Page 55 - Fever 1793

CHAPTER SEVENTEEN September 24th, 1793
I cannot anticipate nor limit the period, when the devastation and horror too long experienced in this miserable place will have an end.
—Letter of John Walsh, clerk Philadelphia, 1793
By the time we reached the coffeehouse it was midday. An ugly yellow scrap from a ripped bodice was still tied to the handle of the front door, which was open.
I jumped out of the wagon before it had stopped moving. I leapt up the steps and burst through the doorway.
“Grandfather, hurry!”
The front room was a jumble. Tables and chairs lay helter-skelter. The clock was missing from the mantle; the pewter candleholders were nowhere to be found. King Georges bird cage lay on the floor in pieces, as if smashed by a heavy boot. Grandfather hadn’t seen the foul-mouthed parrot in days. Had he come home and flown off again?
The destruction in the kitchen was greater. Broken pottery covered the floor. The doors to the pantry stood open, and Eliza’s crocks of preserves, the sugar cone, and her spice cabinet were missing. The coffee and tea canisters lay on their sides, empty. The dried meat, beans, and onions that usually hung from the ceiling had vanished. Even the kitchen table was overturned.
Something crunched behind me. I whirled around, but it was only Grandfather picking his way across the broken plates. “What happened here?” he asked quietly. His eyes moved over the mess, but it did not look like he could make sense of it. “I was just here a few days ago. I locked the door, Mattie. I’m sure.” His voice was on the edge of trembling.
I picked up pieces of broken glass. “Don’t fret,” I said. “Someone broke in the window. You locked the door, Grandfather. It’s not your fault.”
“Did they take anything from upstairs?”
My heart thudded against my stays. Before Grandfather could say another word, I had lifted my skirts and raced up the staircase.
The second floor looked as I had left it, except that Mother was missing. The powerful stench of sickness lingered. I opened the windows and shutters to bring in fresh air, then crossed the hall.
My bed was still in Grandfathers chamber. I glanced in to make sure everything was in its place. The room still held his presence: his books on the nightstand with an old pipe. A painting of Grandmother hung over his bed, with a picture of the farm where he grew up beside it. Whoever destroyed the first floor hadn’t bothered coming up here.
I went downstairs to rejoin Grandfather. The clothespress at the bottom of the stairs was untouched, the bed linens and tablecloths stacked in it as neatly as if Mother had set them there a moment ago. I lingered in front of it. It was almost possible to forget everything if I just focused on the scent of lavender and clean cotton and the beeswax that made the wood glow.
Grandfather was picking through the broken chairs in the front room, trying to salvage something to sit on. I opened all the windows and propped open the doors. There wasn’t a breath of air to be had. The room still held the faint smell of coffee and tobacco smoke, but dust coated the furniture and the floor.