ll: Deathly Disease

NINE YEARS LATER

Chapter Two
Deathly Disease

IT WAS THE PLAGUE AGAIN, that dreadful, deadly thing, which struck England with a strong hand nine years later from our last scene. The fearsome disease that meant death to thousands had again come to England, bringing with it a paralyzing fear and a killing force.

No one wanted to believe that it had really come. Yet when they found the streets lined with the dead, when they saw the well-known black carriage picking its’ way through the streets, and when even they themselves were seized with it, they were forced to realize its realness.

The plague had undoubtedly reached England for the second time. Its cold, icy hand had again come to grip to crush thousands in only a short time. The dark, solemn black carriages that brought the dead to their graves frequented nearly every street. Sometimes even the serious-countenanced drivers would fall off their seats, struck dead from the disease: for such was the nature of the plague. It would come and sweep away any man without one warning sign. As a result, work of all types came to a halt, and the hunger of the sick had no food. Their relations, either sick or already dead, could not help. Burning thirst and sickening hunger enveloped every throat that caught the dreadful disease. Those that did not die but had still caught the plague often ended up in a sad state of insanity, their despair and disease causing their over-worked mind to snap.

The spreading disease did not spare rich or poor, maids or mistress, master or servant. All were akin to it, and none were spared. Quite a few of the richer sort vacated the city as soon as they heard a slight rumor of the dreaded plague. Among that number were the inmates of Truro Hall, who left their house and journeyed toward Scotland as soon as the news of but one death reached their ears. The Elziver household was not so quick to leave. Lady Evangeline herself would go out, basket on arm, to help and feed the sick, or if she could not, her servants would go. Many a day, in place of the healthy servant that had gone out on a mercy mission earlier in the morning, a shabby peasant would return, bringing the news that one in the Elziver house had died that hour from the plague.

***

Lady Evangeline nodded at the shabbily dressed, dreary-faced man in the courtyard. “Aye, sir, I will be there.”

The rough-faced man, looking astonished to hear himself called sir, moved off slowly onto the cobblestone drawbridge and out in the small forest beyond, from whence one could reach the main road. Lady Evangeline watched him go with a sigh. “There be too many sick,” she mused aloud, turning away. “Anywise, I must be prepared.”

The baroness had been asked by the aforesaid gloomy individual to visit a hamlet where many sick peasants lay, starving for lack of victuals. After a few minutes in the house, she emerged, armed with a full basket. Her son Gadahin had been in the stables, tending to the horses, when the peasant visited the house with his plea. Now Gadahin came out from the bailey, rubbing his hands on a long piece of broadcloth.

“Mother, where to?” he asked.

His mother pointed to the basket on her arm. “To help the peasants in the hamlets,” she answered. “They be in need of much sustenance.”

“But Mother, you mustn’t go! It is certain death! Very few who visit the hamlets come back alive. Do send my servant Johánnes instead, mother.” Gadahin looked at her face pleadingly.

But Lady Evangeline would not be moved. “Duty is best done when the person who was called to do it is the one who enacts it,” she answered. “I will not stay. No, let Johánnes help you in the stables. I have Benjamin and my two maids.” She patted Gadahin’s arm reassuringly. “Never fear, I will be back shortly.” Pushing the lid of her basket shut, she turned, crossed the drawbridge, and left without further ado. Gadahin stood looking after her sadly, then turned back to go inside the courtyard.

As Lady Evangeline passed the streets, she saw the dead in gutters, on doorsteps, lying in houses with the doors wide open. She grieved greatly when she saw them tossed carelessly into the well-known black carriages that drove off to bury its dead beneath a dusty, anonymous stone slab.

“In here, m’lady,” said her lackey, Benjamin, pointing down a dirt-covered lane filled with the repelling stench of the dead.

She looked where he pointed, and saw a miserable huddle of dirt-caked huts squatting on the ground a few yards away from them. It did not repulse her, however, by its’ awful sight; instead, she marched boldly to the first hut.

There was a woman on a pallet of straw in the dingy little hut, groaning with pain, apparently another victim of the plague. Across from her, tossing to and fro on a dirty blanket, a child lay dozing and choking at the same time. A frail old man was lying near the child, too weak to help anyone. The smell of sweat and disease was strong in the little room.

Lady Evangeline went to the first bed and took the basket from her waiting maid. Quietly she lifted the lid and took out a little bottle. Then, leaning over the sick woman, she gently opened her mouth and applied two drops from the bottle to her tongue.
Suddenly, before the liquid even reached her throat, the woman shuddered, writhed, and closed her eyes.

“Is she sleeping, my lady?” asked one of the maids.
Lady Evangeline looked up, sorrow on her face.
“Nay. She is dead.”

When the contents of the basket had been emptied, Lady Evangeline walked over to the child. The little girl was feverish and constantly muttering insensible words, evidently quite near unconsciousness. The baroness knew that the herbs she brought could do no good, since they were not for children, but so strong that the little girl might die by taking them.
Barely able to speak, the old man near the child petitioned Lady Evangeline in a faltering voice. “She will die soon without aid, so ill is her condition. Will not you take her to St. Mark’s Chapel, down the road a ways? She will be well cared for there. Ask for the Reverend Jonas Watson. He is a good man, and will surely help you.” Worn out from his exertions, the old man lay back on his shabby bed on the floor. His pale, drawn face indicated that his condition was poor, and nearing death. Lady Evangeline thanked him, and passed him some victuals from her basket. There was nothing else she could do for the faded old man who lay gasping for his last breaths; and, after thanking her in-between groans, he motioned with his hand for the kind lady to go.

Reluctantly turning to her attendants, she said, “We must find a carriage. This little one will not last. Eliza, do you take her left arm, and I will take the right. Benjamin, lead us to the road. We will visit the church.”

“But m’lady—”

“None of that. Katherine, will you please move aside that chair? Good. Let us go.”

Together they lifted the little girl and brought her to the road. Evangeline, weary from her efforts, stopped to rest as Benjamin hailed a passing farmer’s wagon. The dirt from the streets rose up all around them, and just as they approached the wagon they saw another black carriage, with several poorly-made coffins piled up inside, driving past them.

Farmer O’Reilly, as he introduced himself, looked somewhat surprised to find the baroness of Elziver accosting him. He was still more astonished when Lady Evangeline asked for a ride. Taking off his ancient straw hat, and scratching his bald head with a puzzled expression, he promised to consider the matter before finally assenting.

At heart, however, Farmer O’Reilly was a kind and benevolent old man. He gave in readily after his astonishment wore off, and, accepting with a show of reluctance the shining coin held out to him, he announced his cart and mare at their service. Lifting the little sick girl gently, he sat her in a comfortable position in the back of the cart, then helped the lady and her servants seat themselves. After they were situated as comfortably as possible, he picked up the reins, and the tottering old wagon began its slow route down the dusty road.

St. Mark’s Chapel was a beautiful, quiet site where a little white church nestled, homelike, in the crook of a small green valley. An old sign, waving from a tall iron hook in the whitewashed building, announced in the old-style writing, the pastor’s name and the words “True to the Olde Gospel Truthes”, written in fading letters beneath it.

“There’s the church, m’lady,” the old farmer pronounced, putting aside his stick of wheat he had been chewing on. “Ne’er find a better one than the Reverend Jonas Watson, sure as butter. Shall I assist ye?”

Lady Evangeline thanked the old man kindly, but desisted from any further assistance. Together the lackey and the baroness picked up the little girl, who had by this time completely fainted away, and swung her out of the cart. Farmer O’Reilly, with a last wave and a kind smile, drove off in the direction of the road.

“Well, here we are. Maids, will you kindly knock on the door? Perhaps we will find…assistance…here.” Evangeline was visibly sinking under the load of carrying the little girl, while Benjamin struggled behind with the basket.

Katherine, first to reach the door, raised the varnished knocker and let it drop with a loud clang. Almost instantly the door opened, and a kindly faced middle-aged woman, attired in a spotless white cap and apron, looked out.

“May I do something for ye?” she inquired, drying her hands on a gingham cloth.

Lady Evangeline came up then, the child in her arms. The lady at the door did not need to be told anything more. She opened the door wide, took the basket from Benjamin, and set it down in a corner of the front room.

The baroness found herself in a neat, orderly kitchen, spotless from wall to wall. The floors, though bare dirt, had been sanded down and washed till they appeared of a wood texture, and the cupboards sparkled, as though they had been scrubbed only that moment.

“The Reverend Jonas Watson is out, madam, visiting a sick neighbor. But we are always open to the needy and the sick. Here, bring the little girl in this room. Isn’t she that little Mrs. Copper’s girl? Oh, but Mrs. Copper died of the plague a few weeks ago, and her husband with her. She hasn’t any kindred, though, save the Greenvilles in Yorkshire.”

All the while she had been talking, the benevolent woman had opened cupboards, shook a vial of herbal liquids, poured it in a glass, then unfolded a sheet and placed it neatly on a little white bed in the adjoining room. When she finished, she turned to Lady Evangeline.

“M’lady, do I sense that you are one of the nobility? I do find it astonishing to behold you hither. Ah—aren’t you Lady Evangeline of Elziver, though?” Receiving a nod in reply, she went on. “You look terribly fatigued. Do take a drink.”

Lady Evangeline shook her head and smiled. “No, I mustn’t. Save it all for the poor little girl. I must be going, now, and trouble you no more.”

“’Tisn’t any hardship, none at all. Do leave little Sarah Copper here. She will be well cared for. Her condition is not beyond repair, not at all. She is only sick from over-exhaustion.”

The baroness looked up in relief. “She will live?”
“Aye, that she will. With good care, sleep, and food, she will survive.” The good woman looked somewhat disturbed in mind for a moment, then suddenly held up a finger with a pleased expression.

“My cousin John lives in Yorkshire. He owns a buggy and a mare. ’Twon’t be any trouble to ask him here and fetch the child. The Greenvilles are a family of good renown and benevolent spirit.” She waved away Lady Evangeline’s thanks. “No, no, my good lady, I do not mind. Neither will John, I know. Now hie you to your home, for I fear the plague may catch you. You do look so exhausted. Mayn’t I fetch you a glass of tea to revive you?”

But Lady Evangeline would not take anything. Asserting that all must be saved for little Sarah, she would take nothing. However, she did try to offer a good sum of money for the keeping of the little child, but the kindly woman would take none of it.

“No, ma’am, its kindness we always perform,” she declared. “Goodly tithes do the people give the church, and from that we do our acts of charity.” Waving them off, she gave the basket back to Benjamin and opened the door.

Once they reached the road, Eliza spoke. “That was one chapel I should like to visit again,” she said. “To take that child, hardly beyond a babe, and offer to rear it back to health! Indeed, they are a good-hearted people.”

Benjamin smiled. “Look inside the basket. The good lady filled it up with herbs and spices, all without our knowledge.”

Lady Evangeline looked at them all. “Indeed, they are a good people who can help others so liberally,” she said.


It was as they were traversing the last corner, the last barrier to home that the terrible blow struck. Lady Evangeline had not been able to find any wagon on which to ask a ride, for all had already gone home or were either on their way there. Unused to the strain of a full day, carrying a heavy child a certain ways, then walking home on foot, she was quite vulnerable for the blow which fell so heavy upon her.

She had been carrying the basket when she suddenly sank down in the middle of the muddy road and gasped. The two maids near her fell on their knees, the streets resounding with their wails and shrieks as they tried to lift their mistress up again. Benjamin, struck with horror, was the first one to realize what the white, pallid look on Lady Evangeline’s face signified.

***

The news reached Gadahin like an ax to a young tree. For days, he could only grieve at his mother’s sad fate, and for a long time he would not go out anywhere, so great was his sorrow. He had been only seventeen when his mother was so suddenly taken from him.

As suddenly as it had come, the plague departed, leaving England a changed country because of it. The same streets that had once seen the cavalcade of a king were now filled with loud wailing and great sorrow. Where grandeur had been, a dismal sorrow reigned. Not one family had been excluded from the hand of wrath, save those that had gone abroad.
A fortnight later brilliantly dressed heralds proclaimed throughout the streets the return of the Truros, and as young Gadahin watched, the family carriage of the Truros followed behind. The window in the little door of the gold carriage was wide open, and a pretty face was looking earnestly out of it. With gratefulness and pleasure the squire saw that it was the youthful Lady (better known as Maid) Priscilla, and instantly put up his hand to wave at her. She smiled daintily at him, and before the window had closed a blooming pansy lay at the baron’s feet.

The whole family, Gadahin learned later, were all back from Switzerland and settling themselves inside their old quarters again. Percert, the son of the Truros, was seventeen, and the little maid whom Gadahin had last known as a shy, pretty child was back in her father’s house as a lovely, accomplished sixteen-year-old. Her charming little ways earned her a good reputation in the town.

Thus, at seventeen, Gadahin inherited his mother’s entire lands, and became the baron of all the lands he had romped as a lad. He felt like his new charge was more of a burden than a source of wealth; for there were many new things that he was now forced to attend to.

Among his duties, he still found time to attend to his practice with the lance. He was no knight, only a squire and a baron. A baron in those days was commonly thought of by the serfs as a lord, and so it was that Gadahin had attained a high position in early years, though he was still no knight. He aspired greatly to prove his strength on the battlefield, and anticipated the day of his knighthood with all the eagerness of youth.

The plague was gone and the malady was passed, but grief, a strong, unending, unchanging malady, took its place and filled the hearts of nearly every citizen. As a result of suffering and trial, each of Krona’s inhabitants looked gaunt and pale. The grievous plague had even changed Gadahin somewhat. It had made him a very quiet and serious lad— one who thought before speaking.

The poor people of Krona, such as the serfs and peasants, grew to love the thoughtful young squire who owned Elziver. Many of the inhabitants of the town who had suffered from the plague would quite freely repair to his mansion on the hill and ask for necessities, for the young baron was as generous as he was quiet.

End of Chapter Two