst into the cottage on the cliff. ‘Thomas!’

  She looked around frantically for him but the cottage was empty. He was still at work.

  Sinking to the floor beside his bed, she curled up into a ball. Her arms and face were scratched from racing along the path where branches and shrubs had caught her skin. She pulled her knees to her chest and tried to make herself as small as possible.

  Her mind was still racing, trying to process what had just happened, and the very thought of it again made her curl up tighter.

  She concentrated her ears on the world beyond the windows. She could hear the water in the harbour heave and sigh, imagined the wide open sky above it and
she breathed, in and out, in and out, focusing every fibre of her body on that soft, sedate sound.

  She wasn’t sure how long she’d sat there for on the floor of Thomas’s sanctuary, surrounded by his things, feeling a sliver of security return. Nor was she sure of the exact moment her eyes grew heavy, her pulse calmed and her breathing slowed.

  Or the moment she slipped into a turbulent sleep.

  ‘Rose, wake up.’

  Rose opened her eyes slowly, the cottage gathering shape again.

  Thomas was kneeling beside her. ‘Rose?’

  ‘Thomas!’ She sat up and flung her arms around his waist.

  He circled her with his own. ‘What are you doing here on the floor?’

  She could only shake her head, unable to speak.

  He pulled away from her and studied the scratches on her arms and face. ‘What happened to you?’

  ‘I’m all right.’

  ‘Did someone hurt you?’

  She should have told him what the duke had tried to do, but then she would have to explain that she’d encouraged him, that for the past four months she’d been more than a maid, she’d been his friend. Thomas would only march back down there and pummel him flat and then they’d both be in trouble.

  So she shook her head again. ‘I just needed to get away.’

  ‘From what?’ he asked, sitting down next to her. ‘Did the duke do something to you? Are you in trouble with Miss Dalton? I’ve never seen you like this before.’

  ‘Please.’ She forced a smile that she was sure didn’t convince him. ‘Can we just sit here a little longer? I don’t want to go back to first class right now.’

  ‘Of course.’ He helped her to her feet and she sat on the edge of his bed, conscious suddenly that they were alone together in his cottage.

  He must have felt it too for he began to fidget. ‘Shall I fetch you a glass of water?’