The Apothecary's Daughter

by Betts, Charlotte

  ‘Very well, I’m sure,’ stammered Susannah, her gaze fixed upon the old woman’s elaborate walking stick with its silver handle in the shape of a monkey’s head. Beside her, Henry was deep in conversation with Dr Ambrose.

  ‘Hmm. Not sure I was suited to it myself. M’husband’s dead now though.’

  Susannah, unsure if this was a matter for congratulation or commiseration, kept silent. Next to her, Henry was speaking in hushed tones to his cousin and becoming increasingly agitated.

  ‘Been a widow for a long time now. Do what I please,’ said Mistress Fygge.

  Susannah nodded, pretending attention while she tried to listen to what Henry was saying.

  Dr Ambrose’s eyebrows were drawn together in fury as he answered Henry. ‘You must not bring them here!’

  ‘Henry tells me you like your new home?’ said Mistress Fygge, apparently deaf to her nephews’ quarrel.

  ‘Oh, yes! It’s much finer than I might have hoped for. Henry’s importing business is expanding fast, he tells me.’

  ‘Does he now?’ Agnes’s mouth twisted in an ironical smile. ‘Always had a persuasive tongue. Very like his grandfather in that way. Dead now, of course.’ She turned away to speak to Richard Berry on her left.

  Henry and Dr Ambrose had their heads close together by now, whispering. Then Henry poked his cousin in the chest to press home his point and Dr Ambrose scraped back his chair and reared up.

  ‘I promised!’ said Henry, striking the edge of the table. ‘And now I can fulfil that promise.’

  ‘I’ll have no part in it!’ Dr Ambrose flung down his napkin and stormed from the room.

  Susannah watched him go. ‘Henry, what has upset your cousin?

  Henry laughed but his face was strained. ‘Will always was dour and bad-tempered. Disappointed in love, I’m afraid and it’s soured him. But I’ll not let him spoil our wedding day.’ He banged on the table with his knife. ‘A toast! Let us have a toast to my bride!’

  That night, by the time Susannah returned from the privy Henry was already in bed and waiting for her. She had delayed going upstairs for as long as possible after their supper, even taking the time to welcome Peg, the young maid Henry had hired, and supervising the priming of the candlewicks and the locking of the doors. A sudden attack of anxiety made her insides churn. But in the end she could put it off no longer.

  Susannah’s trunk had been placed beside the dressing table. She took out her new embroidered nightshift and hung it over the back of the chair while she loosed the pins and ribbons from her hair. It felt awkward to be alone in a bedchamber with a man, even if he was her husband. She had avoided thinking too much about what was to come, too terrified to consider the possible consequences, but at the same time anxious to please her new husband. As she combed her curls free, she caught sight of his reflection in the looking glass, watching her. She spun round and he smiled fleetingly.

  She sent a wavering smile back at him and fled behind the folding screen in the corner of the room. Loosening her bodice with trembling hands and scrambling into her nightshift, she had to fight back a wave of panic. Breathing deeply, she stood behind the screen with her shaking arms crossed tightly over her breast while she gathered courage.

  ‘Susannah?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘It’s late. Come to bed.’

  Reluctantly she emerged.

  Henry was pale and for a moment Susannah wondered if he was as nervous as herself.

  She kicked off her slippers, climbed into bed and sat up, very straight, beside him with the sheet pulled up tight under her arms. She wondered if he could hear the unsteady beating of her heart. ‘Shall I blow out the candle?’

  ‘Not yet. I want to look at you. There’s no need to be frightened,’ he said, tipping her chin to face him.

  Susannah concentrated on his eyes. Eyes as blue as a summer sky.

  He smiled at her and lifted her cold hand to his lips. ‘My wife!’ he said wonderingly. ‘We shall do very well, I believe.’

  Susannah nodded, a little of her unease slipping away. He reached out and touched her mouth, slowly tracing its curves with his finger and it felt natural to her to turn her head to kiss his fingertip.

  She made no move to resist as he slid his hands into the mass of her loosened hair and bent to kiss her.

  It wasn’t at all unpleasant, she thought. The stubble on his chin prickled a little and he tasted of the Canary wine they had shared at supper. She wasn’t sure what he expected of her and sat motionless while he continued to kiss her. His lips were warm and silky. He began to caress her shoulder and then to nibble at the hollows of her neck, which brought her out in goose pimples.

  Some of her tension began to seep away and she leaned against him, tilting her head so that he could reach her more easily. His hands fumbled with the drawstrings of her shift and then tugged impatiently at them until she helped him. Her loosened shift slipped down over her shoulders and her fingers twitched as she resisted the impulse to pull it up again and clutch it tightly against her neck. After all, Henry was her husband and it was her duty to be a compliant wife.

  ‘I’ve never seen skin so very white,’ he whispered as he stroked her shoulders. He bent his head and slowly dropped a myriad of kisses on the swell of her breasts. Gradually, her shift moved lower and lower until the tip of his finger touched her nipple. He rolled it gently between his finger and thumb.

  Susannah gasped. The most extraordinary sensation of warmth began to radiate out from deep within her.

  Henry was breathing hard and his other hand was reaching down to pull up her shift and ease it over her head.

  Naked under the sheet, she lay back and watched as he roughly pulled off his own nightshirt and dropped it to the floor beside her own. Wide-eyed, she saw his firm, brown chest with its light covering of golden hair. She bit her lip as she resisted the urge to reach out and stroke him, in case he thought her wanton.

  He threw back the sheet and instinctively she curled herself up to conceal her nakedness. She gasped as he kneeled over her. She had never seen a healthy man undressed before and it wasn’t at all like the engravings she had seen of Greek and Roman statues. Squeezing her eyes tight shut, she tried to put the picture out of her mind.

  ‘Don’t! Let me see you,’ he said, uncurling her and pushing her back against the soft pillows. He kissed her again, his mouth hot and his breathing fast.

  His hands were all over her, seeking out all her private places, cupping her breasts and even touching her honour, but a delicious languor had descended over her and she lay back, eyes closed and allowed him to do what he wished. An agreeable tension was building deep inside her and she became impatient with him, wanting him to … What? She didn’t know what it was but she yearned for it.

  Henry climbed on top of her and pushed her legs apart with his knee. He began to move his hips, trying unsuccessfully to enter her.

  Opening her eyes, she was confused to see his teeth were bared in a grimace as he stared at some point over her shoulder.

  ‘Henry?’ she whispered.

  ‘Shh!’ he hissed. All tenderness for her seemed to have disappeared and his breathing was ragged as he scrabbled between her legs, probing her with impatient fingers and attempting to push himself into her. He had a torn fingernail and it scraped repeatedly against her soft flesh, making her whimper.

  He was heavy and the movement of his hips grating against her own became increasingly uncomfortable until Susannah wondered how much longer she could bear it. At last, close to tears, she whispered, ‘Henry?’

  He froze. ‘What?’ His voice was hoarse.

  ‘You’re hurting me.’

  ‘Don’t talk!’

  ‘I’m sorry but you’re hurting—’

  ‘Shut up! Don’t talk to me now!’

  He ground his hips against hers again and she let out a sob of distress.

  ‘Damnation!’ He became still and sank down heavily on top of her, his breath rasping in her ear.


  She felt him begin to soften against her thigh.

  ‘It’s no good,’ he muttered. ‘I must have been mad to think I could do this.’

  Shocked, Susannah lay motionless, waiting to see what would happen next.

  Henry rolled off her, yanked the sheet from the foot of the bed and wrapped it around his shoulders. He turned his back and lay, unspeaking, in a rigid mound.

  Outside the church clock tolled the hour.

  Susannah stayed quite still, not daring to wipe away the tears that ran down her cheeks and soaked the pillow. What had she done wrong? She didn’t know anything about a wife’s duties in the bedroom but surely this wasn’t right?

  Henry was silent for a long time and Susannah suspected that he was as wide awake as she was.

  After an eternity, the church clock rang again and then Henry let out a muffled snore.

  In the morning she was woken by the sound of a cart clattering over the cobbles. Light seeped through the cracks in the shutters and cast a pale luminosity over the walls. It took her a moment to recognise the unfamiliar room. Abruptly she turned her head on the pillow. Beside her, Henry still slept, his mouth open and his breath sour.

  As the events of the previous night flooded back she relived the embarrassment and failure of the marital act. She had disappointed her new husband in some way and she had no idea how to rectify the situation. She felt gingerly between her legs. She was sore and bruised but there didn’t seem to be any lasting damage. She glanced again at Henry, fearful he would wake and she would have to face him. It was a peculiar thing, an act of such intimacy between two people who were not much more than strangers. But in time they would be strangers no longer and perhaps all would be comfortable and easy between them. Meanwhile she was lying there naked and wanting only to rectify that before Henry awoke.

  She slipped out of bed, retrieved her nightshift from the floor and quickly pulled it over her head before splashing her hands and face in the bowl on the washstand. Glancing at Henry’s still sleeping form, she tiptoed over to her trunk. Taking out the little marquetry box and the pearl pendant, she put them on the dressing table next to her comb, together with a pot of toothpowder that she had made herself, her Turkish toothbrush and a bottle of lavender water. Since Henry still slept, she dressed quietly and crept downstairs.

  Peg waited for her in the kitchen. Though willing, she was small and undernourished for her fourteen years, with a freckled face and earnest grey eyes. She wore a vulgar, ruffled and beribboned blue dress with a cheap lace petticoat, which displayed too much of her bony little chest and was entirely unsuitable for a kitchen maid. What had Henry been thinking of to hire such a child as sole servant in a large house, wondered Susannah. ‘Does your family live nearby?’ she asked.

  ‘They all died, you see,’ said Peg, her face crumpling. ‘The pestilence, it was. Mam, and Dad and six little ones.’

  ‘When was this?’ asked Susannah, taking an involuntary step back.

  ‘Six weeks gone, so it’s quite safe, madam.’

  ‘How very terrible for you!’

  ‘Oh, yes, it was! Dad had it first. We’d only come up from the country last year. “To seek our fortune,” he said. Terrible sick he was with the purple spots on his legs.’ Her fair hair hung in greasy rat’s tails around her woebegone face. ‘Gone in two hours, would you believe and then the baby and little Georgie.’

  Somehow Susannah had the weeping girl in her arms and was patting her knobbly back but there was no stopping her tale of misery.

  ‘Mam was mad with crying and it were a blessing for her when she went, too. The dead-cart took them away by night and the watchmen shut the rest of us up in the house. One by one all my brothers and sisters went and I could only watch and wonder when it would be my turn.’

  ‘But you survived.’

  ‘And, oh madam, I do wish I hadn’t!’

  It took some minutes before Peg’s tears abated sufficiently for her to continue her story. ‘Four weeks I was in that house on my own after they took the others away. Four weeks of just the rats scratching in the walls and remembering my brothers and sisters crying and moaning before they died. The watchmen threw me a bit of bread in through the window sometimes and told me to pray. But I’d prayed every day while my whole family died so what was the use of that?’

  It was hard for Susannah to find any comfort for the poor girl and it quite took her mind off her troubles with Henry.

  ‘After the quarantine was over the watchmen unlocked the door and I went outside.’ Peg wiped her nose on the back of her hand. ‘None of the neighbours would come near me and I sat on the step while they smoked the house to cleanse it. But where was I to go? I had no money for the rent and no family.’

  ‘Is that when you met Mr Savage?’

  ‘Not then. A fine lady came by and I told her what had happened. She said she’d take me home to Cock Lane in Moor Fields to meet her daughters.’

  ‘How kind of her!’

  ‘That’s what I thought at first but it wasn’t, see! Mistress McGregor had six daughters and they made a fuss of me. Then she gave me a good dinner and a bath and put me in a new dress.’ She held out her skirts to display her petticoat. ‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’ she breathed.

  ‘But too fancy for work, Peg. I’ll find you something more suitable and you can save this one for best. And then what happened?’

  ‘The next day she said I’d have to earn my keep. I said I’d scrub the floors or anything but she said her brother was coming to visit and I was to be nice to him.’

  Susannah had an idea now of where the girl’s story was leading. ‘And did her brother come?’

  Peg nodded. ‘Mistress McGregor called me down to meet him. We had a glass of wine which made my head spin and then she said she had business to attend to and I was to stay and entertain the gentleman. She’d only been gone a minute when he put his hand up my petticoat. I screamed but no one came.’

  ‘Oh Peg!’

  ‘But I wasn’t having no gentleman putting his hand on my honour and I snatched up the candlestick and whacked him over the head with it. He went straight to sleep I can tell you!’ She smiled with grim satisfaction.

  ‘So what did you do then?’

  ‘Cleared off out the window. I jumped down and landed on Mr Savage who was walking by.’

  ‘What fortune!’

  ‘Wasn’t it?’ said a voice behind her.

  Susannah’s heart began to hammer and she spun round to see her husband standing in the kitchen doorway.

  ‘I couldn’t leave her there, could I?’ he said.

  Unable to meet his eyes, Susannah shook her head.

  ‘And then I thought; my wife can train her to be our maid. And you’ve promised you’ll work hard for us, haven’t you, Peg?’

  ‘Yes, indeed, sir!’

  ‘Perhaps then we could start with some breakfast?’

  Peg dropped a curtsy and set about collecting the plates and cutting the bread.

  ‘What else was I to do?’ asked Henry as they sat down at the dining-room table. ‘She looked so forlorn I hadn’t the heart to leave her in the gutter.’

  He appeared his usual cheerful self and if it hadn’t been for her lingering soreness, Susannah would have wondered if she’d imagined their unsatisfactory wedding night.

  ‘You have a kind heart, Henry, but you must see that Peg has no experience of managing a house as large as this?’

  ‘But I have every faith in you, Mistress Savage! And you can be sure she will be faithful to us since we saved her from a life of shame.’

  Henry didn’t appear to be bearing any grudges towards her and Susannah felt a sudden, surprising rush of affection for her new husband. ‘Still, I hope you will be patient with us if your dinner is late or your shirts imperfectly ironed.’

  ‘You will find that I am a patient man, Susannah.’

  ‘There is very little in the larder. Peg and I must visit the market after breakfast if we are to have any dinner.
I shall need some housekeeping money.’

  ‘Yes.’ Henry pursed his lips and looked thoughtful. ‘Let us have only a little bread and cheese for our dinner today. I could hardly eat another thing after all the delicacies at our wedding breakfast.’

  Susannah raised her eyebrows since Henry had demolished most of the breakfast loaf single-handedly. She didn’t, however, feel she knew him quite well enough yet to pass comment.

  ‘Besides,’ said Henry, ‘your father is to call this morning and you will wish to see him. You can go to the market this afternoon and find something tasty for our supper.’

  ‘Father didn’t tell me he was coming.’

  ‘It’s a matter of business.’

  After breakfast Henry retired to his study, leaving Susannah to acquaint herself with her new home.

  She examined the tapestries which hung on the dining-room walls and wondered if the previous mistress of the house had worked them or if they had been ordered from the Low Countries. They fitted the walls so perfectly that she could only conclude they had been designed expressly for the room, even though the bloodthirsty depiction of a boar hunt was an unpleasant reminder of the origins of the roast pork that might be served there.

  In the parlour Susannah ran her fingers over the large stone fireplace and the carved oak panel above it. There had been a fall of soot into the hearth and she made a mental note to ask Peg to clear it away. And although the girl had removed the sheets from the furniture everything was covered with a fine film of sea-coal dust.

  Trying out a chair with velvet upholstery, Susannah leaned her head back to look up at the ceiling high above her. Intricate plasterwork formed a geometric pattern of squares and circles, some of which had paintings in the middle. It was an impressive building but somehow it didn’t have the charm of her cramped old home over the apothecary shop. She couldn’t help laughing aloud at the irony of it; Arabella would be green with envy when she saw this house.

  The remainder of the morning was spent with Peg, instructing her in her duties. In the afternoons Susannah would teach her the rudiments of cooking. But really, she thought, if Henry could afford to buy this large and luxurious property, surely he could afford at least one other servant?