‘Take no risks, I beg you! Leave the bottles on the doorstep.’
‘I always do.’ Cornelius hugged her, kissing the top of her head. ‘Come and see me again soon.’ He snatched up his hat from the counter and left.
Susannah washed the pestle and mortar and returned the gallypots to their rightful places. She noticed that some now had new labels in Ned’s untidy hand but apart from that everything was just the same. There was still that familiar and well-loved aroma in the air and she breathed in deeply to savour it. Here, in the shop, she could imagine that nothing had ever changed. Sighing, she closed the door behind her and went into the passage.
There was a thunder of small feet clumping down the stairs and Arabella’s three older children pushed past her, shrieking and bickering as they went.
Harriet stopped with her hands on her hips. ‘Oh, it’s you! What are you here for?’
‘I’ve come to visit. How are the twins?’
Harriet pulled a face. ‘Noisy and smelly.’ She ran off after her brothers without a second glance.
Jennet was busy making a pudding in the kitchen and jumped when Susannah touched her arm. ‘Miss Susannah! You startled me!’ She wiped floury hands on her apron. ‘It’s so good to see you at home.’ Pleasure lit her homely features.
‘Alas, not my home any more. I’m to go up and visit my stepmother but thought I’d come to see you first.’
‘That’s mighty kind of you, miss.’
‘And I wondered if you might spare me a little bread and cheese? I am almost fainting with hunger.’
‘Will you stay for dinner? I can put some extra onions in the pudding.’
‘I’ve stayed too long already. Shall I help myself from the pantry?’
‘Cover the cheese again when you’ve finished with it or those dratted rats will be in there gnawing at the master’s Stilton. I asked the mistress if I couldn’t have a kitchen cat again to keep the little pests down but she says cats in the kitchen are dirty.’
‘So are rats. Still, I do remember poor old Tibby helping herself on more than one occasion to a nice piece of fish from the table or a custard put to cool.’
‘Cats are thieves and no mistake but much better than traps at keeping down the rats. Now why don’t you sit at the end of the table while I’m busy and tell me what you’ve been doing with yourself?’
Twenty minutes later Susannah shook the crumbs from her skirt into the hearth. ‘I can’t put it off any longer, Jennet; I must go upstairs. I daresay Arabella will enjoy ramming home the fact that I’ve lost my smart house and am now a servant.’
Arabella reclined upon her daybed looking out of the parlour window with a piece of embroidery lying ignored upon her knee.
Susannah stood in the doorway and repressed a shudder of distaste at her stepmother’s Chinese furniture. How could she! But there was no changing the situation now so she had better put a good face on it.
Arabella turned and smiled. ‘Susannah! I confess I am bored nearly to death so I am very pleased to see you. Come and sit by me and tell me your news.’
Surprised by the warmth of her reception, Susannah concluded that Arabella must indeed be extremely bored. ‘I haven’t a great deal of news,’ she said. ‘My days are largely spent with Mistress Fygge and she hardly ever goes out these days.’
‘Very wise. The city is not safe but your father still refuses to decamp to the country. I cannot believe the pestilence is still with us after so long. I dare not go to the Exchange to buy so much as a ribbon or a pair of gloves without endangering my life and my friends rarely visit any more. Even our butcher has died and we cannot get a decent bit of mutton. It’s all dreadfully fatiguing.’
‘You have Father’s books to help you pass the time.’
‘Books!’ She opened her blue eyes wide in amazement. ‘What good are they? I want to go to a party and see a play or take dinner at an inn! My life is passing me by and there is no enjoyment.’
‘You have your children and your house.’
‘And a very poor house it is.’
‘I always loved it here.’
‘You had never known any better.’
Susannah forbore to make any comment on that. ‘How are the children?’
‘Mercifully quiet at the moment.’
‘I saw Harriet and the boys on their way outside but I should like to see the twins before I go.’
‘They’re asleep at present but you can look in on them if you wish.’ Arabella stared at Susannah’s expanding waistline. ‘When is your baby expected to make an appearance? Another two or three months by the look of you?’
‘The end of September.’
‘And what plans have you made? Presumably you have some idea of where you will go and how you will manage after the child is born?’
‘I shan’t go anywhere. My husband’s aunt has offered me and my baby a home.’
‘Susannah, don’t tell me you haven’t even thought about this?’ Arabella sat bolt upright, pushing her embroidery to the floor. ‘Mistress Fygge is an old woman. What will you do when she dies?’
‘She is quite well and has no intention of dying!’
‘I don’t suppose she has but nevertheless, she will. And then what?’
‘Well,’ Susannah hesitated, ‘I assume William will inherit her property.’
‘He will have no need of a waiting woman, will he? And it would not be seemly for you to stay on in the house with him. Alone.’
Susannah bit her lip as the precariousness of her situation came home to her. She felt an icy quiver of unease run down her back. Had she become too complacent? ‘He would not turn me out,’ she said.
‘Don’t you think you had better make sure of it?’
‘That isn’t something I could discuss with him!’
‘Don’t be obtuse, Susannah. I’m not suggesting you talk about what will happen after Agnes has gone to meet her Maker but that you take steps to ensure that you still have a future living in her house. With William.’
Susannah felt the heat creep up her cheeks as she understood Arabella’s meaning.
‘He won’t be interested in you now, of course, not while you are bloated and ugly with his cousin’s child in your belly, but you will need to move quickly once the baby is born. It’s a shame you will be encumbered by Henry’s child but you must find another husband as soon as possible. You could do worse you know. I grant you William always wears a sour expression but if you like your men with dark looks and can ignore his moods, he is really rather fine-looking.’
Susannah stared down at her hands folded in her lap, horrified by Arabella’s suggestion. Her heart began to thud against her chest and sweat prickled under her arms. The very idea of making up to William in order to entrap him into marriage sickened her. And his expression wasn’t sour, only unhappy. She pictured his face, closed in distress when he returned home after losing a patient. All at once she wanted to cry.
‘I cannot …’ She could hardly speak for the wild thoughts suddenly crowding into her head. And then, like a candle in the darkness, she understood the cause of her confusion.
Arabella sighed. ‘Well, if you really cannot think of William as a suitable husband you will have to look elsewhere. But I urge you not to waste any time. You must look around you now and make your choice so that you can move swiftly after the baby is born. Time is not on your side and before you know it the first white hairs will arrive and another tooth will loosen and it will be too late. You will be doomed to spend the rest of your life as a servant to others and subject to their whims and fancies. You will have no security in your old age.’
‘I think perhaps I will go and take a look at the twins.’
‘Susannah, have you been listening at all to what I’ve been saying?’
‘Yes, Arabella.’
‘There’s no need to look so shocked. Mistress Fygge has been useful to you but you must be prepared to make your own opportunities in life. There’s no pleasure in being alone in the world with a chi
ld to support. Believe me, I know.’
‘I suppose you do.’
‘You must be prepared to make compromises. As I did. And, as far as I can see, William is your best opportunity at the moment, even if he isn’t your ideal choice of husband.’ She leaned forward. ‘Look, I know we haven’t always found each other congenial but now that you have left this house, I can, and do, offer you this advice in the true spirit of friendship. Life can be very frightening for a penniless widow with children.’
‘Yes, I’m sure it is. And now I’ll go up to the nursery, if I may.’
Arabella clicked her tongue in disgust. ‘Be off with you, then! But don’t come running back to me for help in five years’ time when Agnes is dead, William is married to someone else and you have crow’s feet and no man will look at you.’
Susannah found the nursemaids only too pleased to allow her to entertain her baby brothers for a while. Somehow the babies seemed to sense her reflective mood and sat quietly on her knee, batting at her curls with their tiny fists, an expression of intense concentration on their faces.
The trouble was, Susannah thought as she rocked Joshua and Samuel in her arms, the blinding revelation which had come to her while Arabella prattled on was so disturbing that it had rendered her speechless. Since she had never encountered a similar situation before she’d had no way of recognising the restlessness that had overtaken her of late and only now that did she understand its meaning. All at once it had become quite clear to her that, with close acquaintance and the passing of time, she had fallen hopelessly in love with William.
Chapter 18
Agnes had retired to her chamber for a nap. Dismissed, Susannah rested on her own bed for a while but she couldn’t sleep for all the thoughts whirling round in her head. Lying with her hands clasped over her stomach so that she could feel every little movement within, she wondered how she could not have realised before how significantly her feelings for William had changed.
Of course he was still the same stern-faced, austere man he had always been but over the months she’d seen something, just a glimmer, of humour and vulnerability that had made her warm to him. No, a great deal more than that, she admitted to herself. But somehow it felt wrong to be falling in love with William while she was pregnant with his cousin’s child. And then there was the distasteful fact of his past association with Phoebe. Even forgetting that, it had taken Arabella to point out that, after Agnes had been released from her earthly cares, it would be impossible for Susannah to continue to live in the same house as William. The thought of him disappearing from her life had made her freeze in terror.
At last, finding it impossible to doze off, she decided to go down to the kitchen and make some ginger biscuits to tempt Agnes’s appetite.
The kitchen was as busy as a beehive. Phoebe was scrubbing pots with Joseph at her side. Peg was sitting at one end of the kitchen table peeling a heap of vegetables and swatting Aphra’s paw away as she tried to steal a carrot, while Emmanuel chuckled at the little ape’s antics.
Mistress Oliver had her sleeves rolled up and was pummelling the bread dough as if she held a personal grudge against it, which, indeed, she did.
‘Will I be in your way if I make some biscuits?’ asked Susannah.
‘You’d better hurry up. The fire will soon be too hot. That’s the third baker we’ve lost to the pestilence this year. As if I didn’t have enough to do without having to make all the bread too!’
‘Can you not find another baker?’ asked Susannah.
‘I haven’t time to be traipsing all over the city fetching the bread. Peg!’
Peg tapped Aphra on the muzzle and extracted a carrot from the monkey’s paw. ‘Yes, Mistress Oliver?’
‘More coal! And look sharp about it! Make the fire good and hot or the bread will be as hard as a stone.’
Without a word Peg picked up the coal scuttle from beside the fire and hurried off to the coal store.
‘I’ll help her,’ said Emmanuel.
‘Be quick or I’ll come looking for you both. And don’t you be dirtying that velvet coat of yours or you’ll make the mistress angry.’
Aphra seized her chance and snatched a carrot before retreating to the top of the dresser, chattering with excitement at her prize. Joseph jumped about, throwing turnips at the monkey and shouting at her to come down while Phoebe clattered the pots as she put them away.
‘Sometimes I think this kitchen is worse than Bedlam,’ sighed the cook, pushing a stringy lock of hair off her face with a floury hand. ‘I need to keep my eye on that pair. I caught ’em canoodling in the pantry the other day.’
Susannah pounded the lumps out of the sugar, wondering if she ought to be worried about Peg but then remembered the girl’s account of how she had cracked Mistress McGregor’s ‘brother’ over the head with a candlestick and jumped out of the window at the house in Cock Lane. She decided that Peg could look after herself. Nevertheless, she was relieved when Emmanuel appeared a few minutes later carrying the coal scuttle.
As she sieved the husks out of the flour, Susannah covertly watched Phoebe. She had found a length of blue cotton fabric and tied it round her head in a turban. It gave her a curiously dignified air as she moved slowly about her duties. There was no apparent sign of her distress of the previous night and she met Susannah’s glance with such an impertinent look that it made Susannah gasp.
The sun was warm on Susannah’s back and she hummed to herself while she watered the herb garden. The parsley had grown large enough now that she would be able to pick a few sprigs for the table. Perhaps she would make an omelette sprinkled with chopped herbs for William when he returned home. He’d seen such terrible suffering over the past few months and he looked so careworn that she longed to cosset him.
Kneeling down on the moist earth to pick the parsley, she imagined how they would sit alone by candlelight, talking together while he ate the omelette. She pictured him smiling at her and then he would take her hand and lift it to his lips. She would lean towards him, just a little, and then he’d … The toe of a man’s boot appeared in her line of vision. She glanced up and saw the object of her daydream looking down at her with a half-smile that convinced her he must be able to read her thoughts. She felt the colour flood her cheeks and attempted to scramble to her feet but became so entangled in her damp skirt that she was obliged to accept his proffered hand, dropping the little bunch of parsley in the process.
‘Your garden is proving successful,’ William said, picking it up. Brushing earth and bits of weed off her skirt, Susannah prayed he could not see how her heart thudded in her breast. ‘I have always wanted a garden,’ she said, slightly out of breath. ‘Have you seen how tightly the parsley curls? And it is such a beautiful shade of green.’ He raised an eyebrow and she felt herself blush again. ‘I’m babbling, aren’t I? You shouldn’t have crept up on me and caught me by surprise.’
‘I had no intention of startling you but I admit that I was watching you while you worked. You seemed so content, humming away to yourself, that I didn’t want to disturb you.’
‘When I’m tending the garden I can’t seem to worry about what else is going on in the world. All cares and concerns seem to be very far away. Close contact with the earth is very healing, don’t you think?’
He looked at her for a long moment, his face expressionless, almost as if his thoughts were somewhere else. ‘My mother used to say that,’ he said at last. He blinked, as if breaking a spell. ‘And you’re right about the parsley.’ He held the little bunch out to her. ‘Its shade is very nearly as beautiful as the green of your eyes.’
Slowly she reached out her hand to take it from him and as their fingers met she heard his sharp intake of breath, just as if he’d been burned by her touch.
They remained frozen for a fragment of time that seemed to stretch into for ever while she stared at his hand against hers. Transfixed, she studied his long fingers and the tracery of veins shadowing through the lightly tanned skin on the b
ack of his hands. She had a sudden and overwhelming desire to kiss the vulnerable-looking skin on the underside of his wrist where it disappeared under the lace at his cuffs.
Then his hand curled round hers in a grip so tight it made her gasp. ‘Susannah?’ His face was serious, no trace of humour now. ‘I must talk to you.’
‘Yes, William?’ Surely he must see the pulse beating in her throat? Was he going to admit to her his relationship to Joseph? Or dared she to hope …
He swallowed and looked at their hands, fingers still intertwined. ‘Perhaps you’ve become conscious that—’
A sudden shout made them both start and they let go of each other as if they were glowing embers. They turned to see Joseph chasing Emmanuel across the courtyard with a broom. The little boy shrieked with glee as Emmanuel twisted and turned, never quite letting Joseph catch him. They raced through the cloisters, their laughter echoing under the arcading, disappearing as quickly as they had arrived, leaving the garden quiet once more.
As Susannah turned to face William again she felt her baby kick and placed a hand against the tiny foot pressing inside her.
William’s gaze dropped to the swell of her belly and he stepped back.
‘William?’
‘I must go to see my aunt,’ he said. Abruptly he turned, strode across the garden and disappeared inside.
Tears blurred Susannah’s vision. The parsley lay scattered upon the ground, and she bent to gather it up. The fresh green sprigs were bruised and flattened, crushed under William’s foot as he had hurried to escape from her.
Susannah combed Agnes’s hair and braided it into a thin plait, tying the end with a ribbon, all the while reliving her meeting in the garden with William. Her pulse fluttered at the memory. ‘Will you wear your nightcap?’ she asked.
‘It’s too hot. I never have liked the heat of summer in the city. The stench breeds fevers and the plague is never far away. We’ve been lucky.’
‘Except for Henry.’
Agnes shrugged. ‘He should have known better than to go to taverns and alehouses; it was tempting the Devil to visit him with some vile sickness.’
The Apothecary's Daughter Page 23
