‘You have been spoiled by your father and forgotten your place in the world, Susannah.’
‘Spoiled? Me?’ Susannah wasn’t sure what upset her the most: the accusation or seeing such resentment on her friend’s usually calm face.
‘You cannot deny it! What need has a woman of reading Latin poetry or having opinions on politics? Your father has indulged you too much since your mother died.’
‘He has not!’
‘Yes, he has!’ Martha glared at her.
Susannah stared back, shocked by her antagonism.
Upstairs there was a childish shriek of anger and then a thump followed by loud wailing cries. Anger boiled inside Susannah as she ran up the stairs to punish the miscreants. Would her life never be restored to its former ordered and contented state?
Chapter 3
Jennet’s pock-marked face was magenta with exertion as she riddled the buck sticks in the washtub. ‘I’d like to see the mistress wash the linen for once,’ she muttered to Susannah as she tipped in another bucket of water.
‘Hah!’ said Susannah. ‘Such a fine lady cannot be expected to soil her hands with maid’s work, can she?’ The kitchen was swelteringly hot and steamy and the mere thought of heaving the sodden linen out to dry increased her exhaustion.
‘Fine lady?’ Jennet snorted. ‘She let it slip she come from Shoreditch, like me. There are no fine ladies in Shoreditch.’
It had been three months since the tornado that was Arabella and her children had whirled over the threshold. Washing the linen had become an unwelcome and much greater feature in the household routine. Apart from the almost nightly wet bed, the children dirtied their clothes with monotonous regularity and Arabella refused to wear her chemise for more than three days at a time. Susannah wouldn’t have minded if her stepmother had taken her part in the washday drudgery but her housewifely actions didn’t extend to participating, merely to finding fault. When Susannah suggested sending the laundry out, Arabella wouldn’t hear of it.
‘Nonsense! What are a few wisps of children’s clothes to the usual wash?’
‘It’s not just the clothes; it’s the bedlinen!’
‘Has that maid been complaining again?’
‘Jennet works very hard,’ Susannah protested. ‘She rose at four this morning to put the laundry to soak.’
‘That’s what we pay her for, isn’t it? If I find any reason to suspect she is slacking …’
‘Jennet has been with this family for as long as I can remember and she has never slacked.’ It was true. Susannah’s mother had told her that it was sensible to choose a maid whose face had been spoiled by the pox since she would work hard and be grateful for employment and, over the years, Jennet had become a much-loved member of the household.
‘Your father is too tight-fisted with the housekeeping money for me to allow maids to sit and twiddle their thumbs while the laundry is sent out.’ Arabella’s mouth had set in a discontented line. ‘It seems Cornelius is not inclined to spend his money on anything at all, except those books he reads, while I am forced to go about in garments worn ragged with use. Your father married me under false pretences! He promised me that he was a man of considerable means and was full of tales of how I would want for nothing, but it’s all different now that he has me in his bed, isn’t it? I had thought that he wouldn’t wish people of his acquaintance to see me in such a shameful state, going about with a darn in my hem.’
Susannah had overheard raised voices the previous night as Arabella pleaded with Cornelius for a new dress of yellow silk. She smiled to herself with grim satisfaction as she helped Jennet to carry hot water from the fire to the washtub. At least her stepmother hadn’t won that particular battle, she reasoned, blowing a strand of damp hair off her face. She rested for a moment in the kitchen doorway, watching the children play outside in the yard. The hot June wind gusted over the wall, bearing the stench of the Thames from Blackfriars, and she couldn’t help wondering if it carried sickness with it. The plague and the spotted fever had taken a hold in the parish of St Giles. About twenty-five had been buried each week since the spring and by the beginning of May it had spread through the parishes of St Andrew’s and St Clement Dane’s before reaching the City. Only the week before, as the foetid heat of summer pressed down upon them, she’d seen a house in Drury Lane shut up with a red cross painted on the door. Shuddering, she imagined the plight of those locked inside, left to die a miserable death and to leave an inheritance of infection behind them for their family. She had always loved the city but increasingly she wished for the clean air of the country.
The children, made argumentative by the hot and muggy weather, had finally fallen asleep and Susannah, Cornelius and Arabella had retired to the parlour. Noise from the street clamoured in through the open window along with the humid air. Susannah had covertly loosened the lacing on her bodice but was still stifled by the oppressive warmth.
Arabella paced up and down, making it nigh on impossible for Cornelius and Susannah to concentrate on their reading.
‘Cornelius, I beg you!’ She knelt at his feet, her hands clasped prettily under her heart-shaped chin.
He slipped a bookmark into his volume of sonnets and Susannah watched his face, flushed and shiny in the heat, become entirely expressionless.
‘Arabella, I have explained to you, several times, that I cannot simply uproot my business and move us all to the country,’ he said.
‘You must!’
‘I will not. The shop has never been busier and we are making good money. Besides, where would we go?’
‘Anywhere!’ She pushed herself to her feet and stood over him, hands on hips. ‘Are you so selfish that you cannot see that you risk the health of your wife and my little ones if we stay?’
Susannah noticed that she was not included in her stepmother’s concerns but was compelled to defend her father’s decision. ‘We do everything possible to minimise risk, Arabella,’ she said. ‘Every morning I wash the counter with vinegar. We hold vinegar-soaked sponges by our noses to dispel evil humours when we are talking to customers and we make sure never to stand too close to any of them. And, as you know, I make a fresh infusion of rue and wormwood each day for us all.’
‘Nasty bitter stuff! The children can’t possibly be expected to drink it. And each and every person who walks into the shop may be the bearer of disease. This hot weather breeds sickness.’
‘You must understand, my dear,’ said Cornelius, ‘that I can be of use here not only to the sick but in providing advice and preventative remedies to those who are well.’ He reached for his wife’s hand but she snatched it away.
‘And what use will you be to any of us if the pestilence takes you? I’ve already lost one husband and you’ve no idea what it is to be thrown out into the world with children and no means of support. It’s pure selfishness on your part, that’s what it is!’ Arabella’s voice had taken on distinctly shrewish tones. ‘Well, all I can say is, don’t expect me to risk my life by sharing a bed with you, Cornelius Leyton! From now on I shall sleep with the children.’
‘Calm yourself, my dear!’
Arabella flounced from the parlour, slamming the door behind her.
Cornelius massaged the bridge of his nose and sighed.
Susannah stood up and went to the window, hoping to catch a breeze. The sun was setting and the sultry city air hung heavy and malodorous over the street.
‘Am I wrong, Susannah? Do you think we should flee to the country?’
She hesitated. Her father’s unhappiness made her sad but a small, base, part of her hoped it would open his eyes to Arabella’s selfishness. ‘How can we go?’ she said. ‘We’re needed here. So many apothecaries have already gone.’ A shiver ran down her back. ‘Or died.’
Cornelius rested his chin on the top of her head as they stood by the window watching the darkening sky.
‘Father, can you spare Ned to go into the yard and amuse Mathew and John for a while? I’ve spent all morning as
nursemaid and there is so much to do in the dispensary.’
‘Where is your stepmother?’
‘Lying down in her chemise with a megrim,’ said Susannah. ‘Again. She will not dine with us but has ordered Jennet to take her a tray at three o’clock.’
Cornelius sighed. ‘I see. In that case … Ned, will you do as Susannah asks?’
‘Yes, Master.’ Ned, boiling up foul-smelling chopped roots and herbs for a poultice, escaped as fast as he could. Barely more than a child himself, it was little hardship to him to play hopscotch or bowl a hoop for a few hours.
‘I’ll go up and see Arabella,’ said Cornelius. ‘She didn’t come to church yesterday. This cannot go on.’
Since Arabella had refused to speak to her husband for the last week, Susannah wondered if she would even allow Cornelius to enter her bedchamber. Arabella had amazed her by her ability to maintain a sulk for so long, especially since she was sharing a bed with Mathew. Susannah had mistakenly thought a few nightly soakings would hasten her return to the marital bed.
Although she found them trying in the extreme, Susannah did not wish the children ill and worried about their refusal to drink the infusion she made to ward off the plague. She was taking steps to improve matters. Overnight she had steeped some wormwood and rue in a measure of beer and now she squeezed the juice of a lemon into the strained liquid. She sipped a spoonful but although it was less bitter than the usual con -coction she thought it unlikely that the children would find it an improvement.
The shop bell jingled; Susannah glanced up and caught her breath to see a tall figure shrouded in a black cloak and hat standing in the doorway. He carried a long staff, painted red, and wore a white mask shaped like the beak of some fearsome bird of prey. She stood wide-eyed, staring at him, until he spoke.
‘Miss Leyton.’ He came inside and rested his staff against the counter.
‘Dr Ambrose? Is it you? You startled me.’ Relief – she supposed it was relief – made her heart flutter in a way that surprised her.
He reached behind his ears and released the strings which held the mask in place. ‘It is not my intention to frighten people. I merely wear this mask as a precaution against infection when I visit the sick.’ He turned the mask over and removed a small muslin bag filled with charcoal and herbs. ‘This is to filter the air I breathe and I wear high boots and swaddle myself in this thick cloak to protect myself.’
‘You must be near dying of heatstroke! And you look so terrifying I’m sure anyone who comes across you in the streets will turn and run away faster than quicksilver.’
‘Is your father here?’
‘He’s tending to my stepmother. May I help?’
‘It’s not a medical affair.’
She repressed a smile, pleased that he now seemed to take it for granted that she was knowledgeable about such matters.
Dr Ambrose shifted from foot to foot and Susannah wondered what made him look so ill at ease.
‘My cousin Henry has arrived from Barbados,’ he said. ‘He has the intention of starting his own importing business and has asked that I introduce him to people who may be interested in his venture. He hopes to sell sugar, rum and tobacco directly from his father’s plantation. I know you stock those items.’
‘Shall I tell Father that you will bring your cousin with you next time you visit? If his prices are keen I’m sure my father will be happy to discuss business with him. Meanwhile,’ she said, ‘perhaps you will advise me?’
‘I am at your service.’
‘The children refuse to drink the infusion I have made to ward off the pestilence. They say it is too bitter and no amount of reasoning with them will make them swallow it.’
Dr Ambrose’s face lightened with amusement and Susannah thought how different he looked when he shook off his usual dour and sombre expression.
‘The answer is right in front of you,’ he said. He pointed to the cone of sugar on the counter. ‘I have always found that children will swallow the nastiest medicine if it is well sweetened.’
‘That’s such an obvious answer that I feel cross with myself for not thinking of it before!’
‘There is another remedy that I find successful. Take some toasted bread and spread it thickly with treacle or honey and sprinkle over chopped leaves of rue. I promise you that it is irresistible to children and will disappear in the shake of a cow’s tail.’
‘I may try that myself. It is difficult to face wormwood before breakfast, don’t you think?’
Dr Ambrose allowed the smallest of smiles to flit across his face.
‘And I shall ask Father to make a note of the recipe in the journals that he keeps.’
The doctor had barely disappeared down the street when Susannah heard her father and Arabella on the stairs. Both their faces were wreathed in smiles and she wasn’t sure if she was happy or not to see that they were linked arm in arm.
‘Susannah, my dear, Arabella is recovered sufficiently to join us for dinner.’
It was quite clear to Susannah as they ate their mutton pie and boiled carrots that her stepmother had succeeded in attaining her latest heart’s desire. Cornelius had conceded that he would not wish his friends to think he was a miser and that the yellow silk dress Arabella craved was entirely necessary to her well-being and to his reputation. Her megrim disappeared upon the instant and her terror of contracting the plague did not deter her from making a visit to her dressmaker that very afternoon. That evening she returned to Cornelius’s bed and, once more, Susannah had to sleep with the pillow over her head.
Arabella’s sunny mood persisted over the next week and Cornelius lost the strained expression that had haunted him. Although it made Susannah uncomfortable to see him fondling Arabella with a foolish smile upon his lips, she was pleased he was happy again. For herself, all she desired was to keep busy, well away from her stepmother’s presence.
On the day that Arabella went to collect her new dress the children were left in Susannah’s care again. Jennet had been to market early and brought home a large pike, it being a Friday, and herbs from the countryside in Islington together with some new eggs to make a custard. Since Jennet was busy preparing the dinner, Susannah carried the washtub into the yard and filled it with water, stripped Mathew and John of their clothes and encouraged them to jump up and down on the soaking laundry.
‘It’s not decent!’ said Jennet, shocked. ‘In the light of day too, as naked as savages. Better not let the mistress catch you!’
The little savages screamed with delight at the cool water on their hot skin and Susannah had every hope that their energetic enjoyment would have the extra benefit of saving Jennet and herself from one of their most tedious chores.
Harriet, considering herself too old to join in her brothers’ fun, attached herself to Susannah yet again, like a shadow.
Susannah vacillated between being irritated by and sorry for the little girl. Her residence in Susannah’s bed was a constant annoyance and each bruise upon her person from the night-time kicks was a manifestation of the invasion of her privacy.
Susannah had work to do in the dispensary so she gave the child some pills to count and package while she busied herself with the pestle and mortar, grinding sugar and dried rue. Dr Ambrose’s suggestion to make the wormwood infusion palatable to children had been most successful and since then she had boiled up copious quantities of the syrup. She called it Leyton’s Plague Prevention Cordial and anxious mothers bought it as quickly as if it were hot cakes.
Susannah set the pan on the fire and stirred the powdered sugar into the water.
‘I don’t want to do this any more,’ said Harriet, flicking a pill across the room. ‘It’s tiresome.’
‘It’s a job that needs to be done. When you’ve finished you can help me to stir the pan while the sugar dissolves.’
‘Don’t want to! I hate it here. Why can’t we go to the country like Mama says?’
‘Because we are needed here.’
�
�But there’s nothing to do!’
‘Of course there is. There’s never enough time to do everything. If you don’t want to help me you can go and assist Jennet in the kitchen.’
‘I’m not a servant!’
‘Stop whining, Harriet! We all have to work.’
‘Mama doesn’t.’
Susannah barely trusted herself to speak. ‘Finish packaging those pills and then you can go and sit in the parlour and learn your catechism. I shall examine you after supper.’
‘Shan’t!’
‘You will do as I say, miss!’
Harriet narrowed her eyes and then, with deliberate intent, swept her arm across the counter and scattered several hundred Leyton’s Popular Pills onto the floor.
Susannah gasped. Never had she seen such a display of insolence. She grasped Harriet’s wrist, ready to give her a good shaking, but the child screeched so loudly that Susannah started, dropping her hand as quickly as if it were a hot coal. Harriet ran from the dispensary into the shop, still shrieking with rage.
Susannah didn’t have red hair for nothing. Temper blazing, she sprinted after her.
Ned watched them, his eyes wide, as she chased Harriet round the counter in the shop.
Glancing over her shoulder at Susannah as she ran, Harriet snatched a gallypot off the shelf and dashed it to the ground, quickly followed by another. Powdered liquorice flew up into the air and then Susannah lost her balance as her feet slid through a puddle of oil of turpentine. Still screeching, Harriet ran to the door as Susannah fell headlong, banging her head on the corner of the counter.
She wasn’t sure what happened then. The next thing she knew was that she was lying on the floor, the pungent scent of sal volatile was making her nose run and she had a thunderous pain in her head.
‘You’ve had a fall.’ Strong arms pulled her to a sitting position.
‘My head hurts!’ She raised her fingers to her forehead and was shocked to feel the stickiness of blood.
When she saw her stained hands she at once became faint again. Ever since her mother died she hadn’t been able to abide the sight of blood.
The Apothecary's Daughter Page 4