The Apothecary's Daughter

by Betts, Charlotte

  She reached out to pinch the needle-like leaves of a lavender bush and sniffed at the sharp, clean scent upon her fingers. Behind the lavender bush grew tall stems of wormwood; she stood up to stroke their feathery fronds. As she looked more closely she saw mint and thyme thrusting new shoots through the blanket of weeds. A physic garden! Unable to resist, she pulled up a handful of chick-weed and used a stick to pry loose a dandelion root. The soil was sun-warmed in her fingers and she was possessed with a wonderful sense of well-being.

  It was as she tugged at a plantain that it happened. Nothing more than a flutter at first and then a more insistent tapping. She dropped the weed and pressed her hands to her stomach. There it was again!

  ‘Oh!’ she exclaimed. She sat down on the bench, her knees suddenly weak. She closed her eyes against the sun, waiting quietly; stars appeared on the inside of her eyelids and then she felt the tiny movement again.

  She blinked away tears, her arms wrapped tightly round her waist. Her child was letting her know that it was alive and kicking! The wonder of the moment took her by complete surprise and she was overcome with shame that she had tried for so long to deny the infant’s very existence. This was a real person in the making, as real as herself, with a soul of its own. ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘Forgive me!’

  She pulled from her bodice the black ribbon with Henry’s wedding ring threaded upon it. It was too late for Henry to know his child but she vowed then to give their baby enough love for both of them.

  Footsteps crunched on gravel and she looked up to see William walking briskly along the path. She longed to share her sense of wonder with him but emotion made her face crumple.

  ‘Susannah, you’re crying!’ He gripped her shoulder and kneeled down on the path to look into her face.

  He was close enough for her to see flecks of gold in his dark eyes. It felt natural to her to lean her head so that her cheek rested upon his hand. She closed her eyes as she luxuriated in the warmth of his skin against her own.

  ‘Susannah, my dear, what is it?’

  She took a deep breath and wiped away her tears. ‘Do not concern yourself, I am quite well. But the most marvellous thing has happened! My baby has quickened.’ She smiled tremulously at him, anxious to share with him the gift of this perfect moment.

  He saw the ribbon clasped in her fist and pulled it free. He stared down at her wedding ring. ‘Do you miss him?’ he asked, his face curiously expressionless.

  How could she answer that with the truth? To say that she barely thought about Henry would appear callous in the extreme. ‘I am sorry that my child will not know his father,’ she said at last. ‘But I am not afraid any more. I cannot explain it but now I’m sure my baby and I will both survive.’

  ‘There is no reason at all why you should not.’ William stood up and roughly brushed gravel from his breeches.

  ‘My mother died in childbed,’ she said. All at once it seemed imperative that she should confide in him, to make him understand. ‘It was a brutal death and the baby died in the most horrible way imaginable.’ She paused to take a steadying breath. ‘I have always been deathly afraid that I should suffer the same fate.’

  ‘Medical care is much better now than in your mother’s time.’

  His brusque tone made her uncomfortable. ‘Look!’ she said in an effort to recapture his former relaxed mood. ‘I’ve found a herb garden. It’s overgrown but I’ve pulled up some of the weeds.’

  He leaned over to look at the ground and his expression softened. ‘My mother planted this when I was no more than eight years old. I remember helping her to gather herbs for the still room.’

  ‘How lucky she was to have such a delightful garden!’

  ‘But not lucky enough to survive to enjoy it.’

  They stood in silence for a while, each alone with their melancholy thoughts while Susannah’s happy mood evaporated like morning mist.

  ‘It’s time to go,’ said William shading his eyes against the sun. ‘Where has that damned boy got to?’

  Chapter 16

  ‘Ninety-eight, ninety-nine, one hundred!’

  She was laughing and running through a dark tunnel of trees, towards the light. At the end of the tunnel she stopped, blinking in the sunshine while she scanned the garden. A drift of mist lifted from the damp ground and, stretched across a branch, a spider’s web was threaded with diamonds of dew. The door to the orchard was ajar and she slipped through it, walking barefoot through the long grass, the hem of her skirt heavy with moisture. A blackbird, sitting on a branch above her, uttered a warning cry and flitted off to a safer perch, silent now but still watching her with beady eyes.

  Susannah stilled her breath and listened. The air vibrated with the humming of bees as they worked their way from clover to buttercups. A duck quacked on the other side of the high brick wall but still she couldn’t hear the sound she was listening for. Then, on the other side of the orchard the long grass swayed and a small child with red-gold curls broke cover.

  ‘I can see you!’ called Susannah. She ran towards the child who darted behind an apple tree. ‘Where are you?’ She made a great play of searching behind each tree in the orchard, her expressions of dismay becoming more exaggerated as the child’s giggles become louder. ‘You naughty creature, hiding from your mama!’ Creeping closer to the apple tree, she suddenly pounced.

  Laughing, she snatched up the child and smothered it with kisses.

  Warm little arms encircled her neck and she buried her face in the red-gold curls, overcome with love.

  A sudden noise made her start and the world turned dark.

  Susannah sat up in bed, her heart thumping. She could still remember the feel of the warm body of her child clasped to her breast but the vision of the idyllic scene in the golden sunshine had gone. Her child! Now that she was awake its absence was like an amputation. But then, as if to remind her of his existence, the baby within her gave a sharp kick and she hugged her arms tightly across her belly.

  ‘It’s all right, little one. Did I wake you when I started up?’ she whispered. What was it that had woken her? She listened again in the darkness and was about to lie down again and try to recapture her dream when she heard a small noise.

  Curious, she slipped out of bed and padded across the floor to lift the latch. She peered into the shadowy corridor but there was no movement and she held her breath, listening. Nothing. It was as she turned to go back into her bedchamber that something moved in her peripheral vision. She turned her head but it was gone. She stood still, breathing shallowly with every nerve tingling. There was no one there and yet she felt a stirring in the air as if someone had just passed by. Shivering, she crept along the corridor and glanced into Agnes’s room but the old woman lay unmoving while she slept. Further along the corridor was William’s room and she stood outside for a moment but there was no sound from within and she had no wish for him to discover her hovering outside his door in her nightgown.

  The pestilence took hold again as the summer arrived. Many of those who had returned to the city during the winter fled to the country again. Those who remained were tense and watchful, ready to shun neighbours and friends at the slightest suspicion of ill health. Agnes ceased to attend Sunday services and Susannah buried her head under the blankets at night each time she heard the dead cart, followed by the wailing and sobbing of the bereaved.

  Agnes was anxious about how they would manage if food supplies became short and she insisted that Susannah and Mistress Oliver arrange to fill one of the empty storerooms with vast quantities of dried beans, flour, sugar and other goods.

  ‘We shall all be heartily sick of beans by the time we’ve worked our way through that little lot,’ said Mistress Oliver.

  William returned home very late, terse and uncommunicative and picked at his supper by candlelight.

  ‘Can I fetch you something you’d rather eat?’ asked Susannah, watching him push away a plate of cold chicken.

  ‘What?’ He looked up
at her as if he had no idea who she was.

  ‘Would you like a posset perhaps? Something easy to digest when you’re tired.’

  ‘Tired!’ His laugh was humourless. ‘It would take more than a posset to cure what ails me.’ He balled up his fists and ground them into his eyes. ‘I’ve seen such sights today, Susannah. Birth and death all within the space of half an hour. A mother, already sickening with the pestilence, and her babe born minutes before she passed.’

  ‘Did the baby live?’ The familiar anxiety made her cross her arms protectively over her stomach.

  ‘He did. But who knows for how long? Mother and father already dead and a toothless old grandmother the only person left to take the child. What kind of life will he have? Better for him if he joins his mother.’

  ‘Don’t say that!’

  ‘This is no time for sentiment, Susannah.’

  ‘It isn’t …’

  ‘And this evening I was called to Bedlam.’

  ‘The plague?’

  ‘The flux. I wonder if I’ll ever get the stench out of my nostrils. You have no idea of the horrors in that place. Old women jabbering away to themselves while they pull out their hair, men naked and smeared with excrement rolling on filthy straw, just as if they were animals. Their unholy screams and moans will haunt my dreams.’

  Horrified, as much by the pain in William’s eyes as by his words, she rested her hand briefly on his shoulder.

  ‘If I’m having difficulty stomaching even the idea of having to return, can you begin to imagine what it must be like for one of the inmates?’ he said. ‘Their families have imprisoned them in hell and their only realistic hope of escape is death. Am I cheating them of that hope by trying to cure them of their ailments?’

  Susannah wished she could take him in her arms and rock him against her breast to comfort him but she had no helpful answer to his question.

  The cloister garden became Susannah’s solace from the difficulties of the real world. Inspired by the herb garden at Merryfields she obtained permission from Agnes to take over a sunny patch of ground and set about freeing it of weeds. She begged some cuttings of rosemary and mint from Martha and hummed to herself as she planted and watered seeds.

  Over the following weeks she watched with delight as the first green fingers of chives, parsley, feverfew and fennel scrabbled their way through the earth towards the light. There was intense pleasure for her in tending the tiny garden; the warm earth running through her fingers made her feel as if she was working in harness with Nature and as if anything was possible.

  Susannah visited her father but he was tired and distracted since Arabella had fallen out with one of the nursemaids and sent her packing.

  ‘She needn’t think I’m going to take over the nursemaid’s duties,’ said Jennet as she pounded the washing in the tub with as much violence as if it were her mistress’s head. ‘I’ve more than enough to do with her ladyship taking no interest in the housekeeping except to complain. I don’t mind telling you, Miss Susannah, that this house has gone to rack and ruin since you left. Squabbling children running in and out with muddy boots on, leaving doors open and dropping crusts and apple cores everywhere they go. It’s not surprising we’re overrun by rats.’

  Susannah shuddered in disgust. ‘Poor Tibby, she’d never have allowed that.’

  ‘They’ve been in the pantry, bold as brass. And it’s her fault that Tibby isn’t here to put a stop to it,’ said Jennet, her face grim.

  Returning to the Captain’s House that afternoon, Susannah stopped outside the front door, fumbling in her pocket for the key. She was just fitting it into the lock when the door opposite opened and a small boy tumbled out and landed on his hands and knees on the street. He began to roar in indignation.

  Susannah hurried to pick him up and planted him squarely on his feet while he continued to bellow his displeasure. ‘For goodness’ sake!’ said Susannah, pulling out a handkerchief and scrubbing at his hands. ‘What a racket about nothing! Look, it’s only a bit of horse dropping!’ She extracted the piece of bread he was clutching in his grimy fist and threw it onto a nearby heap of refuse, causing his screams to rise to a crescendo.

  ‘You can’t eat that now; it’s covered in filth from the drain.’

  A young woman in a blue dress appeared in the open doorway. ‘Edwin! What are you doing, you naughty boy!’ Her voice was shrill with fear. ‘You know I told you that you mustn’t go outside. There might be sick people.’

  ‘He fell over but he’s quite all right,’ said Susannah. ‘I’m afraid he smells a bit. A horse must have passed this way only a few minutes ago.’

  ‘That child will be the death of me,’ said his mother, raising her eyes to heaven. ‘Always in some kind of mischief.’ Her round face creased into a smile as little Edwin clung to her knees, his screams subsiding. ‘I should probably beat him but somehow I haven’t the heart for it. Perhaps next time I will have a girl, a gentle soul who will sit at my knee working on her sampler or learning her psalms.’

  ‘In my experience girls can be quite as naughty as boys,’ said Susannah.

  The young woman glanced at Susannah’s bodice, now stretched tightly over her abdomen. ‘Ah well! It looks as if it won’t be long before you have your own little bundle of joy?’

  ‘The end of September.’

  ‘Your first?’

  Susannah nodded.

  ‘Your husband will be pleased if you give him a son.’

  ‘My husband died some months ago.’

  ‘Mercy! Was he an old man?’

  ‘Not at all. The pestilence took him.’

  The young woman gasped and shrank back, pushing Edwin behind her.

  ‘Please, it’s all right!’ said Susannah. ‘It was months ago and I’m quite well.’

  ‘I thought an old woman and her son, a physician, lived in the Captain’s House? I don’t remember seeing a red cross on the door.’

  ‘There wasn’t one. My husband died in quite a different part of the city.’

  Some of the anxiety left the young woman’s face. ‘However do you manage?’

  ‘I live as a companion to my husband’s aunt.’

  ‘It’s a terrible business, this pestilence.’ Her grey eyes were shadowed. ‘I’m too frightened to go out.’ She gathered her child up into her arms and hugged him to her plump breast so tightly that he squawked. ‘But once the streets are free from infection again, come and call on me.’ She smiled. ‘I should like to see your new baby when he arrives.’

  ‘I’m Susannah Savage.’

  ‘Jane Quick. Let’s hope the streets are safe again soon.’

  Susannah watched her new friend go inside and bolt the door behind her. She entered the Captain’s House and went upstairs to take off her hat. Walking along the corridor she noticed that the door to one of the rooms normally closed up was ajar and she heard low voices coming from within. Curious, she looked inside. Emmanuel was leaning over Peg, imprisoning her against the wall.

  ‘Emmanuel! What are you doing? Peg, be off to the kitchen at once!’

  Peg, very pink about the face and with her cap awry, shot her a frightened look and scuttled off.

  ‘Well, Emmanuel, what have you to say for yourself?’

  His eyes opened very wide. ‘Didn’t mean nothing, missus.’

  ‘Don’t you ever let me catch you trying to steal a kiss from Peg again, or it’ll be the worse for you!’

  ‘Don’t tell Missus Agnes; she’ll send me back.’

  The terror in his eyes made Susannah relent. ‘You can find Joseph and bring him to me in the chapel.’

  ‘Yes, missus.’ His head nodded solemnly up and down.

  ‘You will sit in silence beside me while I teach him his letters. And no naughty tricks!’

  He shook his head vigorously from side to side.

  ‘Go on then!’

  Joseph had proved to be a willing scholar, even though his enthusiasm was greater than his skill. Susannah watched him concentra
ting hard on his slate, with a drift of chalk across his brown cheek and the tip of his tongue protruding as he shaped his letters. She studied his profile yet again, still seeking some resemblance to William but apart from his paler skin and narrower lips than his mother’s, he appeared to carry a likeness only to his African fore-bears. She was pleased about that. It was disturbing enough to know that William was the child’s father without the likeness being obvious.

  Curiosity made Susannah reach out to touch his woolly hair, surprisingly springy to her touch, and he glanced up at her with an enchanting smile. ‘You are doing very well, Joseph,’ she said. ‘I think that’s enough for today but next time I shall show you how to write your name.’ She watched him go skipping off to play with Aphra and looked forward to telling William how well he was doing.

  Emmanuel stirred the ashes in the hearth with the poker and then looked at Susannah out of the corner of his eye.

  It wasn’t until he had gone to coax Aphra down from the beams high up in the apex of the roof that Susannah realised he had drawn the shapes of his ABC in the ashes.

  William began to come home later and later and looked more and more exhausted on those few occasions Susannah did see him. One evening she waited up in the chapel until after midnight, listening for him to come in. Holding up a candle to light the way, she watched him as he slowly climbed the stairs.

  ‘William? I have some supper ready for you in the chapel.’

  ‘Supper?’ He rubbed a hand over his face. ‘I can’t remember the last time I ate.’

  ‘Then it’s important that you have something now.’ She held her ground, refusing to allow him to pass. ‘You cannot go on like this without becoming ill yourself. And then where would your patients be?’

  ‘Susannah, I’m too tired …’

  ‘Come and eat!’ After a brief hesitation, he followed her.

  He ate with total concentration, swiftly demolishing a slice of beef pie then dismembering a chicken leg and sucking at the bone as if he hadn’t eaten for days, which might indeed have been the case.