Read The White Plague for Free Online Page A

automobiles being so dear. She was about to say this to him when the left front tire blew. The car swerved onto the verge, bumped over a curbing stone and slewed sideways on grass, coming to a stop with the headlights illuminating a grass-grown private driveway between two broken-down gateposts. The gate itself lay on its side against the right-hand post, leaving the driveway open.
    Stephen took several deep breaths through his open mouth, then: “Katie, are you all right?” His hands ached where they clutched the steering wheel.
    “Shaken a bit,” she said. “Should we be pulling off the road?”
    Stephen swallowed and eased the car ahead into the grass-grown driveway. The way turned left almost immediately and his headlights revealed the burned-out ruin of a cottage, all the charred roof beams collapsed into the center. He stopped the motor and they sat there a moment, listening to the insects and the faint murmuring of a nearby brook. Moonlight poured over the hills behind the ruined cottage. There was a forlorn feeling about the place.
    “Well, I’d best be changing the tire,” he said.
    “I’d like a sandwich first,” she said.
    He agreed and found an old blanket in the back, spreading it on the grass beside the car, then turning off the headlights. The moon was bright.
    “Almost like day,” Kate said as she brought the food to the blanket.
    They sat facing each other, chewing in unison, clinking their bottles of Guinness in a toast to the blown tire, the moon, to the folk “who lived here when it was a happy house.”
    Presently, Stephen finished his sandwich and drained his beer. Kate grinned at him. She didn’t know whether it was the drink or just being here with Stephen, but she felt an enormous sense of contentment. This didn’t stop her from saying as he stood up:
    “You’ll get your jacket all dirty. Take it off and the shirt with it now.”
    She stood up and helped him, folding the garments neatly and placing them on the edge of the blanket. He wore no undershirt, and the look of his bare chest in the moonlight she thought one of the most beautiful sights in the universe. Almost of its own volition, her right hand went out and his chest was warm beneath her caressing palm.
    How it all happened she could never fully explain afterward, even to her best friend and fellow student, Maggie MacLynn.
    “Ohhh, he was so strong, Maggie. I couldn’t help m’self. Nor did I want to. That’s shameless of me, I know, but it…”
    “Well, join the club, Katie darlin’. Will you be marrying now, I suppose?”
    They sat alone together the following Monday on the quad, having an early lunch. Maggie had drawn the story out of her, having noticed Kate’s quiet withdrawal. It had taken only a reminder of their childhood pledge “never to lie to each other about important things.”
    A tall, slender woman with hair the color of old gold, Maggie was considered one of the campus beauties. Some of the nursing students whispered that Maggie had chosen Kate as a friend “to set off her own looks.” But the truth was they had been close friends from childhood, since their first day of primary school.
    Maggie repeated her question, then: “Didn’t he even propose?”
    “I don’t know what I’ll say in confession, Maggie,” Kate said. “God help me, what’ll I do?”
    “What you say is this: ‘Father forgive me. I’ve had a sexual experience.’  Tell him it was the drink and the great power of the man and you’ll never do it again.”
    “But what if we do?” Kate wailed.
    “I try to go to a different priest,” Maggie said, matter-of-fact. “It saves the explainin’.” She studied Kate a moment. “I know you, Katie. Will you be marryin’ now?”
    “Don’t be stupid!” Kate flared, then: “I’m sorry, Maggie. But he was at me about that all the way back. And you know we can’t marry until he graduates and maybe not until he has his own shingle out. We’re not rich, you know.”
    “Then