‘So it would appear.’ Dr Ambrose turned away but not before she noticed a surprising spark of amusement in his dark eyes.
Arabella had subsided somewhat by then and was being comforted by her new husband, who carefully dabbed at a splatter of bird droppings which had landed amongst her golden curls. Although Cornelius told her that this was a good omen, she refused to be persuaded.
The Crown and Cushion was famed for the quality of its wine and ale and the party became very merry. Susannah retreated to an ante-room and sat on a high-sided settle by the fire, closing her eyes in an attempt to ignore recent events.
She woke a little later to hear voices and glared round the corner of the settle to see her father enter the room, followed by Richard Berry.
‘Saving all your energy for your wedding night, old man?’ asked Richard, poking his friend in the ribs.
‘God knows, Arabella has awakened my senses in a way I thought could never happen again,’ said Cornelius. ‘I don’t want to spend the next eleven years as celibate as the past eleven. And I’m too old now to want to risk the pox caught off some light-skirt in Smithfield.’
Susannah clasped a hand over her mouth and shrank back into her hiding place.
‘And the new Mistress Leyton with her cream-fed complexion has really caught your fancy, hasn’t she? Can’t blame you for that.’ Richard sighed. ‘Ah, young flesh! I dream of it sometimes. But I’m happy enough with my old Bridie, even if she’s lost a few teeth and her waist has thickened. She still snuggles up to me nice and warm on a cold winter’s night.’
‘Bridie is a good woman. My Elizabeth was very fond of her.’
‘Ah well! But now we must all make merry while we may,’ said Richard. ‘Who knows when the Spectre of Pestilence might snatch us away? One sneeze and a day later you could be dead. Live for today, I say!’
It was dark by the time the wedding party left the Crown and Cushion. Headed by Richard Berry’s capering figure, it processed along Fleet Street, several of the group distinctly unsteady and singing more raucously than was mannerly. Once the procession reached the apothecary shop it took some time to send the well-wishers on their noisy way and by then Arabella’s children were tired and fretful.
Susannah had prepared her brother Tom’s bedchamber in readiness for them. She had always hoped that he would return from Virginia, whence he had been apprenticed at fourteen. It had saddened her, as she put fresh linen on the bed, to finally accept this was unlikely to happen and that these new children were to inhabit his room instead.
She had little experience of children, overtired or otherwise, and it was a revelation to her just how long it could take to put them to bed when they had no wish to sleep. Arabella laid them top to toe on the mattress and listened to them say their prayers. The children took fright at the shadows in the corners of the strange bedchamber and screamed when the old tabby cat came to investigate. Arabella kissed their cheeks, promised them that the nasty creature wouldn’t nibble their toes while they slept and suggested that their new sister told them a story. She smiled sweetly and said goodnight.
Susannah stared at the children, who stared back. Sighing, she tried to remember the bedtime stories her mother had told to her when she was small.
At long last, the children’s eyelids drooped and all became quiet. Exhausted, Susannah retired to the parlour to join the newly married couple.
‘What a joyful day!’ said Cornelius, stoking up the fire to a crackling blaze.
‘Joyful!’ said Arabella, making a face. ‘But I forget, you were not savaged and despoiled by wild birds. I do not at all like your vulgar friend, Richard Berry.’
Susannah flinched, anticipating her father’s pain at this sharp remark but he appeared unruffled.
‘Come, my dear, it was but a jest.’ He took his wife’s hand and kissed her fingers, one by one.
Arabella sniffed and they sat in awkward silence by the fire.
Susannah’s eyes opened wide as she noticed Arabella dab at her eyes with a handkerchief as she stared into the flames. Surely she should be happy now that she had ensnared Father and secured her future? But what of her own future? What changes would her stepmother bring to the household?
Arabella’s chin quivered while her hands twisted her handkerchief in her lap. ‘So, I am now Mistress Leyton,’ she said.
‘Indeed you are!’ Cornelius smiled encouragingly.
Arabella didn’t answer.
‘I have asked Jennet to bring us a jug of the Canary wine up from the cellar,’ Susannah said, after a while. ‘And only a light supper of bread and cold meat, since we had such a good dinner.’ She knew she was talking too much in an attempt to fill the awkward silence and was relieved when Jennet came in to set the table.
‘A toast to my beautiful new bride!’ said Cornelius, holding up his glass.
Susannah forced her face into a smile.
Arabella preened herself. ‘I shall have to make the best of it,’ she said. Peace returned.
After the supper dishes had been cleared away Susannah took down a book of Donne’s poems. She anticipated that the poems of Catullus, in the original Latin, might not appeal to Arabella.
‘Shall you read first, Father?’ She held the book out to him.
He took it from her but then placed it slowly on the table. ‘You must be tired after such a day, Susannah. Perhaps you will wish to retire?’
‘Not at all! I have been looking forward to resuming our discussion of Astraea Redux.’
‘I think not, Susannah.’
‘There is something else you would prefer to read?’
‘Not tonight. Are you sure you are not tired?’ His hand reached out to one of Arabella’s silky ringlets and twisted it gently around his fingers.
‘Oh! I see.’ And she did. She watched her father lay the ringlet onto her stepmother’s bare shoulder and allow his hand to linger for a moment on her white skin.
Arabella gave him a sideways glance through her eyelashes.
Susannah recalled Richard Berry’s knowing comments and felt her face grow hot. All at once she couldn’t wait to leave the parlour. Retiring upstairs far too early was infinitely preferable to watching Father and Arabella making sheep’s eyes at one another.
Upstairs, she had not been in her bed for more than a minute before she heard the stairs creak. Then there were whispers and a stifled giggle before the latch of her father’s bedchamber rattled and the door clicked shut. The walls in the old house were thin and she could hear movements for a while but then the muffled voices ceased.
She lay wide-eyed in the dark, trying not to hear the sighs and gasps of her father’s lovemaking and feeling lonelier than at any time since her mother’s death.
She had put the pillow over her head to shut out the rhythmic knocking of the bed against the wall, when a child’s wailing cry made her start up. The knocking stopped but the wailing grew louder and she could hear Arabella’s protesting voice. Unable to bear it any longer she went to investigate.
Mathew was red-faced and roaring as his brother berated him. Harriet had retreated to the corner of the room and huddled on the floor, whimpering.
‘Whatever is going on in here?’ Susannah asked.
‘Mathew’s wet the bed again,’ said John, ‘and my nightshirt is wet, too.’
Cornelius appeared in the doorway, his mouth set in a thin line. ‘Susannah, will you settle the children?’
She noticed that his nightshirt was on inside out and there was no sign of his nightcap. ‘Surely Arabella will want to tend to them?’ she asked.
‘I wish her to rest.’
‘But the bedlinen must be changed!’
‘Then call for Jennet.’ Without another word he hastened back to the marital bed.
Susannah didn’t see why Jennet should be disturbed too. Jaw clenched, she stripped the bed and remade it, briskly tucking in the corners and tugging the counterpane straight. She settled the boys firmly back into bed but Harriet flatly refuse
d to join them. Unable to face a battle of wills, Susannah took the girl into her own bed and fell asleep with a sharp little elbow lodged in her back.
In the morning running footsteps and shrieks of laughter came from the boys’ bedroom and a door slammed hard enough to shake the house to its very foundations.
Harriet kicked her on the shin. ‘Get up! I’m hungry.’
‘Has your mother taught you no manners?’ snapped Susannah.
Harriet stuck out her tongue and jumped out of bed before Susannah could catch her.
Rubbing at the new bruises on her back, Susannah got up. Her father’s door remained firmly shut. There was a trail of feathers across the landing and when she reached the boys’ bedchamber she gasped. The entire room lay under a snowstorm of duck down. There was no sign of either the empty pillowcases or the perpetrators of the mischief.
It was mid-morning when Cornelius and Arabella came downstairs to break their fast. By that time the children had eaten all the bread, tormented the cat, and spilled coal on the parlour floor.
‘My darlings! Come to kiss your mama!’ said Arabella.
‘They have been very naughty children,’ said Susannah, almost at the end of her tether.
‘Nonsense! They are simply high-spirited. Could you not manage to amuse them for a little while? Come children, say good morning to your new father.’
Susannah watched in amazement as, one by one, the little hellions filed up to Cornelius and bowed or curtsied. It didn’t surprise her, however, when a few minutes later she saw John stick his tongue out at her father’s back.
‘Susannah,’ said Arabella after she had breakfasted off a beaker of ale and some stale eel pie, ‘I will have the household keys and account books, if you please.’
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘The keys. And the accounts. I shall, of course, be taking control of the household affairs.’
Susannah laughed, incredulous. ‘But I have been mistress of this household since I was fifteen years old!’
‘There can be only one mistress and I am your father’s wife.’ Arabella’s pointed little chin lifted.
‘Father?’ Susannah turned to her father. ‘Surely you don’t really mean to take the keys away from me?’
‘My dear, of course you must hand them to Arabella.’
‘But …’ She was unable to speak with the shock of his betrayal.
‘You may help Arabella until she finds out how we go on here.’
‘That won’t be necessary, Cornelius. I have my own way of going about things.’
‘As you wish, my dear.’
Susannah watched him drop a kiss onto the top of his bride’s head and the foolish, adoring expression on his face made her stomach rebel just as if she had eaten meat on the turn.
Arabella held out her hand to Susannah, a glitter of triumph in her ice-blue eyes.
Shaking with rage and distress in equal measure, Susannah loosed her mother’s chatelaine from about her waist and slowly held out the keys.
‘I shall start by inspecting the store cupboards,’ said Arabella. ‘I have no intention of breakfasting on stale pie every morning.’
‘That wouldn’t have been necessary if your children hadn’t been so greedy with the bread,’ retorted Susannah, stung by the injustice of her comment.
‘I can see that you have a lot to learn,’ said Arabella with a flinty smile. ‘Of course, since you are a spinster with no children of your own you cannot be expected to know how to manage a family home. Children grow quickly and there must always be plenty of bread.’
‘There was plenty of bread. Your children ate their fill and then hurled the rest at poor Tibby until she was so terrified she ran up the chimney and burned her tail. Perhaps you have something to learn about governing your children?’ Susannah clenched her fists as her wretchedness turned to temper.
‘Cornelius!’ Arabella appealed to her husband, her lip quivering. ‘You cannot allow your daughter to insult me like this!’
‘I must go and see to the shop,’ said Cornelius, retreating. ‘Ned is not to be trusted on his own for too long.’ He made a hasty exit.
Deep inside her breast Susannah felt a cold, hard stone of disbelief. How could her beloved father, her companion for so many years, suddenly care so little for her?
Arabella waited until the door had closed and then turned to Susannah, hands on her hips and fury in her eyes. ‘Don’t you tangle with me,’ she spat, ‘or you’ll be sorry for it! I didn’t come this far to have a stuck-up miss like you get in my way. I’m telling you now that you’d best do as I bid you if you are to stay in this house. I will not be troubled by your tantrums. Do you understand me?’
Susannah was so shocked to hear anyone in her home shouting like a fishwife that it rendered her speechless.
‘God knows,’ muttered Arabella as she turned away from Susannah, ‘everything is difficult enough without that.’
Stumbling in distress, Susannah ran from the room.
Some weeks later, Susannah called on Martha.
Martha, six months into her pregnancy and as rounded and neat as a turtledove, ushered her into the parlour.
‘It is all far worse than I could have imagined,’ Susannah said, cocking her head and listening to the sound of shrieks and stamping feet on the floorboards above. She had been forced to bring Mathew, John and Harriet with her since Arabella pronounced herself far too busy to care for them and now they rampaged about upstairs, picking quarrels with Martha’s children.
‘Can you not persuade your father to change his mind and allow your stepmother to hire a nursemaid?’ asked Martha. She sat with her feet up on a footstool, mending her husband’s shirt.
‘We have no room for another maid. The house is bursting at the seams as it is. Besides, Father says he cannot see the need for it and as long as Arabella can foist the children off onto me or poor Jennet she has no need of a nursemaid either.’ Susannah was fairly burning with indignation. ‘He’d soon change his mind if he had the care of them. I had no idea children could be so disobedient.’
Martha shrugged. ‘They must be taught from the beginning to respect their elders.’
‘Arabella will not allow the use of the birch.’
‘Then I fear you have a hard road ahead of you.’
‘It’s not just the children.’ Susannah heard the quaver in her voice and blinked back tears. ‘Arabella begged for a pair of virginals and Father went straight out to purchase them for her. As a child I always wanted to learn but he said it was an unnecessary expense. Now he sits at her side every evening looking down the front of her bodice and caressing her shoulders while she plays.’
‘They are newly married, Susannah. Perhaps you should spend more time with your friends and leave them to be alone together.’
‘What friends? Apart from you, of course? I’ve always spent my free time with Father.’
‘Then it’s time you made more friends of your own.’
‘How do you suggest I do that? I’m either in the shop all day or minding those little villains. I can hardly roam the streets at night looking for friends or go into alehouses by myself, can I?’ She rubbed her eyes, gritty with exhaustion. ‘Harriet has taken up residence in my bed and I’m nearly kicked to death! And I’m expected to rise during the night to change the bedlinen. Surely Mathew should be dry at night by now?’
‘You must remember that he has lost his father and moved to a new home, which may have upset him.’ Martha reached out to squeeze Susannah’s hand. ‘Poor Susannah! You have all the drudgery of marriage and children, without any of the joy.’
Martha’s sympathy was Susannah’s undoing. ‘It’s the way Father looks at her in that doting fashion,’ she wept. ‘He keeps touching her and kissing her and I feel as if my presence is always a nuisance to them. He has no use for me now.’
‘They need time together to learn each other’s ways.’
‘But we haven’t been to a play or one of the lectures at Gresham C
ollege for weeks. Father never wants to read with me or have any interesting discussions any more. We’re always interrupted by Arabella chattering about the colour of the ribbons she is going to use to trim her hat or some such trivial thing. And he listens to her as if she has said the most fascinating thing in the whole of the city. I just want everything to be back as it was before she came,’ she sobbed.
‘All men are made fools by desire. It won’t last for ever.’ Martha’s hazel eyes were wistful. ‘It never does, not even in a marriage made for love.’
‘But what can I do? You can’t imagine how miserable I am.’
‘A woman’s life often is miserable and you have to accept that it’s God’s will …’
‘Please, don’t spout your Puritan ways at me, Martha!’
‘Puritan or not, there are only three choices in this life for a woman, Susannah.’ She put aside the mending and folded her hands over the roundness of her belly. ‘You can submit to your family, you can look for a position as a servant in another household or you can find a husband of your own.’
‘I won’t let Arabella push me out of my home! Besides, where would I go?’
‘If you were married you would be mistress of your own home.’
‘I cannot marry!’
‘Of course you can.’
‘After what happened to Mother?’ Susannah swallowed, pushing away the terrible memories of that time.
Martha sighed. ‘What happened to your mother was a very dreadful thing but it in no way means that history will repeat itself with you.’
‘Even if I was inclined to marry, I have no suitors.’
‘Of course you haven’t!’ snapped Martha, losing patience at last. ‘And it’s almost too late. You’ve passed girlhood and over the years you and your father have chased away all possible suitors so that you could both continue to live in your own safe, bookish little world. And now you’re shocked because he has taken his interest elsewhere. If you are so determined to avoid marriage you should consider that if you become a servant in another household you may not be treated kindly.’
‘So I am to continue to be Arabella’s waiting woman in my own home?’ Indignation made Susannah’s face burn.
The Apothecary's Daughter Page 3
