“Madame, I can promise you nothing. I don’t know. No one knows. We must simply admit that we don’t understand it—we’re helpless. Sometimes they die in an hour—sometimes it takes days. Sometimes it’s easy, without a convulsion, other times they go in a screaming agony. The strong and healthy are as vulnerable as the frail and weak. What have you been giving him to eat?”
“Nothing. He refuses everything I try to feed him. And he vomits so often it wouldn’t do any good.” “Nevertheless, he must eat. Force it down him someway, and feed him often—every three or four hours. Give him eggs and meat-broth and wine-caudles. And you must keep him as hot as possible. Wrap him in all the warm blankets you have and don’t let him throw them off. Heat some bricks and pack them at his feet. If you have some stone water-bottles use those. Start a good fire and don’t let it go out. He must be induced to sweat as profusely as possible. And make a poultice for the boil—you can use vinegar and honey and figs if you have them and some brown bread-crumbs and plenty of mustard. If he throws it off tie it on someway, and keep it there. Unless the boil can be brought to break and run he’ll have but little chance of recovery. Give him a strong emetic—antimony in white wine will do, or whatever you may have on hand, and a clyster. That’s all I can tell you. And you, madame—how are you?”
“I feel well enough, except that I’m tired. I had to stay up most of the night.”
“I’ll report the case to the parish and a nurse will be sent to help you. To protect yourself I’d advise you to steep some bay-leaves or juniper in vinegar and breathe the fumes several times a day.” He turned and started to go and Amber, though keeping an eye on Bruce, walked along with him. “And by the way, madame, you’d better hide whatever valuables you may have in the house before the nurse arrives.”
“Good Lord! What kind of a nurse are you sending?”
“The parish has to take whoever volunteers—we have too few already—and though some of them are honest enough, the truth of it is that most of them are not.” He had reached the anteroom now and just before he started down the steps he said: “If the plague-spots appear—you may as well send for the sexton to ring the bell. No one can help them after that. I’ll stop again tomorrow.” Even as he spoke they heard the bells begin to toll, somewhere in the distance, two tenor notes struck for a woman. “It’s the vengeance of God upon us for our sins. Well—good-day, madame.”
Amber went back and set immediately about her new tasks, for tired as she was she was glad to have work to do. It helped her to keep from thinking, and each thing that she did for him gave her a sense of satisfaction and accomplishment.
She poured some of the water which she kept hot in the kitchen into several stone bottles, wrapped them in towels and packed them all about him, and she brought out half-a-dozen more blankets from the nursery. He protested, pushing them down again and again, but each time, patiently, she covered him and went on with what she had been doing. The sweat began to run off his face in rivers, and the sheets beneath him were soaked and yellow. The fire roared and she heaped it with coals, making the room so hot that though she took off her petticoat, pushed her sleeves high and opened her gown, the silk clung to her ribs and there were wet spots beneath her breasts and in her arm-pits. She pulled the heavy hair up off her neck and skewered it on top of her head, and she mopped at her face and chest with a handkerchief.
She poured the emetic into his mouth and then, without waiting for it to take effect, administered the clyster. This was a difficult and painful process, but Amber was beyond either disgust or fastidiousness—she did what was necessary as well as she could, and without thinking about it. Afterwards she cleaned up the mess it had made, washed her hands, and went out to the kitchen to prepare the mustard-plaster and to make a sack-posset of hot milk, sugar and spices and white wine.
He made no protest when she laid the poultice on the boil and did not seem to know that it was there. Relieved—for she had been afraid that it might hurt him—she went back to finish making the posset.
She tasted the curdled drink, sprinkled on just a bit more cinnamon, and then tasted again. It was good. She poured it into the double-spouted posset pot and started for the bedroom. At that moment she heard a yell, a strange terrible sound that sent a quivering chill along her spine. Then there was a thud and a loud crash.
