The Apothecary's Daughter (31 page)

‘Go on then!’

Joseph had proved to be a willing scholar, even though his enthusiasm was greater than his skill. Susannah watched him concentrating
hard on his slate, with a drift of chalk across his brown cheek and the tip of his tongue protruding as he shaped his letters.
She studied his profile yet again, still seeking some resemblance to William but apart from his paler skin and narrower lips
than his mother’s, he appeared to carry a likeness only to his African fore-bears. She was pleased about that. It was disturbing
enough to know that William was the child’s father without the likeness being obvious.

Curiosity made Susannah reach out to touch his woolly hair, surprisingly springy to her touch, and he glanced up at her with
an enchanting smile. ‘You are doing very well, Joseph,’ she said. ‘I think that’s enough for today but next time I shall show
you how to write your name.’ She watched him go skipping off to play with
Aphra and looked forward to telling William how well he was doing.

Emmanuel stirred the ashes in the hearth with the poker and then looked at Susannah out of the corner of his eye.

It wasn’t until he had gone to coax Aphra down from the beams high up in the apex of the roof that Susannah realised he had
drawn the shapes of his ABC in the ashes.

William began to come home later and later and looked more and more exhausted on those few occasions Susannah did see him.
One evening she waited up in the chapel until after midnight, listening for him to come in. Holding up a candle to light the
way, she watched him as he slowly climbed the stairs.

‘William? I have some supper ready for you in the chapel.’

‘Supper?’ He rubbed a hand over his face. ‘I can’t remember the last time I ate.’

‘Then it’s important that you have something now.’ She held her ground, refusing to allow him to pass. ‘You cannot go on like
this without becoming ill yourself. And then where would your patients be?’

‘Susannah, I’m too tired …’

‘Come and eat!’ After a brief hesitation, he followed her.

He ate with total concentration, swiftly demolishing a slice of beef pie then dismembering a chicken leg and sucking at the
bone as if he hadn’t eaten for days, which might indeed have been the case.

Susannah watched him as he ate; she had to stop herself from smoothing a lock of dark hair off his forehead. Lines of exhaustion
were etched round his mouth and she worried for him.

At last he wiped his fingers on a napkin and eased back with a sigh.

‘Better?’ she asked.

The candles on the table between them cast shadows up onto his face, forming dark hollows under his cheekbones. He nodded
and she waited.

‘I’ve been to Bedlam again.’

Enclosed within the intimate circle of candlelight the rest of the world seemed far away. ‘Was it very terrible?’ she asked.

‘It’s impossible to describe the horror of it. The inmates are lost souls. Their terror eats into my mind and I cannot sleep.’

‘But you have tended their ailments and eased their pain.’

‘It’s not enough. No one cares what happens to them; their families have cast them into hell.’ He buried his face in his hands.

Uncertain, embarrassed, Susannah reached out and touched his arm. ‘Someone must care about them or you would not have been
sent for.’

‘A mother with a guilty conscience asked me to visit her son. Seventeen years old and confined for stammering and the falling
sickness! Most of the time he is as well as you or I. He should never have been sent to such a place.’ His voice broke and
he swallowed. ‘But he died of the bloody flux and will no longer be an embarrassment to his family.’

‘Can nothing be done to help the other inmates?’

‘There are too many of them.’

‘But you comforted that poor boy as he was dying.’

‘To save one minnow from a raging torrent doesn’t help the rest.’

‘Yet you made a difference to
him
.’

William took his hands away from his face and stared at her. ‘Yes, I suppose I did.’

Susannah picked up the candlesticks. ‘It’s late.’ He followed her from the chapel as she lit the way along the corridor. She
stopped outside the door of her bedchamber and handed him one of the candles, curiously reluctant to say goodnight. ‘I think
you will sleep now,’ she said.

He smothered a yawn. ‘Perhaps I will. God knows, I’m tired enough. Goodnight, Susannah. And thank you.’

Before she had time to realise what was happening he had pulled her to him and dropped a kiss on her forehead. Without a word,
he made his way off along the corridor.

She watched him disappear round the turn while her heartbeat skipped and a sudden warmth climbed up her throat. She stood
still
for a moment in happy amazement, unwilling to break the spell, and then went into her room.

The next morning Susannah was combing Agnes’s hair when William knocked on the bedchamber door.

‘I came to speak with you, Aunt,’ he said.

‘Could it not have waited until I’m dressed?’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘What is so important that it cannot wait?’

‘Susannah is too pale from being so much shut up.’ He sat on the edge of the bed and took Agnes’s hand. ‘She should take a
walk in the fresh air and put the roses back in her cheeks for the sake of the child, don’t you think? And I will sit beside
you this morning. It is a long time since we have had a cosy chat, isn’t it, Aunt?’

The old woman’s face broke into a happy smile. ‘It will be like the old days, before you became so serious. Put on my cap,
Susannah, and you may leave us.’

Outside in the sunshine, Susannah almost skipped down the street. She breathed in deeply, not caring for the moment that the
air carried the stink of putrefaction from the plague pit in the churchyard two streets away. She was free! As if in tune
with her high spirits, the baby danced within her and she pressed her fingers to her stomach, laughing at the wonder of it.

An old man, hobbling by, looked at her strangely and crossed over to the other side of the street.

Before long she had come to Martha’s house and was knocking on the door.

‘What a lovely surprise! It’s been weeks since I saw you,’ exclaimed Martha as she kissed her cheek. ‘Come into the garden
and tell me all your news.’

In the dappled shade of the apple tree Martha’s eldest child, Patience, rocked a cradle, draped with muslin to keep out the
flies.

Inside Susannah saw her godson dozing peacefully with his thumb in his mouth. His cheeks, flushed with sleep, were as perfect
as a ripe peach. Her heart turned over with sudden love for him. ‘Isn’t he beautiful?’ she breathed.

‘Especially when he’s asleep,’ said his mother with a proud smile.

‘I can hardly believe that by the end of the summer I will have my own baby to rock in his cradle.’
If I don’t die in childbed.
She pushed away the thought and forced herself to smile at her friend.

‘Sit on the bench and try some of the gingerbread Patience made today,’ said Martha, picking up a small shirt from the pile
of mending beside her and threading her needle.

‘You look very well,’ she said a moment later, glancing at Susannah’s stomach.

‘Growing fatter by the minute, you mean! And I’ll be even fatter if I eat too many of these delicious gingerbread men.’

‘Not fatter, but the baby is growing and your bodice is too small.’

‘I feel like a sausage that’s too large for its skin. I have let out my skirts twice already and I fear there is no more material
left in the seams.’

‘I can lend you some looser gowns, if you like. I hope I shall not need them again for a while.’

Susannah put her hand to her side, unable to contain her smile. ‘My baby is moving all the time now. It’s so strange to think
of him like a little fish swimming around in a bowl.’

‘It is one of God’s many miracles.’

‘Martha, you cannot imagine how much I want this baby now! Since Father married Arabella I have felt so alone but this child
will be my very own to love. He gives me a whole new reason for being.’

Martha took Susannah’s hands, her hazel eyes shining. ‘I am happy to see that you are not afraid any more.’

‘Of course I’m afraid! But I’m trying very hard not to be. In some ways I’m more terrified than ever. Now I am frightened
not only for myself but for my baby too. I never imagined I should have a child and I cannot bear the thought that something
dreadful might happen to him.’

‘You must put your trust in God’s hands, Susannah.’

‘Were you
never
anxious about dying in childbed?’

Martha glanced at her brood of children playing with their hoops and spinning tops at the end of the garden. ‘Of course! Usually
it was in the depths of the night when the Devil tries to worm his way into your dreams. My deepest fear is always the thought
of leaving my babies with no mother to care for them. But as you can see, it is God’s will to keep me in good health.’

‘Then I beg you to pray for me and my baby.’

‘I already do,’ said Martha. ‘Now tell me your news. How does life go on in the Captain’s House? Do you find William less
stern as you come to know him?’

‘I think …’ Susannah hesitated. ‘I think he is kinder than you might imagine from his manner. He rarely smiles but is selfless
in helping those less fortunate than himself.’

‘And your days are not too onerous in Mistress Fygge’s employ?’

‘I never forget my good fortune. She is a considerate employer, even though a little crabby at times since she is always in
pain.’ Susannah sighed. ‘But sometimes the days seem overlong. Reading aloud and helping an old lady to decide what to wear
each day are trivial pursuits. I have skills which are now wasted and there is a lack of freedom, which irks me. Sometimes
I think I am no more free than Henry’s slaves.’

‘But Mistress Fygge has allowed you to keep them?’

‘William persuaded her.’ Susannah paused. ‘He takes a special interest in them since he knew Phoebe and her son from the time
when he worked for his uncle in Barbados. He asked me to teach little Joseph his letters. He is an engaging child and I cannot
help but become fond of him.’

‘He is capable of learning then?’

‘Indeed he is! Although I fear he would prefer to be running around in the garden with Emmanuel, seeking out mischief.’

Martha smiled. ‘Like all boys.’

‘But his mother doesn’t like me teaching him.’

‘Tell me about her.’

‘Her appearance is curious to my eyes but there is something strangely attractive about her. Her eyes are sleepy and she moves
with a languorous grace. Still, I don’t like her. She watches me all the time and it makes the skin on the back of my neck
prickle. To everyone else in the household she appears to know her place but she looks at me as if she hates me.’

‘Why would she?’

‘I’m not sure but she took against me from the minute she saw me. Then, last week, the silversmith delivered two silver collars,
which Agnes had commissioned to match the one Emmanuel wears. It was the most extraordinary thing, Phoebe didn’t even lift
her gaze from the floor as I fastened the collar in place round her neck and she said nothing but I could feel waves of loathing
emanating from her as strongly as the stench arising from a plague pit.’

‘Why should she dislike such a costly gift? Surely you must have imagined it!’

‘I assure you, I did not.’ Susannah stopped, wondering if she should share her secret with Martha. She so longed to talk about
it to someone. ‘There is something else,’ she said.

‘What is that?’

‘I overheard something which troubles me.’

‘Oh?’

‘It was when the slaves arrived. You see, Joseph was born while William was working on his uncle’s plantation. I heard William
tell Agnes that Joseph is his son.’

‘No!’ Martha’s hands flew up to cover her mouth. ‘But she’s an African! Surely he couldn’t …’

‘He must have,’ said Susannah. ‘Did I say that Joseph’s skin is an unusual light brown, neither dark nor white? I can’t bear
to think of it but each time I look at her, and then at Joseph, I am reminded of what must have occurred and it throws me
into turmoil.’