“You’ve always had both the mind and the manner for medicine,” he said. “You’ll do well in Carrick Hollow. It’s time they had a doctor as fine as yourself.”
As it happened, the residents of the village took me in with open arms, proud of my accomplishments, and glad to have a physician so nearby. Several of them helped me to convert a building formerly used by a lawyer into a small clinic, which had the advantage of living quarters on the upper story.
I had the good fortune to be of some help to my first patients, and soon others were ready to follow my medical advice and help me to establish my practice. I fell easily into life in Carrick Hollow, surrounded by the sense of community I so missed in Boston.
Only one problem continued to trouble me-my father’s state of mind.
Father had never fully recovered from the deaths in our family, especially not from the loss of my mother. Noah had been greatly relieved when I told him that I meant to set up my practice in the village. “Perhaps you will be able to cheer him,” he said. “He has not been the same since-since the day Nathan died.”
But although he was always kind to me in those months, my father never smiled, and seldom spoke. His sleep was often disturbed by nightmares, and if not for our constant coaxing, he would not have eaten enough to keep his strength up. He worked hard, but the joy he had once taken in his labors was gone. There was a lost look in his eyes, and the smallest happiness seemed beyond his reach. It was as if, on that long ago day at the cemetery, his own heart had fallen on those flames, and turned to ashes with my mother’s.
His lifelessness was a condition found in others in Carrick Hollow-in Isaac Gardner, in Mr. Robinson, and in others who had performed Winston’s brutal ritual. Bitterly I reflected that nothing in my medical training would cure these men. I vowed that no one in Carrick Hollow would ever be forced to endure that ritual again.
Soon after I had opened my office, I was given an opportunity to make good on that vow. I was visited by Jacob Wilcox, a middle-aged man just returned to Carrick Hollow from factory work in Fall River. His rumbling cough was a tell-tale sign of tuberculosis, but my examination revealed that the disease was in its early stages.
I recommended the best hope for his recovery-the strict regimens of a sanitarium. I suggested one in the Adirondack Mountains, which had the advantages of being close to Rhode Island and less costly than those in the western United States. He thanked me, took the information, and went on his way.
A few days later, at my father’s request, I visited the farm. Coming down the drive, hearing the welcoming bark of our old dogs, I felt what had become a customary mixture of sadness and deep comfort in returning to my childhood home. Noah and my father came out to help me stable the horse, and my brother and I spoke of inconsequential things. I could not help but notice that Father seemed agitated, and Noah wary.
My father did not broach the subject that concerned him until we had finished eating our simple meal-a meal he had barely touched. He put a log on the fire, then turned to me and said, “I’m told that you saw a patient with consumption today.”
“Yes,” I answered hesitantly. I had not previously told him of my devotion to the study of consumption, and I was concerned that he would be touched on the raw by any mention of it.
He frowned. “I talked to young Wilcox after you saw him. What is this treatment you prescribed? Why do you send him to the mountains?”
“In hope of curing his consumption,” I said.
“Curing! Is it possible?”
“Sometimes, yes.” I began to tell him of the benefits the TB patient might find in life in a sanitarium-exposure to a healthful climate, enforced rest, fresh air, proper care and good nutrition. “And of course, the sanitarium separates those who have this contagion from any who might be vulnerable to it, so the disease is less likely to be spread to others.”
“You have especially concerned yourself with the study of-you call it ‘TB?’ ”
“Yes.”
His questions became more persistent, and soon I was talking to him of Brehmer, Villemin, Koch and all the others whose discoveries had brought us to our present understanding of the disease. My father listened with rapt attention, but I saw that he became more and more uneasy as I spoke. Soon, however, I recognized that he was dismayed not by what I had learned about TB, but by his own previous ignorance.
“Dr. Ashford did not know of this!” he said. “Your mother, the children-their consumption was a death sentence! I should have sought another physician, a younger man, such as yourself. If we had known of these sanitariums-”
“It still might not have helped-sanitariums only give consumptives a chance to recover. Some people survive, others arrive only to die a few weeks later.”
“But Nathan-your mother, Robert and Daniel-all of them, even Rebecca-they might have lived had we sent Rebecca away?”
“I don’t know. There were so many others in Carrick Hollow who were ill that winter. Perhaps they would have caught TB from Mrs. Gardner, or Jane, or another. We cannot always cure this disease, Papa. I can’t say for certain who would live and who would die. For all that men in my profession have learned, life and death are still in God’s hands.”
He was silent.
“We cannot change the past, Papa. I only hope to save others from the horror our family experienced. In truth, my most difficult battle is not against the disease, but rather the ignorance-the sort of ignorance which allows men like Winston to convince others that the afflicted are beset by vampires. As long as he spouts his nonsense, others will die, because he will have his neighbors believing that spiritual mumbo jumbo-and not infection-are at the root of the disease.”
“You are too kind, John,” he said slowly. “You fail to mention the truly damned. Men like your father, who will be persuaded that barbaric rituals must be performed on the bodies of their dead-”
“Papa, you never believed him. You had other reasons. Do not torture yourself so!”
“There is no escape from it.”
“Then try to find some peace where I have-in helping the living. That is how my mother’s memory is best served-the sooner we educate our neighbors in the truth of this matter, the less influence men of Winston’s stripe will have over them.”
I was gratified, the next day, to see that he seemed to have dedicated himself to this cause, and that he was to some degree transformed by his devotion to it. Whenever I happened to glance out my office window, I saw my father talking in an animated fashion to any who would hear him. He was a respected member of the community, and had no shortage of listeners. Isaac Gardner was with him, and he, too, seemed to have taken up the banner. By the early afternoon, Mr. Robinson had stopped into my office to ask if what my father said was true-that vampires had nothing to do with consumption, that some people were being cured of it in sanitariums. I verified that it was so, and watched his eyes cloud with tears. “Then what Winston told me to do to Louisa’s body-the ritual-that was all for naught?”
“I’m afraid so,” I said gently.
He swore rather violently regarding Mr. Winston, then begged my pardon, and left. I watched him walk across the street to join the growing crowd that had gathered around my parent. I smiled. My father, Isaac Gardner and Mr. Robinson would all do a better job of convincing the others than I ever could.
I was vaguely aware that the crowd was moving off down the street, but I was soon caught up in the care of a young patient who had fallen from a tree, and forgot all about vampires and consumption. I set his broken arm, and sent him and his grateful mother on their way. I had just finished straightening my examination room when the door to my office burst open, and my father, Noah, Isaac Gardner, Robinson and a great many others came crowding into the room. They carried between them a man whose face was so battered and clothing so bloodied that I would not have recognized him were it not for a memorable piece of ostentation he was never without-a heavy gold watch chain.