Blood Autumn Page 20

  "Take care of yourself, Guy. I don't want you to fall ill."

  Guy grinned. "I won't. I'm strong as a horse, and so is Rose."

  They chatted at the door for a few minutes more; then Daniel went to St. Mary's. Every morning he made it a habit to greet the boys before they went in to breakfast. He thought they enjoyed the time, for he was less formal then with them, and they could ask him whatever they wished. Within reason, of course.

  Outside, the heat glimmered off the buildings, and the leaves of the magnolias, mimosa, and azaleas drooped. Few people were out on the streets, even at this early hour, he noted as he stopped at the corner to fan himself with his hand. Luckily, he didn't have far to go. Daniel reached St. Mary's and opened the door to the dormitory. The usual rain of childish voices greeted him. It was still dark in the room, the inside shutters closed to keep the heat out, and he went down past each bed, saying hello and talking with the occupant for a few minutes.

  He stopped at William's cot. The boy did not sit up at his approach.

  "What's this? Still asleep?" He chuckled. "What a sleepyhead!"

  The boy didn't respond, and Father Daniel shook the child's shoulder to wake him. He was cool to the touch. No, it couldn't be, Daniel told himself. He shook the boy again, harder. The boy's eyes remained closed. He checked for breath, for his heart, then stood up slowly, painfully.

  The boy was dead.

  *

  "Do you agree?" Guy asked. Rose straightened from her examination of the dead boy and pulled the sheet up over his pale face.

  She nodded. "Yes, I'm afraid so." She glanced over at Father Daniel, whose face was almost as white as the dead child's.

  "Agree about what?" the priest asked anxiously. After he'd recovered from the shock of finding William dead, he'd sent one of the other boys straight to the hospital with a note begging his nephew to come at, once. Guy and Rose had arrived within an hour. Since that time Daniel had refused to think about anything, particularly about the nature of the boy's death. There could be any number of reasons, he told himself, any number, except . . . No, he wouldn't allow himself to think about it.

  "Cause of death," Guy replied as he wiped his hands on a cloth and closed his medical bag.

  "Which is?"

  "Death from loss of blood," Rose said. She had cleaned up and was jotting notes in a small black book she kept with her.

  "Loss of blood," the priest whispered. He sat abruptly on another cot. He shook his head, almost dazed. "No, no, not again. Not again." A shudder passed through him, and unblinking, he stared straight ahead as though he had fallen into a trance.

  "Father? Are you all right?" Rose asked. She glanced at Guy, who went at once to his uncle.

  "Daniel?" Guy knelt and shook him lightly by the arms. "Daniel, what's wrong?"

  Awareness seemed to fill the priest's eyes and he looked down at his nephew. He passed a hand over his face and shook himself a little.

  "I'm sorry, I didn't mean to — it's just that with the boy's death ..."

  "I understand. If you'd like, we'll check the other boys while we're here."

  "Yes."

  As the doctors moved down the aisle, examining the boys, Daniel did not move. He was almost paralyzed by what had happened. He felt responsible, too. He could have prevented William's death. Or could he? What could he have done?

  Nothing. No similar deaths had occurred before, as far as he knew, and if he had said anything about August causing the deaths, then he might have been put in an asylum. There was no way he could have protected the child. Just no way.

  It took well over an hour for them to complete the examinations, and once they finished, Rose and Guy returned to him.

  "Well?" he asked eagerly, and yet dreading what they would say.

  "There are signs of illness evident, among some of the other boys," Guy said.

  "Oh, my God." Daniel swallowed, then asked, "What are the symptoms?"

  "Right now, I would say paleness and listlessness," Guy replied. "A general weakening. I can't say any more because we haven't studied them completely enough."

  "We'd like to take the afflicted boys back to the hospital," Rose said.

  "It won't help," Father Daniel said flatly.

  "What do you mean?"

  He shook his head. "They won't be safe in the hospital or here, or anywhere." He groaned and clasped his head in his hands. "I think it's too late."

  "Too late?" Guy said. "What do you mean?"

  Daniel shook his head.

  "You know something about this, Daniel?"

  "I saw something . . . similar . . . once, a long time ago."

  "Where?" Rose demanded.

  "England. Thirty years ago. Strong men and boys fell to this, too."

  "Tell us, Daniel," Guy said quietly.

  "I can't," the priest said mournfully. "Not yet, not now. I don't know that it's the same. I'm just guessing. I can't say."

  "Damnit, Daniel, if you know something that will help us — " Guy began. Rose touched him on the arm, and he quieted his tone. "I'm sorry, but I don't want any more little boys to die."

  The priest turned anguished eyes to him. "Nor do I, but there is so little we can do. So very little. There is no hope for anyone."

  "I don't believe that, Daniel," the doctor said. "I'm sorry. We'll take the boys who are ill and tend to them; then we'll see you later."

  Daniel nodded mutely and watched the two doctors go back to collect the three boys who were ill. Overpowered by what he feared was coming, the priest could only watch and dread what was to come.

  "I don't understand what's wrong with Daniel," Guy said, pacing back and forth through the room. Occasionally he would run into a chair in his haste, but it didn't slow him down. "There's something wrong, Rose. He's changed. I think you can understand that."

  "He's scared."

  "Scared? Of what?"

  "I don't know, but I could see it in his eyes this morning. He's afraid of something, something he's not willing to discuss."

  "He'd better talk about it, damnit! It might help us save other lives."

  "But you can't force him to tell us," Rose pointed out reasonably. "I do think he'll confide in us, and fairly soon, but I suggest in the meantime we work on seeing why these boys are ill." Guy nodded. "This is the first time this illness, or whatever it is, has affected a white child."

  "I know. I think it's time to go above Fredericks' head," Guy suggested as he swung around to face her.

  "Yes, I agree, although I suspect the Board of Health won't listen. They're just like Dr. Fredericks. Hidebound."

  "Pompous."

  "Old-fashioned."

  Guy grinned and leaned across the table to kiss her on the lips. "To work then, Doctor."

  "Very good, Doctor."

  *

  "I'm sorry," the head of the Board of Health stated, "but I don't see that an epidemic exists."

  Exasperated, Guy stared at him, while Rose pressed her lips tightly together. If she did, she couldn't speak, and if she couldn't speak, then she couldn't yell at this dense man for his stupidity.

  "Dr. O'Shaunessey has documented a number of cases, and now we have the death of this boy, as well as the illness of the three others," Guy said.

  Rose wondered how her colleague managed to sound so even-tempered when she knew that underneath he was just as angry as she at the resistance they'd met so far to their theory that Savannah faced an epidemic of some unknown disease. Dr. Fredericks and the board of the hospital had been willing to meet with them the day before, but less willing to listen to what they said, and had tried to discourage them from taking this any further. It hadn't worked.

  Now, on this hot afternoon in an airless chamber, they stood and listened to these old gasbags, Rose thought crossly. A large blue-green fly buzzed around the room, and occasionally one of the board members took a swipe at it with rolled-up papers. He seemed more concerned about the fly than the two doctors facing the board.

  "I don't se
e enough facts here," the head of the board said, tapping Rose's report. His accent had been deepening in the past half hour, a good indication, Rose thought, that they were irritating him.

  "But — " Rose began.

  "I'm sorry, Dr. Maxwell, Dr. O'Shaunessey, but I wish to hear nothing further on this matter. Good day to you both."

  They were dismissed. Guy started to speak again, but Rose tugged his sleeve.

  "Come on," she whispered. "Let's leave. We can't do anything now."

  Outside the building the two doctors paused in the shade of a live oak and fanned themselves and caught their breaths. The heat outside seemed so much less than that inside the airless room.

  "Well?" Guy asked as he squinted in the brightness of the afternoon sunlight. "What do we do now? The entire hospital board and health board think we're a pair of damned fools, no doubt."

  "No doubt," she replied dryly, "but we know we're not fools."

  "Small comfort."

  Automatically they turned in the direction of the hospital and began walking.

  "I know we're right, Guy. If we can just prove it to those old fools."

  He didn't reply, and she knew he was angry, not at her, but at the authorities for not believing them.

  They did not speak again until they reached the hospital, and there they went their separate ways. Guy was called to attend several victims of the vicious heat, while Rose decided to check on one of the boys from the orphanage again.

  True to Father Daniel's dire prediction, the boy, a handsome boy of some eleven or twelve years named John, had not recovered during his stay in the hospital, and in fact seemed worse than when he had been admitted. His breathing had grown shallow, and his heartbeat had slowed; Rose stared with frustration at the flushed face. The boy was slowly burning up, dying, and she could do nothing to keep the disease from ravaging the youth.

  Disease. If it were a disease, she told herself. Yet what other alternatives existed?

  She bent over the sleeping child to check him again. She had checked him and the other boys time after time, but she might have missed something. Carefully she examined the boy from head to foot. The boy's skin was dry to the touch, and on his chest was a slight rash that Rose hadn't noticed before. As she ran her fingers lightly across the rash the boy moaned and twisted in his sleep. She did it again, with the same reaction, and noted this time that the boy had an erection.

  She hurried down to the end of the ward to where Guy was busy with a sunstroke patient.

  "Guy, did the boys have rashes when they were admitted?"

  "I noticed a small insect bite, but that's all."

  "Yet they have rashes now. Look at this."

  The two other boys admitted from St. Mary's both had rashes, but in different places. One had it on the side of his neck and across his stomach. The second, and elder of the two, had a rash by his groin.

  "Why are they appearing in different places?" Rose asked, tapping her foot. Absently she rolled up her sleeves again as high as they would go, then pushed them up higher. "Is something biting them, even here in the hospital? An insect or ... or what?" She frowned, tried to concentrate on what could be the cause of the rashes.

  "I haven't seen any insects. With the marshes nearby, though, God knows what sort of fever this could be."

  "Yes." The marshes ... so unhealthy, she thought. Could it really be the miasma of the bogs that created the fevers, or was it something else? Something she — -they — didn't understand yet? "The rashes don't seem to be healing."

  "But neither are they spreading across the body," Guy pointed out.

  "True."

  They stared at each other, and not for the first time did she feel so far from the truth.

  Guy kissed her sleepily, murmured her name, and slowly his breathing became more and more regular, and Rose listened as he slipped away into sleep. Smiling tenderly, she brushed his lips lightly with her fingertips. He didn't stir.

  Arms above her head, she stretched, yawned, and sighed happily. She snuggled closer to the sleeping man, her hip nudging his, and settled down to sleep. While it was still hot despite the late hour of the night, she wanted to be near him. She pulled up the sheet to cover them and closed her eyes.

  They'd been up late two nights in a row, and tomorrow they would have to get to work early. Today by now, no doubt. She'd best sleep as much as possible.

  She listened to the night insects, the chirping of the crickets, and once or twice the yowling of a lovelorn cat as it wandered under her window. She kept her eyelids shut, but sleep would not come.

  Guy continued to sleep peacefully beside her. He should leave soon, she knew. Earlier in the evening he had sneaked into her room at the boarding house to spend a few hours with her, and usually he left long before dawn so that no one would see him. Tonight, though, she didn't have the heart to wake him because she knew how tired he was. She was just as exhausted. She'd wait until much later; at least he could have that much rest.

  She brushed back her hair from her flushed face and plumped up the pillow, closed her eyes again, and waited. Still sleep refused to come. The problem, she knew, was that she was thinking too much about that disease. Thoughts tumbled through her mind as she considered one and disregarded another, and her active mind was forbidding sleep to come. So she might as well rise and think some more about this unusual case.

  She swung her legs over the bed, reached for her dressing gown, and wrapped it around herself, then went to sit at the small table across the room. She turned on the gaslight on the wall, pulled paper and pen to her, and started writing.

  The symptoms were clear: initial loss of appetite, lethargy, a tendency to sleep most of the day and night. Then came an unhealthy paleness, then debilitation, along with a fever which led to death.

  Not the most pleasant of diseases, but then not the most unpleasant disease, either, she thought as she recalled the symptoms of smallpox. The new disease left no pustules, nor was there any outward sign of an inner contagion. Except for that strange rash, the bite of some insect. Or animal.

  Now that was a possibility she had never considered before. What sort of animal, after all, could it be?

  Too, what of the families of those who'd died first? she asked herself. They had not seemed to exhibit any overt symptoms of the disease. She made a note, reminding her to arrange interviews with the families of the victims. Guy would be interested in that.

  Then there was the matter of how the disease was passed along. What did the victims have in common, if anything? Most of the victims had been black until the boy at St. Mary's had died. Had they all been to the same place recently? That was fairly doubtful, she suspected.

  She retrieved her first report and reread it. When she reached the end, she studied the list of victims of the disease. Her frown deepened as she read the list. She reread it, flipping through the pages, wondering if she'd skipped a name. Was this listing correct? Absolutely.

  It seemed almost impossible, and yet . . . yet all of the victims so far had been men; not one had been a woman.

  And that, she thought, was very strange indeed.

  *

  The ungodly heat continued the next few days, beating relentlessly into the residents of Savannah, sapping their energy, and stilling all but the most necessary work. Men and women peeled off layers of clothing as far as propriety's sake would allow, and most afternoons and evenings were spent idly in hammocks, in swings, on porches, and in whatever shade could be found.

  Daniel's nights were spent in torment, not only from the heat, but from his dreams as well. He was ashamed of them, as well as his failure to do something about August in England. Therefore, he had to do something now, had to tell Guy and Rose. But what if, one part of him countered, she found out?

  He would have to take the chance, he told himself, then shivered, despite the heat, and once more mopped the sweat from his face. He should rise and say his prayers, for he hadn't been to confession in nearly a week, but he couldn't
seem to move from the bed. He closed his eyes and sighed deeply, wishing for the relief of sleep.

  Ever since the boys had become ill, Daniel had worked harder than usual. Tonight was an exception, though, because of the heat. He rolled onto his side, but that didn't help, and the crumpled sheet bunched beneath him. The faces of past friends paraded through his mind, mingling with the faces he knew now.

  He had to tell soon, even if no one believed him. He had to say something.

  She was waiting for him at the main gates of Forsyth Park on Bull Street at the hour of twilight. She wore a simple black gown with a low neckline and short sleeves, and she showed no signs of the heat distressing her.

  "I don't understand how you can look so cool," he said after greeting her. While it was still hot, it wasn't as unbearable as earlier in the day when the sun had been high overhead.

  She laughed. "Simply an ability I have."

  "Shall we walk, Mrs. Justinian?"

  "Of course, Dr. Maxwell."

  They passed the sphinxes guarding the entrance and began strolling down the broad walk. Other couples nodded as they strolled along. In the center of the park was the white fountain, said by some to be a copy of the fountain in the Place de la Concorde in Paris. She stopped at the wrought-iron railing and stared at the broad water lily leaves.

  Guy studied her profile and thought how beautiful she was. Her beauty was so great it made him ache, and momentarily he looked away.

  One part of him could feel guilty about Rose — if he let himself think about her. But it wasn't, he argued, as if he had proposed to her and then betrayed their engagement.

  No, not at all. So there was no reason to feel guilt. They had a friendship, simply that.

  There was so much he wanted to ask August Justinian about herself, so much that he wanted to know. But where to start?

  She was watching him, her full lips parted, and he could feel desire stirring in him. He wanted her, wanted her right now in this park; it didn't matter that everyone was watching. Involuntarily he took a step forward and half raised his arms.