The Apothecary's Daughter (30 page)

Susannah stilled her breath and listened. The air vibrated with the humming of bees as they worked their way from clover to
buttercups. A duck quacked on the other side of the high brick wall but still she couldn’t hear the sound she was listening
for. Then, on the other side of the orchard the long grass swayed and a small child with red-gold curls broke cover.

‘I can see you!’ called Susannah. She ran towards the child who darted behind an apple tree. ‘Where are you?’ She made a great
play of searching behind each tree in the orchard, her expressions of dismay becoming more exaggerated as the child’s giggles
become
louder. ‘You naughty creature, hiding from your mama!’ Creeping closer to the apple tree, she suddenly pounced.

Laughing, she snatched up the child and smothered it with kisses.

Warm little arms encircled her neck and she buried her face in the red-gold curls, overcome with love.

A sudden noise made her start and the world turned dark.

Susannah sat up in bed, her heart thumping. She could still remember the feel of the warm body of her child clasped to her
breast but the vision of the idyllic scene in the golden sunshine had gone. Her child! Now that she was awake its absence
was like an amputation. But then, as if to remind her of his existence, the baby within her gave a sharp kick and she hugged
her arms tightly across her belly.

‘It’s all right, little one. Did I wake you when I started up?’ she whispered. What was it that had woken her? She listened
again in the darkness and was about to lie down again and try to recapture her dream when she heard a small noise.

Curious, she slipped out of bed and padded across the floor to lift the latch. She peered into the shadowy corridor but there
was no movement and she held her breath, listening. Nothing. It was as she turned to go back into her bedchamber that something
moved in her peripheral vision. She turned her head but it was gone. She stood still, breathing shallowly with every nerve
tingling. There was no one there and yet she felt a stirring in the air as if someone had just passed by. Shivering, she crept
along the corridor and glanced into Agnes’s room but the old woman lay unmoving while she slept. Further along the corridor
was William’s room and she stood outside for a moment but there was no sound from within and she had no wish for him to discover
her hovering outside his door in her nightgown.

The pestilence took hold again as the summer arrived. Many of those who had returned to the city during the winter fled to
the country again. Those who remained were tense and watchful, ready
to shun neighbours and friends at the slightest suspicion of ill health. Agnes ceased to attend Sunday services and Susannah
buried her head under the blankets at night each time she heard the dead cart, followed by the wailing and sobbing of the
bereaved.

Agnes was anxious about how they would manage if food supplies became short and she insisted that Susannah and Mistress Oliver
arrange to fill one of the empty storerooms with vast quantities of dried beans, flour, sugar and other goods.

‘We shall all be heartily sick of beans by the time we’ve worked our way through that little lot,’ said Mistress Oliver.

William returned home very late, terse and uncommunicative and picked at his supper by candlelight.

‘Can I fetch you something you’d rather eat?’ asked Susannah, watching him push away a plate of cold chicken.

‘What?’ He looked up at her as if he had no idea who she was.

‘Would you like a posset perhaps? Something easy to digest when you’re tired.’

‘Tired!’ His laugh was humourless. ‘It would take more than a posset to cure what ails me.’ He balled up his fists and ground
them into his eyes. ‘I’ve seen such sights today, Susannah. Birth and death all within the space of half an hour. A mother,
already sickening with the pestilence, and her babe born minutes before she passed.’

‘Did the baby live?’ The familiar anxiety made her cross her arms protectively over her stomach.

‘He did. But who knows for how long? Mother and father already dead and a toothless old grandmother the only person left to
take the child. What kind of life will he have? Better for him if he joins his mother.’

‘Don’t say that!’

‘This is no time for sentiment, Susannah.’

‘It isn’t …’

‘And this evening I was called to Bedlam.’

‘The plague?’

‘The flux. I wonder if I’ll ever get the stench out of my nostrils. You have no idea of the horrors in that place. Old women
jabbering
away to themselves while they pull out their hair, men naked and smeared with excrement rolling on filthy straw, just as if
they were animals. Their unholy screams and moans will haunt my dreams.’

Horrified, as much by the pain in William’s eyes as by his words, she rested her hand briefly on his shoulder.

‘If I’m having difficulty stomaching even the
idea
of having to return, can you begin to imagine what it must be like for one of the inmates?’ he said. ‘Their families have
imprisoned them in hell and their only realistic hope of escape is death. Am I cheating them of that hope by trying to cure
them of their ailments?’

Susannah wished she could take him in her arms and rock him against her breast to comfort him but she had no helpful answer
to his question.

The cloister garden became Susannah’s solace from the difficulties of the real world. Inspired by the herb garden at Merryfields
she obtained permission from Agnes to take over a sunny patch of ground and set about freeing it of weeds. She begged some
cuttings of rosemary and mint from Martha and hummed to herself as she planted and watered seeds.

Over the following weeks she watched with delight as the first green fingers of chives, parsley, feverfew and fennel scrabbled
their way through the earth towards the light. There was intense pleasure for her in tending the tiny garden; the warm earth
running through her fingers made her feel as if she was working in harness with Nature and as if anything was possible.

Susannah visited her father but he was tired and distracted since Arabella had fallen out with one of the nursemaids and sent
her packing.

‘She needn’t think I’m going to take over the nursemaid’s duties,’ said Jennet as she pounded the washing in the tub with
as much violence as if it were her mistress’s head. ‘I’ve more than enough to
do with her ladyship taking no interest in the housekeeping except to complain. I don’t mind telling you, Miss Susannah, that
this house has gone to rack and ruin since you left. Squabbling children running in and out with muddy boots on, leaving doors
open and dropping crusts and apple cores everywhere they go. It’s not surprising we’re overrun by rats.’

Susannah shuddered in disgust. ‘Poor Tibby, she’d never have allowed that.’

‘They’ve been in the pantry, bold as brass. And it’s
her
fault that Tibby isn’t here to put a stop to it,’ said Jennet, her face grim.

Returning to the Captain’s House that afternoon, Susannah stopped outside the front door, fumbling in her pocket for the key.
She was just fitting it into the lock when the door opposite opened and a small boy tumbled out and landed on his hands and
knees on the street. He began to roar in indignation.

Susannah hurried to pick him up and planted him squarely on his feet while he continued to bellow his displeasure. ‘For goodness’
sake!’ said Susannah, pulling out a handkerchief and scrubbing at his hands. ‘What a racket about nothing! Look, it’s only
a bit of horse dropping!’ She extracted the piece of bread he was clutching in his grimy fist and threw it onto a nearby heap
of refuse, causing his screams to rise to a crescendo.

‘You can’t eat that now; it’s covered in filth from the drain.’

A young woman in a blue dress appeared in the open doorway. ‘Edwin! What are you doing, you naughty boy!’ Her voice was shrill
with fear. ‘You know I told you that you mustn’t go outside. There might be sick people.’

‘He fell over but he’s quite all right,’ said Susannah. ‘I’m afraid he smells a bit. A horse must have passed this way only
a few minutes ago.’

‘That child will be the death of me,’ said his mother, raising her eyes to heaven. ‘Always in some kind of mischief.’ Her
round face creased into a smile as little Edwin clung to her knees, his screams subsiding. ‘I should probably beat him but
somehow I haven’t the heart for it. Perhaps next time I will have a girl, a
gentle soul who will sit at my knee working on her sampler or learning her psalms.’

‘In my experience girls can be quite as naughty as boys,’ said Susannah.

The young woman glanced at Susannah’s bodice, now stretched tightly over her abdomen. ‘Ah well! It looks as if it won’t be
long before you have your own little bundle of joy?’

‘The end of September.’

‘Your first?’

Susannah nodded.

‘Your husband will be pleased if you give him a son.’

‘My husband died some months ago.’

‘Mercy! Was he an old man?’

‘Not at all. The pestilence took him.’

The young woman gasped and shrank back, pushing Edwin behind her.

‘Please, it’s all right!’ said Susannah. ‘It was months ago and I’m quite well.’

‘I thought an old woman and her son, a physician, lived in the Captain’s House? I don’t remember seeing a red cross on the
door.’

‘There wasn’t one. My husband died in quite a different part of the city.’

Some of the anxiety left the young woman’s face. ‘However do you manage?’

‘I live as a companion to my husband’s aunt.’

‘It’s a terrible business, this pestilence.’ Her grey eyes were shadowed. ‘I’m too frightened to go out.’ She gathered her
child up into her arms and hugged him to her plump breast so tightly that he squawked. ‘But once the streets are free from
infection again, come and call on me.’ She smiled. ‘I should like to see your new baby when he arrives.’

‘I’m Susannah Savage.’

‘Jane Quick. Let’s hope the streets are safe again soon.’

Susannah watched her new friend go inside and bolt the door behind her. She entered the Captain’s House and went upstairs
to
take off her hat. Walking along the corridor she noticed that the door to one of the rooms normally closed up was ajar and
she heard low voices coming from within. Curious, she looked inside. Emmanuel was leaning over Peg, imprisoning her against
the wall.

‘Emmanuel! What are you doing? Peg, be off to the kitchen at once!’

Peg, very pink about the face and with her cap awry, shot her a frightened look and scuttled off.

‘Well, Emmanuel, what have you to say for yourself?’

His eyes opened very wide. ‘Didn’t mean nothing, missus.’

‘Don’t you ever let me catch you trying to steal a kiss from Peg again, or it’ll be the worse for you!’

‘Don’t tell Missus Agnes; she’ll send me back.’

The terror in his eyes made Susannah relent. ‘You can find Joseph and bring him to me in the chapel.’

‘Yes, missus.’ His head nodded solemnly up and down.

‘You will sit in silence beside me while I teach him his letters. And no naughty tricks!’

He shook his head vigorously from side to side.