Fever 1793: Chapter 9 Summary & Analysis

Grandfather determines that Mother is alive. He gets Mattie to help him carry her into the coffeehouse. Eliza screams and drops a pitcher when she sees Lucille. Grandfather says that she has simply been overcome by the heat. Lucille revives after they tuck her into bed. She’s shivering. She tells Mattie to go downstairs and make herself useful. Mattie feels that with mother sleeping during the day, “something was desperately wrong.”

The afternoon is disastrous, with leaking coffee, burned biscuits, and quarrelsome customers. At the end of the day, Grandfather brings in Mr. Rowley. Eliza tells Mattie that Mr. Rowley isn’t “a proper physician, but he sees sick folk and prescribes medicines.” According to Reverend Allen at the Free African Society, all of the real physicians are working near the waterfront, where “bodies are piling up like firewood.”

Grandfather introduces Mr. Rowley, who’s experienced in “treating female complaints.” Mattie is skeptical, as he looks dirty and smells of rum, but she follows them all into the bedroom. Mr. Rowley examines Mother, who remains asleep. Finally, he pronounces that Mother’s illness is not yellow fever. Famous doctors like Mr. Rush, he claims, are being alarmist. The “pestilence” is a matter of fervent debate; people are being thrown out by their families over mistaken yellow fever diagnoses, so Mr. Rowley himself uses the diagnosis sparingly. Grandfather feels vindicated. Mr. Rowley prescribes some treatments and collects his fee.

Mattie doesn’t want to help Eliza give Mother a bath—it feels “upside down and backside front”—but it’s necessary. Every four hours, they have to wake Lucille and drag her into a hot bath. Lucille weeps and calls Mattie’s father’s name. When they put her back to bed with fresh linens, she shivers until her teeth rattle. That night, Grandfather sleeps at Mr. Carris’s house, and Eliza must go home to her brother’s family. She kisses Mattie and promises to try to bring a doctor in the morning.

Mattie locks herself in the darkened house. When she checks on Mother, she wonders, “Had [Mother] ever enjoyed anything? […] Perhaps death would be a release.” As Lucille moans in her sleep, Mattie tries to control her tears. She reflects that no one can ever tell Mother’s feelings just by looking at her; Mattie needs to master this skill. “There were so many things she had tried to teach me,” she thinks, “but I didn’t listen.”

Mattie prays some Psalms for deliverance and then dozes off next to Mother’s bed. The next thing she knows, Mother is violently vomiting blood, her eyes rolled back in her head. Mattie jumps up, screaming for Eliza. But Mattie is alone. She forces herself to soothe Mother and sponge her face. Mother vomits again and raggedly begs Mattie to leave her. Mattie, sobbing, tries to offer her mother another bath and clean linens, but Lucille weakly throws the Psalm book at Mattie’s head and croaks at her to go away.