The Pharmacist's Wife

by Vanessa Tait

  ‘Can you stand?’

  ‘I think so.’

  ‘Then let me help you. Here.’ Alexander wiped his thumb across his lips, and behind it he almost seemed to be – what was it there? Rebecca looked again to make sure, though her eyes still pulsed. Yes, it was a smile.

  Alexander caught her looking and dropped it as sharp as a stone. ‘It was a violent pain that receded suddenly, is that so?’

  Rebecca nodded, her hand still holding onto her cheek.

  ‘In the cheek only or through the whole length of your body?’

  ‘In the cheek – I think – though the pain was so bad it seemed to spread everywhere whilst it lasted,’ she said shakily. The smile – what did it signify? Could he hate her so much?

  But Alexander had taken a step back, better to look her over, husband and pharmacist in one. ‘It is an attack of neuralgia, I believe. More often it is limited to the face, but occasionally the pain spreads elsewhere. It is more common in women for some reason; it may perhaps be an hysterical reaction.’

  ‘Hysterical?’

  ‘Or sometimes neuralgia can occur for no reason at all, as in your case.’ His mood seemed quite changed, even though he’d not been able to rub the stain from his shirt, it sprouted from behind his waistcoat in a purple arc. ‘You ought to rest. No need to ring for Jenny, I will take you to your room. Come now, wife, take my arm. You may lean on me as you like.’

  They went along the corridor, Rebecca leaning on her husband quite hard, her other arm wrapped around her side, in terror that the pain would come again.

  ‘I will let you in on a little secret now, shall I? I have made quite a discovery. It came almost by accident, as most discoveries do.’

  They had reached the door of Rebecca’s room, and went in. Alexander helped her off with her shoes and her dress.

  ‘A marvellous cure! For coughs and the easing of breath primarily, and the symptoms of tuberculosis, but we think – Mr Badcock and I – that it will have numerous other applications.’

  ‘But …’ stammered Rebecca. ‘I thought you said such medicines were snake oil.’

  ‘You are talking of Brandreth’s Pills and the like,’ said Alexander. ‘But this, this, is not snake oil. It was chance, and only chance, and I am not afraid to admit it! I was led by someone, or something – something divine, perhaps – on that afternoon. Mr Badcock and I suspect that perhaps this new medicine can cure all ills, physical and mental. Say now, would you say that the worst of your problem is that your pain may return, and not that you are in any physical pain?’

  Rebecca’s hand flew to her cheek again. ‘Perhaps, yes.’

  ‘Well then, my cure is the perfect thing for it.’ Alexander settled her back on her pillows and smoothed her sheet under her breasts. ‘We shall be able to employ a manservant, and a coachman, and four horses. Would you like to try it?’

  ‘A cure for everything?’ said Rebecca.

  ‘I cannot see anything that my medicine would not cure.’

  ‘Well, then – yes. I should like to try it.’

  He patted her on the hand. ‘Good. Very good. Rest now, and I shall send Lionel over shortly.’

  CHAPTER 4

  Jenny had fled to the kitchen. Mrs Bunclarke was there, muttering over her jelly moulds, but no one else would come in; not Mr Palmer, not even madam.

  Jenny sat down on the wooden chair by the door and rubbed her knuckles. She thought about giving herself over to crying, but she had not cried since her mother had beaten her, many moons ago.

  ‘Ye’d best get on wi’ that, there.’ The cook gestured to the fireplace with its great blackened pans hanging from it.

  Though her time was not her own now, she could not be stopped from thinking. So as Jenny brushed out the hearth in the kitchen she thought about the great fire that covered the whole of her home with its heat. Her sister had the charge of it and knew somehow when it was at its weakest, and would rush back over the hillside no matter what she was doing, to stoke it up.

  ‘And then there’s the silver,’ said Mrs Bunclarke, pointing towards the dining room with her thumb. ‘That will all need a polish.’

  Jenny could not remember what it was that polished silver: lemon juice? Vinegar? The cook gave a great sniff. Jenny dared not ask her. She thought of Lionel. He had smelled sharp, when she got close to him. Sharp and fresh.

  Mrs Palmer had shown her the silver in the whirl of her first week, and how to clean it. But her mistress had looked so uncertain, and had stammered out her instructions so fitfully, Jenny had not taken it in.

  Jenny dipped her rag in vinegar – she’d taken a guess – when she had heard the front door slam, and then the most terrible scream.

  Mrs Palmer! He had hit her with something, something like a poker.

  Jenny ran to the door and put her face to it. ‘Oh dear God!’

  Even the cook had stopped her chopping and come to the door. But as suddenly as it had started, the screaming ceased.

  ‘Well, that is marriage for you,’ remarked Mrs Bunclarke. ‘Always takes a bit o’ getting used to.’

  ‘I must – I’d best go to her!’

  ‘You’d best not, not till Mr Palmer has left her.’

  God only knew the power of Mr Palmer, how he had made his wife cry out like that without touching her.

  So when the doorbell rang a little while later Jenny answered it very timidly, thinking it was Mr Palmer. But it was not he – thank the Lord, it was Lionel. ‘What do you want?’ she said, regretting her shortness at once – it came from surprise.

  Lionel rocked forwards onto his toes and whipped off his cap. ‘I knew I’d see ye here. We met yesterday.’

  ‘I remember, aye,’ said Jenny. Lionel was not handsome, not exactly, but he had a shine to him. His hair-oil glinted with reflected sunlight and his skin was scrubbed clean.

  ‘I’ve brought something for Mrs Palmer from the pharmacy.’

  ‘I see,’ said Jenny, her heart falling a little. ‘Come in, then, will ye not?’

  Lionel pinked at that and took heart. ‘And,’ he said, reaching into his pocket, ‘I brought you something, too.’ He held out a piece of soap. ‘I made it myself. Rosewater and glycerine.’

  ‘That is kind,’ she said, taking it, and putting it to her face to hide her embarrassment. ‘It smells lovely.’

  ‘I do not need to take up Mrs Palmer’s medicine to her straight away. I mean to say, p’raps your mistress could wait a few moments?’

  It was raining again, summer drops that spattered fatly against the long window panes. Jenny looked up the stairs at the door to Rebecca’s room. ‘I have not heard her cry out again. But I think she might be in pain still.’

  Lionel lowered his voice. ‘And that is the subject of my concern. I am sorry for being so bold. But I saw yesterday how much you admire your mistress, and I thought …’ Lionel ran his hand through his hair. ‘Perhaps you saw that I admired you, too.’

  ‘Oh! I did no such thing!’

  ‘And I hoped I could talk plainly with you. No, no, not like that!’ Jenny had put her hand up to her face again. ‘About Mrs Palmer.’

  ‘Well,’ said Jenny, ‘I would do anything to help Mrs Palmer. I expect she could wait, for a moment, if it is important.’

  She thought of Mrs Bunclarke sighing and sniffing over her gravy. They could not go to the kitchen. Could she take Lionel up to her room? No, it must be wrong, though she hadn’t a bedroom, or a boy at home, to know what was done or not. ‘Let us go out back,’ she said eventually. ‘But Mrs Bunclarke must not see us.’

  So they waited until the cook had gone to the pantry and crept through the kitchen, Jenny had her finger to her lips. They stood under the eaves to the side of the house with the rain dripping down in front of their noses. Lionel rolled a cigarette and offered her one.

  ‘Oh!’ she said. ‘I don’t—’ But p’raps city girls smoked all the time and she half held out her hand, but he had taken her answer as a no, and put the case back
into his trousers before she could take one.

  He would think her a sap, a bog-dweller. But he said nothing, only drew on his cigarette until its tip glowed. The smell of the cigarette was not unpleasant, but it was not like the smoke she knew, from burning peat. The smoke from his mouth reached into her hair under its cap, curled into her ears, her nose.

  ‘What do you know of Mr Palmer?’ he said at last.

  She said, before she could stop herself, ‘He is cruel, I know that.’

  Lionel drew in his breath. ‘Do you know it already?’

  ‘Anybody would know! His shirt, just now—’

  ‘Yes. It was me who—’

  ‘I heard, yes, you left the chemicals in the wrong place, was it?’

  ‘Aye, aye, close enough.’

  They both nodded, and caught each other’s eye, and smiled a little.

  Jenny said: ‘And he has made Mrs Palmer ill like this, and cry out worse than I have heard anything, any animal caught in a snare, only by slamming a door – some magic he has on her. And he is unfaithful! At least, she says it is so.’

  ‘She says it! To you?’

  ‘Ought she not to?’

  ‘I don’t know!’ He blew out more smoke. ‘I’m sure you are easy to talk to.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘Only that … you are easy to talk to.’

  ‘Aye, I am, at least that is what the sheep always told me.’ She burst into laughter and just as quickly covered her mouth with her hand. She ought not to laugh, not with Mrs Palmer ill upstairs. ‘I have not had much company, before I came here.’

  ‘I would like to be your company, if you will let me.’

  Jenny smiled and tried to hide it by covering her teeth with her lips.

  Lionel threw his cigarette down and they both watched it get rained on, its tip quickly turning to ashes.

  ‘Mrs Palmer thinks she is a cuckquean, you say?’

  ‘A cuckwhat?’

  ‘She thinks she is being cheated on.’

  ‘Aye, with that woman in the green dress, at the opening. You know her, I think.’

  ‘Evangeline?’ asked Lionel. ‘I do know her, aye.’ A blush crept up his cheek above his collar. ‘But what has Evangeline to do with it?’

  ‘Mrs Palmer feels she is making her the cuck-whatever-it-is. I tried to tell her otherwise.’ Jenny stared out across the garden to the back of the house behind. Somebody’s washing was getting wet in all the rain. ‘But what do I know? I only know what sheep do, nothing about men.’

  ‘I don’t think I have seen a sheep with the preferences—’ Lionel coughed. ‘With the desires of Mr Palmer. Have you—’ He coughed again. ‘Have you noticed anything peculiar in the house?’

  ‘What peculiar? If you mean the paper-hangings—’

  ‘No, no nothing like that.’

  Jenny made an arc with the toe of her shoe through the dirt. ‘I think everything is peculiar in the house, though I only know my own house to compare it with. What else am I to expect?’

  ‘Anything, I don’t know, out of the ordinary.’ Lionel leaned towards her and stroked the back of her hand with his thumb, just once. She did not draw back. ‘You will know, when you see it.’ Lionel ran his hand over his hair. He could not meet her eye. ‘But what I said about company …’

  ‘Aye?’

  ‘Will you let me be your company then, to the park, one day next week?’

  ‘Really? To the park?’

  ‘Aye, or to Arthur’s Seat – if you would like it.’

  ‘Oh yes, yes, I should like that. I miss the grass from home. Underfoot is all so hard around here.’

  Lionel grinned. Now that his swagger had rubbed off, like a bit of bad gold, she saw that he was only just past being a child, like her.

  ‘Tuesday I will have the afternoon free.’

  ‘Right then. Good!’

  Mrs Bunclarke came to the back door and sighed and sniffed. They held each other’s gaze, knuckles pressed to their teeth, choking back laughter.

  ‘I had best get this medicine upstairs,’ whispered Lionel.

  ‘What is it, this medicine?’

  ‘Mr Palmer has kept it a secret. For all his faults – I know he has many – he is a good chemist.’ Lionel put his hand into the pocket of his coat and drew out a blue bottle with thick sides, small enough to fit in the palm of his hand, and held it up to the light. It was just like hundreds of others except for one thing: it was not stamped with the name of the maker, for the maker was Mr Palmer. ‘I think what this bottle holds inside must be more powerful than the size of it suggests.’ Still holding the bottle he caught hold of her finger with his own and drew it towards him. With his other hand he quickly brushed her cheek.

  ‘See you Tuesday.’

  ‘Aye, till Tuesday then.’

  Rebecca pushed herself upright on her pillows. ‘What is it, Jenny? Why do you smile?’

  ‘Lionel came to bring you this.’ Jenny held out the blue bottle.

  ‘I didn’t think my medicine would make you so pleased— Oh, I see now, it is Lionel that has made the change in you.’

  ‘Lionel?’ Jenny put her hand to her face. ‘What change has he made?’

  ‘Your cheeks have some colour to them; look, see.’ Rebecca pointed to the glass opposite that held both their reflections. Jenny was flushed and smooth; Rebecca was wan, her hair coming loose from her plait, lines etched between her brows. She closed her eyes.

  ‘We talked, madam. I don’t think it is wrong to talk, or is it?’ Jenny fiddled with her cap again. It still felt strange to wear it.

  Rebecca laughed. ‘’Tis not wrong to talk, Jenny, even here! There’s a great deal wrong in Edinburgh, but talking isn’t one of them. And Lionel is a good boy.’

  ‘Do you know him, then, apart from as Mr Palmer’s apprentice?’

  ‘His sister used to work for my father, who made shoes. I don’t remember if I told you that – he had a factory, which was really just a large room, with ten girls in it. But they made fine ladies’ shoes; they were just beginning to be known before my father died.’ Rebecca sighed and pulled the sheet up to her chin. ‘Lionel was only a wee boy then, he used to come in and wait; he always had his socks pulled up as high as they would go.’

  Rebecca had suggested Lionel as an apprentice to her husband, sure that Alexander would say no. But instead he had laughed, and said that he knew of him already – and he would do very well.

  ‘You know him?’ Rebecca had been surprised.

  ‘Through an – ah – mutual acquaintance. He has three sisters and a father dead so he will be a good worker.’

  ‘Well, there is a sister who works—’

  ‘A woman’s wage, aye. That is not enough.’

  Lionel had finished school five months ago. His mother had lost her job in the clock shop and Lionel had not been able to apprentice himself anywhere in the meantime, and now time was ticking away. The house had had a sour smell to it when Rebecca had visited, and his mother’s features were sharp.

  ‘He always wants the best, my Lionel,’ his mother had said. ‘He spent all my wages on a good shaving brush, though he barely has any beard to speak of.’ Though she’d smiled at him fondly as she said it.

  Rebecca put her hand to her cheek.

  ‘Has the pain returned?’ asked Jenny.

  ‘No, though I am afraid it will. Has Lionel made a plan with you?’

  Jenny straightened Rebecca’s blanket and tucked it in, then she gave Rebecca the bottle. ‘Only to go to for a walk. But here is your medicine. Lionel said that Mr Palmer was most particular. Take all that is in the bottle, he said, even if no pain has returned directly.’ Jenny put a hand to her cheek where Lionel had touched it, so that for a moment both mistress and maid held the same pose.

  Rebecca took off the stopper and tipped a little of the contents into the palm of her hand.

  ‘Salt?’ said Rebecca. ‘What is this?’

  ‘I don’t know, madam. Lionel said to
take it dissolved in some flavoured water, here.’ She held out a glass with a little orange juice squeezed inside.

  ‘Look there, it dissolves quite quickly. P’raps it is salt after all, that Mrs Bunclarke might use on the beef!’

  But it was not sea salt. Though it tasted bitter it did not, at first, seem to be anything at all. Rebecca lay back. She could not now tell whether she felt pain or anxiety or a mixture of both.

  But in a little while, so gradually that she was not aware of her fretfulness slipping away, a pleasant feeling begin to congregate in the region of her chest. The warmth of it tethered her to the bed, and in turn held the bed to the floor, and held the floor to the foundations of the house. Rebecca understood that she had lived her life up to this moment like a balloon filled with helium, anxiously bobbing here and there and never finding a place to rest. But now the bones of her chest hummed with a mechanism that seemed to be something like a cog, heavy and fixed and connected to the bigger wheels that she could feel turning somewhere towards the centre of the earth.

  She regarded the hectic plasterwork of the ceiling rose without involving herself. The curtains spooled on to the floor without accusation. She let her eyes come to rest on the rug, the paper-hangings and the rosewood table poised on its spindly legs. They were all perfectly themselves. Now when she thought about the argument and the slamming door, and even Evangeline, she found she could run through it all without feeling her heart constrict.

  Her eyes were transparent and her eyelids, as they dropped, as fast and heavy as stones in a pool, were transparent too. Behind she saw through them into another world, which was not like the usual drift into sleep at all, but fierce and teeming with instant life.

  She sees her home, her childhood home, with her mother and father still living. She is on the beach, pulling back seaweed, turning over rocks, tilting her head to be out of the way of the sand fleas that jump up from under. He is with her. He is always with her. Their heads touch as they bend to inspect the hollow left by the rock. They are looking for crabs, the little bright coloured ones that hide there, to put them in Crab Castle.

  Their families live in two houses that are close. Hers has a black slate roof, grey stone, bow windows on either side of the front door. The symmetry of it lodges between her eyes, as right and compact as a die. His house half faces hers, half faces the sea, and is made of stone the colour of the sea on a winter’s day. Ivy reaches up the walls in irregular waves.