Chapter 19: Smallpox and the Determined Journey

⚠️ Spoiler Warning: This guide contains detailed spoilers for the entire novel. Proceed only if you've finished reading or are comfortable knowing the plot.

Summary

On the morning of her fifteenth day alone in the wilderness, the girl wakes with a fever and finds a red rash spreading across her arms, legs, and mouth—the unmistakable sign of smallpox. She reflects on the many deaths she witnessed at the settlement: fluxes, scurvy, plague, starvation, murder, and the child Bess who died of refusing to live. She checks her body for buboes and other signs but concludes it is smallpox.

She recalls the gentleman’s son whose pustules were between his toes, and the boots that have carried her so far. Despairing, she laughs and considers stopping to die, but then her own voice commands her to go on. She staggers forward with a fever that “shatters” her, dropping her driftwood crook earlier and finding a new stick. She hopes to reach the French territory before the disease immobilizes her, but loses her appetite and most of her hope.

As her fever intensifies, she begins to hallucinate. She enters a sunlit clearing and sees a vision of the cook’s table from the final Shrove Tuesday before the mistress married the preacher and sailed to the New World. The table is laden with a suckling pig, salmon, swan, honeyed trout, doves, a luxurious salad, and a marchpane model of Tyburn with tiny thieves on the gibbet. In the vision, the child Bess is beside her—the girl’s heart’s dearest love—and Bess slips a silver spoon into her hand. The mistress plays the lute and sings. The vision fades, leaving her grasping at empty air.

She walks through the twilight and into night, eyes closed at times, moving unseeing. She opens her eyes in a moonlit clearing, sees vibrant mushrooms, and kicks them. Later she finds herself high on a cliff on a narrow path, loses her footing, and falls. She hits the cliff face and lands on a mossy boulder, where she sleeps.

Key Events

The girl wakes on the fifteenth day with a fever and discovers the red rash of smallpox on her skin.
She mentally catalogues the many deaths she has seen, including the gentleman’s son and the child Bess.
She considers lying down to die but decides to go on, speaking the command aloud.
Her fever worsens; she loses her appetite and drops her walking stick, finding a replacement.
She experiences a vivid hallucination of the cook’s table from a Shrove Tuesday feast in England, complete with child Bess and the mistress.
The vision dissolves; she continues walking through the night, semiconscious.
She climbs a cliff on a narrow path, slips, falls, and lands on a mossy boulder, where she sleeps.

Character Development

The Girl (protagonist): The chapter deepens her resilience. Even when struck by a deadly illness, she refuses to surrender, forcing herself to move forward. Her determination is tested by physical agony and despair, yet she persists. The hallucination reveals her emotional core: her love for the child Bess and her longing for the comfort and abundance of the past. Her laugh at the mushrooms shows she retains a spark of dark humor even in extremis.
No new characters are introduced. The memories of the child Bess, the gentleman’s son, and the glassblower serve to flesh out the girl’s history and emotional attachments.

Themes, Symbols, or Motifs

Illness as trial and companion: The fever has been “her steady companion” since the settlement; now smallpox manifests visibly. The disease is an internal enemy that mirrors the external wilderness.
Memory and hallucination: The Shrove Tuesday vision is both a comfort and a torment—a perfect past that contrasts with her present suffering. The detail of the marchpane Tyburn with thieves on the gibbet foreshadows death and judgment.
The command to go on: The girl’s own voice in the wilderness is the only authority she heeds. This motif of self-direction recurs throughout the novel.
The fall and survival: Her plunge off the cliff and landing on moss symbolizes the precariousness of her journey and the small mercies that keep her alive.

Why This Chapter Matters

Chapter 19 marks a turning point in the girl’s physical decline. The onset of smallpox introduces the possibility that her journey may end in death, not rescue. It forces her to confront her own mortality and the memories that haunt her. The hallucinated feast and the presence of child Bess reveal the deep emotional losses she carries—especially the loss of a child she loved as her own. This chapter deepens the novel’s exploration of survival, memory, and the will to live.

Study Questions and Answers

1. Why does the girl decide to go on after discovering she has smallpox?
She experiences a moment of despair and considers lying down to die, but then her own voice speaks aloud, commanding “Go on.” She believes that if she keeps moving north toward the French territory, she might find shelter and care before the disease renders her immobile. Her determination comes from within—there is no external savior.

2. What does the hallucination of the cook’s table reveal about the girl’s past and emotions?
The vision recalls a specific Shrove Tuesday feast before the mistress married the preacher and moved to the New World. It shows the girl’s longing for a time of abundance, safety, and love. The presence of child Bess—described as her “heart’s dearest love”—reveals that the girl had a deep attachment to this child, likely her own daughter or a child she cared for. The detail of Bess slipping a silver spoon into her hand suggests a secret, intimate bond.

3. How does the girl’s fall off the cliff reflect her physical and mental state at the chapter’s end?
The fall is almost incidental; she was walking in a feverish, semiconscious state and found herself on a dangerous cliff path without knowing how she got there. Her lack of awareness and the fact that she survives by landing on a mossy boulder underline the randomness of her survival and her body’s continued ability to endure, even as her mind is overwhelmed by fever and exhaustion.