The Pharmacist's Wife

by Vanessa Tait

But Jenny was not in the linen cupboard. She was in the spare room, upholstered all in blue, polishing a candlestick of all things! He could have laughed out loud. Underneath his drawers he felt his prick stir. ‘Why are you blushing, Jenny? Did you expect me?’

  ‘No, sir, it was the shock of seeing you in here! Have you lost aught?’

  ‘No, I have not lost anything at all. It is what I have come to find,’ said Mr Badcock, taking a step towards her.

  Jenny stopped polishing and dropped her hands to her side, keeping hold of the candlestick. ‘What have you come to find, sir?’

  ‘Oh, Jenny!’ Mr Badcock smiled. ‘Can you not guess? I think you can. Did you not lead me here to you?’

  ‘Lead you, sir?’

  ‘Why not call me John, hmmm? I saw you looking at me earlier on the stairs, when you lifted your skirts.’

  ‘You are wrong, sir.’ Jenny tried to back away but after one step she was already pressed up against the fireplace. ‘You are mistaken, sir. I did no such thing!’

  ‘Why, then, are you blushing even harder? Look now, your cheeks are quite red. Is it I who is making you blush? I think it is.’

  ‘What do you want?’ Jenny stepped away from the fireplace and tried to get past Mr Badcock but he blocked her way and grabbed her by the arm.

  ‘Oh, do not be afraid, Jenny! I will not hurt you. Just stay with me a while, just a moment. I only want to talk, yes?’

  ‘Talk, sir, about what?’ Jenny looked down at Mr Badcock’s hand where it gripped her.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know. What would you like to talk about?’

  ‘I don’t want to talk. Will you let me go?’

  ‘Say, I don’t know, romance?’

  Jenny tried to pull her arm away again. ‘Romance, sir?’

  Mr Badcock’s voice grew harsher. ‘Now, Jenny, no need to repeat everything I say, like a parrot. You know why I am here.’

  ‘Just to talk, sir, was what you said. Let me go!’

  ‘Well, yes, that and a little kiss, hmmm? A little kiss, then I will be away.’

  ‘A kiss? No! Mr Palmer will be along in a moment and discover us.’

  ‘He is occupied, no need to worry about that.’ Mr Badcock wrenched the candlestick from her hand, better to be safe, and put it back on the mantel. Pray God she would not make him work too hard. It was a hot day and he was already starting to perspire. ‘One kiss, what do you say?’

  ‘No, sir, I’m sure I won’t. I don’t want to do it!’

  She was making him work, and yet he did like a woman with a bit of spirit. The pursuit gave the conquest spice. He wrestled with her for a moment until his pego got stiff. ‘I’d give ten pounds to be in bed with you for an hour. You haven’t had a prick up you before, have you?’

  At the word ‘prick’ Jenny gave a violent start and managed to wrench her hand away. She ran for the door but Mr Badcock got there first and stood before it. Both of them were breathing heavily.

  ‘I have seen your legs when you showed ’em to me—’

  ‘I did not!’

  ‘On the stairs now, come, don’t be a coquette, hmmm?’

  ‘I didn’t! I didn’t!’ Jenny stood before him, her breasts going up and down. She was saying yes, even as she denied it!

  ‘Come now, give me a kiss and I will give you a sovereign.’ Mr Badcock tried to grab her round the waist, but she would twist away so, and her waist was too stout to get a good grip on.

  ‘Let me go to the kitchen! What a beast you are!’ said Jenny.

  ‘Come and open the door, my dear, and you will run against this.’ Now he let her look at the bulge in his trousers. She would soon get as lewd as he!

  But Jenny, stupid girl, turned her head away and would not look. Well then, let him try another way. He felt in his pocket and brought out the gold coin, it gleamed in his palm, even brighter than the afternoon. She would not resist that. He took a handkerchief from his waistcoat and mopped his brow. ‘What do you say, dear? Shall we sit down?’

  But in the end he had to drag her to the bed. Which, after all, was better than her going willingly, she was the more likely to be a virgin. And he hadn’t had a nice little virgin since the servant girl of the Fowlers’. She had put up a good fight too, just like Jenny was doing, though by the time he had finished with her she was quite as lewd as he.

  ‘There is the sovereign, then. That will buy you things, hmmm?’ He was sweating but his handkerchief lay on the floor in the scuffle. He dare not get it. A drop of sweat from his brow landed heavily on her dress.

  ‘I do not want money. Let me go or I shall scream!’ said the girl.

  He pushed her down on the bed and lay half over her, feeling her lovely thighs give way beneath his own. Her cap fell across one of her eyes; her hair had come loose and was streaked across her lips in a most provocative way.

  ‘If you scream, Jenny, it is your reputation that shall be ruined, not mine, yes?’

  But the door had come a little way open and, though his ears were ringing with lust, Mr Badcock could hear footsteps coming quite deliberately towards them. Damn it! He increased his grip on her arm. ‘Move and I will hold you tighter still,’ he hissed.

  Jenny ceased to struggle, though she still took great gasping breaths through her reddened lips – still provoking him, even now!

  The footsteps drew closer. They might, Mr Badcock thought hotly, pass them by. No one would come to the spare room, save the maid, or someone pursuing the maid. His head was pounding, and his prick, bother it, was wilting! Never mind, he could agitate it again soon enough.

  But no, the steps stopped outside the room. Mr Badcock held his breath. Jenny stopped panting.

  The door swung open towards them.

  But it was not Alexander. It was only Lionel, whose mouth, the stupid boy, fell open like a yokel at the sight of them.

  ‘What do you want?’ said Mr Badcock. ‘Can you not see we are busy?’

  ‘I heard a cry, I thought Jenny—’

  ‘You thought Jenny what?’ Though Mr Badcock found he could not keep his hands on the girl whilst the boy stood there, like a fool, in the doorway.

  ‘I thought Jenny was hurt.’

  ‘Well, she is not.’

  But as soon as he took his hands off her Jenny leapt up and ran to Lionel. Her cap had fallen off onto the bed and it lay there, at the head of the ruckled and creased sheets, as if the ghost of her was still there.

  Lionel must have seen it too, for the set of his face got very stubborn.

  ‘Why are you here, boy?’ said Mr Badcock irritably, but dammit if he was not flushing himself, his face growing hot just as if he were guilty. He ought to have thought to open a window. He stood up and tightened his belt and walked towards his handkerchief.

  ‘I have come to fetch Mr Palmer to the pharmacy,’ said Lionel.

  ‘I will have you sacked if you breathe a word of this, Lionel, to anyone, hmmm?’

  Now it was Lionel’s turn to flush. But before he could threaten them again they turned and ran, just like a couple of children. He could hear their footsteps running down the hall. Running – as if there were anything to be afraid of!

  Their footsteps came down so hard on the paving stones Jenny thought Alexander would come out of Rebecca’s room to see what the commotion was. But they got through the hall and into the kitchen, and the door with its bit of green baize nailed up to hide the glass banged shut behind them.

  ‘What have you two been up to?’ said Mrs Bunclarke. ‘No good, I expect.’

  ‘Are you all right, Jenny, are you fine?’ asked Lionel.

  ‘You ought not to bring boys in here, Jenny, this is not—’

  ‘And you can go to hell!’ said Lionel, turning on her.

  The cook dropped her pan on the floor and a greasy liquid spread out from it. ‘Oh, look at that, my stock!’

  ‘I am sorry about your stock,’ said Lionel, looking about for a mop.

  ‘Five hours in the oven that was, and now nothing to boil up for
the soup!’

  ‘But let Jenny sit down, won’t you, Mrs Bunclarke? She has had a shock. Come now, Jenny, here by the fire. I will bring her some tea myself and she can drink it here in the kitchen. Please, Mrs Bunclarke, would you leave us, just for a moment? There is nothing untoward.’ Lionel swallowed on the word. ‘Look, I only want to comfort her.’

  ‘I have had a shock, being spoken to by a boy like you!’ said the cook, rubbing her nose. But perhaps she saw Jenny’s face, red and without its cap, and Lionel’s pale one, because she left her pan and went through the back door to the garden.

  Jenny’s eyes were wet but she pressed the flat of her hands into them and scrubbed them away. ‘Lionel, thank God you came in time! I should have been lost.’

  ‘Don’t say so, Jenny,’ said Lionel, wanting to pick up her hand but letting his hand only hover over hers.

  ‘It is the truth.’

  ‘Well, it did not happen. And he, who is always in church, going on about the sins of prostitution and the like, while behind closed doors he ...’ Lionel shook his head. ‘The disgusting old sod.’

  ‘But I think it is my fault.’ Jenny rubbed her forehead. ‘Mr Badcock said I meant him to come to me. And I must’ve, without knowing it!’

  Lionel shook his head. ‘No!’

  ‘He said I showed him my leg; I didn’t mean to, but I think there must be something bad in me that he should find me out.’

  ‘No,’ said Lionel again. ‘’Tis all him that is bad. He has only rubbed his badness on you like … I don’t know … a snake rubbing on you and shedding his skin.’

  It was the wrong thing to have said – Jenny shuddered again and pressed her knuckles into her eyes. Then she shook her head and went to the sink and washed her hands with the cracked bit of soap, turning her hands over and over under the stream of cold water until they got red with cold.

  Lionel shut off the taps and handed her a tea towel. ‘Won’t you sit down again by the fire? Warm yourself up.’

  ‘At home we had a minister who taught children lessons from the scriptures, and used to get the girls up on his lap to read from St John. The longer we stayed on his lap the more bread and sugar we got. And I had no sugar at home, nor any cakes or biscuits. And I sat there the longest of us all whilst he … tickled me. It did tickle too, and I didn’t mind it, especially the sugar. And now Mr Badcock has found me out.’ She rubbed her nose.

  ‘’Tis not so, Jenny! I’ll bet Mr Badcock does that with any maid he comes across, the filthy letch, as he cannot get a woman the normal way! Do not let him ruin your mind; you are too good for it. And as for the minister, he should have been reported. You are too good, Jenny, that is why you get taken advantage of. I saw that straightaway at the pharmacy.’

  Jenny stopped rubbing and let her hand drop. ‘Did you? Do you really think so?’

  ‘I know it. I am always right about such things.’

  Jenny straightened. ‘Perhaps this is not so unusual. Not such an unusual happening that it must floor me. Mr Bad—’ She faltered and could not finish his name. ‘He has done it before, as you said, to other maids. I must think my way past it.’

  ‘I am glad to hear you speak that way.’ Lionel brushed her hand quickly. ‘You are still cold; look here, draw nearer the fire.’ He moved a log so that the embers underneath it glowed brighter and they leaned in together, towards it.

  CHAPTER 6

  If Alexander seemed cruel for no reason on some days, on others he was kind and solicitous, and the draught made it all easier to bear. On the afternoon he took Rebecca to the Gymnasium north of the New Town, he seemed positively gay. It would be a show, he told her. And it was. They stood near the Great Sea Serpent in its pool of water being powered by hundreds of men rowing around and around, splashing and yelling good-natured jibes to one another as they went, and he hardly flinched as the water, which must have been holding the dirt of a hundred factory workers’ feet, splashed over his jacket.

  ‘Exercise like this does not seem a chore,’ he said, stepping back one pace, ‘but it succeeds by keeping the workers away from the less healthful pastimes of drinking and gambling.’

  ‘Have ye only come to stare, or will ye be showing yer wife how tay do?’ shouted out a man dressed only in a vest. Hair sprouted out from his armpits and his arms bulged as he pulled his oar.

  Rebecca expected Alexander to blanch and pull her away, but it seemed he was determined to be festive. ‘Och aye!’ he said, in a broad accent. ‘I’ll be showing her, dinnae you worry aboot that.’

  Great hoots of laughter followed that, and Rebecca looked to her husband anxiously. But he was smiling, only smiling, and they turned to look at the men flying past on their giant trapeze swings, just like brawny circus performers. After that Alexander had a go on a see-saw as long as an omnibus and lifted his hat to Rebecca as it reached its highest point far above her, as high as the birds.

  But as she stood with her face lifted up to the white sky, staring at the uncharacteristic figure of her husband flying up, there, a couple of rows away, she saw, with a jolt of her heart into her mouth, was Gabe. She knew him straightaway by the bones in his wrists and the great round arc of shoulders, sprinkled with reddish hair, though his face was turned away from her.

  She pressed her knuckles to her lips. He was back! Not three feet away from her husband! Would she greet him? No – she could not, not with Alexander by her side.

  ‘You are very pale – what is the matter?’ asked her husband when he got off.

  Gabriel had got off on the other side of the see-saw, but she could not turn away, not yet, not until she saw his face.

  ‘Is it the excitement?’ he asked.

  ‘Yes, just that.’ Rebecca stared ahead, twisting her neck.

  ‘You look as if you have seen a ghost!’

  But it was not Gabriel after all. Now that the man was coming towards her she saw that he was quite different. She could not tell if she was relieved or dejected. ‘Yes, a ghost,’ she said.

  ‘But you are perspiring!’ Alexander put his palm on her forehead, damp with his own exertions. ‘We best make our way home.’

  And when they got there Alexander made her up a small draught to ease the worst excesses of her excitement. Women’s temperament, he told her, could not bear as much as men’s. As she sunk into her chaise, the sky darkening at her window, she thought he was probably right.

  By coincidence Rebecca had finished doing up Albany Street at the same time as the pharmacy was finished and she had organized her own little opening for a few days later. Her friend, or acquaintance rather, Violet, known for her good taste, had come to inspect the house and make her pronouncement.

  But if Alexander’s opening represented a beginning, Rebecca’s represented the end, she thought dismally, as she sat in the parlour staring at the paper-hangings. She had not got it right, not at all.

  How she had pored over dish covers, ottomans, fish knives! And then, after she had settled upon one type of fish knife, which would scoop up the cod just so, she saw an advertisement in the newspaper that told her that there was a more impressive one, whose handle was the body of a fish itself, and she knew she had chosen wrong.

  Her periodicals had told her that brightness was a good thing in wall decoration, which is why she had chosen these orange curlicues flouncing round a central yellow ball. At the time the pattern had seemed to offer the right mix of wit and merriment. After all, as the periodical said, good cheer could hardly be expected to survive in an old-fashioned room of browns and greys. But now that the afternoon sun fell on her wall the garish colours made her head hurt.

  ‘Are you all right?’ asked Violet.

  ‘A little tired, thank you,’ said Rebecca. ‘Would you like some more tea? I will ring for some.’

  ‘I’m sorry I could not come to the opening of the pharmacy,’ said Violet. ‘But dear Henry insisted we see his mother.’ She made a face.

  Violet had only just come back from her honeymoon in Madeira.
Her husband had some interest in geology and the weather there was temperate all year round.

  ‘Did you bring anything back?’ Rebecca asked. ‘A memento?’

  ‘Oh yes, my house is full of them. Fans, painted plates, articulated fish. Although Henry would insist on bringing back plants. It was all I could do to prevent him making a pet of a lizard! He said the wretched thing didn’t exist anywhere else, that it was a reason to believe Mr Darwin.’

  ‘And do you believe Mr Darwin?’ Rebecca noticed for the first time that her friend’s cheeks were covered with a filigree of blond hairs. Was that supposed to signify something – was it appetite?

  ‘Do I?’ Violet laughed. ‘Why, I have never thought of it much either way! But you are married to a man of science, so you must have an opinion.’

  ‘The evidence of Mr Darwin’s adds up, more for the side of the monkeys I am afraid to say, though I wish it did not.’

  ‘Oh dear, I dare say you are right, but I’m afraid I don’t like the look of Mr Darwin; and Mr Huxley is worse, just exactly like an ape himself! So I am prone to disagree with them both.’

  Violet dabbed at the corner of her lips with her napkin. Two fat flies whirred against the window pane, blundering on until they trapped themselves between the glass and the silk curtain. Rebecca stood up, meaning to open the window and let them out, but, before she could, Violet put down her napkin and said in to the silence: ‘It was the funniest thing!’

  Rebecca turned. Violet did not look amused. A frown of uncertainty passed across her face. ‘I think I can tell you the story as we are both married women now,’ she said.

  Rebecca remembered her crepuscular bedroom, Alexander’s face in the dawn light. ‘The story?’ she said.

  ‘You may find it humorous. They have no wheels on Madeira you see; they travel about on a kind of sledge, with a boy running ahead flicking water on the stones.’

  Rebecca smiled, to be nice. But Violet had not got to the amusing part yet.

  ‘We decided to go bathing, and that was how we got there. The sea quite glittered. Like a jewel. And not cold at all, not like Scotland. Dear Henry said it never gets cold in Madeira.’