Jan Burke - Eighteen

“Pay no attention to him,” I said, smoothing his fair hair from his damp forehead. His eyes were bright, and his cheeks ruddy, but he was far too frail for a six-year-old boy. His cough was growing worse. He needed his sleep, but Winston’s talk of vampires had frightened him. I tried to keep my anger at our neighbor’s thoughtlessness from my voice. “Mother loved you, and would never harm you, you know that, Nate. And she’s up in heaven, with all the angels. You must not worry so. Just try to get well.”

“But Mr. Winston said-”

“Mr. Winston is a mean-spirited old busy-body,” I said with some exasperation. “He only means to frighten you, Nate.”

Nathan said nothing, but frowned, as if making a decision. After a while he took hold of my hand. “I’m glad you’ve come home, Johnny,” he whispered. “I know you wish you were away at school-”

“No, Sprout, I could not wish to be anywhere else if you need me.”

He smiled at the nickname. “You’ll stay with me tonight, won’t you?”

“Of course I’ll stay with you,” I said, and reached into one of my pockets. “And see here-I’m armed-look what I’ve brought with me!”

“The slingshot I made for you!”

“Yes, and I’ve gathered a few stones for ammunition,” I said, winking at him. “So you’re safe now. Only get some sleep, Sprout. I’ll stay right here.”

He slept soundly. Noah came in to spell me, even though I protested I would be fine. “I know,” he whispered, “but please go downstairs to see to Father, Johnny. Try to talk him into getting some sleep.”

Downstairs, my father stood near a window, looking out into the moonlit night. I thought he looked more haggard than I had ever seen him. The previous year had taken a great toll on him, and when Nathan fell ill early in 1892, Father could barely take care of himself, let alone a small boy with consumption. So I came home from the private school for which my godfather had so generously paid my tuition; my instructors had been understanding-my family, they knew, had suffered greatly of late. Even though this was not the first occasion upon which I had been called home, my marks were high and I was well ahead of most of my classmates in my studies; the headmaster assured me that I would be allowed to return.

I found my father greatly changed-indeed, Arden Farm itself seemed changed. Winter was the time he usually pruned the trees, but now as I stood next to him at the window, I saw the sucker branches reaching sharply into the winter sky, casting strange shadows everywhere.

“Half my orchard has been felled,” he remarked, and I knew he was not talking of the trees, but of the toll consumption had taken on his family. “First Rebecca, then Robert and Daniel. Last month, your mother-dearest Sarah! I’ve said prayers and made my peace with the Lord. And still he wants more. Is this my God?”

“Noah and I are healthy,” I replied, trying to keep his spirits up. “And Julia is with her husband in Peacedale. She’s well.”

From the other room, we heard the sound of Nathan’s cough. “Now my youngest!” my father said.

“Noah and I will care for Nathan. He’ll get better.”

But neither of us could easily hope that Nathan would recover. Too many times in the past year, consumption had robbed us of those we loved. Ten-year-old Rebecca’s cough started early in 1891, and her illness progressed slowly at first. She rallied in the spring, and we thought all would be well. But in August, the cough came back. She was soon coughing up blood-we knew she would not live long after the blood started. By the end of the month, she was dead.

Robert and Daniel, my older brothers, took ill the week before Rebecca’s funeral. Mother wrote to me less often, her time taken up with care of them. When she did write, her letters were filled with news of neighbors who had also taken ill, or of the advice given to her by Dr. Ashford. “He tells me to give to them fresh air, to keep them clean, to change their clothes often,” she wrote. “I confess to you, dear John, that I am quite worn down-each day, I take them outdoors, read to them, and try to keep their spirits up. This is the most difficult of all my duties. They miss Rebecca, and they know their own symptoms are identical to hers. Still, I will do all I can to keep my boys alive. God keep you safe, John!”

But despite all her efforts, by October, I came home again-for Robert’s funeral. And thus I was there, three days later, when Daniel told us he had dreamt of Rebecca and Robert.

“They were here, sitting on my bed. They weren’t sick. They said I had helped them to get better.” Two days later, he passed away during the night.

I returned to school, but Mother’s letters grew fewer still. I thought it was grief that kept her from writing, but when I came home for the Christmas holidays, I immediately realized that the cause was otherwise-the wracking cough of consumption was no longer an unfamiliar sound to any of us.

“Why did you not tell me?” I asked my father.

“She did not want us to take you from your school,” he said. “She has come to believe you will be safer there than here.”

I hurried to her bedside. She looked so thin and weak.

“John, you are home!” she whispered to me as I sat beside her. “Rebecca, Daniel, and Robert are with the Lord. I’ll be with them soon. They are good children. They’ll not bother me. I have not dreamt of them. They won’t come and take me.”

“What does she mean?” I asked my father, when she fell asleep again.

“Winston!” he said angrily. “He’s all about the village, telling everyone that the consumption is caused by vampires.”

“Vampires!”

“Yes. He tells his tales to any who will hear him. Gets the most ignorant of them to believe that the spirits of the dead consume the living, and thus the living are weakened!”

“But surely no one believes such things!”

“In the absence of any cure, do you blame them for grasping at any explanation offered to them? Grief and fear will lead men to strange ways, Johnny, and Winston can persuade like the devil himself!”

“Yes, he was ever one to seek attention,” I agreed.

“He has gained a great deal of it during this crisis,” my father said. “And the rituals he has driven some of the more superstitious ones to perform! It sickens me!” He shivered in disgust.

Mother died two nights after Christmas, as Father held her, singing hymns to her. The next day, he dressed her in her favorite dress and sent word to the undertaker. The stonecarver had already completed her headstone, and her burial place had long been chosen.

Noah wrote to me of Nathan’s illness in late January of 1892, and I hurried home again. That first night back, as I studied my father’s face, etched in grief, I saw that my mother’s death had wounded him even more deeply than I had imagined. I had never doubted their love or devotion to one another, but I had not before realized how much of his strength must have come from her. If this great man could be made so weak, what would become of us? I suddenly felt as small and frightened as a boy of Nathan’s age.

“Papa!” I said, placing a hand on his shoulder.

He looked at me and smiled a little. “It is some time since you called me ‘Papa.’”

“You-you need your sleep,” I said. “Won’t you go up to bed?”

The smile faded. “So empty, that room…” he murmured.

“Please, it’s so late and you seem so tired-”

“I cannot-I will not be able to sleep there.”

Understanding dawned. “Then I’ll make a place up for you here, near the fire. But you must sleep. Please. Nathan and Noah need you. I need you.”

And so he consented, but when I left him to go back to Nathan, he was staring into the fire.