6. Chapter 5
The new day hadn’t brought any fresh perspectives to Caroline’s countless problems. Rain had rolled in overnight, revealing a new hole in the roof.
This one dripped into a seldom-used hallway, but the carpet and artwork had been removed, so hopefully the damage would be minimal.
The dull plink of water into the metal pail was already burned into her ears, and every moment it grew louder.
If she didn’t marry Edgar soon, the whole damn house would crumble around her.
This morning she needed to write to his mother for a guest list. She had meant to do so before she went to bed, but it had been too easy to put off. After visiting with Nelly, she hadn’t been in the mood to do any other work. Not when she was so worried that her illness would be catching.
She would sit down and write the letter this morning, so it could be sent out with today’s mail. After she had breakfast.
When she returned to her rooms, she found Lucy—her lady’s maid—had left her covered breakfast tray on the small table she used for dining in her sitting room.
Most meals she took with her family in the dining room, but she preferred to take her morning meal alone, so she had some time for quiet contemplation before she started her day.
Lifting the silver cloche, her porridge was a congealed mess with soggy green apples slowly sinking to the bottom of the bowl. No matter. Her breakfast was interrupted by new repairs so frequently she was more familiar with cold porridge than warm.
The sweet flavor burst on her tongue as her mother burst through the door.
“Good morning, Mam,” she said between bites as she tried to tamp down her annoyance.
“Caroline,” her mother wailed, a balled-up handkerchief in her hand. “Your father has taken ill.”
Caroline paused, her spoon halfway to her mouth as she comprehended her mother’s words. “What type of illness?”
“I’m not sure. Last night at dinner he was a little distant, but he’s been so worried lately that I thought it was just nerves. This morning I could barely rouse him, and when he finally did wake up, he said he was dizzy, and his chest hurt.”
“Does he have a fever? Or is he complaining of a chill?”
Caroline delicately placed her spoon back in the bowl, her hunger lost as her mind raced through the options.
“He didn’t feel feverish when I checked him, and he hasn’t complained of feeling cold. I left the blankets on him just in case, but he said he only wanted to sleep.”
Caroline blew out a breath. There seemed to be little overlap with symptoms of the three sick people in her home besides a deep desire for sleep.
She remembered what Dr. Murnau said when she helped him during an influenza outbreak the previous summer.
The first step to diagnosis was to gather information.
Symptoms, habits, prior history, anything that could lead them to answers.
“Let’s go see him.”
Caroline followed her mother to their wing. Her parents’ bedrooms were across the hall from each other, which was typical for estates such as theirs. What was less typical was that she had never known her parents to have ever slept apart.
Even after all these years, walking into her parents’ bedroom felt strange.
It both wasn’t a place for her, but was also stunningly, achingly familiar.
The smell of her father’s tobacco, the greenhouse flowers on her mother’s vanity, the daguerreotype the three of them took years ago at an exhibit in London on the bureau.
It was all familiar from years of crawling onto the couch at the foot of their bed to sleep when she had a nightmare, but it also felt like a place where she didn’t belong.
Her father lay still on his side of the bed.
Looking down on him was strange; his face was relaxed, the laugh lines were slack, and it was clear how prominent the lines on his forehead and around his eyes were.
His hair was thinning more than his artful hairstyles let on.
He looked vulnerable, and Caroline hated it.
She wanted to shake him awake, scream at him for getting sick.
For scaring her mother and making her cry and interrupting Caroline’s breakfast. For scaring her too.
“Papa.” Her voice was small as she placed her hand on his forehead.
Instead of the heat Valeria had, or the chill from Nelly, he felt fine. Normal. His breath stuttered in his chest, though his eyes remained closed. Still, she relaxed at this movement, no matter how small it was.
“How was he last night?”
“Fine. He read for a bit before falling asleep, but there was nothing strange.”
Caroline’s eyes flicked up to see the gauzy white curtains floating in the wind.
“Did you open the window?”
Her mother frowned. “No, I hate sleeping with a breeze, and I didn’t open it this morning.”
Caroline walked over to inspect the latch.
These windows had been replaced more recently, sometime in the last ten or so years, so the lock slid easily into place unlike Nelly’s.
And while Nelly’s room was on the ground floor and it was technically possible for someone to enter that way, her parents’ room was on the third floor, and there wasn’t so much as a trellis for someone to scale.
“Caro,” her father wheezed, and she rushed back to his side.
“What’s wrong, Papa?”
“I don’t know, my head hurts. I was dizzy earlier, but I’m feeling a little better. Will you close the drapes? The light’s hurting my eyes.”
“You gave us a scare, George,” her mother said as she pulled the heavy drapes over the windows, leaving only the dull orange glow of the gaslamp to light the room.
“I’m sorry, love. I don’t know what came over me. I had the strangest dreams last night, and I feel so strange now. I’ll be fine if you give me a minute.”
Caroline frowned. “What kind of dream?” Nelly mentioned a nightmare as well.
“Nothing in particular.” He gave her a weak smile as he patted her arm. “It was one of those dreams that frighten you in the moment, but you can’t remember why once you’re awake. Maybe I ate something that disagreed with me.”
“I’ll send for Dr. Murnau.”
“Don’t be silly, Caroline. There’s no need to bother the doctor; I’ll be better with a bit of rest.”
“There are now three sick people in this home. We need the doctor.”
It vexed her beyond reason that all three people in this home refused to see the doctor.
“I thought what Lady Valeria had wasn’t contagious?” Her mother asked, wringing her hands.
“I’m sure she isn’t,” she said in an attempt to keep her mother from hysterics, “But I’ll still feel better once we get him to examine everyone.”
“Caroline, I’ll be fine.”
“Get him. Today if you can,” her mother said stonefaced as she looked at her husband nestled under the covers.
“I’ll take the carriage to pick him up.”
Caroline left her parents’ room without another word, hesitating as she reached the second floor. She hadn’t figured out where Valeria had gone last night. The servants she asked hadn’t seen her, and Caroline hadn’t had a chance to track her down with how busy she was that morning.
Fetching the doctor was her highest priority, but she could spare a moment for this.
Crossing the hall, she didn’t bother to knock on the door and slipped inside.
Unlike the previous day, Valeria was fully on the bed, her head gently laid on the pillow with her hair sprawled around her.
There was a flush to her cheeks she could see at even this distance, but her features looked less severe. Everything about her seemed softer.
Caroline shut the door. Valeria had been found, and she was currently asleep and would be so until the sun set in many hours. She would worry over the woman’s illness once Dr. Murnau was there.
* * *
Caroline pounded on the brown door of the doctor’s home.
She tried the hospital first, but was told he wasn’t there as he worked late the night before.
In her haste to leave the house, she forgot her gloves and grabbed her mother’s coat instead of hers, so it was a few inches too short.
It made her look a little crazed, but she hoped that would help sell the fact that she was in desperate need of the doctor’s help.
Despite having been there for minutes without anyone answering.
She rested her fist for a few moments before pounding again. Finally, after what seemed like an eternity, the door opened, revealing a dour older woman clutching a shawl around her and holding a handkerchief over her mouth.
“Yes.”
“I need to see Dr. Murnau immediately.”
The woman looked behind her before stepping out on the porch beside Caroline. Once the door was shut behind her, she removed the handkerchief from her face. This close, Caroline could see the bags beneath her eyes and the haggard lines of worry around her face.
“I’m sorry, but the doctor is busy right now.”
“Please.” Caroline wasn’t above begging. Not for her family. “There are three sick in my house, and I don’t know if it’s catching or not. We need the doctor to make sure this isn’t the start of something very bad. We’ll pay any price, but I need him now.”
“I’m sorry, but he has many patients right now. There is an illness spreading through the village. He’s barely been home for an hour the past few days.”
Fear crept down her spine. Her engagement party was the perfect place for illness to fester. She may have doomed the entire village.
“Please, tell him that Miss Caroline Blythe is here to see him. I volunteer at the hospital sometimes, but I also hosted a massive engagement party over the weekend. If people are sick who were there, I need to know.”
The woman searched her face for a moment before giving a sharp nod.
“I’ll talk to the doctor, but I cannot guarantee he’ll go. He’s already overextended, and I’m not sure how he’ll feel about traveling. Wait here; I’d rather not expose you to this illness while we still know so little about it.”
Caroline nodded. She didn’t bother to say she may already be carrying whatever they had because she prayed she was wrong. That she wasn’t sick and neither was anyone else in her house. It was just three coincidental illnesses.
She waited on the porch for so long that by the time the door opened again she wanted to cry.
Dr. Murnau was a stern-looking man somewhere between his thirties and fifties.
All she knew was that he was older than her by at least a decade, but she had never once seen him smile or laugh, and that made him seem old.
Today he looked even worse for wear. His hair was messy as if he had been running his hands through it repeatedly, and there were deep bags beneath his eyes.
He wore a black frock coat with the sleeves pushed up.
He had no tie or cravat, and she could tell his patience was thinner than usual.
“My housekeeper said you needed to see me,” he said in his light German accent. His voice was gruff, but never mean.
“I need you to come to my home. Three people are sick, and I need to know if they’re contagious. Or if they even have the same illness.”
The doctor’s frown deepened even though Caroline would have never guessed his face could do such a thing. “What are their symptoms?”
“They all have different symptoms.” When the doctor glared at her and turned, she panicked to do whatever she could so he wouldn’t just leave her on the porch.
“Please. It started with our house guest, and now her maid and my father are ill. She said she has a sun sickness, and she seems to be fine every night, but the maid and my father are sick all day. They can barely stay awake.”
“Are they all sleeping a lot?
“Yes, it’s difficult to wake them.” She didn’t mention that it was impossible to rouse Valeria.
Dr. Murnau’s eyes were unfocused, looking somewhere far past her as he stroked his whiskered chin. He hadn’t said he would help, but he seemed interested at the very least.
“Do you know what’s been happening in the village over the past few days?” He asked, continuing when Caroline shook her head. “People have been sick. Fever has run rampant over town. Only the men, though.”
“Two of the people sick in my home are women.”
Caroline didn’t know if that made her feel better or worse since her father was sick as well.
“Two men died in the night, and I’m worried we will lose two more tonight. My usual treatments aren’t working, and I’m not even close to a diagnosis. If I can’t save these men, I worry for what that will mean for us all.”
“What do you think will happen?”
“I worry plague has arrived.”
Caroline gasped, taking a step back both from the doctor and the house. Perhaps she should have written the doctor first after all.
“But I thought the plague was cured?”
“Sometimes they are. Most of the time the sickness will burn through a community until it kills everyone who doesn’t have natural immunity.
Every few years it pops up in a remote village.
Sometimes the damage is severe; sometimes only a few people pass before the sickness moves on.
” Dr. Murnau removed his glasses, cleaning them with a handkerchief from his pocket.
“I will travel to your home tomorrow as long as I don’t lose many patients in the night.
If I do, I will send you notice that it may be a day or two before I’m able to get to you. ”
“Thank you.”
Caroline was so relieved she wanted to throw her arms around him, but the possibility of plague kept her from doing so. She was thankful the man would help her, but not at the cost of her health.
“What can I do for them while I wait for you?”
“Track their fevers. If they get too hot, try to lower their body temperature with cold compresses. Take note of any changes in behavior or how they feel. There’s a chance that some small, mundane detail could end up saving their life.”
“Thank you, Dr. Murnau. My family and I are in your debt.”
The doctor put his glasses back on; his frown softened, but his face was still quite severe as he gazed down at her.
“Don’t thank me yet, Miss Blythe, for our battle has just begun.”