The Apothecary's Daughter

by Betts, Charlotte

  ‘This!’ His voice was full of disgust. ‘This damnable country is so damp and plague-stricken and the house so quiet and cold that I cannot bear to spend time here.’

  ‘I thought … I thought you stayed away because you have to seek new business?’

  ‘This house chills me in spirit as well as body.’

  Cut to the quick, Susannah defended herself. ‘I do my very best to make it welcoming for you.’

  ‘It’s not your fault.’ He rubbed his face dry with the back of his hand. ‘It’s just so different from what I’m used to. I wish I could take you to see the Savage Plantation so you could feel the heat soaking into your bones. It feels as if the very sun is inside you. Then’, he drew a ragged breath, ‘in the evenings the whistling frogs fill the air with their song, which sounds like the music of a thousand flutes. But most of all I miss hearing the slaves singing in the night. The men have deep voices as rich as the molasses they make from the sugar cane and the women join in with such sweet harmony. When I was a little child I used to sleep with my nursemaid and if I woke she would sing one of those plaintive melodies and rock me until I fell asleep, my head pillowed on her warm breast. I miss it all so much!’

  ‘I had not realised you were so homesick.’

  ‘It eats into my very soul that I can never return.’

  ‘But why did you leave, if you loved it so?’

  Henry hesitated. ‘My father and I do not see eye to eye. He will never understand …’

  He looked as sad and lost as a small boy and Susannah wanted nothing more than to kiss his troubles away.

  ‘It’s impossible for you to imagine how it is at home,’ he sniffed. ‘The plantation has made my family rich but at such a cost! At first my father used indentured servants from England but he soon discovered that if he used slaves from New Guinea they could work in the heat of the fields for much longer. And they were cheap.’

  ‘I remember you said that they could be trained.’

  ‘Are they not people just like us?’

  ‘Like us? I don’t know. I never imagined …’

  ‘Neither did my father. But the slaves have souls, just as we do. He buys and sells them like animals but I know them. Not the men in the fields, perhaps, but the house slaves. Yes, of course there are some stupid or dishonest slaves but you cannot tell me that there aren’t Englishmen like that too?’

  ‘Why, no, of course not.’

  ‘Some of the house slaves were my childhood companions. Erasmus learned his lessons at my side and can write as fair a hand as my own. My father was angry when he found out, of course, and had him beaten. And his sister, Phoebe, sweet Phoebe, was always full of laughter and song. I begged Father to free them both but he only laughed. Poor Phoebe and Erasmus; it wasn’t their fault they were born slaves. And, oh Susannah, how I miss them!’ he whispered, his voice full of longing.

  ‘Perhaps I can understand a little of your distress. I too have left a home I loved.’

  ‘But that’s quite different! You can go back and visit whenever you want to.’

  Cold fingers ran down Susannah’s spine as she remembered her stepmother’s refurbished parlour. ‘I cannot. The home I loved exists only in my memories now.’

  ‘And mine.’

  Henry’s misery added to her own and Susannah felt close to tears herself. But perhaps, in time, she and her husband would be able to comfort each other?

  Henry’s mood didn’t improve as the weather turned foggy and frosty. The long nights and sunless days crushed his spirits and Susannah and Peg were kept fully occupied in tending the fires. The high ceilings, which had made the house so light and airy in the summer, seemed to suck the heat out of the rooms, leaving them all shivering.

  In the dining room, Henry stirred the fire with the poker as it sulked in the grate.

  ‘What the devil’s the matter with this fire, Susannah?’

  ‘The coal is wet. It’s difficult to buy good fuel since our coal merchant went to the plague pit. The new man doesn’t know us and isn’t prepared to do us any favours.’

  ‘We’ll freeze to death if he isn’t more obliging.’

  ‘He might be more obliging if you settled his bill.’

  Henry blew on his hands. ‘I’d never have come to this wretched country if I’d known it was likely to turn a man’s blood to ice in his veins.’

  Peg, her face pinched with the cold, pushed open the door and carried in the soup tureen.

  The draught from the open door caused Henry to shiver convulsively. ‘God dammit, girl, close the door behind you, can’t you?’ He sneezed suddenly. ‘I knew it!’ he said. ‘I’m sickening for something. My head aches and I’m shivering so much that I’m likely to shake my teeth out.’ He sneezed violently again, four times in succession.

  Peg stared at him in horror before letting out a wail and dropping the tureen with a crash to the floor. ‘It’s the pestilence! You’ve caught the pestilence like my mam and dad! We’re all going to die!’

  Susannah’s heart missed a beat. ‘Of course it’s not the pestilence! Your master has merely taken a chill.’ She picked up the broken pieces of the soup tureen and held them out to the girl. ‘Go and fetch a cloth; there’s soup halfway up the walls.’

  Peg squealed and retreated to the corner of the room, her hands held up protectively in front of her face. ‘Go away! Don’t come near me! I don’t want to die!’

  ‘For goodness’ sake, Peg! Calm down and do as you are bid.’

  But there was no placating the girl and she fled to barricade herself in the kitchen.

  After a while Susannah gave up pleading with her through the keyhole and returned to the dining room. She found Henry huddled up in a chair by the fire, his face ashen, and she felt the first stirrings of fear.

  ‘Could she be right, Susannah? Have I got the plague?’

  Hesitating only a moment, she lightly touched Henry’s forehead. ‘I don’t think you’re ill enough for that.’

  ‘But it can worsen very quickly. My back aches and my head throbs.’

  ‘I’m sure it’s only a chill,’ said Susannah with more confidence than she felt. She took a deep breath and repressed the urge to run far away from any potential sickness. ‘But perhaps we should take some precautions. It wouldn’t be fair to risk anyone else’s health, would it?’

  For several days Henry was in a state of panic, spending hours examining himself for pestilential tokens and railing at the business that forced him to spend too much time in alehouses and coffee shops. Secretly Susannah was worried too and sent for Dr Ambrose. He came at once and Susannah made him stand on the front doorstep while she kept her distance from him in the hall. He listened gravely as she described Henry’s symptoms.

  ‘Time will tell,’ he said. ‘Keep a close eye on him but I suspect that if it is the plague there would have been more obvious manifestations of the disease by now. Call for me if you need to and I’ll come at once.’

  By the fifth day Susannah was confident that it was nothing more sinister than a tiresome cold and came out of her self-imposed isolation. Peg had been scared half to death by her master’s illness and would only put the trays of food and medicine outside the door before scuttling back to the kitchen.

  Susannah was heartily sick of nursing Henry, who had moved on from being weakly grateful for everything that she did for him to a state of bad-tempered misery. She tried reading to him but it gave him a headache. He couldn’t concentrate well enough to play cards and then sulked when he lost. He didn’t fancy the tansy custard she made especially for him and there was no subject on which he wished to converse. Nothing she could do lifted his spirits.

  At last she came to a decision. ‘I’m going to venture out,’ she told him.

  Henry sat hunched up in bed with a blanket over his head and a steaming basin of friar’s balsam on his knees to ease his breathing. ‘Damn this godforsaken country!’ he coughed. ‘Build up the fire, can’t you? My very bones are frozen.’

&n
bsp; ‘I shall visit Father and fetch some more cough linctus for you,’ she said, heaping more coal on the fire.

  ‘I hope it won’t taste as filthy as the last lot!’

  She took a deep breath, resisting the impulse to snap at him. ‘I’ll add some extra honey.’

  He pulled the blanket off his head and sighed. ‘I don’t know why you put up with me.’

  ‘Sometimes it’s hard.’

  His mouth twisted into something like a smile. ‘Honest, too! I think I’ve done well to secure you as my wife. When I’m better, perhaps I’ll be able to make it up to you. Buy you something pretty.’

  ‘I have everything I could wish for Henry. Except …’

  ‘What? A new shawl or a pair of kid gloves, maybe?’

  ‘No, not that. We need something to lift us out of this fit of the megrims. There isn’t much fun to be had at the moment, is there? The risk of infection is too great to make an unnecessary visit to a tavern and even the playhouses are shut. Perhaps we could have a little party? It would be something to look forward to.’

  Henry lay back against the pillows and closed his eyes. ‘Why not? It might bring this mausoleum of a house to life.’

  ‘Then I’ll leave you to have a nap while I visit Father.’

  The ground was slippery with ice as Susannah picked her way carefully through the streets, the wooden soles of her overshoes slipping on the cobbles. The frosty weather was a blessing in one respect. The bills of mortality had begun to fall, not enough for general rejoicing but sufficient for cautious optimism. The stench from the graveyards and the street drains that had been so overpowering in the summer heat was less noticeable now, replaced with the usual winter smell of sulphurous sea-coal smog.

  Cornelius was out when Susannah arrived at the apothecary shop. Ned was sprawled over the counter, the tip of his tongue protruding while he laboured over the writing out of some new labels for the drawers. ‘The master’s gone to visit Mistress Franklin with the quinsy.’

  Susannah held her hands out to the fire, wincing as the blood thawed in her tingling fingers. Chilled through, she turned her back to the fire and discreetly lifted her coat to feel the heat upon the back of her legs. She smiled briefly to herself at a sudden recollection of William Ambrose doing just the same thing in January that year while she spied on him from behind the dispensary curtains.

  ‘I need some items from the dispensary,’ she said to Ned.

  He shrugged and continued with his task while Susannah filled her basket.

  Cornelius arrived home and his face was lit by his smile when he saw his daughter. ‘An unexpected pleasure!’ he said, kissing her cheek.

  ‘Henry is suffering miserably with a chill and I came to replenish my medicine cupboard.’

  ‘Poor Henry! I dare say he’s badly affected by the cold weather. London in winter must be very different from Barbados, especially with such a freeze as this.’

  ‘Certainly he’s out of temper with the world. May I take these herbs and a large bottle of our special cough linctus?’

  ‘Help yourself. Ned made the last batch so you can let me know what you think of it. I’ll tell Arabella you’re here. She’ll be glad of the company.’

  Running footfalls and a scream came from upstairs, followed by childish voices raised in a heated altercation.

  ‘That new nursemaid has no control over those children,’ said Cornelius, his face set. ‘I’m beginning to think you were right and I should hire a second nursemaid for when the baby arrives.’

  Arabella reclined upon her new chinoiserie day bed. Her hair was perfectly curled and she wore a silk wrap in her favourite blue but nothing could conceal the size of her belly or the puffiness of her face.

  ‘Are you quite well, Arabella?’ asked Susannah as her father drew a chair forward for her. She was shocked by her stepmother’s appearance.

  ‘My condition is extremely tiresome,’ said Arabella. ‘The thought of another two months lying upon a chaise with nothing to divert me is hardly to be borne.’ She plucked fretfully at one of her curls. ‘Cornelius, ask Jennet to bring me a dish of curds and cream, will you? And some of those candied figs.’

  ‘As you wish, my dear. Shall you take a glass of something, Susannah?’

  Susannah shook her head. ‘I must go. Henry needs me while he is ill.’

  ‘Surely you have maids to nurse him?’ asked Arabella.

  ‘Only young Peg and she’s no use as a nurse.’

  Arabella frowned. ‘I thought you’d have more servants in a house such as that.’

  ‘There is only myself and Henry so we have no need of an army of servants. Besides, when he is well, Henry is hardly ever at home.’

  ‘That leaves you free to gossip with your friends, I suppose. And I daresay it will not be long before you are in an interesting condition yourself.’ Arabella’s gaze dropped for a second to Susannah’s stomach.

  Not much chance of that, as things stood, thought Susannah.

  They sat in silence until Arabella brightened as she thought of something. ‘Horatia Thynne called upon me last week.’

  ‘Horatia Thynne?’

  ‘Surely you remember? Horatia caught Henry’s eye before he married you.’

  ‘I never met her.’

  ‘She told me an interesting thing.’ Arabella’s eyes sparkled with malice.

  ‘Really?’

  ‘Apparently, she turned Henry down! I’d assumed he decided against her, in spite of her fortune, since she’s not an attractive girl. Not so. Henry was determined to take her to the altar but in the end her father wouldn’t allow it. Henry was quite put out.’ She leaned forward. ‘Horatia’s father had heard rumours that Henry visited houses of ill repute.’

  Susannah gasped. ‘Then he was misinformed.’ A movement in the doorway caught her attention. Her father stood there, an expression of shock on his face.

  ‘I wouldn’t be so sure of that!’ continued Arabella with relish. ‘He’s a terrible flirt.’ She smiled. ‘He flirted with me all the time he was courting you.’

  ‘It’s time I went.’ Susannah stood up, unable to bear spending a second longer in her stepmother’s presence.

  Cornelius accompanied her downstairs. ‘I am sorry for what Arabella said to you about Henry. I’m sure it’s simply idle gossip.’

  ‘Of course it is! And I suppose Arabella has nothing else to amuse her at the moment.’

  ‘The waiting makes her a little shrewish.’

  ‘And you? How are you bearing the waiting?’

  Cornelius grimaced. ‘I’m looking forward to having my sweet Arabella back again. And, of course, I’m anxious that there should be a happy outcome. Birth is a dangerous passage.’

  ‘I’ll never forget what happened to Mama.’ Susannah gripped the handle of her basket until her knuckles went white.

  ‘I think of it, too.’

  Susannah opened her mouth to say that Arabella seemed to be very big for seven months when she was struck by a thought. Perhaps her father had anticipated the wedding and the baby was actually almost at full term. Her face flooded scarlet at the thought; she gathered up her basket and went out into the fog.

  When she reached home, Susannah found that Henry had fallen asleep. He looked curiously young and vulnerable as he lay with one hand outflung on the pillow and his fingers curled over his open palm. She laid her hand on his brow and, finding it to be cool, opened the window a crack to freshen the air.

  Downstairs, she added some extra honey to Henry’s cough linctus and then boiled up the rue, wormwood and other herbs to make a decoction. As she finished, Henry opened the kitchen door.

  ‘There you are!’ he said. ‘I’m hungry. Where’s Peg?’

  ‘I sent her to the market. You must be feeling better if you’re hungry. Shall I heat some soup or muddle you some eggs?’

  ‘I could fancy some eggs.’ He pulled a chair up to the kitchen fire and watched her as she broke eggs into a basin.

  Henry’s appetite h
ad indeed returned and he demolished a plate of eggs and several slices of bread in no time at all. Since his humour appeared to have been restored along with his health, she suggested they stay cosily by the kitchen fire and play cards. The rest of the afternoon passed very pleasantly.

  Later, as they undressed ready for bed, Henry put his arms round her and kissed her cheek. ‘You’re a good wife, Susannah.’

  Lying next to him as he drifted off to sleep, she prayed that, in time, their marriage would become more than a convenience. If Henry thought she was a good wife perhaps he would, at last, grow to love her? Even if what Arabella had said was true and Henry had only married her as second best, at least it had saved her from a worse fate. After all, if it hadn’t been for Henry, she might now be struggling to teach the pudding-faced Driscoll girls to dance the gavotte. As for Henry visiting houses of ill repute, she dismissed that as pure spite on Arabella’s behalf. Besides, he appeared to have no strong need for a woman’s attentions in the bedchamber. And if ever he did, he must know that she waited night after night for him to come to their bed.

  Chapter 9

  Christmas Day dawned fair and clear. Susannah scraped the ice off the inside of the bedchamber window to reveal the snow-covered courtyard below. Frost had touched the trees with wintry fingers and the pale sun sparked diamonds off the tracery of branches.

  ‘Henry? Come and see! I hoped it would snow; the sky had that heavy, yellow look yesterday.’

  Henry groaned and turned over. ‘Too much wine last night.’ He pulled the covers back over his head.

  ‘Come on, we have lain in bed far too long already. I still have preparations to make for the dinner and we mustn’t be late for church.’

  ‘You’re always busy,’ Henry sighed. ‘What you need is some more help with the housework.’

  ‘I’ve been telling you that for weeks!’

  ‘In fact,’ suddenly his eyes were alight with enthusiasm. ‘What you need is a house slave.’

  ‘No doubt! Meanwhile, if you’d help to carry the coal upstairs once in a while I’d be happy.’

  It took a great deal of chivvying to get Henry dressed but they arrived at the church in time to nod at faces they knew. The young parson gave a very dull sermon and Susannah’s thoughts began to drift. She had looked forward to this day all month, polishing the house from cellar to attic and planning the feast. The jollity of the Christmas celebrations was exactly what was needed to dispel the winter gloom and it was to be quite a party. Cornelius, Arabella and the children had been invited, along with Henry’s Aunt Agnes and William Ambrose as well as Martha and her family.