The Apothecary's Daughter

by Betts, Charlotte

  ‘Was there something you wanted?’ Susannah asked after a while.

  Cornelius picked up the lavender and twirled it between his fingers. ‘Your mother’s favourite flower,’ he said.

  ‘And we’re making your favourite biscuits.’

  ‘So I see.’ He replaced the lavender and in so doing knocked the book to the floor.

  A dozen scraps of paper flew out and Susannah scrambled to pick them up and tuck them back between the precious pages. ‘Father, why don’t you go into the parlour and I’ll bring you some of the biscuits when they’re baked?’

  ‘Yes, perhaps that would be best. There’s something …’

  ‘Hmm?’ Carefully, she broke eggs into a basin.

  ‘Later.’

  ‘He’s as jumpy as a cat with fleas!’ said Jennet, after he’d gone. She dried her hands on her hips. ‘I think he’s up to something.’

  When the jumbals were ready Susannah dusted them with powdered sugar and carried them up to the parlour where she found Cornelius standing by the window, staring down at the street. He turned, his face taut with worry.

  ‘Father, what is it?’ she asked, suddenly anxious.

  ‘You are so like your mother. Sometimes I catch sight of you with your pretty auburn hair and just for a moment I can almost believe Elizabeth has come back to me.’

  ‘I never feel she’s really left us.’

  ‘I know.’ He sighed deeply. ‘But she has gone. And it’s been eleven long years. You have been a great comfort to me, especially since Tom left too.’

  She squeezed his hand. ‘We’ve been a comfort to each other.’

  Abruptly he turned again and paced across to the hearth.

  ‘Susannah, I fear I have done you a disservice.’

  ‘A disservice? How could that be?’

  ‘I’ve been selfish. Your companionship has been so dear to me that I have kept you close to my side …’

  ‘But that’s where I want to be!’

  ‘You’ve learned my craft better than any of the apprentices I’ve taken on over the years and your writing is neater than my own. Even your Latin is as good as any scholar’s.’ He smiled wryly. ‘But you should be married by now, with a brood of little ones, like Martha.’

  ‘I’ve never wanted babies.’ It wasn’t true, of course. She wanted children as much as any woman but … she shuddered, remembering.

  ‘I have been remiss in finding a husband for you.’

  ‘I’m perfectly happy keeping house for you. Besides, what man would I find who could match up to you?’ There had been Nicholas, of course, but Father hadn’t considered him good enough for her. And then there had been the young man with the smiling eyes who delivered herbs to the shop from the farm in Essex …

  ‘Susannah, times change.’

  ‘What do you mean?’

  He took her hands between his, not meeting her eyes. ‘I love you as much as any man could love a daughter, but we’ve grieved for your mother for too long. I have made a decision.’ Still he didn’t look at her. ‘I intend to take another wife,’ he said.

  She gave an uncertain laugh. ‘You should not jest about something like that.’

  His mouth tightened. ‘I’ve made myself perfectly clear. I shall be married again. And I have met a suitable lady, a widow.’

  ‘But we manage very well.’ Susannah helped to keep the account books for the shop and she knew that they were far richer than anyone might suspect from the simple way they lived. Puzzled, she shook her head. ‘Your old age is secure; you have no need to marry to increase our fortune.’

  ‘That has not been a consideration in my decision. Through no fault of her own, the death of this lady’s husband has left her in straitened circumstances.’

  ‘This widow has no jointure?’

  Cornelius studied his shoes.

  ‘Then I do not understand. Why would you want to do such a thing?’

  ‘Because it is time. Because I need … companionship.’

  ‘Companionship? But we have each other! We do everything together. What more companionship could you possibly need?’

  Cornelius’s face flooded as crimson as the phials of cochineal in the dispensary. ‘A man needs a wife for …’ He gestured with his hands, at a loss for words.

  Suddenly she realised what he meant and the heat rose up in her own face. It had never occurred to her to even imagine that her own father had those particular needs.

  ‘The lady is looking forward to meeting you.’

  ‘I don’t want to meet her!’ Her fingers tingled and a cold shiver ran through her whole body. ‘Father, this is madness! Con sider …’

  ‘Enough! I shall bring her to dine with us the day after tomorrow. That will give you and Jennet time to prepare a good dinner.’ His tone brooked no argument.

  Susannah swallowed and stood up very straight. ‘Am I to know the name of this widow?’

  ‘Arabella Poynter. A pretty name, is it not? She has two sons and a daughter, Harriet, who is intent upon becoming your friend.’

  There was a roaring in Susannah’s ears and for a moment she wondered if she might faint. ‘Father, you cannot. Everything will change!’

  ‘My mind is quite made up.’ He turned his back on her and picked up a book from the table. She was dismissed.

  Her knees trembling with shock, Susannah returned to the kitchen.

  Determined that Mistress Poynter would be unable to find fault with what was to become her new home, Susannah and Jennet set to the housework. Tight-lipped, they swept and scrubbed the hall, stairs and parlour from top to bottom, obliterating the film of soot that continually settled everywhere from the sea-coal smog.

  Jennet, her hands red and weeping from scouring the pans, took the rugs into the yard and beat them until the cloud of dust mingled with the frosty mist of her breath. Susannah polished the plate with horsetail so that the pewter shone with the translucent gleam of still water under a thundery sky. Lost in thought, she stared at her reflection while she tried to understand why her father would wish to change their lives. It cut her deeply that he’d not told her he was lonely. She’d believed they were such close companions that they had no secrets from each other.

  On hands and knees, Susannah rubbed the wide elm floorboards in the parlour with her own beeswax and lavender polish, each sweep of the cloth feeding her smouldering resentment. Who was this gold-seeking widow who had the temerity to imagine she might take her mother’s place? And why did Harriet, the daughter of this interloper, imagine that they might be friends?

  The following morning Cornelius counted out a fistful of coins from the locked chest in his bedchamber and placed them in Susannah’s palm. ‘It is my express wish that you do not stint on the quality of this celebration dinner,’ he said.

  Susannah stared at the coins in her hand. She doubted that she had spent as much on food over the past month. Usually bid to be frugal, Jennet and Susannah argued over what to cook as they trekked through the snow to the market but agreed that a beef and oyster pudding, to Susannah’s mother’s special recipe, of course, was an essential centrepiece for the banquet.

  Nearly two hours had passed by the time they returned with their baskets filled with provisions fit for the feast that Cornelius expected for his future bride. Frozen to the bone, they took off their wet over-shoes and built up the fire. Susannah made the pastry while her hands were still cold and Jennet put the mutton on to boil and peeled the turnips. All the while she was rolling out the pastry Susannah was praying to herself that her father would change his mind about this unwelcome marriage.

  The oysters took longer to open than expected and they began to worry that they had been too ambitious in their choice of menu for the time available. When the bells of St Bride’s chimed a quarter to three Susannah flung off her apron and left Jennet to the greasy work of turning the chickens on the spit.

  Upstairs, Susannah put on her best green silk bodice and the skirt with the petticoat of gold damask. Then she
lifted the lid of her little marquetry box and took out one of the two most precious things she owned. She slipped the gold chain over her head and kissed her mother’s pearl pendant before settling it into place over her breast. The other treasure lay in the box wrapped in blue velvet; a miniature of her mother. The artist had caught the likeness well and she smiled steadily back, her face forever fixed in youth. Susannah suffered again the familiar, aching loss of a mother snatched away too soon. How could Father even contemplate replacing Mama?

  She wiped her eyes and knew that she could delay no longer. She peered into the looking glass. Would she do? She bit her lips to bring the colour back. The steamy kitchen, as always, had caused her hair to spiral into ringlets and she only had time to smooth them into place and pin on her lace cap before running down to the parlour.

  Cornelius, dressed in his new wig and best coat, was peering down the street. ‘Mistress Poynter should be here any minute,’ he said. ‘You look very well, my dear. I always liked you in that shade of green; it matches your eyes.’

  Susannah admitted to herself that jealousy probably made her eyes greener than usual. ‘All is in readiness,’ she said. ‘Jennet burned the carp a little but I removed the skin and smothered it in a butter sauce with herbs.’

  A sedan chair stopped in front of the house and Cornelius stood back from the window. Susannah wasn’t so well mannered and stared, heart galloping in her chest as she waited to catch a glimpse of her future stepmother. She was disappointed though, since the woman was swathed in a dark cloak with a hood. Daintily she picked her way through the slush and snow to the front door.

  Downstairs Jennet’s clogs clattered across the hall.

  Susannah swallowed back a sudden surge of queasiness and hoped Jennet had remembered to put on a clean cap and apron.

  Cornelius took up a carefully nonchalant position leaning against the mantelpiece and adjusted the lace at his cuffs again.

  Waiting with her shaking hands gripped together, Susannah listened to the footsteps coming up the stairs.

  The door opened.

  Susannah caught her breath. It was the inquisitive young woman who had visited the shop a few days previously. She stared at her, frowning. ‘I wasn’t expecting to see you,’ she said. ‘Are you Harriet? Could your mother not come, after all?’ She felt a flicker of annoyance for all the time she and Jennet had spent preparing the house and the dinner, only to find that Father’s intended had not appeared.

  The woman raised her finely plucked eyebrows. ‘My mother has been dead these past five years, may the Lord keep her.’

  Cornelius held out his hands to her and she offered her powdered cheek to be kissed. ‘Arabella, what a delight it is to have you join us,’ he said.

  ‘And for me to be here, my dear Cornelius.’

  ‘Let me present my daughter, Susannah.’

  Bemused, Susannah took the small, cold hand and struggled to reconcile her expectations of a forty- or even fifty-something widow with the girlish creature dressed in forget-me-not blue silk that stood before her. Had her father taken leave of his senses?

  ‘We have already met, Father,’ she said.

  ‘How so?’

  Arabella flushed rosily and fluttered her eyelashes. ‘I confess curiosity had the better of me, dear Cornelius. I came to make a trifling purchase the other day.’

  ‘But why did you not call for me?’

  ‘You were not at home and since it was before you proposed to me I hardly liked to introduce myself. Besides, what could I have said to dear Susannah without appearing too forward?’

  The yearning way Father looked at Arabella made Susannah deeply uncomfortable. ‘Father tells me that you have a daughter?’ she said, to break the spell between them.

  Smiling, Arabella turned to Susannah as if she’d just noticed her. ‘Harriet is my eldest; eight years old and a sweet child, as you will find out. And then there are my two sons, Mathew, six and John, four.’

  ‘But …’ Shock ran through Susannah like an icy river. It had simply never occurred to her that her future stepmother’s children were still young and would likely need to live under her father’s roof. ‘But where on earth will we put them all?’

  ‘I am sure we shall manage, shan’t we, Cornelius?’ Arabella gave him a radiant smile.

  ‘Of course we shall!’

  ‘And you, dear Susannah,’ she said, ‘will have the pleasure of a little sister and two new brothers.’

  Susannah watched her father pat Arabella’s arm. This woman had bewitched him! Suddenly, she couldn’t bear to be in the same room with them both. ‘I shall go and see if dinner is ready,’ she said.

  In the kitchen, Jennet gave her a wide-eyed look. ‘She’s not at all what I expected,’ she said.

  ‘No, she isn’t,’ said Susannah, still barely able to comprehend this turn of events. It was bad enough that Father wanted a wife but this girl was hardly a suitable companion for him.

  She returned upstairs, carrying the roasted chickens on a platter. She hesitated in the doorway as she caught a glimpse of Arabella encircled in her father’s arms, toying with the buttons on his waistcoat.

  Cornelius let Arabella go but he didn’t look at his daughter as she set the platter on the table.

  The dinner made an excellent show. There was the stewed carp, the famous beef and oyster pudding, boiled mutton with turnips and carrots, apple pie, candied quinces and a splendid cheese. Hardly any of it was eaten. Cornelius was too lovesick, his eyes never leaving Arabella’s simpering face, and Susannah was too sick with apprehension as she began to appreciate just how much the household was likely to change.

  Chapter 2

  ‘Holy matrimony is an honourable estate not by any to be enterprised, nor taken in hand, unadvisedly, lightly or wantonly …’

  The parson’s voice rang out clearly but Susannah let her mind drift. She sat at the front of the church of St Mary-le-Bow in a new hat, listening to the silken rustle of a congregation uncomfortably dressed in their best clothes, all there to witness her father’s marriage. Most of their friends and the doctors, apothecaries and several grateful patients of their acquaintance had come. Those of a nervous disposition had stayed away, anxious to avoid large gatherings for fear of pestilential infection. The pews on the bride’s side of the church were sparsely populated.

  Arabella stood at the altar rail with her father and there was nothing Susannah could, or would, do now to change the course of events. She had used every reasoned argument she could to make her father reconsider but in the end she’d had to accept that he had fallen in love with Arabella and would be miserable without her.

  During the weeks that the banns were being read, Arabella had joined them for dinner twice and on one occasion they were invited to the house she rented in Wood Street. There they met her children. Harriet’s fair hair and delicate features made her a diminutive replica of her mother, while Susannah wondered if the two boys, stocky and dark, resembled their late father.

  ‘First it was ordained for the procreation of children, to be brought up in the fear and nurture of the Lord …’

  The parson’s words made Susannah blink. The indecent thought that Father and Arabella might have children together hadn’t occurred to her. Surely Father was too old, even though his bride was young? It was shock enough to gain three new step-siblings without the awful prospect of any more children to come.

  ‘Secondly, it was ordained for a remedy against sin, and to avoid fornication …’

  She shut her ears to this and silently sang a psalm very loudly inside her head. The thought of Arabella in her nightshift, in her father’s bed, was impossible to contemplate without toe-curling embarrassment.

  ‘Thirdly, it was ordained for the mutual society, help and comfort, that the one ought to have of the other, both in prosperity and adversity …’

  Susannah freely admitted to herself that she was jealous of Arabella for coming between herself and Father but perhaps, in time, they would le
arn to like each other. After all, there was no reason why she and her father should discontinue their comfortable evenings reading aloud together; the only change would be that Arabella would be sitting on the other side of the hearth.

  ‘Who giveth this woman to be married to this man?’

  Arabella’s brother stepped back. The parson placed her hand in Cornelius’s palm.

  And so it was done.

  The wedding breakfast was held at the Crown and Cushion in Thames Street and once the chattering guests were seated Richard Berry, who had officiated as Cornelius’s best man, banged his knife on the table.

  ‘Pray silence for the pie!’ he shouted. He turned his ruddy face to Cornelius, barely able to contain his mirth. ‘This is my gift to you,’ he said. ‘I hope it will amuse you.’

  The fiddler scraped a merry tune on his violin as two serving maids carried in a vast pie on a tray balanced between their shoulders. Richard Berry danced a little jig as the pie was placed with much ceremony on the table before the groom.

  Cornelius sliced into the pastry and everyone gasped and then laughed as a flock of doves burst through the crust. Frightened by the noise, the birds fluttered about scattering crumbs, and worse, over the gathering.

  Chaos ensued. Mathew screamed himself into hysterics when he saw how his mother took fright, flapping her handkerchief at the birds and emitting piercing shrieks. One of the guests came forward with a flask of sal volatile but Arabella was apparently enjoying herself far too much being the centre of attention to be calmed and threw herself sobbing onto her husband’s shoulder.

  Susannah recognised Dr Ambrose, dressed rather too soberly for a wedding, as the guest who had tried to minister to Arabella.

  ‘How is your patient with the stone in his bladder?’ she asked.

  ‘Your father’s prescription is effective.’

  ‘More effective than sal volatile is in aiding my new stepmother?’