“Or too much stale beer in a tavern last night,” I said. “Go upstairs to bed, and I’ll make your apologies.”
But by morning, he’d no interest in eating, and he’d a fever and soreness in his joints. I sent first for Dr. Bard, who then sent for Dr. Hosack, the professor of medicine from the college. He confirmed that a number of students had been taken ill with bilious fever, and immediately assumed the care of our son. Complaining and determined to continue his studies, Philip requested his books be brought to him so he might read in bed. Our other children were banished from his company for the sake of their health, though Angelica insisted on standing at the door of his bedchamber and singing foolish songs to cheer him.
Within two days, he’d worsened further. The ache in his joints had grown more acute, he’d chills along with the fever, and the window shades were drawn against the sun since bright light had become unbearable to him. Now there were no books read, nor foolish songs sung to him; instead we all whispered, and walked softly.
“I do not wish to leave the boy in this condition,” Alexander said after he visited Philip to say good-bye. The carriage was already waiting in the street to take him to Hartford in Connecticut, where he was to represent the state in Federal Court; a long ride under any circumstances, but especially now. “You must make sure to send for me if there is any change.”
“You know I will,” I said, glancing fearfully back toward our son’s room. “I trust Dr. Hosack’s skill, but we both know how unpredictable fevers can be.”
It was experience I wished we didn’t have. I watched as Dr. Hosack tried different remedies to no avail, recognizing each of them in turn: the flannel cloths, the different medicines and elixirs, the brandy and the leeches and the cold baths and warm.
By the end of the week, our son was even sicker, and with a grim face, Dr. Hosack informed me that the fever had assumed a typhus character that was often fatal in young persons. He sent a courier racing to Hartford to bring Alexander home. He wouldn’t have done that had there been any hope of our son surviving, and I grew distraught with fear and dread, and thought of how my sister Peggy had lost her two oldest children to fevers, too. When I sat beside Philip’s bed, he no longer knew me. His handsome face was gaunt and ghastly, his breathing was ragged. His skin was covered with a ruddy rash, and was like fire to touch. When I begged for something to do to help Philip live, Dr. Hosack told me to pray.
In the evening, Alexander still had not returned. Philip was delirious, thrashing about and babbling incoherently about a dog we’d had when he’d been a boy, an old friend from Albany, a girl he’d met at last week’s assembly. Then as abruptly as the delirium had begun, it vanished, and he became deathly still, without a pulse, and his eyes rolled back in his head.
I wept, distraught, so sure was I that he would die, and the doctor ordered me away from the room so that I wouldn’t witness my son’s agonized death. My sister Angelica came and sat with me, holding me as we prayed together for my precious boy.
From desperation the doctor tried one last cure, a bath not of cold water, but of warm, and infused with Jesuits’ bark and rum. Philip seemed to improve, and the doctor ordered him removed and rubbed briskly with rough cloths, and the immersion repeated. He improved still more, and though he was so weak he could scarcely raise his eyelids, he recognized me, and smiled. Now I wept for joy, and praised the doctor as our son’s savior.
It was well past midnight and I was still sitting drowsily beside Philip’s bed when Alexander finally returned. I roused myself and met him by the stairs, where his steps were heavy and his shoulders bent with grief. He’d been delayed along the way by overflowing streams, and feared he’d arrived too late to bid farewell to our beloved son. When I told him that Philip not only lived, but seemed improved, he wept, and rushed to kneel at our son’s bedside. He saw for himself that this was true, and when he learned all that had been done on Philip’s behalf, he went to the room where Dr. Hosack lay resting and woke him, insisting on thanking the good doctor himself for preserving our child.
To Dr. Hosack’s amazement, for the next fortnight Alexander put aside his legal cases, and instead devoted himself entirely to nursing our son back to health. I wasn’t surprised, for I’d seen his tenderness and dedication in tending his sick family before, and even been the beneficiary of it myself. If he’d not chosen the field of law, I do believe he would have made a physician of the first order, and done even more good in the world.
When at last our son was clear of danger, Alexander and I sat beside his bed together one evening, watching over him as parents who’ve been newly reminded of the fragility of their children’s lives, and the mercy of God’s grace. Yet Alexander’s thoughts were even darker, and in a way I’d never expected.
“All the way from Hartford, I grieved,” he said, his voice low so as not to wake Philip. “I felt sure we’d lost him, and it would have been entirely my fault.”
“No, it wouldn’t have,” I said. “You can’t blame yourself. Dr. Hosack said there were several other boys in Philip’s class ill as well, and they took the fever from one another.”
“That’s how it appears,” he said, “but I would have known otherwise. It would have been fate, pure and simple. His death would have been my punishment, retribution for how grievously I’d wronged you.”
“Don’t even think such things, Alexander,” I said, horrified. “It was the other boys who made Philip sick, and Dr. Hosack and God’s will that restored him. There was no fate, no retribution, and I won’t listen to you speak heathen nonsense like that again.”
He didn’t answer, content to watch our son instead, and uneasily I knew he remained still convinced of his blasphemous superstitions.
And from what befell us all later, perhaps in the end he was the one who was right.
*