Andrea Barrett - Ship Fever - Stories

For a minute Annie considered making her wait downstairs, but Mr. Rowley was so changed these days, and so distraught, that she dared not risk offending him. Suppose the girl was a friend of someone he’d met on his travels? Grudgingly, she said, “You can wait here in the hall, I suppose. But it may be some time.” She opened the door wider and led Nora in, pointing out a stiff brocaded chair. “Your name?”

“Nora Kynd. Please tell him I have a message from a friend.” Just as Annie was about to say, “Don’t you go touching anything here,” Nora said, “From his friend Dr. Lauchlin Grant.”

Annie drew back at the mention of Dr. Grant’s name. “You haven’t come from that island?”

“I have,” Nora said proudly. “I worked there all summer. I was one of Dr. Grant’s assistants.”

“Are you…sick?” Annie whispered. “Have you brought the fever back to this house?”

“Of course not,” Nora said. “I had the fever back in the spring, and recovered — you know you can’t get it twice.” She brushed her arm over her cloak and dress. “These are all newly boiled, completely cleaned. I touched nothing on the island after I changed.”

“I’ll tell Mr. Rowley you’re here,” Annie said. She opened another door, into a nearby room.

Nora could hear the sounds of men arguing in there, a constant rumble that broke only for a second when Annie interrupted them. Annie returned, said, “Mr. Rowley will be a while,” and disappeared again. She forgot to close the door to the library behind her, and so left Nora inadvertently eavesdropping.

No faces, only voices; fragments of statements from which she might try to deduce an attitude, a person. One of those voices, she supposed, belonged to Mr. Rowley. She waited on her stiff chair, wondering where Mrs. Rowley was. Wondering if Mr. Rowley had any idea of the relationship between his wife and Lauchlin; wondering what she would do with the things in her satchel if Mrs. Rowley did not appear and Mr. Rowley asked leave to pass them on to his wife. Was he the sort of man who’d consider his wife’s belongings private? Or the sort who’d think his wife’s possessions were his, as his wife was his possession?

As she studied the cut glass and the gleaming furniture, the knot of voices began to unravel and isolated phrases floated free. The men were forming some committee, or had already formed it and now were drawing up resolutions. Someone mentioned the Lord Ashburton ; someone mentioned an article yet another someone had written about the terrible conditions aboard that ship. Someone reminded someone else of the recent deaths of both the mayor of Montreal and the Catholic bishop of Toronto. A man with a harsh, carrying voice said, “The stringent measures adopted by the Government of the United States have driven the poorer classes in Ireland to the more tedious but less expensive route up the St. Lawrence, with the result that a large mass of indolence, pauperism, destitution and disease has been thrown upon us.”

“Fine,” another man said. “That’s fine, we’ll end the summary with that. Now for the measures we recommend, to prevent a recurrence of the catastrophe next year—”

“Point number one,” said a man with a fresh, light voice. “The emigration tax must be increased.”

“No, no, no,” said the harsh-voiced man. “We will list that second, even third. Most important is that we demand regulation of accommodations aboard the ships. No more than two tiers of berths six feet in length by eighteen inches in width, in the orlop deck no more than—”

Still other voices broke in. “A medical attendant must be present for every one hundred passengers—”

“Effective means for ventilation and cleanliness between decks must be assured—”

On and on the men went, throwing out numbers and rules and restrictions, suggestions, demands, and pleas. Nora balanced on her straight-backed chair, gazing at the blue-and-white glazed vases and the framed arrangements of flowers made from shells while the men began to argue about money. A great deal had been expended by the province in caring for the sick and destitute emigrants, she heard. A much smaller amount had been received in emigration tax receipts. Who had paid, was paying, would pay?

“Water, twenty-one quarts per week per passenger,” someone said. “Specifications must be laid down for all provisions. Biscuits, two and a half pounds; oatmeal, five pounds; two pounds molasses…”

“Rice,” someone added. “Don’t forget an allotment of rice.”

Would she have sickened, if she’d been given all that food on the bark? Would Ned and Denis have been stronger? She wished she had bought another muffin in the market and had the sense to stow it in her pocket. Had her father been here, she thought, he would have skipped the muffins and pocketed some of the expensive trinkets littering the tables. His right, he would have thought. They had it, he needed it. He would not have seen, as he had not back home, that the rich believed he had a right to nothing.

A voice she hadn’t heard before, clear and yet somehow tired, said, “We have to keep in mind that the point isn’t to discourage emigration of these poor people — what else are they supposed to do? Where else can they go, so long as this famine lasts? The point is to make their voyage more humane, and to make better arrangements for them once they’re here.”

The harsh-voiced man disagreed. “That you of all people should say that…no, we want to reduce the numbers as well as ameliorate the emigrants’ passage.”

“You’ll excuse me for a minute. I have someone waiting to see me.” And then Nora heard footsteps coming her way and a man wearing a beautiful fawn-colored coat suddenly stood before her.

“Miss Kynd?” he said. His features were youthful, but his face was pale and drawn. “I’m sorry to keep you waiting. I’m Arthur Adam Rowley. How may I help you?”

He was shockingly young, hardly older than herself although his poise and grace were those of an older generation. Perfectly groomed, and somehow very sad. She rose from her chair. “I’m sorry to interrupt you,” she said. “I have a message for your wife.”

His face, already pale, blanched further. But his voice continued courteous and controlled. “My wife is very ill,” he said. “Of this fever that’s come in the ships. Perhaps you could give the message to me.”

Nora silently cursed both her clumsiness and Annie’s secretive nature. “I’m sorry,” she said. “Would you have known Dr. Lauchlin Grant?” Still, surprisingly, it gave her a horrible pain to speak his name.

“Of course. We were good friends. How did you know him?”

Briefly, Nora told him the story of how Lauchlin had found her and saved her, and how she’d gone to work for him on Grosse Isle and then cared for him during his illness. “Dr. Douglas has packed up his books and most of his belongings for his father,” Nora said. “They’ll be shipped to the house soon. But he had a few small personal things with him, and he told me he wanted Mrs. Rowley — and you, too, of course — to have them if he died.”

She lied here: he had told her no such thing. She had made this up on her own when she cleaned his office the day after his death. During the worst of his fever he had several times called out Susannah’s name, and she had linked this to the woman Dr. Douglas had mentioned, and then to the “Mrs. Rowley” Lauchlin had spoken of when he returned from his one brief leave. Although she was unable to read Lauchlin’s journal, she had seen him write in it so often that she believed it to be both important and personal. And surely the woman he thought of above all others during his last days deserved to have it.