by Sarah Penner
Besides, with James’s secure job, the right thing to do—the mature thing to do—was to stay put in Cincinnati with my new husband and our new home.
I accepted the offer at the family farm, much to James’s delight. And Brontë and Dickens and everything else I’d adored for so many years remained in boxes, hidden in the far corner of our basement, unopened and eventually forgotten.
In the darkened pub, I took a long, deep drink of my ale. It was a wonder James agreed to come to London at all. While deciding on anniversary destinations, he’d made his preference known: a beachfront resort in the Virgin Islands, where he could waste away the days napping beside an empty cocktail glass. But we’d done a version of this daquiri-drenched vacation last Christmas, so I begged James to consider something different, like England or Ireland. On the condition that we not waste time on anything too academic, like the rare book restoration workshop I’d briefly mentioned, he finally agreed to London. He relented, he said, because he knew visiting England had once been a dream of mine.
A dream which, only days ago, he’d lifted into the air like a crystal glass of champagne and shattered between his fingers.
The bartender motioned to my half-empty glass, but I shook my head; one was enough. Feeling restless, I pulled out my phone and opened Facebook Messenger. Rose—my lifelong best friend—had sent me a message. You doing okay? Love you.
Then: Here’s a pic of little Ainsley. She loves you, too. <3
And there she was, newborn Ainsley, swaddled in gray linen. A perfect, seven-pound newborn, my goddaughter, sleeping sweetly in the arms of my dear friend. I felt grateful she’d been born before I learned of James’s secret; I’d been able to spend many sweet, content moments with the baby already. In spite of my grief, I smiled. If I lost all else, at least I’d have these two.
If social media was any indication, James and I seemed like the only ones in our circle of friends who were not yet pushing strollers and kissing mac-and-cheese-covered cheeks. And although waiting had been tough, it had been right for us: the accounting firm where James worked expected associates to wine and dine clients, often logging eighty-some hours per week. Though I’d wanted kids early in our marriage, James didn’t want to deal with the stress of long hours and a young family. And so just as he had climbed the corporate ladder every day for a decade, so too did I put that little pink pill on the tip of my tongue and think to myself, Someday.
I glanced at today’s date on my phone: June 2. Nearly four months had passed since James’s firm had promoted him and put him on the partner track—which meant his long days on-site with clients were behind him.
Four months since we decided to try for a baby.
Four months since my someday had arrived.
But no baby yet.
I chewed at my thumbnail and closed my eyes. For the first time in four months, I felt glad that we hadn’t gotten pregnant. Days ago, our marriage had begun to crumble under the crushing weight of what I’d discovered: our relationship no longer consisted of just two people. Another woman had intruded on us. What baby deserved such a predicament? No baby deserved it—not mine, not anyone’s.
There was one problem: my period was due yesterday, and it had not yet shown. I hoped with all my might that jet lag and stress were to blame.
I took a final look at my best friend’s new child, feeling not envy but unease about the future. I would have loved for my child to be Ainsley’s lifelong best friend, to have a connection just like the one I had with Rose. Yet after learning James’s secret, I wasn’t sure marriage remained in the cards for me, let alone motherhood.
For the first time in ten years, I considered that maybe I’d made a mistake at the edge of that pier, when I told James yes. What if I’d said no, or not yet? I highly doubted I’d still be in Ohio, spending my days at a job I didn’t love and my marriage teetering precariously over the edge of a cliff. Would I have lived somewhere in London instead, teaching or researching? Maybe I would have my head stuck in fairy tales, as James liked to joke, but wouldn’t that still be better than the nightmare in which I now found myself?
I’d always valued my husband’s pragmatism and calculated nature. For much of our marriage, I viewed this as James’s way of keeping me grounded, safe. When I ventured a spontaneous idea—anything falling outside of his predetermined goals and desires—he’d quickly bring me back to earth with his outline of the risks, the downside. This rationality was, after all, what had propelled him forward at his firm. But now, a world away from James, I wondered for the first time if the dreams I once chased had been little more than an accounting problem to him. He’d been more concerned with return on investment and risk management than he’d been with my own happiness. And what I’d always considered sensible in James seemed, for the first time, something else: stifling and subtly manipulative.
I shifted in my seat, pulled my sticky thighs from the leather and flicked off my phone. Dwelling on home and the what-could-have-been would do me no good in London.
Thankfully, the few patrons inside The Old Fleet Tavern found nothing amiss about a thirty-four-year-old woman alone at the bar. I appreciated the lack of attention, and the Boddingtons had begun to ease its way through my aching, travel-worn body. I wrapped my hands tightly around the mug, the ring on my left hand pressing uncomfortably against the glass, and finished my drink.
As I stepped outside and considered where to go next—a nap at the hotel seemed much-deserved—I approached the place where the gentleman in khakis had stopped me earlier, inviting me to go...what was it, mudlurking? No, mudlarking. He’d said the group planned to meet just ahead, at the base of the steps, at half-past two. I pulled out my phone and checked the time: it showed 2:35 p.m. I quickened my step, suddenly rejuvenated. Ten years ago, this was exactly the sort of adventure I might have loved, following a kind old British fellow to the River Thames to learn about the Victorians and mudlarkers. No doubt James would have resisted this spontaneous adventure, but he wasn’t here to hold me back.
Alone, I could do whatever I damn well pleased.
On my way, I passed the La Grande—our stay at the swanky hotel had been an anniversary gift from my parents—but hardly gave it a second glance. I approached the river, easily spotting the concrete steps leading down to the water. The muddy, opaque current in the deepest part of the channel churned as though something toiled underneath, agitated. I stepped forward, the pedestrians around me moving on to more predictable ventures.
The steps were steeper and in much worse condition than I would have believed in the center of an otherwise modernized city. They were at least eighteen inches deep and made of crushed stone, like an ancient concrete. I took them slowly, grateful for my sneakers and my easy-to-carry bag. At the bottom of the steps, I paused, noticing the silence around me. Across the river on the south bank, cars and pedestrians rushed past—but I could hear none of it from this distance. I heard only the soft lapping of the waves at the river’s edge, the chime-like sound of pebbles swirling in the water and, above me, the lonely call of a seagull.
The mudlarking tour group stood a short distance away, listening attentively to their guide—the man I’d met on the street earlier. Steeling myself, I stepped forward, moving carefully amid the loose stones and muddy puddles. As I approached the group, I willed myself to leave all thoughts of home behind: James, the secret I’d uncovered, our unfulfilled desire for a baby. I needed a break from the grief suffocating me, the thorns of fury so sharp and unexpected they took my breath away. No matter how I decided to spend the next ten days, there was no use remembering and reliving what I’d learned about James forty-eight hours ago.
Here in London on this “celebratory” anniversary trip, I needed to discover what I truly wanted, and whether the life I desired still included James and the children we’d hoped to raise together.
But to do that, I needed to unbury a few truths of my own.
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3
Nella
February 4, 1791
When 3 Back Alley was a reputable women’s apothecary shop belonging to my mother, it consisted of a single room. Alight with the flame of countless candles and often teeming with customers and their babies, the little shop gave a sense of warmth and safety. In those days, it seemed everyone in London knew of the shop for women’s maladies, and the heavy oak door at the front of the shop rarely stayed shut for long.
But many years ago—after my mother’s death, after Frederick’s betrayal and after I began dispensing poisons to women across London—it became necessary to divide the space into two separate, distinct sections. This was easily accomplished with the installation of a wall of shelves, which split the room in two.
The first room, situated in the front, remained directly accessible from Back Alley. Anyone could open the front door—it was nearly always unlocked—but most would assume they had arrived at the wrong destination. I now kept nothing in the room except an old grain barrel, and who had any interest in a bin of half-rotted pearl barley? Sometimes, if I was lucky, a nest of rats toiled away at one corner of the room, and this gave further impression of disuse and neglect. This room was my first disguise.
Indeed, many customers ceased coming. They had heard of my mother’s death, and after seeing this empty room, they merely assumed the shop had closed for good.
The more curious or nefarious sort—like young boys with sticky fingers—were not deterred by the emptiness. Seeking something to snatch, they’d push deeper into the room, inspecting the shelves for wares or books. But they would find nothing, because I left nothing to steal, nothing of interest at all. And so onward they would go. Onward they always went.
What fools they were—all of them but the women who’d been told where to look by their friends, their sisters, their mothers. Only they knew that the bin of pearl barley served a very important function: it was a means of communication, a hiding place for letters whose contents dared not be uttered aloud. Only they knew that hidden within the wall of shelves, invisible, stood a door leading to my apothecary shop for women’s maladies. Only they knew that I waited silently behind the wall, my fingers stained with the residue of poison.
It was where I now waited for the woman, my new patron, at daybreak.
* * *
Hearing the slow creak of the storage room door, I knew she had arrived. I peered through the nearly imperceptible cleft in the column of shelves, aiming to get my first dim look at her.
Taken aback, I covered my mouth with trembling fingers. Was it some mistake? This was no woman at all; it was a mere girl, not more than twelve or thirteen, dressed in a gray woolen gown with a threadbare navy cloak draped over her shoulders. Had she come to the wrong place? Perhaps she was one of those little thieves who was not fooled by my storage room, and she sought something to steal. If that were the case, she’d be better suited at a baker’s shop, stealing cherry buns so she could fatten up a bit.
But the girl, for her youth, arrived at exactly daybreak. She stood still and sure of herself in the storage room, her gaze directed at the false wall of shelves behind which I stood.
No, this was no accidental visitor.
At once, I prepared to send her away on account of her age, but I stopped myself. In her note, she had said she needed something for her mistress’s husband. What might become of my legacy if this mistress was well-known about town, and word got out that I sent a child away? Besides, as I continued to peek at the young girl through the cleft, she held high her head of thick black hair. Her eyes were round and bright, but she did not look down at her feet or back at the front door to the alley. She shivered slightly, but I felt sure it was on account of the cool air rather than her nerves. The girl stood too tall, too proud, for me to think her fearful.
With what did she brew her courage? The strict command of her mistress, or something more sinister?
I maneuvered the latch out of its hold, swung the column of shelves inward and motioned for the girl to come inside. Her eyes took in the tiny space in an instant, without need to even blink; the room was so small that if the girl and I stood together and spread our arms wide, we could nearly touch the opposite sides of it.
I followed her gaze across the shelves at the back wall, littered with glass vials and tin funnels, gallipots and grinding stones. On a second wall, as far as possible from the fire, my mother’s oaken cupboard held an assortment of earthenware and porcelain jars, meant for the tinctures and herbs that frayed and decayed in even the faintest light. On the wall nearest the door stood a long narrow counter as tall as the girl’s shoulders; on it rested a collection of metal scales, glass and stone weights, and a few bound reference guides on women’s maladies. And if the girl were to pry inside the drawers beneath the counter, she would find spoons, corks, candlesticks, pewter plates and dozens of sheets of parchment, many of them spoiled with hurried notes and calculations.
Treading carefully around her and latching the door, my most immediate concern was providing my new customer with a sense of safety and discretion. But my fears were unwarranted, for she plopped into one of my two chairs as though she’d been at my shop a hundred times. I could see her better now that she sat in the light. Her figure was a slender one, and she had clear, hazel eyes, almost too large for her oval-shaped face. Intertwining her fingers and setting her hands on the table, she looked at me and smiled. “Hello.”
“Hello,” I replied, surprised by her manner. In an instant, I felt a fool for having sensed any doom in the blush-colored letter written by this child. I wondered, too, about her beautiful penmanship at such a young age. As my sense of worry diminished, it was replaced with a relaxed curiosity; I desired to know more of the girl.
I turned to the hearth, which claimed one corner of the room. The pot of water that I had set over the fire a short time ago spewed entrails of steam. “I’ve hot-brewed some leaves,” I said to the girl. I filled two mugs with the brew and set one of them in front of her.
She thanked me and pulled her mug toward her. Her gaze came to settle on the table, on which rested our mugs, a single lit candle, my register and the letter she’d left in the bin of pearl barley: For my mistress’s husband, with his breakfast. Daybreak, 4 Feb. The girl’s cheeks, pink upon her arrival, remained flushed with youth, life. “What kind of leaves?”
“Valerian,” I told her, “spiced with cinnamon bark. A few sips to warm the body, a few more to brighten and relax the mind.”
We were quiet, then, for a minute or so, but it was not uncomfortable in the way that it can be between adults. I supposed the girl to be grateful, foremost, to be out of the cold. I gave her a few moments to warm herself, while I went to my counter and busied myself with a few small black stones. They needed smoothing along the grinding board, after which they would make ideal vial stoppers. Aware of the girl watching me, I lifted the first stone and, pressing down with my palm, rolled it, spun it around and rolled it again. Ten or fifteen seconds was all I could manage before I had to stop and slow my breath.
A year ago, I was stronger, and my strength was such that I could roll and smooth these stones in a matter of minutes, without so much as brushing a hair from my face. But on this day, with the child watching me, I could not go on—my shoulder ached too badly. Oh, how I did not understand this ailment; months ago it had been borne in my elbow, and then shifted into the opposite wrist, and only very recently, the heat had begun to slip into the joints of my fingers.
The girl remained still, her fingers wrapped tightly around her mug. “What’s that bowl of creamy stuff, over there by the fire?”
I turned away from the stones to look at the hearth. “A salve,” I said, “of hog’s lard and purple foxglove.”
“You’re warming it, then, for it’s too hard.”
I paused at her quick understanding. “Yes, that’s right.”
“
What is the salve for?”
Heat rose in my face. I could not tell her that the leaves of purple foxglove, when dried and crushed, sucked the heat and blood from the skin, and therefore assisted a great deal in the days after a woman had birthed a child—an experience unknown to girls the age of this one. “It is for a tear in the skin,” I offered, taking a seat.
“Oh, a poisonous salve for a tear in the skin?”
Shaking my head, I said, “No poison in this, child.”
Her little shoulders tensed. “But Mrs. Amwell—my mistress—told me you sell poison.”
“I do, but poison is not all I sell. The women who have been here for deadly remedies have seen the extent of my shelves, and some have whispered of it to their most trusted friends. I dispense all sorts of oils and tinctures and draughts—anything an honorable apothecary might require in her shop.”
Indeed, when I began dispensing poisons many years ago, I did not simply clear my shelves of all but arsenic and opium. I continued to keep the ingredients needed to remedy most afflictions, supplies as benign as clary or tamarisk. Just because a woman has rid herself of one malady—a devious husband, for instance—does not mean she is immune to all other maladies. My register was proof of it; interspersed among the deadly tonics were also many healing ones.
“And only girls come here,” the child said.