by Jillian Kent
“Can you tell me where that area is?”
He listened as she gave directions. “Thank you.” Devlin quickly walked past the circle of infected patients and down another long, dark corridor. Through double doors at the end he found the area filled with inmates that showed no symptoms of smallpox. The staff and patients at the Guardian Gate Hospital were vaccinated against the disease; Dr. Langford made certain of it. Perhaps some of these patients were also protected from the disease.
Devlin wandered into a tiny nook. Nothing. Frustration filled him. Jesus, help me find her.
He glanced at the full moon through a high, barred window, a morbid reminder that Madeline didn’t belong in this prison of madness.
He tried the door. Locked. Devlin peered through its tiny, dirty window to investigate. He squinted, trying to see beyond the door, but the filthy window hindered his vision. A sudden glimpse of movement caught his eye as he turned away. The abrupt action on the other side of the door left him bewildered. Had he actually seen something, or were his eyes fooling him?
He wiped the windowpane with his hand trying to get a better view. Two dark shapes wrestled in the moonlight on a tiny balcony. A large man harassed his victim.
“Stop!” Devlin gripped the bars.
The man froze and looked at him.
Devlin abandoned the window and put his shoulder to the heavy oak door, trying to force it open. The door refused to budge. The fool on the balcony probably held the key.
A huge shadow fell over him. Devlin jerked away, ready to do battle. Recognition flashed. Andrew Wiggins. “Help me.”
Wiggins battered the door with several direct kicks. The sound of splintering wood rocked the silence, and the door crashed onto the balcony with a great thud. Wiggins grabbed the man who had retreated from his victim to seek escape and picked him up by the collar, tossing him through the shattered door and into the wall, where he crumpled into a heap.
Devlin hurried to the still form. He gently turned over her limp wet body. Panic seized him. Madeline lay outlined by the light of the moon. “Maddie. What did he do to you?”
Devlin cautiously picked her up in his arms, but the manacle, chained about her wrist, stopped him.
Wiggins did not hesitate. He reached past Devlin and grabbed the chain that held Madeline. Grunting with the effort, he pulled the iron from the wall. Wiggins carried the chain and followed as Devlin carried Madeline inside.
“Hold her,” he ordered.
Wiggins took a step back. A look of terror crossed his face.
“Take her. You won’t hurt her.” Devlin then gently transferred Madeline into Wiggins’s hesitant outstretched arms. Devlin removed his coat and spread it on the floor. “Lay her down here, and help me free her wrist.”
Wiggins grunted. “I’ll be back.”
Devlin turned his thoughts and attentions to Madeline. He felt her moist face and neck. She was hot, fevered. From exposure or smallpox? He prayed it was exposure.
Wiggins returned with a hammer and chisel.
“How did you gain access to those?” Devlin asked, both grateful and concerned.
Ignoring the question, Wiggins gently adjusted Madeline’s wrist, then went to work. The manacle fell away in moments under his skilled hands.
“What trade did you know on the outside before coming to Ashcroft?” Devlin asked, amazed.
Wiggins gathered the chains and towered over Devlin. “I was a blacksmith.” He walked away and disappeared down the corridor. Devlin silently thanked God for Andrew Wiggins.
Madeline groaned.
“Lady Madeline. Maddie. I’m here. I’m going to help you. Can you hear me?” Devlin asked, hoping for a response. None was forthcoming.
He wrapped the coat around her soaked garments and gathered her in his arms, placing a gentle kiss on her fevered brow. “We’re going to get through this, Maddie,” he whispered into her ear. “We’re going to get through this together. God will help us.”
Devlin helped Madeline with the aid of one of the female attendants. In the privacy of one of the empty cells, as Devlin waited outside, the keeper removed Madeline’s wet clothing, dressed her in a simple gown, and covered her with a moth-eaten blanket.
“It’s one of the few decent blankets left in the entire asylum,” she informed him. “There’s not enough help to do the wash, and even if there were, there are few blankets.”
Devlin examined Madeline to determine if she had contracted smallpox. She tossed and turned, calling out for her mother, but her body showed no signs of a rash or blisters. “I don’t think the fever is from smallpox.” He let out his breath and sat down, relief filling his soul.
“A blessing indeed,” said the attendant, who placed a gentle hand on Madeline’s head and prayed silently for a moment.
“I must find someone to sit with her, but we need every capable person to assist with those infected.” Exhausted, Devlin put his head in his hands.
The woman’s hand dropped to his shoulder. “God will provide. I will stay with her until someone else can be found.”
Devlin forced himself to stand, secretly wondering if God would provide. It seemed hopeless. “Thank you.” He felt Madeline’s face and arms again for fever. She remained hot. “Try to keep her cool and continue to pray for her.”
“Of course. I will pray for both of you, and I will beg God to deliver us safely from this plague.”
Devlin had prayed before entering the world of medicine. He’d prayed for direction and wisdom, for God’s guidance. Suddenly he realized how much he’d come to rely on prayer and the peace it usually brought him. But today he found no peace.
He returned to the area where his mother lay ill, afraid a sheet covered her face or that her body burned with the dead in the insatiable funeral pyre outside the asylum.
Why didn’t these people have access to Dr. Jenner’s smallpox vaccine? This could have been avoided if only the appropriate precautions had been put in place… if only. However, with no physician to look after the patients, and someone like Sullivan managing the asylum, it was a wonder it didn’t happen sooner.
“Amanda,” he said gently.
The girl pressed a cool rag against his mother’s forehead and looked up.
“How is she? Any improvement?” he asked, hope skimming his heart.
“Same.” Amanda gently pushed a gray strand of hair behind Elethea’s left ear. “Same.”
“Thank you for taking care of her. You should rest now. It’s been a long day.” Devlin pulled out his pocket watch. “Almost midnight. I’ve been here only a few hours, but it feels like days.”
Amanda smiled wanly and gently continued her ministry of a cold cloth to his mother’s forehead.
Devlin knelt beside Amanda. His mother’s breathing seemed slightly improved. He studied his mother again. Sometimes before a person died, a patient would rally. And just when the family thought the worst had passed, the patient slipped away as though their soul were waiting for the right moment to depart.
“I’ll stay. You go rest, Amanda.” Devlin raised the young woman off her knees. “I’ll call you if I need you.”
Amanda nodded and moved off toward a pallet not far away, where she chose to sleep for the night. She knelt and folded her hands in prayer. Devlin wondered what she prayed for and stretched out on the cold floor next to his mother and slept.
He’d felt as though he’d just closed his eyes when someone shook him awake. “What is it?” he asked, confused for a moment. Then he remembered and groaned. Back muscles wrenched in opposition to each other. He sat up, blinking the sleep from his eyes, and discovered Mrs. Sharpe standing over him. “What’s wrong?”
“Lady Madeline is awake.”
Devlin breathed a sigh of relief. Gathering his thoughts, he looked at his mother. She continued to sleep peacefully.
Two more patients had lost their battles during the night. That made ten dead. How many more would be sick today? They couldn’t even cover the bodies for la
ck of sheets and blankets for the living. Outside, the death fire glowed ominously against the foggy gloom of dawn.
An eerie silence accompanied Devlin as he picked his way around sleeping patients and through the shadows of the corridors to Madeline. The bars on the windows increased his unease. A stone-faced guard let him through the rusting gate. He realized that he’d passed this way before, when he’d treated Wiggins’s wounds.
At last Devlin reached Madeline’s cell. A female keeper looked up as he entered the tiny cell, and Madeline turned to look at him from where she lay on a cot.
“Lord Ravensmoore.” She could hardly believe her eyes. He was here!
Ravensmoore leaned over her and smoothed her hair, combing it away from her face with his fingers, an unconscious, gentle act. He entwined his fingers with hers. “How are you feeling?”
She felt tears spring into her eyes. “Better.” She reached out and tenderly touched his cheek in return. “I prayed you would find me. How did you know I was here?”
“Agnes sent Donavan to Lady Gilling to let her know what happened to you. Then Melton and Lady Gilling came to me at Ravensmoore.”
Madeline pushed herself to a sitting position. “Is my mother all right?”
“I don’t know. Melton is going to investigate.”
“Vale is making her sick. Laudanum poisoning, I think. He’s trying to kill her.”
“Don’t worry. We’ll find a way to stop him. You’re the one I’m concerned about right now.” His hand covered her brow. “You still have a fever. I plan to take very good care of you until I’m certain you are well. The first thing we must do is get some decent food in you.”
“I’m scared.”
“Shhh. I’m here now. No more harm can come to you.” He took her hand and pressed it to his lips gently. She shivered, whether in delight or fear, she did not know. Now that she knew the horrors of this place, the agonies of the insane, how could she love him?
“Lord Ravensmoore, I must know something.” She paused.
He smiled. “So many questions for one so sick. What’s on your mind?”
She blurted out the question. “I must know the truth. Was your mother insane?”
Madeline felt his fingers clench at the words. He cleared his throat, about to say something, then appeared to change his mind. “I must know.” She searched his eyes. “Please.”
“You don’t understand. But how can you? I don’t understand myself,” he whispered, turning away from her. “She’s here. My mother is still here. She’s alive… for now.”
“Alive?” Her eyes widened with shock. “But I thought she was dead.”
“So did I.” He raked a hand through his hair. “I discovered her alive only a short time ago, but she is ill. Gravely ill.”
Madeline saw in his eyes the pain of the little boy who had lost his mother so long ago. Her heart went out to him. “Look at me.”
He turned to her, unshed tears begging for release from his exhausted, unshaven face. The anguish of so many years of pent-up emotion lay bare for her to see. She wrapped her hands around his and could feel the release of his shaky breath.
“I would have visited her if my father had let me. But he didn’t, and then he said she died.” His voice cracked. “My father arranged the funeral, but I wasn’t permitted to see her body. Now I know why.”
She gripped his hands, trying to console him. But this revelation was so much bigger than the two of them. She didn’t know what else could be done for him. She watched him squeeze his eyes shut, as if trying to block the memory.
“The coffin in the family cemetery must be empty because she’s here, alive. All this time she has been buried away in this hellhole. I don’t know if she’s sane or not.”
“I’m so sorry.” Madeline gently leaned away and studied him. “It’s not your fault. You need rest, or you will make yourself ill.”
“I can’t sleep. There’s too much to be done, and I’m the closest thing they have to a physician.” He wiped his face on his shirtsleeve. “Forgive me.”
“Why? Because you were done a great injustice as a child? Because you ache for your mother and yourself?”
“Because I didn’t tell you about her. Lady Gilling told me how you found out. You must have thought me as deceitful as Lord Vale.”
“Shhh. It doesn’t matter now.” She put her finger to his lips. “I know you would have told me eventually.”
He gazed at her, his face solemn. “There’s more. You’re not yet well, and I don’t want to alarm you, but this must be said.”
Her heart raced. “You’re frightening me. What’s wrong?”
Ravensmoore stood and began to pace restlessly. “There’s a smallpox epidemic in the asylum. It’s inevitable that death will come to many.”
Madeline felt sick with dread. Her stomach twisted in knots. “No,” she whispered. Her fear of death and disease threatened to strangle her, but she refused to let it, searching instead for strength. “How many are ill?”
“Around thirty out of over a hundred inmates. The keepers are helping the best they can.” His tone turned urgent. “Lady Madeline, have you received the vaccine?”
“Yes. Mother had everyone at Richfield vaccinated after my brother and sister fell ill with the dreadful disease. What about you? Were you vaccinated?”
“Of course. Langford made certain all the medical students received Jenner’s vaccine.”
“I must get out of here soon. Mother must be protected from Vale.”
“No one leaves. The guards make sure of that. But as soon as everything is under control, we will go together to get your mother. Even though you have had the vaccine, I don’t want you exposed to anyone who may be ill. You are not yet over the fever and must regain your strength.”
“Can you get any help?”
“I don’t know. I won’t leave with so many sick, and I won’t leave without you and my mother. Melton knows I’m here to get you out. He might come. I don’t want to leave you alone.”
“Don’t worry about me. Go to your mother, Lord Ravensmoore, and make the most of the time she has left. Perhaps with you here, she will survive. She must be very strong to have survived all this time.”
“Yes. But I’m not sure what price her mind and body have paid after all this time. And I am very worried about you too. You’ve been through so much.” He gripped her hand.
“I’ll be fine,” she said. “Go. Your mother and the others need you.”
She watched him leave and felt a strange new strength replenish her spirit. He needed her.
CHAPTER 18
The heart will break, yet brokenly live on.
—LORD BYRON
THE STENCH OF illness filled the air as Devlin found his way back through a maze of interconnecting hallways. Fear and a sense of urgency pumped through his weary body as he thought about what to do next. He felt inadequate to the huge task ahead of him—not only fighting a smallpox epidemic, but also facing the possible second loss of his mother and the danger of rescuing Madeline.
Entering the area where his mother lay, Amanda by her side, he breathed a sigh of relief. Pulling up a short-legged stool, he sat down next to her and Amanda. “How does she fare this morning, Amanda?” He spotted Mrs. Sharpe across the room. “I checked on Lady Madeline. Thank you. Now, I need your help.”
She nodded. “What can I do?”
“Do you know where the patient records can be found?”
“They are kept in Mr. Sullivan’s office. What you are thinking is very dangerous. He guards those records well, but I know just who can get them for you.”
“Good. Let me know when I can see them.”
“As soon as possible.” She left to seek the assistance she needed.
Devlin turned his attention to Amanda and his mother. “How is she?”
Amanda smiled tentatively. “The same.” She wiped his mother’s spotted face with a dampened cloth.
Devlin felt his mother’s cheeks and neck. “She
’s still fevered but is a bit improved. Her breathing is not good, though. Amanda, see if you can find another pillow to put under her head. It will make her breathing easier.”
Amanda nodded and rose from the floor to search for a pillow. Devlin watched her walk away, her dirty skirt brushing the floor. He wondered again why she’d killed her father.
His mother groaned.
“I’m here, Mother. It’s your son, Devlin. How are you feeling?” He gave her hand a gentle squeeze. “Can you hear me?”
She weakly squeezed his hand and tried to speak. Her tongue licked over her cracked lips. “Thirsty.”
“I’ll get you some water.” He walked over to the bucket of water that sat on a small wooden table in the corner of the room. Picking up the well-worn ladle, he poured water into one of the cups, smelled it, and then tasted it. He detected no odor or other sign of impurity.
Devlin squatted next to his mother and put an arm under her shoulders to support her neck. “Sip slowly.” Devlin watched her struggle to drink. He didn’t think it possible for her to survive. Death now claimed nearby patients, and still she clung to life. Maybe Madeline was right. Maybe she would fight the disease if she knew she had something to look forward to.
“Devlin,” his mother whispered. “You are real. I thought you were a vision.” She explored her son’s face. “How?” The wretched coughing overtook her.
“Drink some more water. You don’t have to talk.” Devlin struggled with the warring emotions that battled within him. His father’s face kept flashing before him. How could the man betray them in such a cruel way?
Elethea recovered with difficulty from the coughing spell. “How did you get here?” She reached up and touched his face with her pox-covered hand. “How did you find me?”
He gave her the simplest answer he could. “I have been studying medicine and was summoned here to help with the smallpox epidemic. I had no idea you were here. What happened the day you were committed, Mother? Do you remember?”