Tanith Lee by When All Things Perish

Author:When All Things Perish
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Published: 2011-12-12T02:16:52+00:00

Then he frowned, and I asked him why he did so.

He said, ‘Ah, well, there have been rather a lot of such cases in the past month. But there. The old and the very young are always vulnerable. Your aunt, of course, is not yet sixty.’

I said, ‘Have there been fatalities?’

‘No, no, nothing like that.’

None of this prepared me for the sight of my aunt, who, lying propped on her pillows, looked white, and seemed, to me, near death. I took her hand, and she murmured at once, ‘I called you here, my dear, because I was afraid I might not be able to remain much longer. But today I feel rather better.’

I told her she was a fraud, and that I was happy to find her so.

Despite my nervousness, my aunt rallied. She improved. But she did not entirely get well. Two weeks later, when pressing concerns of my own urged me to go back to London, she too implored me to leave. ‘I was being very foolish,’ she said. ‘What nonsense. I shall see the New Century, I am determined on it.’ And I realized I made her more uncertain by remaining so faithfully, as if hourly fearful of her collapse.

The doctor too grew confident. ‘She is completely out of danger, or I’d never concur with your departure. And she has the best of care. I’d like to see more progress, but then her age has been against her a little. When the spring weather comes, then we should see a change for the better.

Although,’ he added, rather insensitively and ominously, ‘I find that all those who have succumbed to this pernicious malady take a great while over mending. There’s a young woman I have heard of, of only three-and-twenty, of the working families, you understand, but well nourished and fit, and the mother of healthy children, who has been sick with this same fever off and on for eight weeks. She was one of the first to contract it, and again and again she seems to throw it off, only to sink down once more.’

Receiving this news, I was now in two minds whether or not to go.

However, in the end a telegram arriving the other way, from the metropolis, forced my hand, and I caught the train.

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