Fever 1793 (17 page)

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long would Eliza keep me, a day maybe, a week if I were lucky? She had her own family to worry about. I needed to do right by Nell and go back to my own home. I had my feet under me now. I knew how to walk.

One good thing about not being able to sleep was that I remembered to wake Nell and have her do her business in the chamber pot. I was just rucking her in long after midnight when Eliza came home. She was too weary to speak.

I rose early and kept the children quiet by serving them breakfast outside. I didn't care if anyone thought it improper. Philadelphia was long past worrying about where children ate their bread, and Eliza needed to sleep. She joined us outside with a cup of tea when she finally woke.

"I don't know when I last slept so much," she said. "Thank you for taking care of the children." She bent over to give Robert and William a kiss. "You seem to have the day well in hand, Miss Mattie." She stopped. Nell was tugging at Eliza's dress. "What do you want, honeybee?"

Nell pointed to her forehead.

"She wants you to kiss her, like you did the boys," I said.

Eliza's laughter sounded clean and strong. She swooped Nell off the ground and gave her a big hug and kiss on the cheek before setting her on the ground to play with the boys. The three of them were chasing a raggy-tailed rooster around the courtyard.

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I scuffed a pebble across the street. "That rooster should be in a pen," I said. "He might hurt the children."

"Nonsense," said Eliza. "He won't hurt anything. Why is your face so long?"

I scuffed another pebble. "I need to take Nell to the orphan house. The more I put it off, the harder it will be."

Eliza sat on the stoop. "Mother Smith has been talking to you."

I nodded. "She's right. I know she's right. But it's so hard to think about next week or next month. Look at her. She is happy today. I'm ... I'm happy today. I don't think we're a burden, are we?"

Eliza shook her head. "But."

"But. I can't just think about today. I have to think ahead. Even if Mother is alive, she won't want another girl child to raise up. She's only just finished with me, and heaven knows that was hard enough. And what if Mother isn't alive?" I raised my hand as Eliza started to speak. "You know it's possible. I've tried to avoid thinking about it, but I can't. In any event, Nell needs to go. I don't want to, but it would be better for her."

The rooster hopped into the air, flapping his wings and sending feathers everywhere. The children shrieked and ran in circles.

Eliza stood up. "If you've made up your mind, then we should leave right now. No telling what the future will bring. I'll get my hat. The boys can stay here with Joseph."

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I felt like an turncoat, a traitor. Nell walked between us for a few blocks, then asked me to carry her. She wasn't over losing her mother; that would take a long time, but she seemed content enough to be with me. I knew Eliza's eyes were on me, but she kept her thoughts to herself. I tried to force my thoughts away from the heartbreak. It was impossible. We walked past blocks of empty houses along streets that felt abandoned. I am not abandoning Nell, I told myself sternly; I'm doing the right thing, no matter how much it hurts.

The orphan house appeared much too soon. It looked forbidding, though I knew that was nonsense. It was just a house, a building for unfortunate children. You are doing the right thing, I told myself. It's best for Nell. It's best for Nell.

The woman who answered the door held one screaming infant in her arms and had two crying toddlers grabbing at her skirts. I had to shout to make myself heard above the noise. She bounced up and down, trying to quiet the child in her arms while patting the heads of the others. She looked like a carved whirligig toy with six flying arms and a hopping head.

"I've brought this girl," I began. My throat closed and tears welled up in my eyes.
Don't be such a ninny,
I scolded myself.

"Not another one!" The woman's eyes widened. "Shush, shush, I can't pick you all up at the same time,"

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she said
to the crying children, who all needed to blow their noses. She looked at me with desperate eyes. "I'm sorry, that was rude." She shifted the baby to her other shoulder. "Is that the girl?" She motioned toward Nell with her elbow.

I nodded. I still couldn't speak.

"A fever orphan?"

One more nod.

"Is there no one who could take her? This house is just bursting with children right now. Mrs. Bowles, she's in charge here, she's meeting with the mayor s committee right now explaining how we need more space and more money to feed the little ones." One of the children at her feet pushed the other, who exploded into howls. The woman raised her voice to be heard. "I told her the mayor's committee should hold its meeting here. Then they'd give us what we need." She bent down and tried to calm the injured child with her free hand.

I cleared my throat. "You don't have room for more children?"

"This is better than the street," she answered. "But we are very crowded right now, that's the truth. We can't send letters to relatives who might want to help, because the mail isn't being delivered." She bent down and picked up the toddler who was crying the loudest. She had to raise her voice to be heard over the racket. "If you know of anyone who will care for her, then you should take her there. This has become the house of last resort."

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Nell looked up at me, her eyes as clear as the sky. She trusted me to do what was right for her. I felt the grip on my heart relax. I looked to Eliza.

"Seems she's better off with you," Eliza noted.

I wanted to dance. "Thank you," I told the harried woman. "Thank you, thank you. Good luck, I mean, best wishes. Good-bye." I dashed down the steps before she could change her mind.

Eliza struggled to catch up with me. "Slow down, slow down. You'll wear yourself out walking that fast in the heat."

I waited for her at the corner. "I did the right thing, didn't I? You saw how crowded it is there. They would never comb her hair or tell her stories. She's better off with me, isn't she?"

Eliza stood with her hands on her hips. "We are all better off together, that's what I think. Let's turn here, the street is shaded."

"The Ogilvies live down here," I said. "Do you think they are still in town?"

"I heard a few stories about them, but I don't know if they're true," Eliza said.

"Tell me, tell me," I begged. "I have to know. Wait. Is it sad? I don't want to know if it's sad."

We stopped in front of the Ogilvie mansion. It was shuttered like the other houses on the street. It seemed like years since Mother and I stood at the front door, waiting for the disastrous tea. I turned Nell

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loose to pick marigolds from the garden.

"It's a little of both, happy and sad," Eliza said.

I moved Nell away from a rosebush. "Tell me, then. I'll only think about the happy parts."

Eliza joined us by the flower beds. The shade felt like silk on my skin. Bees hummed lazily in the distance and swallows swooped overhead. This was how summer was supposed to feel. I could drink it in all day.

"I don't know if this is true, mind, but I heard this story in the market, just a few days after you'd left with your grandfather. The oldest Ogilvie girl, the one who got sick?"

"Colette. Did she die?"

"Worse."

"What could be worse than dying?"

"You wouldn't think it was worse, but her mamma sure did. Miss Colette came down with an awful case of the fever. You know how they are. They call in this docfor and that doctor. Spend money, fuss and holler. Nothing helps. The girl is burning up. The whole family gathers at her bedside, thinking she's going to Jesus, when she sits up straight in bed and starts screaming for 'Loueey! Loueey!'Turns out this Louis is her husband."

"But wasn't she engaged to Roger Garthing?"

"Urn-huh. And listen. This Louis was her French tutor. They had eloped just before she got sick. So everyone starts to scream and carry on, the younger daughter has a temper tantrum cause it turns out she

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was sweet on this Frenchie too, the mother faints, and their little dog bites the doctor."

One is not supposed to laugh at other people's misfortunes, but I could picture the scene in my mind so perfectly, it caused me to laugh until my sides hurt. "Oh gracious. I shouldn't. Please tell me no one died."

Eliza laughed. "No, they're all alive and making each other miserable. Too spiteful to die, if you ask me. They moved into some relatives' house in Delaware. Poor things-the relatives, I mean. And Louis, the son-inlaw, is with them. I heard Miss Colette sat herself in the middle of the street and refused to budge until her mother agreed that he could come with them. Now stir your bones. That's enough storytelling and idling for one day." She peered down the street. "Let's go home."

We decided to stay on the cool street as long as we could. Nell skipped between us, seemingly free of worries and concerns. I was going through all the families I knew, trying to think of someone who might want to take in an adorable imp. Trouble was, I had no way of knowing which families still had parents.

Nell stooped to pick up a daisy on the sidewalk. She held it up to me with a smile, and I tucked it into her hair. We took another step and she found another daisy, laying on the ground, not growing there. As I stood puzzling, three daisies floated through the air. Nell put her hands up to catch them and spun around laughing.

"Eliza, we've had strange weather this summer, but

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I've never known daisies to fall from the sky."

We looked up. The houses around us had their shutters closed. . . . Wait. "Look there!" I pointed to a second-story window. The shutters were open a crack, and an unseen hand was pushing out daisies, one by one.

"Well, I never," began Eliza.

"Do you think they need help?" I asked.

"They have the strangest way of showing it," answered Eliza. She went up to the front door and knocked. No one came to the door, though we could both hear people moving within and talking. "I guess they don't want company. Might as well be on our way."

"Wait." I looked up and down the street to get my bearings. "This is the painter's house, Mr. Peale. You know, the one who gave all those strange names to his poor children: Rubens, Raphaelle, Rembrandt, and I don't know what other nonsense."

A daisy fluttered to my feet.

Eliza's eyes widened. "That boy is apprenticed here, isn't he?" she asked. She knew full well the answer.

I looked up at the window. The shutter opened a bit wider and a handful of flowers drifted down. Something fell and crashed inside the house, then the shutter closed quickly.

"We should leave," advised Eliza. "He has a knack for getting in trouble."

I slowly helped Nell gather the flowers. I thought I

saw a shadow move behind an unshuttered downstairs curtain. A tall, lean shadow.

My heart tripped over the thought of Nathaniel Benson, and I smiled in spite of myself. He was alive and still sending me flowers. If I hadn't been carrying Nell, I think I could have skipped all the way back to Eliza's.

There was no more talk of returning me to the coffeehouse or finding a different home for Nell. Joseph and Eliza agreed that I couldn't live alone, not with the deserted streets as dangerous as the crowded sickrooms. We didn't talk about what would happen after the fever. Eliza promised we would find my mother or learn her fate as soon as the epidemic was over. We didn't talk about Nell, we just loved her.

Two days later, Mother Smith sent word that she had to help a family of eight that had just lost their mother.

"Eight? She's going to take care of eight children?" I was stunned.

"If Mother Smith put her mind to it, she could take care of fifty, I've no doubt about that at all," answered Joseph. He was sitting up to the table and making quick work of the fried eggs and corn bread Eliza set before him. His strength was returning along with his appetite.

I took the bread from my plate and broke it into three pieces which I handed to the twins and Nell.

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Every day more towns prohibited travel to or from Philadelphia. Even prices higher than any in memory couldn't tempt farmers into the city with fresh food. I tried not to eat more than I absolutely had to. I tightened the drawstring of my skirts a bit more every morning.

"I was going to send the old lady home today if she had turned up," Joseph continued. Robert climbed into his lap. "I'm strong enough to make my way around the house. Mother Smith doesn't have to worry about us no

more.

"Do you want Mattie to stay with you?" Eliza asked as she wiped off William's sticky fingers and held out the rag to her brother. Nell held up her hands for me to clean. I brushed them off on my skirt and stood up to clear away the dishes.

"There's little enough business right now," Joseph said as he took the rag to wipe jam off Robert's face. "I think I can control this terrible trio for a bit. Folks out there need all the help they can get, even if it does come from a skinny white girl."

I swallowed hard. Was I really that useless?

Joseph laughed at the expression on my face. "I'm teasing. You worry too much, Mattie. You're a great help."

It was nice to hear him say that.

Robert squirmed away from the rag, but his father caught him and cleaned off most of the mess before he set his son on the floor. Robert raced William into the bedchamber. Nell toddled behind them.

Eliza dusted the crumbs from the table into her hand. "If you don't need her here, then yes, she can be of great help. We need every strong back we can get. She can come with me."