Duelling in a New World Page 13

  The pudding has rose nicely, and for a minute or two, she’s mighty pleased with herself, but as she watches, its top collapses into a huge crease down the middle of the bowl.

  “Good Lord, what have I done?” Eliza claps her hands together in distress.

  “Dear Aunt Eliza, what have you done? You’ve taken the Lord’s name in vain, that’s what you’ve done. Really, you’ve become very naughty since I’ve been away.”

  Eliza turns to see Mary standing on the threshold, her portmanteau in her hand. “I’m mighty happy to see you, girl,” she says, laughing. She wraps her arms around Mary. “Do you think the Lord will forgive me?”

  “Probably, since He knows you made that pudding for me. Bless you, dear Aunt.” She looks at the caved-in disaster. “Why don’t we just fill the centre with whopped cream? I’ll brandish the twigs, and you can sit there and tell me what you’ve been up to since I left you unsupervised.” Mary runs over to the window seat to hug the cat which has been sleeping in the sunshine.

  Eliza produces the big wooden forklike creation that dear Mr. White gave her.

  Mary looks at it for a moment. “Good for Mr. White, I say. More useful to you than those pink plumes he presented for our goodbye-to-Mr.-Osgoode party.”

  Mary whops briskly for a few minutes while Eliza watches. Pale and sweaty the dear girl be. Has she been the better for that long stay on high ground? Or did I waste Peter’s money and make myself lonesome for nothing?

  Suddenly the light coming in the kitchen window disappears, and a sound of ocean waves filters through the heavy walls of the house. Mary looks up. “It’s the passenger pigeons migrating, Aunt.” She throws down the whopper, spattering cream over the table top. “I’m off to look at them.”

  “Please, dear Mary, do not be a-going out. The pigeons will be—”

  But Mary seems to have no idea of doing as she is bid. She’s out the door in a flash, leaving Eliza to stumble after her. The girl runs across the back forty into the garden where Job is busy digging potatoes.

  Overhead is a mighty vision, indeed. The whole blue of the heavens has gone, wiped out by a moving storm of wings and wailings and droppings from the sky like pellets of snow. Eliza stops to brush the dung from her dress and apron. The birds are dipping lower and lower towards the garden, their cries becoming more and more menacing, and she becomes a-feared they will strike her and Mary.

  Why, O Lord, are they a-coming so close? Mercy, mercy. Then she sees what’s up. Job has tethered a dove, for certain from their dovecot, to a stool in the middle of the garden where it’s gobbling at some seeds he’s put upon the ground. Those birds from above have seen it and are a-coming down. They think it’s a place of peaceful plenty.

  She screams, and just in time the flock sweeps upwards again. It’s not her scream that’s done it. It’s Job and Mary. They are pelting tubers at the birds. They’ve hit at least a dozen of them and their bodies are flapping about in the middle of the garden. Right pretty they be, with wine-red bosoms and white patches on their dark-blue wings and tails. Eliza hates to see their distress.

  “Dear Aunt, look at what we’ve done!” Mary laughs, but there’s a nasty gargle from her throat that accompanies that laugh. “It was all Job’s idea. Now we have enough pigeons for that game-bird pie I like so much. Why don’t we ask Mr. White over for supper since Uncle Peter is away in York? Oh please, Aunt!”

  Job is now smashing his spade down on the struggling birds on the ground. Mary counts them. “Sixteen, Aunt! We hit sixteen!”

  Eliza tries to sort out what’s troubling her most: the bird dung in her hair and down the bodice of her dress, the dying birds lying among the tubers, or the girl’s troubling cough that was supposed to be cleared up in her sojourn on the hilltop.

  “Job, get busy. Go first to Mr. White’s and invite him to supper. Then dress those poor birds for our supper. Mary, get back into the house and lie down. You have undone yourself with all this running about and killing. Now I’m hearing you cough again. I’m put to distraction by it all.”

  “Oh Aunt, I’m sorry. But why are you in a pet about Job and me killing pigeons? You yourself have taken the head off many a chicken on the chopping block. How many times have I held the bird in place while you swung your axe? And how many times have you missed your mark and had to try again and near killed me in the process?”

  “That’s enough, missy. Get inside and lie down. Your face be all sweaty as if you have the fever. And you’re coughing again, too. It would be the better for you if you’d do what I tell you to do and not try to have it your own way.”

  Suddenly, the girl seems to collapse in front of her very eyes. Her face becomes white and she begins to shake, as if she’s cold, though her body is slathered in sweat. She starts to cry. Eliza holds her, a-feared that she’s going to fall to the ground. Job moves in beside her, and between the two of them, they manage to half-drag, half-carry her up the stairs to her bedroom where they lay her on her bed and pull a quilt over her to stop the shivering.

  “What is wrong with you, girl?” Eliza asks. She doesn’t wait for an answer. The ague, that’s what it be. The same symptoms I myself had last year. But where in tarnation did she get the ague? Not on that hilltop above Queenston, for certain. Something’s up, I wager.

  In the kitchen, she takes the powdered bark that she procured from Mr. Hamilton (from South America he told her), softens it in hot water, mixes it with rose leaves, lemon juice and wine, and takes it up the stairs to the girl.

  Mary struggles to get the bark tea potion down, then gags, and vomits it onto the coverlet. “Aunt Eliza,” she says, “I have been a bad girl all day, and now I’ve ruined this pretty quilt you made me.” She starts to cry.

  Eliza goes downstairs, cuts a large portion of bread pudding, covers it in whopped cream, and goes back upstairs. “Dear girl,” she says, “try this. Hold your nose while you swallow a bit of the potion. Then have a bite or two of the pudding, and then go back to the potion. You will be the better for getting the medicine down.”

  Potion pudding potion pudding potion pudding . . . it all disappears. But the process is long, and by the time Eliza has got it all down Mary’s throat, the girl’s head sinks upon the pillow. “So tired, Aunt, so tired,” she says.

  “I shall leave you to sleep, child, but tell me now, how did you get the fever? There will be a to-do with that woman if I find that she did not look after you this summer.”

  “Oh Aunt, do not blame Mrs. Clarke. She kept me like a prisoner there on the heights. Day after day after day, I could not escape from her. She put me outside under the oak tree in the sunshine at ten o’clock each morning, and sat with me, doing her needlework. She let me read the Good Book, that’s what she always called it, for half an hour, then I was to have a bowl of gruel—you can have no idea how foul that was—and then I had to walk slow slow slow across the lawn for half an hour, then back to the Book for half an hour, then the walk again, then . . .” Mary starts to cough, and vile gobs of blood come up from her throat.

  Eliza wipes the girl’s face. “Sleep now, Mary. You must tell me the rest later.”

  Mary stretches her thin arms towards Eliza. “Please pump up the pillow, Aunt Eliza. I must tell you everything now. I do not want you to blame Mrs. Clarke.”

  So Eliza fluffs up the pillow and fixes the bedclothes and sits down again to hear the rest of Mary’s tale.

  “There was a preacher coming to the Freemasons’ Lodge last week, one of those evangelicals, and she wanted to go. She got out the Good Book and made me put my hand on it and swear that I would sit under the oak tree in the sunshine until she got back. So I swore. But Aunt, no sooner did I hear her cart rumble down the lane than I was rumbling, too, down the long path to the swamp on the river. “

  “Lord have mercy on thee, child.”

  “Because I swore on the Bible and then cheated?”

  “No, girl. Because it be in that swamp you got the fever. Why were you a-going to that place
of hell?”

  “Oh Aunt, I wanted to see the Indians harvesting wild rice. When I got down to the creek, a whole Chippewa family was on the bank of the creek ready to pole out to the edge of the big river. They saw me and welcomed me, and they put me in one of their canoes and we went right out into the rushes. It was magic. There were pretty little birds everywhere. One of them, he had an orange breast, was sitting on a reed, and I watched his tiny throat puffing out with the song he was singing. And there were some other little blue birds darting here and there and a big heron that took flight when he heard us coming, and he had a fish in his beak and—”

  “Your face be flushed, my dear. You must be calm now and sleep. Tell me more when you wake up.”

  “You are not angry with me, Aunt?”

  “No. Rest in peace, dear girl.” Eliza takes the dregs of potion and pudding with her as she descends the stairs. Oh Lord, why did I say that? It’s on every tombstone everywhere. Mary is not a-going to die, no no no. But she can’t stop the sobs that shake her.

  * * *

  When Mr. White comes to supper, Mary is still asleep, so Eliza and her guest sit down to the meal without her.

  Job sets the game-bird pie on the table in the dining room. “What a treat,” Mr. White says, as Job spoons large portions onto his and Eliza’s plates. He tucks a napkin over his cravat and digs in. Eliza takes a forkful, raises it to her mouth, and sets the fork down.

  “I can’t eat it.” She starts to cry.

  “Whatever is the matter, Miss Russell?” She feels his touch upon her sleeve and the sympathy in that touch near breaks her heart. Job comes with a heavy white napkin and she mops at her face with it.

  “Leave us for a few minutes, if you please,” she hears her friend say to Job.

  The door to the dining room closes, and they are alone.

  She tells him everything. He puts his fork down and listens as he always does, his blue eyes still and fixed upon her. “You think dear Mary is dying?”

  “I am a-feared. Brother be away in York. I have no one with me.”

  “We must get word to your brother then. He must come and be with you.” Mr. White pulls out his pocket watch. “But the packet boat has left the wharf. Do not worry. I will go now and seek out my Indian who paddles me about. If you will scribble a brief note, I will send it with him. He will find your brother and bring him back.”

  “But that will take hours, sir.” Eliza dabs at her eyes with the napkin. “I am so a-feared for Mary.”

  “You have me, Miss Russell, though I may be a poor substitute for your brother. I will be back within the hour and stay for as long as you need me.”

  Chapter Twenty-Seven

  September 1796, the same night

  John White sits in a chair by the hearth and tries hard to concentrate on his book, not wanting to embarrass the child by staring at her. His mind swivels back to England, to his own daughter Ellen, whose illnesses he often superintended while his wife lost herself in the fogs of opium. He remembers Ellen’s fevers, the cups of cold tea he forced her to drink, her whimpers of distress that matched his own. How he misses the girl he was once so close to. If only she and her brothers could come to this new world without their mother . . .

  Mary takes sips of bark tea while Miss Russell hovers behind her, hands placed on the girl’s frail shoulders. Most of the tea she pukes up into a basin beside her cup.

  “Oh, Aunt Eliza, I have never before felt so wretched. Perhaps Uncle Peter can help us. You have sent for Uncle Peter, have you, Mr. White?”

  “Yes, Mary. He will not be here for several hours, but I shall stay here with you and your aunt until he arrives.”

  The back door opens and Job enters, his face sweaty and his breathing forced. He has evidently been riding hard.

  “Dr. Kerr is a-coming from the new garrison soon?” Miss Russell whispers as Job stands by the hearth, mopping his cheeks with a towel. She has turned her back to Mary so the child, who is now puking again, will not hear. The servant nods.

  “Job, Aunt must give you some of her bark tea. It’s sure to cure you of the sweats. But you’ll need this bowl to puke in.” Mary pushes the bowl of vomit towards him. Then she throws her head back and summons a gurgle of laughter. My God, she reminds me of that bronze statue of the satyr that the fishermen brought up from the bottom of the sea. But White’s happy image dissolves in the red-tinged phlegm that spews from the child’s mouth followed by another eruption of vomit.

  “Off to bed now, Mary,” Miss Russell says, helping the girl to her feet and holding her close as they stumble towards the staircase. “I should not have let you get up.”

  It is eight o’clock now and the sun is just dipping out of view. “Take a break now, Job,” White says. “I am here to receive the doctor and to answer any calls of distress.”

  Job nods in gratitude and moves towards the door. “I am in my room above the stable, sir, if you need me.”

  The ticking clock marks the arrival of darkness, and White takes a paper spill from the mantel, dips it in the hearth fire, and lights the candles in their sconces. From the room upstairs he hears the murmur of voices and prolonged bouts of coughing.

  Minutes later, there comes a knock on the door. Dr. Robert Kerr at last. He’s a man well into middle age with a large nose, pursed lips, and straggly grey hair which he has tied back in a messy pigtail. Besides his medical kit, he’s carrying a large birch bark container which he sets upon the table along with a small glass bottle filled with a white powder.

  “Got something to dissolve this?” he says without preliminary, looking around the room. He picks up the pot of tea, puts two large scoops of the powder into it, shakes the pot in a circular motion, and sets it back on the table.

  “What is it?” But I think I know the answer.

  “Calomel.”

  “Mercury? You’re crazy, sir. It’s poison.”

  “Who’s the doctor here? Calomel is the best purgative around.”

  “Surely you’ve heard what Samuel Thomson has to say on the subject. He was here only a few weeks ago gathering—”

  “A damned quack in my opinion. Let us say no more about him. Now where’s the patient? Upstairs? Let’s get to her. You take the birch bark container, if you please, and I’ll carry the rest.”

  The lid on the container is slightly askew, and as White picks it up, he sees a slug squirming through the gap. He takes the lid off and looks into a mass of writhing black slugs, each about two inches in length with mustard-coloured underbellies. Good God, leeches. Only an effort of will keeps him from dropping the container.

  “Careful, man, careful. I need those wigglies. They’re hungry, and in a moment they’ll be all over the girl, sucking up their supper. Just had a brainwave this afternoon. I have a couple of them secured on threads. Maybe you noticed. I intend to insert them, one at a time, into the child’s throat where they’ll feast on that bloody phlegm that’s choking her. I can pull them out when they’re sated. Now let’s get on with it.”

  Kerr moves towards the staircase. White follows. What am I to do? I know one thing: I cannot put dear little Mary through this horror.

  Mary’s bed faces the open door. The girl is lying, eyes closed, apparently at rest. Miss Russell is at her bedside, holding her hand.

  Mary opens her eyes. She’s probably heard their footsteps. “No, no, Aunt,” she screams. “No, no, no!” With the screams comes the thick, bloody phlegm, spewing forth over the bedsheets.

  White says: “Stay here, Kerr. Before you go one step farther, we must speak with the girl’s aunt.” He gestures to Miss Russell to come into the hallway where he speaks to her in an undertone. “We cannot make the child more miserable. You have called for Dr. Kerr. He has come. But now you must tell him to leave.”

  “Do not listen to this man,” Kerr says. “I know what to do. Purging and bleeding form my credo. Purging and bleeding. Bleeding and purging. Get rid of the foul humours in your niece’s body. She will be better in the m
orning.”

  White tips the birch bark container towards Miss Russell so she can see its contents. She recoils in horror.

  “Think of these leeches on her arms and throat,” he says. “And in the teapot that Dr. Kerr holds is a solution of calomel. You know the word, ma’am. You know that it loosens the bowels. Mary is a wraith now. What will happen when she loses more of her bodily fluids with this barbaric treatment?”

  Miss Russell has stepped away from the doctor. She folds her arms across her chest and takes a deep breath, seeming to summon courage. “I thank you for a-coming, Dr. Kerr. Send your bill, however dear it be. My brother Peter will pay. But go now.”

  Kerr hovers for a moment. Then he grabs the leeches, turns, and clatters down the staircase. They listen to the kitchen door slam shut.

  Mary has heard it, too. She has stopped crying. White and Miss Russell tiptoe into her bedchamber. The child is lying back against her pillow, eyes closed again. There is a ghastly pallor on her face, and her nightdress is damp with sweat. Her breathing is forced, coming through her mouth in squeaks like a flute. But she opens her eyes, and seeing White, says, smiling, “Oh, Uncle Peter, you have come at last. And you sent that horrible man away. Thank you.”

  White moves close to the girl. “Yes, I am here, Mary.”

  “Uncle Peter, the pigeons . . . there were so many they hid the clouds . . . so beautiful . . . I see them now . . . I’m flying away with them . . .”

  Her voice trails off. Her eyes close. The phlegm seems to boil in her throat and a bloody, slimy, scabby matter dribbles down her chin. Then there is the silence of death.

  * * *