“Can I have a chaise?” inquired a young lady, on being set down by the
coach at the Cross Keys, at O——.
“Yes, ma’am, certainly,” replied the neat landlady.
“How far do you call it to Bleaburn?”
“To Bleaburn, ma’am! It is six miles. But, ma’am, you are not going to
Bleaburn, surely.”
“Indeed I am. Why not?”
“Because of the fever, ma’am. There never was anything heard of like it.
You cannot go there, I assure you, ma’am, and I could not think of
sending a chaise there. Neither of my post-boys would go.”
“One of them shall take me as near as is safe, then. I dare say we shall
find somebody who will take care of my little trunk till I can send for
it.”
“The cordon would take care of your trunk, if that were all, but—”
“The what?” interrupted the young lady.
“The cordon, they call it, ma’am. To preserve ourselves, we have set
people to watch on the moor above, to prevent anybody from Bleaburn
coming among us, to spread the fever. Ma’am, it is worse than anything
you ever heard of.”
“Not worse than the plague,” thought Mary Pickard, in whose mind now
rose up all she had read and heard of the horrors of the great plague,
and all the longing she had felt when a child to have been a clergyman
at such a time, or at least, a physician, to give comfort to numbers in
their extremity.
“Indeed, ma’am,” resumed the landlady, “you cannot go there. By what I
hear, there are very few now that are not dead, or down in the fever.”
“Then they will want me the more,” said Mary Pickard. “I must go and see
my aunt. I wrote to her that I should go; and she may want me more than
I thought.”
“Have you an aunt living at Bleaburn?” asked the landlady, in some
surprise. “I did not know that there was any lady living at Bleaburn. I
thought they had been all poor people there.”
“I believe my aunt is poor,” said Mary. “I have heard nothing of her for
several years, except merely that she was living at Bleaburn. She had
the education of a gentlewoman; but I believe her husband became a
common labourer before he died. I am from America, and my name is Mary
Pickard, and my aunt’s name is Johnson; and I shall be glad if you can
tell me anything about her, if this fever is really raging as you say. I
must see her before I go home to America.”
“You see, ma’am, if you go,” said the landlady, contemplating the little
trunk, “you will not be able to come away again while the fever lasts.”
“And you think I shall not have clothes enough,” said Mary, smiling. “I
packed my box for a week only, but I dare say I can manage. If everybody
was ill, I could wash my clothes myself. I have done such a thing with
less reason. Or, I could send to London for more. I suppose one can get
at a post-office.”
“Through the cordon, I dare say you might, ma’am. But, really, I don’t
know that there is anybody at Bleaburn that can write a letter, except
the clergyman and the doctor and one or two more.”
“My aunt can,” said Mary, “and it is because she does not answer our
letters, that I am so anxious to see her. You did not tell me whether
you know her name,—Johnson.”
“A widow, I think you said, ma’am.” And the landlady called to the
ostler to ask him if he knew anything of a Widow Johnson, who lived at
Bleaburn. Will Ostler said there was a woman of that name who was the
mother of Silly Jem. “Might that be she?” Mary had never heard of Silly
Jem; but when she found that Widow Johnson had a daughter, some years
married, that she had white hair, and strong black eyes, and a strong
face altogether, and that she seldom spoke, she had little doubt that
one so like certain of her relations was her aunt. The end of it was
that Mary went to Bleaburn. She ordered the chaise herself, leaving it
to the landlady to direct the post-boy where to set her down; she
appealed to the woman’s good feelings to aid her if she should find that
wine, linen or other comforts were necessary at Bleaburn, and she could
not be allowed to come and buy them: explained that she was far from
rich, and told the exact sum which she at present believed she should be
justified in spending on behalf of the sick; and gave a reference to a
commercial house in London. She did not tell—and indeed she gave only a
momentary thought to it herself—that the sum of money she had mentioned
was that which she had saved up to take her to Scotland, to see some
friends of her family, and travel through the Highlands. As she was
driven off from the gateway of the Cross Keys, nodding and smiling from
the chaise window in turning the corner, the landlady ceased from
commanding the post-boy on no account to go beyond the brow, and said to
herself that this Miss Pickard was the most wilful young lady she had
ever known, but that she could not help liking her, too. She did not
seem to value her life any more than a pin; and yet she appeared
altogether cheerful and sensible. If the good woman had been able to see
into Mary’s heart, she would have discovered that she had the best
reason in the world for valuing life very much indeed: but she had been
so accustomed, all her life, to help everybody that needed it, that she
naturally went straight forward into the business, without looking at
difficulties or dangers, on the right hand or the left.
Mary never, while she lived, forgot this drive. Her tone of mind was, no
doubt, high, though she was unconscious of it. It was a splendid August
evening, and she had never before seen moorland. In America, she had
travelled among noble inland forests, and a hard granite region near the
coasts of New England: but the wide-spreading brown and green moorland,
with its pools of clear brown water glittering in the evening sunshine,
and its black cocks popping out of the heather, and running into the
hollows, was quite new to her. She looked down, two or three times, into
a wooded dell where grey cottages were scattered among the coppices, and
a little church tower rose above them; but the swelling ridges of the
moor, with the tarns between, immediately attracted her eye again.
“Surely,” thought she, “the cordon will let me walk on the moor in the
afternoons, if I go where I cannot infect any body. With a walk in such
places as these every day, I am sure I could go through any thing.”
This seemed very rational beforehand. It never entered Mary’s head that
for a long while to come, she should never once have leisure for a walk.
“Yon’s the cordon,” said the post-boy, at last, pointing with his whip.
“What do you understand by a cordon?”
“Them people that you may see there. I don’t know why they call them so;
for I don’t hear that they do anything with a cord.”
“Perhaps it is because there is a French word—_cordon_—that means any
thing that encloses any other thing. They would call your hat band a
cordon, and an officer’s sash, and a belt of trees round a park. So, I
suppose these people surround poor Bleaburn and let nobody out.”
“May be so,” said the man, “but I don’t see why we should go to the
French for our words or anything else, when we have everything better of
our own. For my part, I shall be beholden to the French for no word, now
I know of it. I shall call them people the watch, or something of that
like.”
“I think I will call them messengers,” said Mary: “and that will sound
least terrible to the people below. They do go on errands, do not
they,—and take and send parcels and messages?”
“They are paid to do it, Miss: but they put it upon one another, or get
out of the way, if they can,—they are so afraid of the fever, you
see.——I think we must stop here, please, Miss. I could go a little
nearer, only, you see—.”
“I see that you are afraid of the fever too,” said Mary, with a smile,
as she jumped out upon the grass. One of the sentinels was within hail.
Glad of the relief from the dulness of his watch, he came with alacrity,
took charge of the little trunk, and offered to show the lady, from the
brow, the way down the hollow to the village.
The post-boy stood, with his money in his hand, watching the retreating
lady, till, under a sudden impulse, he hailed her. Looking round, she
saw him running towards her, casting a momentary glance back at his
horses. He wanted to try once more to persuade her to return to O——. He
should be so happy to drive her back, out of the way of danger. His
employer would be so glad to see her again! When he perceived that it
was no use talking, he went on touching his hat, while he begged her to
take back the shilling she had just given him. It would make his mind
easier, he said, not to take money for bringing any lady to such a
place. Mary saw that this was true; and she took back the shilling,
promising that it should be spent in the service of some poor sick
person.
As Mary descended into the hollow, she was struck with the quiet beauty
of the scene. The last sun-blaze rushed level along the upper part of
the cleft, while the lower part lay in deep shadow. While she was
descending a steep slope, with sometimes grass, and sometimes grey rock,
by the roadside, the opposite height rose precipitous; and from chinks
in its brow, little drips of water fell or oozed down, calling into life
ferns, and grass, and ivy, in every moist crevice. Near the top, there
were rows of swallow-holes; and the birds were at this moment all at
play in the last glow of the summer day, now dipping into the shaded
dell, down to the very surface of the water, and then sprinkling the
grey precipice with their darting shadows. Below, when Mary reached the
bridge, she thought all looked shadowy in more senses than one. The
first people she saw were some children, excessively dirty, who were
paddling about in a shallow pool, which was now none of the sweetest,
having been filled by the spring overflow, and gradually drying up ever
since. Mary called to these children from the bridge, to ask where Widow
Johnson lived. She could learn nothing more than that she must proceed;
for, if the creatures had not been almost too boorish to speak, she
could have made nothing of the Yorkshire dialect, on the first
encounter. In the narrow street, every window seemed closed, and even
the shutters of some. She could see nobody in the first two or three
shops that she passed; but, at the baker’s, a woman was sitting at work.
On the entrance of a stranger, she looked up in surprise; and, when at
the door, to point out the turn down to Widow Johnson’s, she remained
there, with her work on her arm, to watch the lady up the street. The
doctor, quickening his pace, came up, saying,
“Who was that you were speaking to?—A lady wanting Widow Johnson! What a
very extraordinary thing! Did you tell her the fever had got there?”
“Yes, Sir.”
“What did she say?”
“She said she must go and nurse them.”
“Do you mean that she is going to stay here?”
“I suppose so, by her talking of nursing them. She says Widow Johnson is
her aunt.”
“O! that’s it! I have heard that Mrs. Johnson came of a good family. But
what a good creature this must be—that is, if she knows what she is
about. If she is off before morning, I shall think it was a vision,
dropped down out of the clouds. Eh?”
“She is not handsome enough to be an angel, or anything of that kind,”
said the baker’s wife.
“O! isn’t she? I did not see her face. But it is all the better, if she
is not very like an angel. She is all the more likely to stay and nurse
the Johnsons. Upon my word, they are lucky people if she does. I must go
and pay my respects to her presently.—Do look now—at the doors all along
the street, on both sides the way! I have not seen so many people at
once for weeks past;—for, you know, I have no time to go to church in
these days.”
“You would not see many people, if you went. See! some of the children
are following her! It is long since they have seen a young lady, in a
white gown, and with a smile on her face, in our street. There she goes,
past the corner; she has taken the right turn.”
“I will just let her get the meeting over, and settle herself a little,”
said the doctor; “and then I will go and pay my respects to her.”
The little rabble of dirty children followed Mary round the corner,
keeping in the middle of the lane, and at some distance behind. When she
turned to speak to them, they started and fled, as they might have done,
if she had been a ghost. But when she laughed, they returned cautiously;
and all their brown forefingers pointed the same way at once, when she
made her final inquiry about which was the cottage she wanted. Two
little boys were pushed forward by the rest; and it transpired that
these were grandchildren of Widow Johnson.
“Is she your granny?” said Mary. “Then, I am your cousin. Come with me;
and if granny is very much surprised to see me, you must tell her that I
am your cousin Mary.”
The boys, however, had no notion of entering the cottage. They slipped
away, and hid themselves behind it; and Mary had to introduce herself.
After knocking in vain for some time, she opened the door, and looked
in. No one was in the room but a man, whom she at once recognised for
Silly Jem. He was half-standing, half-sitting, against the table by the
wall, rolling his head from side to side. By no mode of questioning
could Mary obtain a word from him. The only thing he did was to throw a
great log of wood on the fire, when she observed what a large fire he
had. She tried to take it off again; but this he would not permit. The
room was insufferably hot and close. The only window was beside the
door; so that there was no way of bringing a current of fresh air
through the room. Mary tried to open the window; but it was not made to
open, except that a small pane at the top, three inches square, went
upon hinges. As soon as Mary had opened it, however, poor Jem went and
shut it. Within this kitchen, was a sort of closet for stores; and this
was the whole of the lower floor. Mary opened one other door, and found
within it a steep, narrow stair, down which came a sickening puff of
hot, foul air. She went up softly, and Jem slammed the door behind her.
It seemed as if it was the business of his life to shut everything.
Groping her way, Mary came to a small chamber, which she surveyed for an
instant from the stair, before showing herself within. There was no
ceiling; and long cobwebs hung from the rafters. A small window, two
feet from the floor, and curtained with a yellow and tattered piece of
muslin, was the only break in the wall. On the deal table stood a phial
or two, and a green bottle, which was presently found to contain rum. A
turn-up bedstead, raised only a foot from the floor, was in a corner;
and on it lay some one who was very restless, feebly throwing off the
rug, which was immediately replaced by a sleepy woman who dozed between
times in a chair that boasted a patchwork cushion. Mary doubted whether
the large black eyes which stared forth from the pillow had any sense in
them. She went to see.
“Aunty,” said she, going to the bed, and gently taking one of the wasted
hands that lay outside. “I am come to nurse you.”
The poor patient made a strong effort to collect herself, and to speak.
She did not want anybody. She should do very well. This was no place for
strangers. She was too ill to see strangers, and so on; but, from time
to time, a few wandering words about her knowing best how to choose a
husband for herself—her having a right to marry as she pleased—or of
insisting that her relations would go their own way in the world, and
leave her hers—showed Mary that she was recognised, and what feelings
she had to deal with.
“She knows where I came from; but she takes me for my mother or my
grandmother,” thought she. “If she grows clear in mind, we shall be
friends on our own account. If she remains delirious, she will become
used to the sight of me. I must take matters into my own hands at once.”
The first step was difficult. Coolness and fresh air were wanted above
everything. But there was no chimney; the window would not open; poor
Jem would not let any door remain open for a moment; and the sleepy
neighbour was one of those who insist upon warm bedclothes, large fires,
and hot spirit-and-water, in fever cases. She was got rid of by being
paid to find somebody who would go for Mary’s trunk, and bring it here
before dark. She did her best to administer another dose of rum before
she tied on her bonnet; but as the patient turned away her head with
disgust, Mary interposed her hand. The dram was offered to her, and, as
she would not have it, the neighbour showed the only courtesy then
possible, by drinking Mary’s health, and welcome to Bleaburn. The woman
had some sharpness. She could see that if she took Jem with her, and put
the trunk on his shoulder, she should get the porter’s fee herself,
instead of giving it to some rude boy; and, as Mary observed, would be
doing a kindness to Jem in taking him for a pleasant evening walk. Thus
the coast was cleared. In little more than half-an-hour they would be
back. Mary made the most of her time.
She set the doors below wide open, and lowered the fire. She would fain
have put on some water to boil, for it appeared to her that everybody
and everything wanted washing extremely. But she could find no water,
but some which seemed to have been used—which was, at all events, not
fit for use now. For water she must wait till somebody came. About air,
she did one thing more—a daring thing. She had a little diamond ring on
her finger. With this, without noise and quickly, she cut so much of two
small panes of the chamber-window as to be able to take them clean out;
and then she rubbed the neighbouring panes bright enough to hide, as she
hoped, an act which would be thought mad. When she looked round again at
Aunty, she could fancy that there was a somewhat clearer look about the
worn face, and a little less dulness in the eye. But this might be
because she herself felt less sick now that fresh air was breathing up
the stairs.
There was something else upon the stairs—the tread of some one coming
up. It was the doctor. He said he came to pay his respects to the lady
before him, as well as to visit his patient. It was no season for losing
time, and doctor and nurse found in a minute that they should agree very
well about the treatment of the patient. Animated by finding that he
should no longer be wholly alone in his terrible wrestle with disease
and death, the doctor did things which he could not have believed he
should have courage for. He even emptied out the rum-bottle, and hurled
it away into the bed of the stream. The last thing he did was to turn up
his cuffs, and actually bring in two pails of water with his own hands.
He promised (and kept his promise) to send his boy with a supply of
vinegar, and a message to the neighbour that she was wanted elsewhere,
that Mary might have liberty to refresh the patient, without being
subject to the charge of murdering her. “A charge, however,” said he,
“which I fully expect will be brought against any one of us who knows
how to nurse. I confess they have cowed me. In sheer despair, I have let
them take their own way pretty much. But now we must see what can be
done.”
“Yes,” said Mary. “It is fairly our turn now. We must try how we can cow
the fever.”