The Apothecary's Daughter (2 page)

‘Well?’ His expression was anxious.

‘Astonishing,’ she said, at last. She lifted up one of the silky curls which fell near enough to his waist. ‘It’s very handsome.’
She fumbled for words. ‘I hardly recognise you. It makes you seem so … young.’

A quickly suppressed smile flitted across his face.

Ned said, ‘You look exactly like the King, sir.’

Cornelius threw his apprentice a sharp look. ‘You have time for idle chatter, Ned? Shall I find you something to do? The copper
still in the yard must be scrubbed. Of course the ice must be scraped off it first …’

Ned hastily returned to his dusting. ‘I was talking to my old friend, Richard Berry,’ continued Cornelius, with an amused
glance to Susannah, ‘and he said a more fashionable appearance will be good for business. Perhaps I should have a new hat,
too?’

‘I’ve been suggesting that for months!’

‘Have you?

‘Father!’

‘I have some visits to make. Did you brush my blue coat?’

‘Of course.’ ‘Then if there’s nothing that needs my attention here …?’ ‘Oh! I forgot. Dr Ambrose asked you to call on him
to discuss a patient of his with a kidney stone. I prepared the prescriptions for him.’

‘Good, good.’ Cornelius picked up his old wig and went upstairs.

Susannah stared after him. What on earth had inspired him to suddenly start taking an interest in his appearance? Shaking
her head, she returned to the dispensary to pot up the sulphur ointment. As always, spooning that particular mixture into
jars evoked the familiar recollection of an afternoon eleven years before when she’d helped her mother to do the same thing.
Her mother’s gentle voice was imprinted on Susannah’s memory and she could recall, as if it were yesterday, how her hand had
rested tenderly upon the swell of her belly. That was two days before she died and there had been the same sulphurous reek
in the air then, mixed with the usual aromas
of rosewater and beeswax, liquorice and oil of wormwood, turpentine and drying herbs. Those were the scents of her father’s
trade and they ran in Susannah’s blood.

The shop bell jolted her back to the present and she was pleased to hear Martha’s voice. Until her marriage Martha had lived
in a neighbouring house and been her closest friend for twenty years, despite her Puritan leanings. Pulling back the curtain,
Susannah went to greet her.

Martha, as neat as always in a starched apron and with her dark hair tucked firmly into her cap, recoiled as they kissed.
‘Ugh! What is it this time?’

‘Nothing dangerous! Merely complexion ointment.’

‘It certainly smells dreadful enough to frighten pimples away.’ Martha turned bone white and held her slim fingers over her
mouth while she swallowed convulsively.

‘It’s not
that
dreadful, surely?’

Martha smiled faintly. ‘The slightest thing turns my stomach, at the moment,’ she said pressing her hands to her apron. ‘I
came to ask for some of that ginger cordial you made for me last time …’

‘Last time? Oh Martha! Not another one? Little Alys isn’t even weaned.’

‘I know.’ Martha sighed, the shadows under her hazel eyes dark against her pale face. ‘I did warn Robert that if he insisted
Alys went to a wet nurse it was likely I’d fall again but you know how stubborn men can be.’

‘Stubborn and peculiar,’ Susannah added, thinking of her father’s latest purchase. She pulled the joint stool from under the
counter and stretched up to the top shelf for the ginger cordial, then decanted some of the golden liquid into a bottle and
stopped it with a cork.

The narrow door to the staircase creaked open and Cornelius appeared, wearing the new acquisition and his best blue coat.
He showed more lace than usual at his throat and new blue ribands on his shoes. The air around him carried the distinct aroma
of lavender water and self-conscious pride.

‘Martha. Are you keeping well?’

Martha’s freckled face turned from white to red as she bobbed a curtsy. ‘Mr Leyton. Thank you, I am very well.’

Cornelius’s eyes flickered to the bottle of cordial and then to Martha’s waist. ‘And all your little ones?’

‘Well, too.’

‘Good, good. I shall not detain you.’ He picked up his cane with the silver head. ‘Susannah, do not wait up for me; I shall
not be home for supper.’ He launched himself into the hurly burly of Fleet Street, raising his cane to attract a passing hackney
carriage.

Martha stared at her friend with wide eyes. ‘Your father looks so different. I never realised before what a handsome man he
is.’

After Martha had left, Susannah began to wonder where her father had gone, all dressed up in such finery.

Two weeks later Susannah was baking sugar jumbals with the maid, Jennet, when Cornelius came into the kitchen. He stood by
the fire, shifting from foot to foot and watching as Susannah pounded the sugar and Jennet washed the salt from the butter.
His dead wife’s recipe book lay open on the table, a sprig of dried lavender marking the place.

‘Was there something you wanted?’ Susannah asked after a while.

Cornelius picked up the lavender and twirled it between his fingers. ‘Your mother’s favourite flower,’ he said.

‘And we’re making your favourite biscuits.’

‘So I see.’ He replaced the lavender and in so doing knocked the book to the floor.

A dozen scraps of paper flew out and Susannah scrambled to pick them up and tuck them back between the precious pages. ‘Father,
why don’t you go into the parlour and I’ll bring you some of the biscuits when they’re baked?’

‘Yes, perhaps that would be best. There’s something …’

‘Hmm?’ Carefully, she broke eggs into a basin.

‘Later.’

‘He’s as jumpy as a cat with fleas!’ said Jennet, after he’d gone. She dried her hands on her hips. ‘I think he’s up to something.’

When the jumbals were ready Susannah dusted them with powdered sugar and carried them up to the parlour where she found Cornelius
standing by the window, staring down at the street. He turned, his face taut with worry.

‘Father, what is it?’ she asked, suddenly anxious.

‘You are so like your mother. Sometimes I catch sight of you with your pretty auburn hair and just for a moment I can almost
believe Elizabeth has come back to me.’

‘I never feel she’s really left us.’

‘I know.’ He sighed deeply. ‘But she
has
gone. And it’s been eleven long years. You have been a great comfort to me, especially since Tom left too.’

She squeezed his hand. ‘We’ve been a comfort to each other.’

Abruptly he turned again and paced across to the hearth.

‘Susannah, I fear I have done you a disservice.’

‘A disservice? How could that be?’

‘I’ve been selfish. Your companionship has been so dear to me that I have kept you close to my side …’

‘But that’s where I want to be!’

‘You’ve learned my craft better than any of the apprentices I’ve taken on over the years and your writing is neater than my
own. Even your Latin is as good as any scholar’s.’ He smiled wryly. ‘But you should be married by now, with a brood of little
ones, like Martha.’

‘I’ve never wanted babies.’ It wasn’t true, of course. She wanted children as much as any woman but … she shuddered, remembering.

‘I have been remiss in finding a husband for you.’

‘I’m perfectly happy keeping house for you. Besides, what man would I find who could match up to you?’ There had been Nicholas,
of course, but Father hadn’t considered him good enough for her. And then there had been the young man with the smiling eyes
who delivered herbs to the shop from the farm in Essex …

‘Susannah, times change.’

‘What do you mean?’

He took her hands between his, not meeting her eyes. ‘I love you as much as any man could love a daughter, but we’ve grieved
for your mother for too long. I have made a decision.’ Still he didn’t look at her. ‘I intend to take another wife,’ he said.

She gave an uncertain laugh. ‘You should not jest about something like that.’

His mouth tightened. ‘I’ve made myself perfectly clear. I shall be married again. And I have met a suitable lady, a widow.’

‘But we manage very well.’ Susannah helped to keep the account books for the shop and she knew that they were far richer than
anyone might suspect from the simple way they lived. Puzzled, she shook her head. ‘Your old age is secure; you have no need
to marry to increase our fortune.’

‘That has not been a consideration in my decision. Through no fault of her own, the death of this lady’s husband has left
her in straitened circumstances.’

‘This widow has no jointure?’

Cornelius studied his shoes.

‘Then I do not understand. Why would you want to do such a thing?’

‘Because it is time. Because I need … companionship.’

‘Companionship? But we have each other! We do everything together. What more companionship could you possibly need?’

Cornelius’s face flooded as crimson as the phials of cochineal in the dispensary. ‘A man needs a wife for …’ He gestured
with his hands, at a loss for words.

Suddenly she realised what he meant and the heat rose up in her own face. It had never occurred to her to even
imagine
that her own father had those particular needs.

‘The lady is looking forward to meeting you.’

‘I don’t want to meet her!’ Her fingers tingled and a cold shiver ran through her whole body. ‘Father, this is madness! Con
sider …’

‘Enough! I shall bring her to dine with us the day after tomorrow.
That will give you and Jennet time to prepare a good dinner.’ His tone brooked no argument.

Susannah swallowed and stood up very straight. ‘Am I to know the name of this widow?’

‘Arabella Poynter. A pretty name, is it not? She has two sons and a daughter, Harriet, who is intent upon becoming your friend.’

There was a roaring in Susannah’s ears and for a moment she wondered if she might faint. ‘Father, you cannot. Everything will
change!’

‘My mind is quite made up.’ He turned his back on her and picked up a book from the table. She was dismissed.

Her knees trembling with shock, Susannah returned to the kitchen.

Determined that Mistress Poynter would be unable to find fault with what was to become her new home, Susannah and Jennet set
to the housework. Tight-lipped, they swept and scrubbed the hall, stairs and parlour from top to bottom, obliterating the
film of soot that continually settled everywhere from the sea-coal smog.

Jennet, her hands red and weeping from scouring the pans, took the rugs into the yard and beat them until the cloud of dust
mingled with the frosty mist of her breath. Susannah polished the plate with horsetail so that the pewter shone with the translucent
gleam of still water under a thundery sky. Lost in thought, she stared at her reflection while she tried to understand why
her father would wish to change their lives. It cut her deeply that he’d not told her he was lonely. She’d believed they were
such close companions that they had no secrets from each other.

On hands and knees, Susannah rubbed the wide elm floorboards in the parlour with her own beeswax and lavender polish, each
sweep of the cloth feeding her smouldering resentment. Who
was
this gold-seeking widow who had the temerity to imagine she might take her mother’s place? And why did Harriet, the daughter
of this interloper, imagine that they might be friends?

The following morning Cornelius counted out a fistful of coins from the locked chest in his bedchamber and placed them in
Susannah’s palm. ‘It is my express wish that you do not stint on the quality of this celebration dinner,’ he said.

Susannah stared at the coins in her hand. She doubted that she had spent as much on food over the past month. Usually bid
to be frugal, Jennet and Susannah argued over what to cook as they trekked through the snow to the market but agreed that
a beef and oyster pudding, to Susannah’s mother’s special recipe, of course, was an essential centrepiece for the banquet.

Nearly two hours had passed by the time they returned with their baskets filled with provisions fit for the feast that Cornelius
expected for his future bride. Frozen to the bone, they took off their wet over-shoes and built up the fire. Susannah made
the pastry while her hands were still cold and Jennet put the mutton on to boil and peeled the turnips. All the while she
was rolling out the pastry Susannah was praying to herself that her father would change his mind about this unwelcome marriage.

The oysters took longer to open than expected and they began to worry that they had been too ambitious in their choice of
menu for the time available. When the bells of St Bride’s chimed a quarter to three Susannah flung off her apron and left
Jennet to the greasy work of turning the chickens on the spit.

Upstairs, Susannah put on her best green silk bodice and the skirt with the petticoat of gold damask. Then she lifted the
lid of her little marquetry box and took out one of the two most precious things she owned. She slipped the gold chain over
her head and kissed her mother’s pearl pendant before settling it into place over her breast. The other treasure lay in the
box wrapped in blue velvet; a miniature of her mother. The artist had caught the likeness well and she smiled steadily back,
her face forever fixed in youth. Susannah suffered again the familiar, aching loss of a mother snatched away too soon. How
could Father even
contemplate
replacing Mama?