The Apothecary's Widow

by Diane Scott Lewis

  The water bubbled in the kettle, and she tilted it to pour steaming liquid into the ceramic pot.

  “Can you manage a higher rent?” Horace’s expression turned serious and he plopped his boots back to the floor. “I would tread softly if you want to stay on the squire’s good side, what with him worried over his wife, and tobacco imports.”

  Jenna drew a slow breath. She couldn’t handle more rent. Her money was less than she’d ever admit, though she always showed a successful side to her patrons and friends while she scrambled to keep her business afloat.

  “I’ve never seen neither side of Mr. Pentreath close enough to tell which one is good. He’s a tall man, an’ seemed rather handsome from what I could glimpse.” She gave Horace a wide smile to banish her qualms. “Surely he wouldn’t want to raise the rent so high I’d be in the street?”

  “Unfortunately, these be desperate times, m’dear. Taxes for the landed have soared.”

  The apple-like scent of chamomile rose from the teapot. She inhaled over a shiver. “I will never give up my shop.” She poured the fragrant brew into cups. “Let us speak of other matters, those spices I might purchase, an’ enjoy our tea.”

  Her irritation toward her dead husband soared along with the idea of taxes. She’d thought Lemuel had good business sense, but after his death, she found he’d mismanaged funds in his last years. His final disease, a cancer, came on quickly and lasted a mere six months. He’d held onto the books until almost the end.

  “Truth is, and I only say this because I’m concerned for you. Mr. Pentreath sold one of his buildings last month to cover his losses. Could you afford to buy this place?” Horace accepted his cup with stubby, spice-stained fingers.

  “You are a bearer of good tidings, aren’t you?” Her heartbeat skipped in unease. “I’d have to mull over that possibility. The estate manager hinted as much.” She would be out in the street, since she lived in the rooms upstairs. How would she ever find the funds to buy the building if the squire insisted on selling and pushing her out? She prayed his wife rallied and pulled his attentions elsewhere. Icy fear seeped into her, and she sipped her hot tea to wash it down.

  * * *

  At the doctor’s somber words, pronouncing death, Branek rubbed his hands over his face. Sophie’s agonized moans were silenced. Her malady had lasted only two weeks from start to finish.

  Dr. Treen, along with his “consultant” from Plymouth, pulled the bed curtains to shroud the woman Branek tried so long to share his life with.

  “At least she will suffer no more.” Branek hated the inadequate sound of his reply. A strange relief tainted with guilt threaded through him. He walked out of the flickering candlelight that stretched his shadow across the wall in Sophie’s spartan chamber. The room stank of damp flesh and perspiration-soaked linens.

  “She’ll find a special place in Heaven, I’ve no doubt,” Treen said, but Branek took no solace from that declaration.

  The other doctor, a craggy-faced older man, glared at him. “I’m sorry for your loss, sir, but I must summon the authorities in on this situation. I believe your wife was killed, poisoned with arsenic.”

  Branek gasped then tugged at his cravat, finding it difficult to breathe. “You can’t be serious. Sophie had no enemies; ask anyone in the region.” An easily defensible lie. “There is no reason for anybody to want her…dead.” Had Sophie stared at him in accusation before senselessness overtook her? He often imagined she could read his baser thoughts.

  Treen stepped past the other man and touched a finger to Branek’s shoulder as if loath to offer complete sympathy. Branek shook it off and lumbered out into the corridor to gulp for air.

  “I know you think I failed her, Mr. Pentreath.” Treen followed him, his expression peeved. “But I assure you, all my remedies were in strict accordance with the proper treatment of the ague. It’s obvious something foul was put in the medicine.”

  “You have already claimed your innocence, I see. And who would have done such a despicable thing?” Branek practically barked his question. He couldn’t think straight; his mind swam with fuzziness, as if he woke from a drunken stupor.

  “A constable will have to investigate that.” Mr. Craggy-face stepped out as well. Branek could not remember his name. “The first person we should speak to is the apothecary who prepared the medicines.”

  “She’s the apothecary’s widow,” Treen said with a derisive edge to his voice. “Mrs. Rosedew. She purports to know far more than she could about the profession since her husband’s death.”

  “Then why did you choose her ministrations?” Craggy-face asked.

  “I did not. Mrs. Sandrey, the housekeeper here, chose her services against my advice,” Treen replied coldly. “But the medicine may have been tampered with after it reached Polefant Place.”

  “That is extremely unlikely.” Branek glowered, reeling from that avowal. “Before I say something I’ll regret, I’m going downstairs for a brandy. You may join me if you wish.” He spoke evenly and hoped the two men would decline and slither from his premises. He stalked off, down the stairs and into the stateroom he used as his office. The familiar smell of leather replaced the stench of sickness. The light green paneled walls stretched up to the curved plaster ceiling. The chamber was his refuge, when he wasn’t riding on his estate—or pitching in to work the land, anything to escape the house.

  He poured the amber liquid into a glass and stiffened when he heard two sets of footsteps behind him.

  “The wine was untainted, but the medication Dr. Treen brought me was definitely adulterated. Is there any reason why the widow would want to harm your wife?” Craggy-face asked. In profile he looked like a sickle and saw combined.

  “I can’t believe any of this; the entire notion is absurd.” Branek drank deep from his brandy. The smoky liquid burned down his throat and settled like fire in his stomach. Couldn’t these physicians tell he was in too much shock to be questioned?

  “I think a postmortem is in order,” Treen said to his colleague. “Wouldn’t you agree?”

  “I most certainly do. I know a naval surgeon in Plymouth who will perform the duty,” the other man concurred.

  “Is that necessary?” Branek slammed his glass down on his walnut desk. Would his demure wife care to have her body defiled? “Pardon me for being rude, but I am grieving. I think you should both leave my house so I can write a letter to my wife’s parents who are stranded in the colonies.” How would he explain this quick illness, or be successful in sending a letter to America in the midst of war? She had a brother in India, too.

  Remorse spread over him like a drenched blanket; yet hadn’t he tried hard enough for harmony in the beginning of their marriage? Branek’s mind spun with the ramifications, skimming the surface of a deeper explosion he was sure he barely contained.

  “If there’s anything else, Mr. Pentreath, you know where I am. I’ll send you my bill.” Treen managed to look smug and disapproving at the same time. “I will report my findings to the authorities, after the procedure.” He and his consultant, the pointy-poison-expert, nodded like two clock-work toys and left.

  Branek fingered his glass and longed to throw it at the departing figures. Treen wouldn’t dare implicate him in this alleged crime.

  He groaned, pressing the glass to his chest. What was the matter with him? His anger was out of control. He’d once been a good-natured, caring person, and now he’d grown bitter. All this rancor festered inside him, when he thought he’d acclimated himself to the deprivations in his life.

  He gripped the edge of his desk and stared up at his wife’s portrait hanging on the wall above the fireplace. A gentle expression on her narrow face, Sophie wore a plain black dress, hands clasped in her lap. She resembled a Madonna, something that had seemed to please her.

  His shoulders slumped as sorrow pressed down. Was it sadness at the loss of his wife, or what should have been between them?

  The apothecary’s widow slid back into his mind. Had h
e ever met this woman? He owned the building that housed that shop and regretted raising the rent, but he had little choice in the matter. Depending if this bizarre poisoning theory could be proved—and he prayed it wouldn’t—was Mrs. Rosedew nasty enough to have tampered with Sophie’s medication out of some type of revenge?

  Chapter Two

  Jenna slapped the reins against old Josse’s rump. The gray gelding dragged her cart up Castle Hill on one of the steep roads that led out of Truro. Her thoughts churned as roundly as the wheels—she needed money.

  They rattled past the former site of the ancient castle, the grounds where she’d played as a child—silly antics of pretending to be a countess to an Earl of Cornwall, the nobility who once owned this long vanished fortress. Called Tre-ru, meaning the castle on the water, some said it was the source of the town’s name. She gripped the reins tighter—Truro was her home and her life belonged here.

  She slowed the cart on the rim of the bowl of land formed by the river valleys around Truro. Below, three twisting tributaries, the Kenwyn, the Allen and the Tinney, spilled into the Truro River. She’d fished in these streams with her da, who’d told her the Truro River flowed into the Carrick Roads and the River Fal, their town once a great port.

  Chin drooping, Jenna closed her eyes, breathing in the crisp autumn air and the memories. Her da and sweet mam seemed as long vanished as the castle.

  The cart jerked over a rut in the road. She straightened and stared up at the alder and silver birch trees with their rustling leaves in shades of crimson and ocher. Head now raised high, she’d no time to feel sorry for herself; she had a mission to perform.

  Outside of town, among rolling farmland, a stone cottage with a barn and outbuildings poked into view. As she drew closer, pigs snorted and snuffled in a pen several yards behind the barn. Her nose wrinkled at their unmistakable stink.

  Jenna halted Josse near the cottage’s door and stepped to the ground. She groaned and stretched her back. The damp this season made her muscles ache. She sighed over her reluctance to the task ahead, picked up her basket and knocked on the weathered door. A chicken trotted by and clucked in a sharp scolding at her.

  The door creaked open and a sagging visage appeared—as if the flesh had been melted like candle wax. “Oh, Jenna. Good morn to ’ee.” Farmer Kernick smiled; the effort barely stirred his slack jowls. “I didn’t expect no one. Come in, then.”

  Jenna smiled in return. Kernick, a curmudgeon set in his ways, was twenty years older than she was; he’d been a widower for ten of them. Another obstinate man who might tether her rigid if she allowed it. She stepped into his parlor. Dust lay thick on the furniture and she coughed in the musty smell. Desperation prickled inside her.

  “Has your daughter been by to check on you lately?”

  He hobbled his scrawny, bent frame over to the hearth and tossed on some turf and furze. The flames smoldered and crackled but provided little warmth.

  “Ess, she tries, but she’s busy with her own family. I manage all right.” He grinned, showing his stained front teeth.

  “Busy, as is my son. I don’t see him as much as I’d like with him living in Bodmin. Well, you sit before the fire.” She gestured toward the worn settee. “I brought you some ham, cheese an’ bread.” She set out these items on his rough-hewn table. “How is your farm producing? Any contract with the army yet?” she asked as she prepared him a plate of food. The smell of victuals didn’t entice her, and hadn’t since she’d heard the news of Mrs. Pentreath’s death. The woman’s funeral had been yesterday.

  “My farm’s too small for the army. The pigs do right enough hereabouts. Chops are in demand. The chickens lay plenty of eggs.” He grinned again. “Come over here and sit beside me, girl.”

  “I’m hardly a girl, you old charmer.” Jenna chuckled. It was nice for someone to think of her that way. She carried the plate over to the settee and sat next to him.

  He took the plate and bit into a slice of ham and bread like a slavering beast.

  She patted his gnarled hand. “The reason I asked…. Have you ever thought of investing in town?”

  He glanced up, bread crumbs on his lips. “What do you mean?”

  Jenna dreaded this, as she hated any sign of beggary. “Invested in a shop. You know, bought the property an’ such.”

  “Naw, I stick to my farming. My family’s raised pigs an’ chickens for generations.” He bit into the hunk of Cornish Yarg aged in nettles, then raised a white eyebrow. “You want me to buy your shop now? Last week you told me you were just concerned ’bout the rent.”

  “I am. But Will, the estate manager at Polefant Place, warned me if the war doesn’t turn in our favor, the building could be sold. Don’t it make sense to have more say in the building your business an’ home is in?” Jenna fidgeted on the worn settee cushion, hoping for a landlord she could manipulate. “You always brag about how much money you have saved.”

  “Wouldn’t waste it on the town. I’d buy more livestock.” He set the plate aside and she handed him a napkin. “Thank ’ee for the food, Jenna.” He kissed her cheek.

  “You’re welcome.” She touched his arm, yet resisted trailing her finger down his sleeve. “You’ve said how much you care for me.” She liked Kernick, and worried over him here alone, but never thought she’d stoop this low. His sloppy kiss and bony leg pressing into hers didn’t spark her desire in the least. “I want to be honest with you. Mr. Pentreath has already sold his other property in town. An’ the squire, deep in grief, could insist any moment on selling mine.”

  “Heard about his wife. A real shame. Times be tough even for the gentry. What will you do?” Kernick smacked his lips and picked at one of his teeth.

  “’Tis what I’d like to discuss with you. Don’t you want to invest in a hard-working woman’s safekeeping? You could profit as the town’s growing, and an apothecary is always needed.”

  He frowned. “Such a pity that Lemuel didn’t leave you enough funds.”

  Jenna stood and walked toward the hearth. She kept her back to him and warmed her fingers over the flames. “Well, he put it all in the shop.” The truth was, she didn’t know what he’d done with the money. She’d gone over the books after his death dozens of times. Gambling? Another woman? She bit at her lip. Her husband had kept too many secrets. “It takes more money to buy the fancy ingredients for these new medications.”

  “Is that what he told you?” Kernick’s words sounded accusatory.

  Her heart twitched. “Do you know something I don’t?” She stared at him again. This wasn’t the first time she detected such hints about her husband’s past behavior.

  “Oh, ’tis nothing.” He glanced away from her.

  She bristled. “If you have information—”

  “Naw, I said.” He seemed to shake her question off like a dog after a rainstorm. “An’, Jenna, dear, I haven’t got the money to invest in a building. I use every farthing to hire men to help me here. I’m not so spry no more.”

  Her heart sank like a lead ball, yet part of her was relieved she could end this pretense of seducing the man.

  “Besides, you should give up your shop.”

  She turned. “And live on what, pray?”

  Kernick laughed and patted his knee. “Why, I’ll marry you. You can live here an’ take care of me.”

  Jenna glanced around the cramped parlor, the moldy wallpaper and soiled furniture. The man was too purse-proud to hire a girl to clean up.

  “That is a very kind offer.” She pressed on her stomach—the idea of sharing a bed with him flipped her innards about. “But I cherish my work. ’Tis important.”

  “I’d find plenty for you to do.” He clicked his tongue and winked. “A woman like you shouldn’t be alone.”

  “Oh, you make me blush.” Revulsion rippled through her—along with the urge to flee this calamity. “Mentioning my work, I must get back, there’s always much to prepare.” She snatched up her basket. “I will consider your very tempting pro
posal.”

  “I pray you do.” Kernick stood and held out his skeletal arms. Her spice-merchant friend Horace was right, Kernick did look half in the grave. “But I doubt you will.”

  “Ess, you are a wise one.” She gave him a quick hug, embarrassed by her behavior and disappointed by his refusal to help. He smelled as fusty as his parlor.

  “Tell your daughter to look in on you more.” Jenna hurried to the door. She’d enjoyed him as a friend, but anything more was too heavy a sacrifice. “I’ll think of something for my shop, so don’t you concern yourself.” She’d never give up her mixing of herbs and spices, helping the ill. Her duties meant too much to her.

  Jenna hopped into her cart and urged Josse to turn around. She must devise another way to raise the money. Maybe Horace could advise her. She huffed in frustration. No mollycoddled squire would ever snatch away her livelihood.

  * * *

  Branek paced over the Turkey rug in his office, the room where he hadn’t allowed any black crepe. The chamber had the rich yet clean lines he preferred—no gold leaf or overly-decorative paneling—to calm the jumble in his head. He still wanted this space to himself, separate from the mourning in the rest of the manor.

  The servants whispered about his actions. But they’d whispered for years about many issues, especially his stilted relationship with Sophie.

  He brushed his hand over the diaper-paned doors of his walnut library bookcases—once his revered grandfather’s—though he couldn’t settle his mind to read. Thanks to Treen, a blasted ax hung over his head.

  The office door opened. “Excuse me, sir.” His estate manager entered from the corridor. Will Fenton removed his hat; wigless, as was his preferred manner, his bushy blond hair fought against its queue. His black armband of mourning matched Branek’s. “The stable lad informed me that Constable Chenery is riding up the drive.”