She rushes to the door, calls down the stairs to Mrs. Cowley. “There’s something wrong with Margaret!”
She doesn’t wait for a response, just returns to Margaret’s bedside and rips off her quilts. Margaret shivers violently, but doesn’t wake.
“Don’t do this, Margaret,” Sally pleads as she begins to unwrap the bandages around her leg. “Please don’t do this.”
Mrs. Cowley appears in the doorway. “What is it?” she asks.
“She’s got a fever.”
The old woman closes her eyes, like she’s just been delivered a blow, then she joins Sally beside the bed.
When the leg is unwrapped, Mrs. Cowley touches the edges of the wound with the tips of her fingers. “Feel this?”
The skin is red and warm to the touch.
“It’s infected?” says Sally.
Mrs. Cowley nods, then says, “I’ll send Birdie for the surgeon.”
“What good will he do now?”
“Not much.”
Sally stands there for several long minutes, staring at her beloved friend. “God damn you, Archie,” she says, more to herself than to Mrs. Cowley.
“Pardon?” says the old woman.
“He wanted her whole.”
JACK
After the paperwork is takencare of, Ritchie remains at the tavern long enough to supervise the writing of an apology letter, which he intends to publish in the next edition of theEnquirer. “It is only fitting,” he says as he presents Placide with paper and pen, but anyone with half a thought in his head knows that this letter has as much to do with selling copies of his newspaper as anything else.
Placide attempts to put a few sentences together, but nothing meets Ritchie’s approval. Finally, Placide hands the pen to Anderson. “Why don’t you try?”
Anderson demurs—for a moment, at least—then he takes the pen and scratches out an apology for the ages:
To the Citizens of Richmond:
In the sincerity of afflicted minds and deeply wounded hearts, permit us to express the anguish which we feel for the late dreadful calamity; of which we cannot but consider ourselves the innocent cause.
From a liberal and enlightened community we fear no reproaches; but we are conscious that many have too much cause to wish they had never known us. To their mercy we appeal for forgiveness—not for a crime committed, but for one which could not be prevented.
Our own loss cannot be estimated but by ourselves. ’Tis true (with one exception), we have not to lament the loss of life—but we have lost our friends, our patrons, our property, and in part, our homes. Nor is this all our loss. In this miserable calamity, we find a sentence of banishment from your hospitable city. No more do we expect to feel that glow of pleasure which pervades a grateful heart, while it receives favors liberally bestowed. Never again shall we behold that feminine humanity which is eagerly displayed itself to soothe the victims of disease, andview with exultation the benevolent who fostered the fatherless, and shed comfort on the departing soul of a dying mother. Here then, we cease. The eloquence of grief is silence.
When it is done, Ritchie asks all of the company’s lead actors to sign their names to it. Anderson does so, then hands the pen to Placide, who signs for himself and also Green because no one has seen him all morning. Young, Twaits, Burke—they all comply.
Only West refuses, which doesn’t surprise Jack. “I think I’ve sacrificed enough for today.”
No one argues with him.
After Ritchie has packed up his papers, the letter among them, he asks Jack if he would like to see him out. Jack nods, and follows him out of the back room and down the narrow hallway that leads to the taproom. At the door of the tavern, Ritchie turns to him. “You did the right thing, telling me the truth. Even if it doesn’t feel like it.”
“Nothing came of it.”
“We needed the land—a burial on the site is what makes the most sense.”
Jack gives Ritchie a nod of understanding, although the truth is that nothing makes much sense to him anymore.
