and he spent most of his time tormenting the other patients. The only thing that kept Eileen from killing him was the vicar’s arrival. He called up to her that he’d brought extra linens and some jelly from Miss Fuller and chatted with her through the window for a bit.
“If it’s any comfort, you’re not the only ones quarantined. The Sperrys and Pritchards are as well. They’ve closed the school,” he told her. “I’ll leave the linens and jelly on the kitchen step. Oh, and I’ve brought the post.”
The post consisted of the London Times, which reported that the Germans were driving into France and that Belgium might fall, a letter from Mrs. Magruder saying yes, her children had had the measles, and a note from Lady Caroline. “I am devastated at not being at home to assist you in this crisis,” she wrote.
“Ha!” Mrs. Bascombe said. “She’s thanking her lucky stars she went to that meeting and was out of the house. Though if you ask me, it’s a blessing she’s not here. It’s one less person to cook for and clean up after.”
She was right. They already had more than they could cope with. By the end of the week, eleven of the evacuees were down with the measles, the nurse Dr. Stuart had promised still hadn’t arrived, and when Polly asked him about it on his next visit, he shook his head grimly. “She joined the Royal Nursing Corps last month, and all the other nurses in the area have already been engaged. There are a good many cases in the district.”
There are a good many cases here, Eileen thought, exasperated, and over the next few days the number grew even larger. Susan came down with measles and so did Georgie; they had to set up a second ward in the music room; and everyone—including Samuels, who saw his job as beginning and ending with keeping everyone from escaping the house—had to pitch in. Mrs. Bascombe took over the housekeeping, the vicar brought medicine and calves’ foot jelly, and Binnie carried trays and drove Eileen to distraction. “Are they all going to die?” she asked her loudly, trying to peek into the ballroom.
“No, of course not. Children don’t die of measles.”
“I know a girl what did. She ’ad a white coffin.”
After a day and a half of similar sentiments, Eileen reassigned Binnie to kitchen duty. Mrs. Bascombe tied one of her aprons on her and set her to work washing the dishes, hanging up the laundry in the now-deserted ballroom, and scrubbing the floor.
“It’s not fair,” Binnie told Eileen indignantly. “I wish I could have caught the measles.”
“Be careful what you wish for,” Mrs. Bascombe, coming in from the larder, said. “And be careful with those teacups. She’s already broken four,” she told Eileen. “And the Spode teapot. I don’t know what Lady Caroline will say.”
Eileen wasn’t particularly worried. Lady Caroline had only written once since that first time, to tell them that she’d be staying with friends till the quarantine was lifted and to send her “my white georgette, my silver fox stole, and my blue bathing dress.”
The next few days were a blur—children in the vomiting stage, the spiking-fever stage, and the emerging-rash stage. Peggy and Reg got eye infections, and Jill developed a chesty cough that Dr. Stuart warned Eileen to keep a sharp eye on. “We don’t want it to go into her chest,” he said, and added twice-a-day steam infusions under an improvised tent of blankets to Eileen’s list of chores.
Which was endless, in spite of everyone, including the little ones, helping out. Peggy and Barbara swept the nursery, Theodore made up his own cot, and Binnie toiled in the kitchen and endured Mrs. Bascombe’s lectures. Every time Eileen came down to the kitchen, Mrs. Bascombe was shaking her finger at Binnie, saying, “You call that peeling? You’ve taken off half the potato!” or “Why haven’t you finished putting away those dishes?” or the all-purpose “Mark my words, you’ll come to a bad end!” Eileen actually began to feel a bit sorry for her.
On Thursday, when she went downstairs for mentholated spirits to put in Jill’s steam kettle, Binnie was at the kitchen table with her head lying on her arms in an attitude of despair, a massive pile of to-be-cleaned vegetables next to her. “Mrs. Bascombe,” Eileen said, going out to the larder, “you really mustn’t be so hard on Binnie. She’s doing her best.”