The Apothecary's Curse

by Barbara Barnett

  “My darling . . .”

  A whisper ruffled the hair behind Simon’s ear, rousting him from the memory. He jumped, turning in the direction of her voice, finding himself alone on the bench.

  “Shh. Simon. Do not despair. It has been too long, my love, and you must live again.” Sophie’s bountiful lavender skirt nearly nudged his knee as she sat beside him, and he could almost feel the white feathers of her bonnet tickling his nose as she laid her head upon his shoulder.

  A quick glance assured him that no one was about to notice him speaking to the air. “It is an ironical thing you say, my dear. It would appear that I cannot but live.”

  “Then do not squander this gift you are given—”

  “It is no gift, my love, when I cannot be with you. I only wish to join you, to hold you—”

  “I am with you always, as you know—but in the garden’s bloom, in the song of my favorite birds. Here beside you in the park as you walk its paths. But I pray, do not weep on my grave and pine so—”

  From the corner of his eye, Simon spotted his brother-in-law coming toward him. “Ah! Dr. Bell! It is indeed good to see you up and about—and so soon! Eleanor will be so incredibly pleased to hear of it.”

  Simon exhaled, the breath caught in his throat. Thankfully, Sophie had vanished. “Thank you, Lord Braithwaite,” he huffed, recovering his composure. “You are very kind. I’d not known you were in London.”

  “I’ve business with my solicitor that could not be handled in Sussex. Might I sit a moment? It is quite hot today, do you not agree?”

  Well, it is, after all, July. Simon resisted disdain, instead directing his gaze up through the quivering of oak leaves for any sign of Sophie. “Is my sister with you?” Simon asked. “It’s been not often enough I have seen Eleanor since your nuptials.”

  “She will arrive on the morrow. The house is, as we speak, being opened.”

  Simon brightened. “Might she spend a day or two at my house, do you think? I so miss her.”

  “I see no reason why she cannot, especially as you are still recuperating from your injuries. It should do you some good, I think, and I am certain she would love it. Your gardens are so lovely, Dr. Bell, and she does enjoy them so.”

  “It is done, then. I shall make arrangements and have her room prepared.” Simon followed the flight of a gull as it soared above them.

  “Jolly good!” Braithwaite cleared his throat, his voice dropping to a low growl. “Forgive me, Dr. Bell, for broaching a delicate subject—”

  Simon tensed; he lost the gull as it disappeared in the trees. Whatever “delicate” subject might his brother-in-law wish to discuss with him? “Do go on—”

  “Forgive my bluntness, but from what your sister has told me, you should be quite dead, Dr. Bell, and yet here you are, I daresay, looking healthier than I.”

  There was an oiliness to Braithwaite’s voice that matched his demeanor. Simon ignored the unease he sensed up and down his arms and back. “Looks are often deceiving, and I am yet recovering my strength, though I must confess that I, too, believed my injuries would be more severe.”

  “Remarkable constitution you must possess, then. That bodes well, I might suggest, for my future progeny.” A loud laugh emerged from deep within Braithwaite’s chest. “Although I must say, we’ve been married near a year and Eleanor is not yet with child.”

  “There are many reasons, Lord Braithwaite—”

  “Yes, yes. Of course I know all that. But she is not young, and—” He seemed to consider it a moment. “But never mind that; Eleanor is a fine wife, and I am happy she would have me! But I would like to hear more about your miraculous recovery, Dr. Bell. I have made quite a study of such physical resilience. In point of fact—”

  Ah, here it comes. Braithwaite’s braggadocio about his indestructible lunatic.

  He listened quietly as Braithwaite spun his unbelievable tale, thankful that James had prepared him for it.

  “Quite the fascinating show he performs, and perhaps someday we shall even learn his secret. In fact, we are quite close,” he said, drawing near to Simon’s ear.

  Braithwaite’s glee was truly repulsive, more so than the ghastly details of these supposed “experiments,” which could not be to any degree as horrendous as he described. Good God!

  “Why have you not simply asked him?” Why indeed, when it was so much more entertaining to torture the poor wretch of a man?

  “Ah, but we have. And it is quite amazing what he has already divulged—not much, to be sure, but we have taken his blood, samples of his skin, from his wounds as they inexplicably heal. Those are the things shall lead us to the grail, the glory of discovery all on our own, with or without his cooperation.” He spoke with the enthusiasm of an explorer on safari.

  Simon excused himself, certain that with the next image he would vomit. “Lord Braithwaite, please forgive me; I am still unwell, and should return home to rest. I shall look forward to Eleanor’s visit tomorrow then?”

  “Of course, Dr. Bell. Come noontime, she shall be at your doorstep.”

  A preposterous man. How could have Eleanor married him? But was there an element of truth in Braithwaite’s bragging?

  Simon flexed his arm, his leg as he rose from the park bench. Everything normal; nothing hurt. There was not even stiffness.

  Why was he not dead? He had died. But then he had not. Other incidents swam through his memory, fleeting images: a minor riding injury, a bruise on his leg that vanished within an hour; a shaving laceration that healed within minutes, not days; a mishap with a knife that sliced his hand, one that should have taken stitching and many weeks of healing, yet required neither. Taken alone, they were oddities to brush off without further consideration. But taken together . . .

  And then the matter of his incompetence at suicide. Five attempts with cyanide, two with arsenic, four with curare—differing formulations and dosages, each a dismal failure—eleven attempts in four and a half years, not counting the original attempt with the elixir, and here he was, yet alive. As unlikely a scenario as surviving the trestle collapse, all of it impossible to explain by any normal understanding of science and medicine. Did he possess a constitution similar to Braithwaite’s “indestructible man”? If, that was, Braithwaite had not confabulated the entire business.

  It would not hurt to meet Braithwaite’s “brilliant discovery” and see for himself. He would not gawk, and certainly he did not condone the torture of a man. Yet perhaps they might talk a little while, man to man. To what end, who could know?

  The opportunity to raise the subject presented itself over brandy and cigars, the last night of Eleanor’s stay. “Another, Lord Braithwaite?”

  His brother-in-law lifted his empty glass, and Simon filled the crystal snifter before joining Braithwaite on the settee.

  “I admit it; you’ve got my curiosity up. Please understand, sir, I do not want a demonstration or a show; I wish to speak with this unique . . . specimen—alone, as a physician. Might that be arranged?”

  Braithwaite smiled, a disgusting, victorious grin on his face, a hearty welcome to an exclusive club. “It would not be difficult, Dr. Bell. I am certain, especially given your prominence as a physician, that anything might be arranged—for the right contribution to Dr. Handley’s research, that is.”

  “Money is no object.” Simon tilted the glass, downing the brandy in one gulp.

  “We have formed a consortium: Dr. Handley, myself, a few select others—financiers. I’ve only just joined the group myself, but finally after four years of . . . confinement he’s begun to let slip more and more, some sort of ‘magical’ formulation, he says.” Braithwaite laughed, setting down the empty glass as his wife entered. “Ah, Eleanor, there you are. Where have you been, my dear?”

  She fluttered across the room, her full skirt brushing the floor, her cheeks pink from the night air. “Out in the garden, watching the stars as they come out. Venus is so very bright tonight—”

  “Ah. Well,
my dear, I must be going,” Braithwaite interrupted, standing. “You shall return home on the morrow; please be ready to make your departure by noontime. And on Sunday we shall leave London until the season.”

  Eleanor nodded tightly.

  “Thank you, Lord Braithwaite, for allowing my sister to stay here these past days. She has been a godsend to my recovery. I have missed her so.” Simon patted the settee. Eleanor sat beside him. He did not wish to see this visit at an end so soon.

  Braithwaite took his wife’s hand, kissing it quickly. “Good night, my dear.” He nodded toward Simon. “I will have news on that other matter when I see you on the morrow, Dr. Bell. Good night, and please thank your cook for the sumptuous meal.”

  After the front door closed behind her husband, Eleanor visibly relaxed. “What other matter, Simon?”

  “It is a small request your husband has been kind enough to assist me with—nothing, really. I must ask you, Eleanor . . .” He hesitated, feeling no right to intrude.

  “What?”

  Simon sank deeper into the cushions, propping his legs up on a low table. Eleanor looked weary, her blue-green eyes dull and lifeless. Even her dark auburn hair, done up in a fashion he had never seen her favor, seemed not right. “How does it fare . . . with Lord Braithwaite, I mean? You have been married now a year, but I do not detect any degree of bliss between you. Are you not happy?”

  “Happiness? If you mean have I got what you and Sophie had, then, sadly, no. But how might I even dream of . . . when—”

  She sighed wistfully, looking so melancholy, Simon was afraid tears would fall should she utter another word.

  Her gaze hardened. “He is a harsh man, my husband, for all his polite manners. Yes, he treats me well, allows me my own pursuits. But love . . . ?”

  She smiled faintly and patted his hand, and when she spoke, she did not continue the thought. “Speaking of your dear Sophie, Simon, there is something I need to discuss with you, so do not be angry with me for saying it.”

  “You could never anger me, darling. What is it?” Again, she seemed verging on tears.

  She clasped his hand tightly. “You have us all worried, my dear brother. Mama is beside herself, and has been ever since—”

  Simon scowled. “Et tu, Eleanor? I make no secret of my misery. I am bereft without my darling Sophia—”

  “Yet she shall be dead five years come autumn. Five years! I do not wish to grieve you further, but you must give up this notion of suicide. It is against God’s laws, Simon, and it is not to you for deciding the manner and time of your death. Sophie shall attend you on the other side.”

  “Eleanor. Hear me. She haunts me—some sort of phantasm; sweet and beguiling, she calls to me night and noon, beseeches me from beyond the grave. I know it is but a conjuring of my mind, yet—” He lowered his voice, confessing it to her as he had so many times before, but only to himself. “It is the guilt, even more than emptiness. I killed her, and it is beyond bearing—”

  “My dear brother, she was beyond saving, and if you would but see . . . Perhaps her ‘haunting,’ as you call it, is her prayer that you let her rest at last, that you move on with your life—not give up on it or drown it in drink, not run headlong into disaster.”

  Eleanor stood, her hands wringing as she looked to the window. “I do not love Richard. Neither does he love me. But I will, if I can, give him an heir. It is what Mama wants. Expects. And I shall, in return, live my life as I please. He will allow me that, at least.”

  Relieved that the subject moved to safer terrain, he was disquieted by his sister’s resolute sadness. He knew with every fiber of his soul that she was miserable. “Mama shall not live past another three years, if that long, and you have your whole life before you!”

  The candlelight emphasized the deep shadows beneath her eyes. “What would you want me to do, Simon? I know now it was a mistake to wed him, a flight of fancy. And it is in my nature to be thus. But divorce is nearly impossible, even should I desire it. I am trapped, though in a jeweled cage. And I am not unhappy—only just not ‘happy.’ Do you understand?”

  Simon shook his head and turned her face toward his, his voice urgent. “You know, Eleanor, you shall always have a home with me and want for nothing as long as you are living. Never forget that. Lord Braithwaite is a brute and fool, and nothing would make me happier than to see you rid of him!”

  CHAPTER 25

  Simon’s carriage stopped at Bedlam’s gate, the asylum’s central black dome an ominous shadow looming over the grounds. The immense façade swallowed the main entry, the doors a small mouth into the abyss—a living, breathing gateway to hell.

  Inmates stared as he progressed through the main hall: wild, manic eyes, glaring warily at anything moving; frightened, furtive eyes, half-closed, looking barely ahead; dead eyes with blank expressions so vacant, he wondered whether any life at all lay behind them.

  Wraiths consumed by dull light and stale air, small islands of isolation. Some were attired in finery befitting an aristocrat; some in rags, torn and unlaundered for who knew how long. Others roosted, rooted to every flat surface, muttering apathetically to none any could see; or fulminating, their cries and shrieks of loves lost or suffering endured, a fugue to God that fell upon deaf ears.

  All sound liquefied into a muted cacophony, discordant but somehow symphonic as it rose and fell in odd rhythm. Simon stood in its midst, trying to make sense of it, but the music defied interpretation.

  A sudden tap on his shoulder. Pivoting abruptly, he nearly collided with a frail, elderly man, standing far too close. A soft-spoken voice, disconcerting and incongruous in this hall of strangers, asked, “Forgive me. Dr. Bell?”

  Simon nodded.

  “I did not mean to startle you, sir. I am Dr. Francis Handley, director of this hospital and mad doctor to the lunatics of the Bethlem Royal Hospital.” The doctor’s warm smile and proffered hand failed to put Simon at ease. “I am sorry I missed your arrival; all of this must be disturbing to you, as it would to any gentleman, even a physician.”

  “No, not at all, Doctor.” Simon did nothing to mask his contempt. “If you will—”

  “Yes, our inmate. I cannot give you his name, you see, to protect his privacy and that of his family, poor soul.”

  An elderly woman approached, her white hair a feathery cloud, her painted lips a ruby pout. “You’re quite the lovely . . .” Her gnarled fingers uncurled as she reached out to caress Simon’s hair. Handley brushed her aside, gesturing to a keeper; her shrieks echoed even as she disappeared down a dark corridor, dragged by two keepers.

  “I beg your pardon, Dr. Bell. I shall see that she is properly restrained—”

  Simon could only imagine what Handley meant; he shuddered at the thought. “You have, I take it, been informed of my request? I should like to speak with this inmate in private.”

  “I really do not think it a good idea—”

  Simon pitched his voice just a notch below threatening. “Did not Lord Braithwaite hand over to you sufficient funds to cover this expense . . . your indulgence on the matter? I was certain the amount was—”

  Handley stopped Simon, raising a hand in retreat. A benign smile crept over his face. “As you wish, then. This way.”

  They walked, miles it seemed, through twisted corridors and great halls, a sea of somnambulists, their bodies crammed into every alcove and corner, looking everywhere but toward Simon, the presumptive latest recruit to this mouth of hell.

  An iron gate reaching floor to ceiling granted Simon and Handley entry into a separate wing, empty, quiet—a different world than the one from which they emerged. Simon sighed, tension gathering in his neck as they walked on, finally reaching a large room sectioned off by black iron bars, its floor covered with straw.

  A lone figure huddled in a far corner of one cage, shackled to the wall. “I shall leave you here. Be assured, there are keepers close by; shout if you need assistance.” Handley warned Simon not to expect much in the way of
company. “He says nothing—just stares ahead. I honestly do not know what’s got into him this day. He was animated enough earlier in the week. But suddenly . . . Well, he is a singular one, I must say.”

  “Might I have a candle to examine him? It is quite dark in here.”

  The doctor paused as if to consider an odd request, then handed Simon his own. Simon waited until he heard the clanging of the gate, signaling that Handley had departed this desolate little corner of Bedlam.

  “Forgive the intrusion, my dear sir.” Simon held the candle up to the bars, but the man remained still, his face to the wall. Might he be asleep? Simon waited, observing for a few moments as a keeper entered. The inmate flinched at the creak of old metal as the bars slid open.

  Simon took a tentative step into the cell, then another; still the prisoner did not move. Drawing near, Simon heard it: the harsh, shaky gasps of breath. And then the familiar reek of blood and vomit slithered into Simon’s senses; he fought the nausea rising from deep within his stomach.

  The glint of dark liquid caught Simon’s eye, and he drew the candle closer: blood and tissue.

  How was it that this man, so obviously injured, likely dying, remained here in the filth of a cage, untreated? The blood was fresh and flowing, although Simon had yet to ascertain from where. “Sir, can you tell me, please . . . I wish to help you, but I need to know the source of the bleeding. Might I examine you?” He tried to erase the fear from his voice.

  Simon stepped to the inmate’s side and crouched low, candle flame the only light. He was mouthing nonsense, like the rest of Bedlam’s inmates. He seemed not to sense Simon at all; perhaps the lunatic was beyond caring, lost in his own world.

  Suddenly, the caged man turned on Simon, wild eyes boring through him. Simon was wrong; it was not nonsense the madman spoke, but Ovid, and in Latin.

  “Opiferque per orbem dicor, et herbarum subiecta potentia nobis.” This he repeated over and over sotto voce, a repetitive chant.

  Yes. Metamorphoses. Simon knew this well: Inventum medicina meum est, opiferque per orbem dicor, et herbarum subiecta potentia nobis. Hei mihi, quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis; nec prosunt domino, quae prosunt omnibus, artes!