“What do you think?” she asked him. “Will he live?” But her own face showed no hope or expectation.

“He may; but to be truthful, I doubt it. Has the carbuncle burst?”

“No. It’s soft now but it feels hard deep inside. He doesn’t seem to even know when I touch it. Isn’t there anything we can do? There must be some way to save him.”

“Trust in God, madame. We can do no more. If the carbuncle breaks, dress it—but take care to get no blood or pus on yourself. I’ll come tomorrow and if it hasn’t opened by then I’ll have to cut it open. That’s all I can tell you. Good-day, madame.”

He bowed slightly and started out but Amber went along with him. “Isn’t there someway I can get another nurse?” she asked, her voice soft and urgent. “That old woman is useless. She doesn’t do a thing but eat and drink up my supplies. I could get along as well alone.”

“I’m sorry, madame, but the parish-clerk is too busy now to consider the problems of each individual. The nurses are all incompetent and most of them old—if they could get a living any other way they wouldn’t be doing this. The parish sends them out to nurse to avoid the charge of keeping them on charity. Still, madame, as you must know, you may fall sick yourself at any time—it’s better not to be alone.”

He left and Amber, shrugging and deciding that since she could not get rid of Spong she would find some use for her, went into the kitchen. The soup was ready now, a rich heavy pottage with the fat swimming in hot oily circles on top of it, and she ladled out a bowlful to eat herself. It made her feel better. Her headache disappeared and she felt almost optimistic again. She was sure once more that she could keep him alive by sheer force of will-power.

I love him so much, she thought, he can’t die. God won’t let him die.

When she was ready to go to bed she decided to try bribing Spong. “If you’ll stay awake till three and then call me I’ll give you a bottle of brandy.” If the old woman would watch and let her sleep at night she was willing to have her drunk all day.

The arrangement satisfied Spong who vowed again that she would not so much as close an eye. Once Amber woke suddenly and sat bolt upright, glaring accusingly at her—it was light in the room for the fire was kept burning all night. But the nurse was sitting there beside him, arms folded on her belly, and she grinned across at Amber.

“Fooled ye, mam, eh?”

Amber flopped back down and instantly fell asleep again. She was wakened by a gurgling scream that brought her to her feet at a leap, her heart pounding sickeningly. Bruce, kneeling on the edge of the bed, had grabbed Spong by the throat and she was lashing and flailing about, helpless as a flounder. With his face contorted, teeth bared savagely, shoulders hunched, he was forcing all the strength of his arms into his fingers and they were crushing out the old woman’s life.

Quickly throwing herself onto the bed behind him Amber grabbed his arms and tried to drag him backwards. Cursing, he dropped the nurse, and turned on Amber, his fingers closing around her throat—squeezing the blood into her face and temples until the top of her head felt ready to burst. Her ears cracked and she went blind. Desperately she put up her hands and finding his eyeballs she gouged her thumbs into them. His grip weakened slowly, and then all at once he collapsed onto the bed, sprawling weirdly.

Amber slowly sank to the floor, helpless and stupidly dazed. It was several seconds before she realized what Spong was trying to tell her.

“—it’s broke, mam! It’s broke—that was what drove ’im mad!”

She dragged herself to her feet then and saw that the great swollen mass of the carbuncle had burst, as though the top had been blown off a crater. There was a hole deep enough and large enough to thrust a finger into, and the blood poured out in a dark scarlet stream that ran into a spreading pool on the bed and clotted thickly. A watery gland-fluid came with it, and yellow pus was beginning to work its way upward.

Amber sent Spong to the kitchen for some warm water and began immediately to wash off the blood, wiping it away as it ran out. The bloody rags accumulated in a heap and the nurse was kept busy tearing bandages from some clean sheets. But it would have done no good to bind them on; they would have soaked through in less than a minute. Amber had never seen a man lose so much blood, and it scared her.

“He’s going to bleed to death!” she said desperately, throwing another red sopping rag into the pail beside her. His face was no longer flushed but had turned white beneath the short growth of black bristle and it felt cold and wet to the touch.

“He’s a big man, mam—he can lose a lot of blood. But ye can thank God it broke. He’s got a chance to live now.”

At last the blood stopped flowing, though it continued to seep slowly, and she bound up the wound and turned to wash her hands in a basin of clean warm water. Spong approached her with an ingratiating whine.

“It’s half-after-three now, mam. Can’t I go to sleep?”

“Yes, go on. And thanks.”

“It’s almost mornin’, mam. Could I have the brandy now, d’ye think?”

Amber went out to the kitchen to get it for her; and though for a while she heard her behind the closed door, droning a song, finally she fell silent and then set up a clattering snore that went on hour after hour. Amber was kept busy changing the bandages and refilling the hot-water bottles. Along toward morning to her enormous relief the colour began to return to his face, his breathing became more regular, and his skin was dry again.


By the eighth day she was convinced that he would live, and Mrs. Spong agreed with her, though she said frankly that she had expected him to die. But the plague took them quickly, if at all. Those who lived until the third day could be reasonably hopeful, and whoever lived a week was almost certain to recover. But the period of convalescence was long and tedious and characterized by a deep physical and mental depression, an almost complete prostration, during which any sudden or undue exertion could have rapidly fatal results.

Since the night the carbuncle had opened Bruce had lain supine, never making a voluntary move. The restlessness, the delirium, the violence were gone and his strength had wasted until he was not able even to stir. He swallowed obediently whatever food or drink she put into his mouth, but the effort seemed to exhaust him. Much of the time, she knew, he slept, though his eyes were always closed and it was never possible to tell when he was awake or even whether he was conscious of being awake.

Amber worked ceaselessly, though after the bursting of the carbuncle she was able to get enough sleep, and she did her tasks with enthusiasm and even a kind of pleasure, certainly with satisfaction. Everything that Sarah had ever taught her about cooking and nursing and housekeeping came back to her now and she prided herself that she did a better job of all three than her maids could have done.

She did not dare bathe Bruce, but otherwise she kept him as clean as possible, and with Spong’s help she managed to change the sheets on the bed. The rest of the apartment was kept as immaculate as if she expected a visit from a maiden-aunt. She mopped the kitchen floor, washed the towels and sheets and napkins and her own smocks and ironed everything; every day she scoured the pewter dishes with bran and soap and set them before a hot fire to dry, which was the way Sarah had taught her to keep them shining and spotless. Her hands were beginning already to roughen and she had several small blisters, but that mattered no more to her than did the fact that her hair was oily and that she had not worn a speck of powder for a week and a half. When he begins to notice me, she told herself, I’ll take time for those things. Meanwhile, her only audience was Spong and the shop-keepers she saw when she went out to buy provisions, and they did not matter.

She had heard nothing at all from Nan and though she worried about her and the baby she tried to make herself believe that they were all right. As far as she knew there was no plague in the country. And of course it was very likely that the letter had not reached her at all. She knew Nan well enough to know that she could trust her loyalty and resourcefulness, and now she must do so and refuse to think anything but that they were safe and well.

Her own health continued as good as ever, a fact which she attributed to the unicorn’s horn, the Elizabethan gold coin she kept in her mouth, and her daily practice of taking a snip of her own hair, cutting it up fine and drinking it in a glass of water. This last was Spong’s suggestion and both of them followed it religiously, for it had seen Spong safely through eight houses full of plague. Occasionally she said a prayer, for good measure.

Dr. Barton had not come since his second call, and both Spong and Amber decided that he had either died or run away —as the plague got worse more and more of the doctors were leaving. But, as Bruce continued to improve, she did not trouble to find another one.

Every morning when she had fed Bruce his breakfast—usually a caudle—she changed the bandage on the great sloughing wound, washed his hands and face, cleaned his teeth as well as she could, and then sat down beside him to comb his hair. It was the moment she enjoyed most in each day, for her work kept her so busy that she had very little time to spend with him. Sometimes he looked up at her, but his eyes were dull and expressionless; she could not tell whether he even knew who it was bending over him. But each time that he looked at her she smiled, hoping for an answering smile.