The Roman fever ravaged Edinburgh two years ago, the summer of 1815, with over two thousand dead.
10
HAZEL KNEW WHAT WAS COMING. THOUGH Lady Sinnett abhorred newspapers and tried to keep Hawthornden tightly sealed as a cocoon, still, she knew about the rumors and the fears that had begun to bubble over from Edinburgh proper. If the fever was making a return, Lady Sinnett would do whatever it took to keep Percy safe. Even still, it came sooner than Hazel expected: the trunks packed in the hallway, the frantic arrangements made for an apartment in Bath.
“But we always spend Christmas at Hawthornden,” Hazel had said as she watched her mother carefully wrapping her jewels in linen.
“Not this year,” she replied. “This year we’re going to Bath, for a holiday before London.”
A dozen times a day, Lady Sinnett gently pressed the back of her cold hand to Percy’s forehead and cooed. “The warm waters at Bath will do you well, my darling,” she repeated. She flitted through the house like a trapped moth, opening and shutting windows at random, murmuring about “good air” for Percy.
The day before the trip, Hazel began to cough conspicuously. That evening, she complained of a chill. The next morning, Hazel didn’t go down to breakfast. She told Iona to tell her mother that she felt feverish. From her bed, Hazel could hear her mother’s shriek a floor below. There was frantic movement and inaudible whispering, and then came a soft knocking on Hazel’s door.
“It’s me, miss,” Iona said softly from the other side of the wood. “Your mother asked me to stay on the other side of the door, in case you’re catching. She asks what the symptoms are?”
Hazel thought for a moment. “Fever, definitely. I think maybe just fever. And blurring vision.” And, why not? “And my tongue has gone green.”
Footsteps. And then footsteps back. Hazel could sense Iona’s hesitation in the hallway. “Your mother—Lady Sinnett wonders if perhaps it might make more sense for you to rest here, at Hawthornden, and join them in Bath only once you’re well.” Lady Sinnett shouted something from down the stairs. “Or even,” Iona amended, “wait until they’re in London for the Season and meet them there. Just to make sure you’re well, miss.”
Hazel grinned from beneath her sheets. She had heated the bedpan to use to warm the sheets, and brought a glass of water that she could have used to pat against her hairline if her mother needed proof that she was feverish, but she might have known that Lady Sinnett would be too frightened to get closer than the landing. “I think that’ll be just fine,” Hazel said. And then, realizing that her voice had sounded perhaps a bit too perky, she added, “If that’s what Mother thinks is best. For Percy’s safety.”
There were more footsteps, heavier this time, and Hazel knew that her mother was now in the hallway outside her door. “Hazel,” Lady Sinnett said, “do take care of yourself. Iona and Cook will be here. And I’ve told Lord Almont to send an extra ladies’ maid if you need one.” A pause. “You understand, don’t you?” Lady Sinnett asked. “We could delay the trip, but…”
“It’s perfectly all right, Mother,” Hazel called back. “In fact, I insist upon it. I imagine I just need rest. And there’s no sense in risking Percy’s health. I will rest up at Hawthornden and join you in the South when I’m well.” She added a theatrical cough. “I’m too sick even to leave bed at the moment.”
“Well, all right,” Lady Sinnett said after a moment. “I’ll see you again soon. I’ve left the address of the apartment in Bath. Please write to let us know how you’re feeling.”
“I will.”
There was the swish of skirts on the wooden floor. For the next hour, Hazel was silent, listening to the sounds of the house as they made their final arrangements for the trip down to England, the dog barking as trunks were brought outside, Cook wrapping pies for the road, the horses getting strapped into place. Finally, there were the final footsteps of Percy and Lady Sinnett leaving their rooms, and the echoes as the household went outside to wave them off.
Hazel waited until the sound of the carriage on the gravel drive faded away. And then she waited another half an hour—about as long as it would take them to get to the end of the drive and to the gate where the Hawthornden estate met the main road. And then Hazel flipped her blanket down, got out of bed, and called to Iona, asking for a cup of tea. She had done it. She had months alone, without Lady Sinnett, without Percy—with everyone who mattered thinking that she was too sick to leave the house.