Having seen a less severe outbreak of the disease the year she turned twelve, Camellia knew what to expect. Fever that would come and go; chills that would make the teeth chatter and the body shake; headaches so bad the sick screamed out in pain; heavy sweats that soaked the sheets and blankets; nausea and vomiting until only dry heaves were left.
Given time and good doses of quinine, most of the sick would recover. Yes, they’d get the fever again from time to time, but never again quite as intense as the first attack. But those who didn’t recover progressed to even worse symptoms and a bloody dry cough; pain all over the body, but most severe in the back, head, and eyes. Seizures afflicted them too—convulsions that caused them to bite their tongues and fall out of the bed. Dark water poured from their body fluids. Only a miracle could save them if they got the dark water, and most were not saved.
Camellia spent most of her waking hours inside, sponging off Chester with wet rags; carrying out and washing the bedclothes that his sweaty body made filthy by the middle of every day; pouring thin soup down his throat when she could get him to swallow. Three days after Chester took ill, Johnny went to bed too. One day after that her pa fell over from fever and, in spite of all his efforts, couldn’t get back up. Only Camellia remained healthy. Her back ached from a lack of sleep, and her frail frame dropped every ounce of excess weight because she found no time to eat. But she never took the fever. God’s irony, she thought.
Stella dropped in on her every now and again, her arms heavy with cooked food and clean rags. She asked Camellia if she could stay and aid her, but Camellia always shook her head.
“You got enough to handle,” she said in a quiet moment near the end of the second week of the outbreak on one of Stella’s visits. “The sickness is all over The Oak.”
Stella put the food on the table. “This come hard on us this time. Reckon Master Trenton’s choice of Miss Rouchard mispleased the Lord. This be his anger spilt out.”
Camellia pushed her hair back. “Trenton is not here to speak a defense. And I know it’s no time for me to arm-wrestle with you either. But I don’t see your reasoning. If this sickness be the Lord’s vengeance on Trenton, why did the Lord hit everybody else with it? He’s not even here. For all we know, Trenton’s folks are as well as they can be.”
“The rich folks don’t stay in the lowlands in fever season,” agreed Stella. “The swampy air be bad. Gives the sickness.”
“Exactly. So how is all this the Lord’s punishment?”
Stella grunted and spit snuff into a cup. “The Lord be makin’ it hard on The Oak, the thing Master Trenton loves the most, even more than he loved you.”
“Then why is the Lord making it hard on me?” asked Camellia, waving toward the bedroom where her family lay sick. “I had nothing to do with Trenton’s choice, but I got three near to death back there. What have I done to cause the Lord to strike down the ones closest to me?”
“You be askin’ mighty deep questions. I got no answers for them.”
Seeing no conclusion, Camellia sighed. She took a loaf of bread out of Stella’s basket. “Who else is sick? Anybody getting better?”
Stella arranged the rest of the food on the table. “About one in ten or so on our place, it seems. “Darkies, the white folks. Strange, you know? When the sickness comes, it don’t worry none whether it take out after white or black. They be all the same. Color don’t keep you well nor make you sick. Seems the Lord made us equal that way.”
Camellia nodded. “I hear they got it down in Beaufort too, all over the county. The doctor took ill the first couple of days, so nobody’s able to do much about it.”
“Ruby shows no signs of the illness. Obadiah neither. That be a good thing—lots of work for him right now. Reckon no matter what happens, somebody can make a livin’ off buildin’ boxes for the dead.”
“I wonder if the malaria hit Charleston?” Camellia whispered. “Columbia?”
“Columbia be inland so far it’s not likely. Charleston, who knows? That be where Master Trenton is?”
Camellia shrugged. “I can’t say where he is. He and I don’t talk anymore. He could be somewhere in the middle of the ocean as far as I know.”
Stella dropped the clean rags by the food. “Time you put that man out your head. He’s long gone from you. You the best for it, though I know you got no eyes to see that today.”
A low moan sounded from the bedroom where the three men lay. Camellia tilted her head at the sound. “I best go to them, and you best get back to the manse.”
“I come again when I can,” said Stella.
“Thank you.”
Stella headed to the door.
“How’s Josh Cain?” Camellia asked, suddenly realizing she’d not seen him since her pa fell sick.
“I ain’t seen him for a couple of days,” Stella said. “I know his girl Lucy took ill; don’t know about the other two.”
“But he’s well?”
Stella stared at the floor. “I ain’t sure. Last time I knocked on his door, he hollered for me to keep on goin’. Said he didn’t want me to come in. Feared I’d take the sickness from his house.”
Camellia’s heart pounded as she thought of Lucy, ill only a short distance away. How strange that in spite of their closeness she hadn’t talked to her much in the last few months. She hung her head, ashamed that she’d stayed away from the children because Josh didn’t want her around anymore. No matter that he didn’t like her, she shouldn’t have let him keep her from the children. Now Lucy lay on a bed dripping with sweat and aching with pain, and Camellia hadn’t even gone to offer her aid. What kind of friend was she? Not much of one, that’s what kind. She wondered about Beth and Butler. If anything happened to one of those children, she’d never forgive herself.
“You going by Mr. Cain’s place from here?” she asked Stella.
“I’ll go knock at least; offer my care.”
“Tell him … tell him …” She hesitated, not sure what to say. “Tell him I’ll come as soon as I can. Tell him of my prayers for him and his children.”
“He’ll appreciate those prayers. Mr. Cain puts much stock in the Lord.”
“I know.”
Stella left the room, and Camellia trudged back to her pa and brothers. As she opened the door to their bedroom, she wiped her brow and made a vow that if she lived through this, she would go to see Josh Cain’s children as soon as possible to make sure they all knew of her love for them.
Chester died six days later, just as the sun came up. Weary beyond words, Camellia left him and stepped outside for the first time in days, her heart as low as the bottom of the ocean. She hadn’t eaten—best she could remember—in at least three days, and the blue calico dress she’d worn for over a week hung on her as loose as a sack. Her hair lay weary on her head, and her eyes held no color she could recognize as she looked into the tin dipper that she used to draw water.
Standing on the front porch, she glanced up at the clear sky and wondered how the sun could shine so brightly in the face of all that had happened. It just didn’t seem right. She stretched and wiped her eyes, her feelings crushed. Although her pa and Johnny lay on their pallets in the back room, their fevers finally broken, their bodies weak but taking food again, she’d lost Chester, his thin body finally yielding to the illness. To her relief, she saw Ruby and Obadiah headed her way in Obadiah’s wagon.
“I need you,” she called to them.
“We feared you might,” shouted Ruby.
A few minutes later Obadiah picked Chester up and carried him out, his big black hands gently cradling Chester to his chest.
“You nursed him all you could,” Ruby said as she stood with Camellia, watching Obadiah carry Chester away.
“I know,” said Camellia, “but I don’t feel like it. I feel … feel like I should’ve saved him somehow. Found a way to make him better.”
“You take on too much,” soothed Ruby. “You are not a miracle worker, no matter how much you try.”
Camellia followed Obadiah to his wagon, kissed Chester one last time on the cheek. Although a head taller than her, Chester looked so small. Death did that, she realized. Shrunk a person down in size. Obadiah loaded him into the back of the wagon as Ruby took Camellia’s hands.
“I’m not one to give advice,” said Ruby, “but I feel like I got to say something.”
Camellia squeezed her hands.
“You have moped about a long time,” Ruby began. “All the spring and summer. But now you got to get back to living. All this”—she waved over Camellia’s house—“and all this”—she waved over The Oak. “You can’t let any of it wreck what’s inside you. You know what I’m saying.”
Camellia stared at her, confusion on her face.
“Look,” said Ruby, “I have learned my lesson. Life will bring lots of hurt our way, like storms that come in the summer. You can’t tell when they come nor how much damage they’ll do before they go. But they come, and there’s nothing we can do to stop them. All we can do is figure out how we’ll act when they hit us. Will we let them knock us over for good? Ruin everything so we can’t ever fix it again? Or will we rise up again after the storm passes? Put ourselves back to the toil to make something of life? Will we let the storm blow away what’s inside us—the steady stuff, the stuff of the heart, the soul? That’s the matter you got to settle with yourself. You say you’re a Christian girl, but where’s your trust in the Lord now? Where’s your faith gone? Is the Lord truly with you or not? Or has the Lord gone off and left you all by your lonesome? Is the Lord as undependable as Master Trenton? Is that what you think? What you got in your head? Well, if you got no more trust in the Lord than to give up and go on moping forever, then it seems to me that’s not much trust.”
Camellia stayed quiet, listening, so Ruby continued. “Yes, it’s true that you had a hard year. Master Trenton showed his true stripes and left you standing with your hands empty. That’s a hard knock. Now this sickness killed your brother. That’s surely a rough grief, and you will need some time to get past it. But you’re not dead yet. You’re still a beautiful woman, got friends who love you strong, and you’re smarter than most. What do you plan to do with all that? What will you let the Lord do with it? That’s the questions you’ve got to face.”
She patted Camellia’s hands, then dropped them as Obadiah stepped back and climbed on his wagon seat.
“Think on it,” Ruby said. “See what you come up with.”
Camellia nodded as Ruby joined Obadiah and they rode off. She stepped back inside her house, and, for a long time, just stood and looked out the window, her mind swirling. What right did Ruby have to give her such a speech? A darky—especially with no trust in the Lord—should not take such liberties as to offer advice to a white girl, even one as low in station as she. And yet … Ruby’s words hit her straight in the heart. Perhaps she had let Trenton’s choice shape her more than it should. Maybe she had forgotten the Lord too quickly. Was her faith so weak as to let a couple of hard knocks push her right off it? If so, it wasn’t much faith to begin with.
Tears began to fall. Although she was not yet twenty, it seemed like the weight of at least a hundred years lay on her shoulders. She stared out over the field toward Josh Cain’s house and saw him walk onto his porch. He held his hat in his hand, his head down. Quickly, she ran to the porch and called out to him, “You okay?”
He glanced toward her, sadness in his posture. Her own shoulders sagged. “What is it?” she yelled. “Who?”
Josh stumbled down the steps, and she ran into the field to meet him. They met halfway between their houses, then stopped.
“Lucy,” he sobbed. “She’s gone to be with her mama.”
“No!” cried Camellia. “Not Lucy!”
Josh stared at the sky. “She passed last night. Obadiah came for her this morning before the sun rose.”
“I lost Chester this morning,” she sobbed.
“I’m so sorry,” he said.
“I should have come to Lucy, tried to help,” said Camellia.
“Nothing anybody could have done,” sobbed Josh. “Nothing to do.” He opened his arms, and Camellia fell into them, the weight of the last few months pushing her into his strong embrace. For a long time the two of them stood under the heat of the early fall sun, tears running down their faces. Camellia grieved over the loss of Trenton, over the deaths of Chester and Lucy. But mostly she grieved that she hadn’t really talked to Josh’s children in months, that she’d let her disagreements with him over Trenton keep her away from loving friends.
“I’ve been such a fool,” she sobbed. “In so many ways, over so many things.”
“Shush,” Josh soothed. “You’ve had your hands full.”
“That’s not it. I stopped seeing the children, talking to them, reading to them.”
“Blame me for that,” he said. “I told you we didn’t need you anymore. Put you off from coming.”
She gazed up into his tear-filled eyes. “We’ve both been fools. But you were right about Trenton; I have to admit that now.”
“That’s past,” he claimed. “No use saying who was right or wrong. What’s important now is trying to move ahead. Doing what we can to go on living. You told me that after Anna’s passing, and it’s true. You need to remember it now.”
Camellia brushed back her hair. “We have a lot of grieving to do before that.”
“Life is hard,” he agreed. “But the Lord’s grace is sufficient.”
“You really believe that?” she asked seriously.
“I’ve found it true in the past. I suppose I’ll test it again now.”
She nodded. “I guess I will too.”
Chapter Twenty-Two
After the malaria sated its appetite and left the county, Hampton York slowly regained his strength and returned to his labors. By harvesttime he seemed at full speed again, almost as if he thought he could replace all the work of the Negroes who had died with his own two hands. He cursed and ranted at the servants from the first threat of day to way past sundown, his voice growing hoarse from barking orders; his lips cracked from spitting tobacco; his face, hands, and neck baked by the sun.
In spite of the fact that Trenton planned to marry the wealthy Eva Rouchard and therefore solve their need for cash, York still believed that the survival of The Oak rested on his shoulders. The account ledger told him the hard truth every time he looked at it—The Oak had fallen deeper into debt. If the upcoming crop didn’t gather in full and healthy, the Bank of Charleston might foreclose on the place before any nuptials could take place. Who knew what would happen then? The Rouchard family might call off the wedding, and somebody else might purchase The Oak and push him right off the place.
Driven by his fears, York became angrier and more desperate. Although Trenton showed up in late September to labor beside him, he didn’t want anything to do with him. The young master’s betrayal reminded him again of something he’d always known—you couldn’t depend on anybody. If a man planned on making anything from life, he had to take matters into his own hands, wrestle fate to fit his dreams.
For reasons he couldn’t explain—even to himself—York found it most unbearable to be around Camellia. No matter how much he tried to think otherwise, he saw her as a failure. He’d depended on her, but she, like everybody else, had let him down. If she’d only treated Trenton nicer, given him more of what he wanted, if she’d only … York sought to push away the hard feelings, but the notion hung on him like the smell of a wet dog. York had worked hard all his life, looking for his one big chance to get what he’d always wanted out of life. Now it seemed that Camellia had ruined his only remaining chance. And he just couldn’t help but blame her. So he stayed away from home more and more, not going home most nights until she and Johnny had finished supper.
He missed Chester, of course. What pa wouldn’t miss his son, especially such a fine boy as Chester? But what could he do? While he lay on his bed, too sick to do anything, the boy’s life h
ad been in Camellia’s hands. And she’d not managed to nurse the boy back to health. York knew the malaria had taken many folks—forty-four Negroes and two whites to be exact—but, once again, he couldn’t help but feel that Camellia had failed there too.
With each day that passed, York grew more sullen, his anger spilling over even to Josh. He didn’t like it that after they finished the harvest, Josh started disappearing some again, often for days at a time. Of course he knew what Josh was doing. But why should he bother about Mossy Bank? It was so long ago. True, Josh wasn’t telling anybody about the money, but who knew when his questions would stir something up? What would happen then? Somebody would come for the money, and that would cause a lot of trouble. It would also ruin his one last hope for a better life—even if it was purchased with someone else’s money. Maybe, York thought, he needed to talk with Josh and settle this once and for all.
That year the harvest turned out better, and York got a good price for it when he took it to Charleston for sale. Yet, it still wasn’t as good as he’d hoped, and his mood didn’t brighten much. The Oak had fallen too far behind for one good crop to make up the difference. Plus the malaria had killed a lot of darkies, and it would cost a lot to replace them.
Unsure what else to do, York toiled in the fields until sundown every day, and although exhausted, he stopped by the small house near the barn to make his notes. At the end of every month, he pocketed as much money as he thought he deserved. Whereas before he had excused his thievery by pointing to Camellia’s upcoming marriage to Trenton, now he passed it off by figuring that since Trenton had betrayed him, he owed him the dollars. Either way, he kept taking the money, in spite of the fact that The Oak couldn’t really afford it anymore.
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