“Emmy and I will see. I put out the stakes with fluttering strips of one of the raggedy dish towels yesterday. Should have earlier. Those robins and the blackbirds do like strawberries.”
“Life goes on.”
“It does. I will bake cookies for Inga. And I will take them to the back porch. Thelma can pick them up there.”
“We will bake gingerbread men.”
The screen door swung open, and Clara carried the tray half propped on her shelf, as she had started calling her middle. Emmy followed her with a basket of biscuits and the jam. Clara handed out the plates, and after she and Emmy sat down with theirs, Ingeborg nodded to Emmy to say the grace.
Emmy closed her eyes. “Dear Jesus, thank you for our food. Please take care of Inga. And help Grandma have happy eyes again. Amen.”
“Thank you, Clara, this looks so good.”
Clara nodded with a smile and passed the biscuits.
They ate in a gentle silence, broken only with words like Pass the biscuits, jam, and other meal things. Ingeborg felt the comfort float in on the slight breeze and take up residence in her bleeding heart.
Patches leaped off the porch, barking his friend and family welcome. Kaaren leaned over to pat him, then waved to Ingeborg. Panting, she climbed the steps. Ingeborg met her with an embrace that lasted as they cried together.
Clara went for the coffeepot and another cup.
Freda started to stand up, but Kaaren waved her to stay where she was. “I’ll sit in the rocker.”
When they were seated, Ingeborg blew out a sigh. “So much. Too much.”
“It could be so much worse. So far most of our people are safe.” Kaaren, ever practical.
“All but those involved with the train. And now Thorliff has it too.”
“He is going to make it. I didn’t have that confidence with Elizabeth, but I believe this.”
“I so pray you are right. Surely we are all running out of tears.”
“Our doctors have been so wise to slap a quarantine on the town before the disease got further away.”
“If everyone does what they say.” Freda added to the conversation. “Thank you, Clara. You are taking good care of us this morning.”
Kaaren sighed. “I so look forward to church again, to meeting with the others, to having a wonderful Sunday dinner after church. To banishing this fear, catching up on all the news that does not have to do with diphtheria and death. It is important to think ahead.”
“To be praying together, singing . . .” Ingeborg stopped and her eyes filled again. “Elizabeth will not be playing the organ anymore. Nothing will ever be the same again. O Lord, my Inga.”
“We will take strawberries in with the cookies. She loves strawberries.”
Anji stood at the kitchen sink, staring out at her two boys fighting over a shovel and the hole they were digging. Her children fighting, another hiding out in her bedroom, and Thomas had literally run from her when they nearly bumped into each other on the street. What had happened? Granted, he was working both with the patients in the hospital and with the people from the train and therefore under quarantine. But still, he needn’t be rude like that. She had seen the white tent out behind the mill, only because she had walked beyond the train that seemed to have taken up residence in Blessing. And why had she walked that far?
How she hated it when she asked herself questions she didn’t want to answer.
“I’m going to tell Ma!” Joseph stormed toward the house, and Gilbert resumed digging, not appearing in the least sorry he had made his little brother cry.
Anji had had enough! She met Joseph at the door and pointed at the steps down from the back porch. “Sit.” He did. “Now stay there.” She stomped past him and out to where Gilbert was digging furiously.
“Give me that shovel.”
He jerked to attention, his eyes wide. She never spoke to her children like that, and he knew it. He handed her the shovel. “Now, get out of that hole.” Since it was up to his knees, he had to step high, never taking his eyes off her. When he stood in front of her, staring at his feet, she waited. And waited.
“I . . . I’m sorry.”
“You are sorry for what?”
He glanced over at his younger brother, who was no longer crying. He was staring at their mother, eyes wide. “For not sharing with Joseph.”
“That is right, young man. So what do you say?”
“I’m sorry.” He looked up at her, worry creasing his forehead.
“Not to me.” She pointed at the huddled figure trying to disappear into the wooden step. “Him.”
“But, Ma . . .”
“Do not ‘but Ma’ me.” She stared into his eyes until he quit studying his bare feet and went to Joseph and muttered.
“Louder. I want to hear it!”
“I’m sorry.”
“And?”
He looked at her over his shoulder already tanned from the sun and from running around in overalls with straps over his shoulders. “You can have the shovel.” He pointed to the shovel handle in his mother’s hand.
“We can take turns,” Joseph offered.
Anji shook her head. “Both of you boys go put your shoes on, and I will show you where you can dig. We are going to plant more in our garden.” When they ran upstairs, she carried the shovel over to the garden and slammed it into the edge of the plot they had already planted. The best place for weeds to grow. While they dug, she and Melissa would pull weeds. As soon as Annika woke from her nap, she could help too. This wasn’t what she’d planned to do today, but it was better than standing at the window trying to understand Thomas Devlin. Perhaps she had been reading him wrong. After all, had he really treated her any differently than he treated everyone?
She crossed the grass to stand under Melissa’s window. “Lissa, can you hear me?” Her daughter’s face appeared between the two lacy curtains. “Come on down and help me. Bring the basket from the pantry too.” She waited.
“All right.”
Both boys leaped down the steps and ran across to join her in the garden.
“Tie your shoes.” She set the shovel blade into the weeds, pushed down on it with her foot, and turned over the shovel of soil. Repeating the action three more times, she handed the shovel to Gilbert. “Now you dig just like this clear down even with the far edge. Joseph, you break up the clods and pull out the weeds. Stack the weeds in the next row.” Gilbert turned a clump and Joseph squatted down and dug it into it, just like she’d said. “Good. I’ll be weeding the lettuce and carrots. We need a space about three rows apart.” She nodded to the rest of the garden.
“Lissa, do you want to use the hoe or pull the weeds close to the plants?”
Sweat first trickled down her back, then her face and neck. She should have donned her straw hat. “Looks good, boys. Keep it up.” Hoeing a garden wasn’t the easiest job she could think of, especially not on a hot June day. She wiped her face with her apron. What to do about Thomas? She slaughtered the weeds that dared to grow in the rows of vegetables. The lettuce was ready. She should have picked that earlier in the day. Now it would wilt too fast.
“Hurry up,” Gilbert ordered. “You’re too slow.”
“Then let me shovel for a while.”
“Here!” Gilbert handed his brother the shovel handle and wiped his forehead with the back of his arm. He glanced at his mother and shrugged.
Anji shook her head. She looked around. They had dug three rows, she had hoed three, and Lissa’s basket was full again. What were they doing out here at the hottest part of the day? “We’ll come back to this after supper, when it is cooler. I think we need some of that lemonade from the icebox and cookies.”
“And play dominoes?”
“Lissa, you help me in the kitchen, and boys, you set up the game.”
“Ma?” Annika stood on the porch, rubbing her eyes.
“Coming.” They stopped at the pan of sun-warmed water on the bench by the house. “Wash first.”
; They were well into their domino game and had refills on the lemonade, the cookie plate with not even a crumb when the telephone rang. She counted the rings and got to her feet. “I’ll be back, but just skip my plays.”
“I heard you all outside,” Rebecca said after their greetings. “Benny wanted to come over so bad.”
“He could have joined in the argument between the boys. I decided to work it out of them, but we didn’t last long. Too hot out there.”
“I know. I might close the soda shop since hardly anyone comes to buy sodas. If you want some ice cream, it is in the freezer.”
“Business will pick up as soon as the quarantine is lifted.”
“I know, and I am so grateful no one else has come down with it, but it seems like forever.”
“I know.” Anji wiped her neck and face again. The house was only a bit cooler than outside. Since there was no breeze inside, the back porch was the best place to be.
“Have you heard from Mr. Devlin?”
“No.”
“He’s in quarantine, you know.”
Anji dropped her voice. “But what if he has it?”
“Oh, my right foot. Surely Astrid would tell you if he was in the hospital.”
“I don’t think Astrid has much time to make phone calls, not after the news this morning.”
“I can’t believe Elizabeth is really gone. And poor Thorliff. He lost his wife and now he has it too.” She stared up at the wall to keep from crying. And here she’d been fretting about Thomas acting so strange. Such a petty thing when friends were suffering and dying. Just four blocks away. How could she be so shallow? She, who knew what the grief of losing a mate felt like? “Have you heard how Ingeborg is doing?”
“No, not many phone calls going through either. Gerald says maybe people are afraid they’ll get it through the phone lines.”
Anji glanced down to see Gilbert waiting to talk with her. “Hold on a minute. What, son?”
“Can we have more cookies? Er, may we?”
“Of course. I need to go, Becca. If you hear anything, please let me know.” She hung up and returned to the kitchen. How could she help Thorliff? Of course she was praying. Everyone was. But there must be something more. Please don’t let him die too. Just the thought twisted and squeezed her heart.
CHAPTER 25
Eh, Devlin, a sorry mess ye’ve made of yer life. Thomas Devlin stared at the gaudy ceiling of his little cabin aboard the train. He was going to have to get up now. And then he would wander the aisles of this accursed train, carrying out the dead, cajoling the living, changing bedding, managing bedpans, and doing all the other tasks more fitting for devotees of Florence Nightingale than a humble priest.
Priest? A priest without a parish, a cleric without a church. If he were any sort of priest at all, he would be serving a flock somewhere, not wandering about in this alien land. He should give up the silly notion of being a priest, throw away his clerical collar, and find good work as a carpenter or craftsman. Or even a teacher. ’Twas not so hard. You had only to know more about a subject than your pupils did, and you could pass something on to them.
This headache had persisted for several days, and still it raged, worse than ever. He’d never had a headache this persistent or this fierce. Surely any hour now the sore throat would begin, and he would fall to diphtheria, giving lie to the notion that surviving the disease conferred immunity. He completed the necessaries and walked next door to the kitchen car for breakfast.
The cook grinned as he entered. “Dobry den, Mizzer Devlin!”
“And the top of the morning to yerself.” Devlin settled on a stool at the long table.
The cook plopped a plate of eggs and sausages in front of him. The fellow did not know English, but he did indeed know good food well seasoned. Devlin paused to thank God, crossed himself, and dug in.
Far from making the priesthood his life’s work, he had failed. True, it was not his fault exactly, but that unfortunate tangle with the Archbishop of Canterbury had left him little choice save to emigrate. He should not have insisted so strongly upon his position when the bishop said otherwise. But he had, and he was banished. Well, not officially, but de facto. And he was still convinced he had been right and the archbishop wrong. Sadly, no one on this side of the water seemed to want a priest such as himself.
Carpentry? He had been paid very little for his work as a carpenter and woodcarver in Blessing, but then no one else was paid much either. And some of the supervisors even worked without pay. Still, that could hardly be called success. Master woodcarver Grinling Gibbons had earned fat pay and worldwide renown; Thomas Devlin got a free meal at Ingeborg Bjorklund’s occasionally.
He had quite enjoyed teaching, but school was out, the children sequestered until this hideous plague abated. It was, in a sense, seasonal work. However, if he managed to find a position as a schoolmaster, he could work as a harvester during summer.
But what truly plunged his sorry heart into the depths was Anji. One way or another he could support himself in this town, but there was Anji. The look on her face when last he saw her said it all. She was not about to have anything to do with a worthless slug such as himself.
And he didn’t blame her.
He finished breakfast, thanked the cook profusely, and started in on his rounds. For the first time since he’d come to the train, he had not found one person dead by the time he reached the far end of the train. He went outside to the tent. Glorious day today, shimmering opaline sky, the slightest whiff of a breeze. And it was quite warm already.
No other medical people were in the tent. As Devlin moved from cot to cot, speaking with this patient and that, his spirits lifted. No overnight deaths here either. He would check with Dr. Elizabeth or Dr. Astrid, of course, but it appeared to him that four or five of those in the tent could go back to their quarters. And the ill who were still on the train would be up and about soon. Perhaps the worst was over for the train’s denizens. Now if the populace of Blessing all escaped, the crisis would be done. What a wonderful thing that would be.
He left the tent, staying in the shadow of the mill as much as possible to avoid the heat, and entered the back door of the hospital.
There was coughing, of course, much coughing. And yet, he immediately felt a heavy stillness. Unnatural quiet. Something was massively, hideously wrong here. One of the things that had swayed him toward the priesthood was his ability to sense the spirit of a place. The spirit of this place was the most oppressive he’d ever known. He rapped quietly on Dr. Astrid’s office door and pushed it open. Her chair sat vacant. The heavy silence in this room was so palpable it whispered in his ear.
He stepped back into the hall and closed the door. The student nurse who wore her hair in a bun was approaching. He asked her, “Who died?”
She looked at him for a moment as if to say, Don’t you know? “Dr. Elizabeth.” She continued on.
He stood stunned. Just stood there. The pillars of the hospital could not fall ill. They could not! They got pregnant, perhaps, but not sick. Surely the young lady was wrong. She had just arrived, she did not know all the people here yet. She must have . . . Dr. Elizabeth. Dear God in heaven . . . Slowly, painfully he crossed himself. Dr. Elizabeth.
Where . . . ?
He entered room one. Not Thorliff also! The man was sleeping fitfully on the side bed. He coughed in his sleep. Yes, Thorliff. The other bed, where patients lie, was empty, stripped of its bedding. The children leapt to mind. What about the children?
Devlin hastened to the kitchen. There was Dr. Astrid seated at the table. Nurse Deborah sat across from her, clasping Astrid’s hands in hers. Should he intervene? Yes.
He flopped into a chair beside Dr. Astrid and covered the women’s hands with his. “Words and platitudes will not serve here. Has she received the appropriate rites?”
“Yes.” Astrid’s voice was stricken.
“Has she a proper coffin?”
“John was going to make one.”
He left the hospital, the scene of death and misery, for the first time since he’d destroyed his relationship with Anji. That headache was pounding his skull with rubber mallets.
Where would John build a coffin? The outbuilding behind the Jeffers’ home? He ran to that shed, trying to escape the enormity of this nightmare. No one there.
More to the point, how would John build a coffin? The man knew a little something about woodcraft, but not enough to make a solid coffin in a day, and with this heat they would have to bury her soon.
Trygve had built himself quite a nice shop behind his new house. Devlin jogged to that building, sweating profusely. He heard the clatter of falling lumber even before he got there.
The door stood open. Inside, John Solberg, in shirtsleeves, had just dropped a pile of boards. Devlin stepped in beside him and knelt to scoop up the boards.
Tears were running down John’s face.
They said nothing. Devlin helped him put the boards on a side bench. He snatched up a couple of sawhorses stacked in the corner and set them out. John chose one of the boards and laid it on the sawhorses as Devlin picked out another. Devlin paused long enough to strip off his shirt. It was soaked now. John did as well. Did Trygve have a carpenter’s rule? He did, right there on the shelf. Devlin unfolded it open and measured. Devlin measured to his chin, about the height Dr. Elizabeth had stood. He measured and marked a board with a pencil stub. Solberg nodded.
There were no boards broad enough to build a bottom of one piece, and there was no time to glue up an appropriate bottom board. So Devlin cut three one-by-two cross pieces. Solberg drilled holes and set the screws as Devlin held it all in place. They flipped it over so that the cross braces were on the bottom.
Devlin calculated briefly—this particular job was not new for him—and drew two angled lines. They measured, truing them up. Solberg began sawing as Devlin began to shape the sides. An hour later they had a box, more specifically an anthropoid irregular hexagon. He had learned that as he was finding information for the geometry class he had taught. Quite highbrow, knowing what an anthropoid irregular hexagon was, and completely useless.
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