Deep Summer

by Gwen Bristow

  Chapter Fifteen

  Three days after little Philip died a servant brought a letter from Caleb Sheramy, saying the fever had struck Roger. Too distracted to look for a fresh sheet of paper, Judith wrote across the bottom of the page, “I shall remember you in my prayers,” and sent it back.

  The next day they heard Walter Purcell was dead. Philip sent David to Lynhaven with a note of sympathy for Gervaise.

  When David had delivered the letter he rode to the wharfs to countermand the order for boats that had been engaged to ship the Ardeith produce down the river. The indigo was rotting on the ground for lack of harvesters. Judith had pled with David and Christopher to take Rita and go to a safe place while they were still well, but David’s questions to boatmen on the docks convinced him there was no safe place. The men said New Orleans was a charnel-house; the west bank of the river was reeking with pestilence and so were the towns above Baton Rouge. One was as safe here as anywhere else. Everything possible was being done to drive the fever out. On the corners pine and pitch torches burned day and night to destroy the poison in the air, and every ten minutes guns were fired over the river to shake the atmosphere. The taverns near the wharfs were gay and noisy, as though men were trying to drown the rattle of the coffin-laden carts on the road. One of the wagons moved along in front of David, the body-collector walking at the head of the mule. He rapped on the door of each house as he passed.

  “Any dead here to be carried off?”

  If the answer was yes he dragged the body out and dumped it into a coffin already holding two or three others, shoved down the lid and went on. A little Negro boy sat on a coffin to hold the reins.

  David managed to pass the wagon and turned his horse into a better part of town, where well-to-do families lived in houses of cypress or moss-plaster. These people had slaves to make coffins for their dead, and they could order hearses to carry them away, but even these had to wait their turn and the coffins were piled on the galleries, sometimes three or four at a single house. Here and there was a note on a gate, asking that any clergyman who passed would come in and say a prayer with someone who was dying.

  David shuddered and felt sick. Smoke from the pitch torches got into his eyes and made them burn. The gardens around the houses were flowering with ironic splendor. David loved growing things, but this mad blooming struck him today as repulsive, almost obscene, as though the plants were laughing at weather that was killing the men and women who tended them. There were a few cases of yellow fever every summer, and he had heard old people speak of a “fever year,” but David had never imagined anything like this. He remembered the hopeless sound of his mother’s sobs when she cried all night after little Philip died, and wondered if every one of these houses held as much grief as that.

  As he slowed his horse again to let a boy cross the street in front of him, a woman ran up from behind and caught the bridle. David stopped with an impatient exclamation.

  The woman stood at the head of the horse, panting, “Don’t you be David Larne?”

  She wore a faded dress from which one sleeve was tearing at the shoulder, and a hat tied with a soiled pink ribbon. It had fallen off her head as she ran after him and hung now on her shoulders, letting him see her streaky black hair. Her eyes were beautiful, soft as black velvet, but her skin had withered and her little dished-in nose had grown rather flat.

  “Why yes,” he said, “I’m David Larne. What did you want with me?”

  “I reckon you’ve forgot me, ain’t you?” she asked him. She was catching her breath. Her dress was open at the throat for coolness, and there were lines of perspiration down her neck. “I’m Dolores.”

  “Dolores?” David frowned, then his face cleared with astonishment. “My Aunt Dolores?”

  “You remember?” she asked with a faint one-sided smile that made a crease down her cheek.

  “Of course I do.” David smiled back at her, trying to hide his surprise at her present appearance. He got off his horse and stood holding the bridle. “I remember you very well,” he added. “You used to play with Chris and me and teach us voudou songs.”

  Dolores shrugged. “Well, I want to ask you something but I won’t be holding you here long. I don’t want to embarrass you, honey.”

  “You aren’t embarrassing me,” David assured her. Friends of his father’s might be surprised to see him standing in the street talking to such a dilapidated woman, he thought sadly, except that in times like these nobody paid much attention to anybody else.

  “I heard today Roger is got the plague,” said Dolores. “Is it so, David?”

  He nodded.

  “Is he took bad?”

  “I don’t know. We only heard it ourselves yesterday, and my father hasn’t let mother go there. She’s worn out with nursing my youngest brother who died of it.”

  “Mhm, I know,” said Dolores. “Tell her I’m mighty sorry. And tell her I’m sorry I yelled so at that nigger of hers that brought me some things, but I was so distracted with my little girl just dead. David, is there any woman looking after Roger?”

  “There’s a couple of good nurses at Silverwood.”

  “Niggers!” said Dolores. “I’m going over there. Thanks, David. That’s all I wanted to know.”

  “Wait!” he exclaimed as she started off. “How are you going to get there? It’s a long way.”

  “I reckon I can walk. I don’t be having the fever.”

  “In this heat? You’ll never do it.”

  “Oh yes I will, honey. I kept off that boy long as I figured he was better off without me. But I reckon if he’s got the fever there’s nobody can say his mother should stay away and let him die with a pack of slaves minding him. I’ll get there.”

  He was holding her arm. “Get on this horse. Can you ride?”

  “I used to could. I guess I haven’t forgot. Won’t the horse drop dead toting us both, though?”

  “Horses aren’t as important as people,” said David shortly. “Get on.”

  She sighed. “You’re pretty good, David. I’d have thought you’d be ashamed to ride with me.” She mounted the horse and smiled at him as he got up in front of her. “You look just like your father.”

  “That’s what everybody says.”

  “Living image. That’s how I could tell it was you.”

  They rode slowly, without talking much. David wondered what his Uncle Caleb was going to say when he saw Dolores. But it really didn’t matter. If the poor woman wanted to nurse her son through the fever not even rock-minded Uncle Caleb could refuse to let her in. He would probably welcome any one who could ease his son’s suffering now. David asked about her children. They were well, she said. Her husband could take care of them.

  She was silent after that and he did not try to make her talk. The sun or something was beginning to make his head ache. Ordinarily he paid no attention to the heat—in fact, he liked the summers—but he had never known such weather as this.

  At the steps of the Silverwood manor David gave his head a shake to clear his brain. The horse stood drooping with weariness as he and Dolores dismounted.

  Dolores stood a moment on the steps. “Funny,” she said, more as if speaking to the house than to David, “I used to live here.”

  David rapped on the door with the butt of his whip. “Where is Mr. Sheramy?” he asked the Negro boy who answered.

  “Why howdy, Massa David. He’s back in de room wid de young master, sah.”

  “How is Mr. Roger?” Dolores demanded.

  “Ma’am? He mighty sick, ma’am.” The boy looked at her curiously, wondering what so bedraggled a woman was doing at the front door with Master David.

  “Tell him—” David began, but Dolores interposed,

  “Don’t tell him anything. He won’t throw me out. I reckon,” she added with an oblique glance at David, “I know him better than you do, honey child.
” She started in. “Thanks for bringing me, David,” she said over her shoulder.

  A door in the hall opened and Caleb came out. He had heard their voices, but they stood with their backs to the sun and for a moment he did not recognize them. Then he said, “Why hello, David.” He walked with a stoop, and his face was haggard. Dolores took a step nearer.

  She said, “Caleb, don’t you know me?”

  Caleb stopped. He put out his hand and touched her. He said, “Dolores!” in a strange far-off tone. From the room he had left came the sound of Roger’s voice calling him.

  “I’ve come to look after him, Caleb,” said Dolores.

  He took her hand in his and without saying anything else they went together into Roger’s room. For a moment David stood where he was. He could hear Roger groaning and the other two speaking in blurred phrases. He wondered if his Uncle Caleb had loved her. He did not know, but he felt curiously young and inadequate. There was nothing wanted of him at Silverwood. Ahead was the journey home, which seemed long and wearisome before him. His bones ached and his headache was growing harder. He went out and mounted his horse.

  How hot it was, though before he was halfway home the clouds had thickened over the sun. He thought yearningly that as soon as he reached Ardeith he would have his boy bring him a cold bath. His throat was burning with thirst. The pain shot through his head till he could scarcely see, and it was hard to hold his seat in the saddle. His hands on the bridle were shaky. Queer what this wet heat could do. It made him ashamed of himself. You’d think he was one of these greenhorn Canadians who’d never felt real sun before.

  Here were the orange groves of Ardeith. What a long way it was from the oranges to the house! David made himself straighten up. If his mother saw him exhausted like this she’d think he was sick and she had all she could bear now without getting worried about him. He was perfectly well, of course—or wasn’t he? To be sure he was well, only this weather was enough to give anybody headaches. Thank heaven the horse turned of its own accord into the road leading through the flowers to the house. He was dizzy, and saw two oleander bushes where only one was growing; ahead of him the pink house swayed and elongated and shortened as though he were looking at it through a pane of faulty glass. The horse was stopping at the steps. David roused himself with a great effort and got off, and caught at a post of the gallery to keep from falling. He must get inside in a hurry, and get some rest before his mother saw him. In just a minute when his head had cleared and he could walk, he would go in.

  She came out on the gallery with his father. He heard her cry out, “David! What’s the trouble?” He felt her hands on his face. How cool they were. He tried to answer, but when he let go the post he felt himself falling.

  He did not know just what happened after that, but he had a vague sense of lying across the gallery with his head on his mother’s lap. There were servants about to carry him indoors. He heard his father say something and then, because her head was bent so close to his, he understood when he heard his mother answer.

  “No. No, Philip. Please don’t make me do anything. Can’t you see I’ve got no fight left in me?”

  In the manor at Silverwood Caleb and Dolores sat facing each other across the bed where Roger lay. Dolores reached over now and then and stroked his forehead with a damp cloth. Caleb could see her in sharp outline by the light of two candles burning steadily in the windless air. How tired she looked, and how old, though she was only about Judith’s age. He had made her look like that by driving her away.

  He had loved her so desperately in those old days, though he had persuaded himself during these years that he had not. But if they could ever have any peace about that tormented child between them he would tell her he wished he had been more forgiving. Maybe she would not care about knowing. But she loved Roger so; she must be glad to hear that Roger’s father wished he could take back his harshness to her. How she worshiped that boy! He would perhaps be dead now but for what she had done for him, twenty times a day washing him clean of the fever discharges, and holding him up in her arms so he could breathe when the spasms came. She had hardly slept at all, and the candlelight showed him the rings of exhaustion under her eyes.

  Roger moved uneasily under the sheet and tried to throw it off. Caleb drew it up again.

  “Won’t you rest a little while, Dolores?” he asked. “I’ll stay with him.”

  She shook her head. “You wouldn’t know what to do. I’ve nursed it before. It gets down below the wharfs a lot, summers.”

  He went around the foot of the bed to her, and stood with a hand on her shoulder.

  “He was so handsome before, wasn’t he?” said Dolores without looking up. “I was watch him sometimes, riding on the levee with Judith’s boys, all elegant in fine clothes and such a gentleman.”

  Caleb’s hand tightened on her shoulder. “Dolores, I’m sorry I took him away from you.”

  He spoke stiffly, for he had not known how to say that, or whether she would believe him. For a moment she did not answer. He saw her holding Roger’s wrist, feeling for a pulse. When she had found it she said slowly:

  “He’d have got the fever just the same, Caleb. Maybe seeing him have it would be worse for me if I’d had him all along.”

  “Let me fetch you some clean water,” said Caleb.

  He took the basin and emptied it into the slop-jar and filled it again from the pitcher on the washstand. She took it from him and set it on the table. Roger was tossing and talking in broken words. With a convulsive movement Dolores sprang up and went to the window, hiding her face in the curtain. Her shoulders quivered with voiceless sobs.

  Caleb went and put his arms around her.

  But she did not want him to hold her, and moved away. It was Roger for whose sake she had come to Silverwood, and not his, and he could not help but know it. Caleb went back to the bed and looked down at his son. He wondered if Roger was going to die.

  Dolores pushed back the wisps of her disordered hair. “There’s no more water in the pitcher,” she said. “Can you get some? I’m burning up with wanting a drink, besides him needing it.”

  “All right,” said Caleb. He picked up the pitcher and went out to the rain-barrels behind the house. There was a light in the kitchen, and two or three servants sitting about, but he did not call on them. Giving what services he could made him feel less futile.

  He took the lid off one of the barrels and dipped in the pitcher. The water was fresh, for it had rained that morning and he himself had gone out to cover the barrels as soon as the shower was over so the water might absorb as little as possible of the poison in the air. He set the pitcher down in the hall and went to get a bottle of wine for Dolores. One should be careful about drinking water during a plague.

  Caleb reached among the bottles and found a heavy port, nourishing for an exhausted woman. When he went into the dining-room for a glass he stood awhile looking out at the hot, heavy-dewed night, trying to picture her life in that dilapidated neighborhood with that man Upjohn. He remembered bitterly that if he had not sent her away those other children born to her would have been his and not Upjohn’s and he would not now be threatened with the loss of the only thing on earth he had to love.

  The striking of a clock reminded him how long he had been away from Roger’s bedside. He put the bottle under his arm, and holding the glass in one hand and the pitcher of water in the other he tiptoed down the hall.

  The room was quiet. That was surprising, for even when he fell asleep Roger groaned and mumbled, and when he was awake Dolores was generally trying to soothe him with soft endearments. Caleb set down the pitcher and lifted the latch noiselessly, but as the door opened he congealed with terror.

  Roger’s limbs lay perfectly quiet under the tumbled sheet. Dolores was on her knees by the bed, her face buried and her hands clasped over her head. Caleb stood still, feeling as if his heart had come up into his th
roat and was choking him, and wishing this was true so he could not have to go on living. He set down the bottle and glass and went to her, and put his hand on her shoulder.

  “Dolores,” he said.

  She started back, putting her hand to her mouth. “Hush!”

  There were tears on her cheeks, sparkling in the candlelight. He helped her up, his face turned away from the bed, and she stumbled as though it was hard for her to rise. But she caught him with both hands to hold herself up.

  “Caleb—” her voice was a thick whisper, and the words were not very clear—“Caleb, the fever’s out of him—he’s sleeping natural—Oh, God be praised—”

  He let her go suddenly, hardly noticing that she swayed and caught the bedpost, for he was bending over the bed with a flood of unbelieving thankfulness rushing over him. He felt Roger’s face and hands. They were cool and faintly damp, and though his breathing was faint it was peaceful. Caleb turned around. There was a sob breaking his words when he spoke.

  “Oh Dolores, my dear, my darling—he’s not dead! He’s going to live because of you—I couldn’t have saved him.”

  She was holding herself up by the bedpost, and when he was about to take her in his arms she pushed him back.

  “You—you’d better not touch me.”

  The words were indistinct. In sudden fright he gripped her shoulders and turned her around to face the candles. Her lips were flaming red and swollen and her eyes were bloodshot. She tried to say something else, but this time the words were only low noises in her throat. Her legs gave way under her. Caleb caught her in his arms as she fell.

  Christopher walked into the vegetable gardens. One should not venture out into the foul, fever-reeking night air, but he wanted to think, and he couldn’t think in the house. It was quite awful in the house. David was wildly delirious, and only a little while ago when his mother had tried to hold him up in her arms to make his breathing easier he had struck at her with such force that the blow had knocked her down. A chair-leg had cut her head and the cut bled badly, so his father made her go to bed.