The Apothecary's Daughter (52 page)

‘And it will break Agnes’s heart if the Captain’s House burns. I hope we can wait until morning.’

Susannah trembled as she again pictured the apothecary shop in flames and pushed the thought firmly away; the time for grieving
over that would have to come later. Frowning, she said, ‘I meant to ask: what
were
you doing back in the shop? Jennet told me you’d left two days before to go with the Duke of York’s men to fight the fire.’

‘I did. But afterwards I returned to save your father’s journals and his books.’

‘His journals?’

William gave a crooked smile. ‘The journals are filled with a lifetime of medical observations and his books saved my sanity
while we were shut up. And I knew how important they were to you so I dug a deep hole in the yard and buried them, together
with the great pestle and mortar. I don’t know if they’ll survive the heat but when the fire burns out we’ll go back and see.’

Susannah embraced William and the sleeping baby he still cradled, her happiness bitter-sweet. ‘I wish my father had known
that we are to be married.’

‘But he did, Susannah! I asked him for your hand before he died. He thought we would make a good match and gave us his blessing.’

Susannah held up her face to be kissed, wishing her father was there to share her joy.

‘I’ve been making plans, oh, such plans, Susannah, but I must discuss them with you.’

‘What kind of plans?’ Curiosity made her forget her sadness for a moment.

‘I’ve had a great deal of time to think. I remembered what you said to me when I helped that poor dying boy in Bedlam. You
said that, although it was only a drop in an ocean of sadness, my actions did make a difference to him. And I thought that
if I can save even one tormented being and return him to good health, then I shall have achieved something worthwhile.’

Susannah nodded.

‘And so I came to a decision but I need your approval. This is something not to be undertaken lightly because it would change
the whole way we live.’

‘In what way?’

‘Next year my tenant, Roger Somerford, will leave Merryfields because he has inherited his father’s estate. So we will have
the opportunity to live there again.’

‘At Merryfields?’ Susannah put her hands to her mouth. ‘Oh, William, now the apothecary shop has gone I can’t imagine anywhere
else I’d rather be!’

‘Mmm.’ William scratched his head. ‘But you may not like my reasons for wanting to move there. I want to make Merryfields
a place where the melancholic can come to rest and be made whole again.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Some time ago you reminded me of what my mother once said; that gardening heals the soul. And Merryfields has acres of gardens.

We could take in guests, those who might otherwise have been thrown into Bedlam.’ He leaned forward, his voice eager. ‘Not
the hopelessly mad but those who have been made heartbroken by loss or who suffer from some condition that doesn’t allow them
to fit into society. We would provide a tranquil respite from the cares of the world and encourage these guests to work in
the gardens, to allow them to feel the warm earth between their fingers and watch the new shoots grow in the springtime.’
His face was animated and his eyes sparkled.

Susannah gazed at Beth’s sleeping face, so tenderly cupped in William’s hand, while she considered his plan. At last she said,
‘It’s an admirable idea but I would not wish to risk the safety of …’

‘Our children?’ William smiled at Susannah’s blush. ‘I agree. Of course, we would have to choose our guests very carefully.
And then there is another idea I think you will like.’

Susannah wondered if she could take in any more new thoughts after such a day of extraordinary events.

William’s eyes blazed with triumph. ‘My best idea of all is this: you shall have your own apothecary.’

‘My own?’

‘At Merryfields we’ll need my skills as a physician but you will be at my side to help me and to dispense the medicines. And
when the village hears of your apothecary the local people will come knocking on your door. I anticipate you’ll be kept very
busy.’

Susannah’s heart was thudding with excitement. How happy her father would have been for her!

‘So what do you think?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘Yes, yes, yes!’

William whooped with delight, waking the baby.

Susannah placed Beth on a nest of cushions and they stood watching her while she settled back into sleep.

‘I forgot to ask you,’ Susannah whispered. ‘How
did
you escape the fire?’

‘I took a leaf out of Arabella’s book,’ William said with a grin as he
pulled her to him. ‘I scrambled out of the window and escaped over the rooftops with the flames licking at my heels!’

Susannah laughed. ‘Perhaps the best thing to come out of the fire is that all Arabella’s vulgar Chinese furniture has burned.’

The casement rattled in the wind as Susannah shut her eyes to escape the terrible thought of what might have been and then
she felt William kiss her closed lids as gently as a butterfly’s wing. She wound her arms round his neck and his unshaven
chin was rough against her face. The warmth and reassuring firmness of his torso pressed against her own, together with the
male scent of him, made her quiver with a sudden shaft of desire.

His arms tightened round her and his lips were warm and demanding, his breath quickening. Stumbling, they fell in a heap together
onto Agnes’s chair. William’s hands, a little clumsy in their bandages, loosed Susannah’s chemise and he bent his head to
nuzzle her breast. ‘My lovely, lovely Susannah,’ he murmured. ‘No matter what, tomorrow we’ll find a parson to marry us before
I go mad with longing.’

Susannah wondered if she could bear to wait until then.

A sudden gust of wind moaned in the chimney and rattled the casement again. William frowned and gently disentangled himself
from Susannah. He went to the window and pressed his face to the glass to assess the progress of the fire. After a while,
he said, ‘Susannah?’

‘Yes, William?’ She sat up, suddenly tense again. Was it time? ‘Dorset House is afire.’

Dread clutched at her.

‘Then we must leave!’

‘But come and look!’

‘What is it?’ She hurried to stand beside him.

Great flames were spouting upwards from the rooftops of Dorset House. They could hear the roar of the conflagration through
the closed casement and smoke wormed its way through the cracks in the window frame. An explosion as loud as cannon fire shot
a volley of orange sparks into the air and the wind caught them and whisked them away.

‘The wind!’ Susannah said. ‘Is it changing? Those sparks blew back
towards
the fire!’ The smoke whirled and eddied over the rooftops and then, very slowly, began to drift away from them.

Clinging together, they watched in silence until, at last, it seemed certain that the wind was blowing towards the east.

Gradually Susannah felt the tension easing in William’s body.

‘It’s not my imagination, is it?’ he asked.

‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘I do believe the fire really has stopped advancing.’

Susannah is running through a dark tunnel of trees, heading for the light. At the end of the tunnel she stops, blinking in
the sunshine. The door to the orchard is ajar and she slips through it, the long grass soaking the hem of her skirt with dew.
She halts under an apple tree and a blackbird, sitting on a branch above her, utters a warning cry and flits off to a safer
perch in the plum tree.

Susannah stills her breath and listens. The air vibrates with the humming of bees and the early-morning sun is warm on her
face. A duck on the river quacks on the other side of the high brick wall but she still cannot hear the sound she is listening
for.

Then, in front of her, the long grass sways and Beth, her red-gold curls dancing, breaks cover.

‘I see you!’ calls Susannah. She runs towards her daughter who darts behind an apple tree. ‘Where are you?’ She makes a great
play of searching behind each tree in the orchard, her expressions of dismay becoming more exaggerated as Beth’s giggles become
louder. ‘You naughty creature, hiding from your mama! Where have you hidden yourself?’ Creeping closer to the tree, she suddenly
pounces.

Laughing, she snatches up the wriggling child and smothers her with kisses.

Hand in hand they leave the orchard for the garden, their shoes crunching along the gravel path lined with clipped yews. Facing
them at the end of the avenue is a house built of brick the colour of faded damask roses and with high gables and tall, twisted
chimneys. Merryfields.

Beth tugs on her mother’s hand. ‘May I make some sugar biscuits for when Father comes home?’

‘He’d like that. Ask Peg or Jennet if they will help you.’

Beth blows her mother a kiss and runs off in the direction of the house.

A scattering of people are working in the gardens, some dead-heading the roses and others weeding the vegetable plot or tying
up the herbs in the physic garden.

Susannah pauses to talk to a young man with a faraway expression in his eyes as he tends his vegetables.

‘How are your carrots, Ben?’

‘Growing fast.’ He turns back to his hoeing, utterly intent upon his task.

Nearby, an old man kneels on the ground picking out stones and putting them in a bucket. He lifts a hand and smiles as she
passes.

The kitchen is as busy as ever. Mistress Oliver, Peg and Jennet are preparing a feast for their master’s return from London.
The kitchen table is spread with pies, jellies and custards. Four chickens and a haunch of venison turn on the spit. Peg has
wrapped Beth and her own daughter, a curly-haired moppet with big brown eyes, in clean aprons and is helping them to weigh
out the ingredients for the sugar cakes.

The garden door opens and Emmanuel enters, carrying a basket of wood. He puts another log on the fire and then steals a kiss
from his wife. ‘Peg, I’m going to take Joseph fishing. See if we can catch some trout for supper.’

‘Have you swept the paths?’

‘Yes’m.’

‘And cleaned out the chickens?’

He rolls his eyes, making the little girls laugh. ‘Yes’m.’

‘Go on with you, then,’ she says. ‘It’s a sunny day and you’ll only get under my feet.’

Joseph, grown strong and tall for ten, brings in a second basket of logs. He still bears a scar on his neck as a reminder
of his escape from the pestilence. He drops his basket and he and Emmanuel depart.

Susannah knows now that she should never have doubted William’s good intentions and he often teases her about it. He was no
more capable of banishing Emmanuel to work in the plantations than herself and had arranged for his tenant, Roger Somer ford,
to find work for him, and later for Peg, too, at Merryfields. Although still young, Emmanuel and Peg are married and proving
to be good and steady parents.

Susannah leaves the kitchen and walks along the corridor. She peers in through the open door of the Little Parlour and sees
Mary, one of the guests, sitting on the window seat, reading poetry to Aunt Agnes. Mary had arrived at Merryfields six months
before, wild-eyed and weeping after her husband and children died of a fever. She had no wish to live without them and her
family had despaired of her but gradually she is recovering her spirits. Susannah stops to listen for a while and then continues
along the corridor. She stops before another door and unlocks it with the key hanging from the chatelaine round her waist.

Inside, she closes her eyes and breathes deeply. Spirits of turpentine, lavender, sulphur, liquorice and drying herbs; all
the familiar scents that transport her back to her father’s apothecary shop. She opens her eyes and smiles in contentment
as she sees the neat shelves of gallypots and the teardrop-shaped bottles of coloured water catching the sun on the windowsill.
Here are the tools of her trade which, combined with William’s professional skills, maintain the health of the household and
the village. But it is the great pestle and mortar that holds pride of place upon the counter, sitting next to her father’s
invaluable journals. After the Great Fire had burned itself out and the earth was cool enough, she and William had returned
to the ruins to retrieve them.

A new city of London is rising from the ashes of the old. St Paul’s
had burned, after all; the heat of the fire so great that the stone exploded and the lead from the roof melted until it ran
like a river in the streets. But plans are underway to build a magnificent new cathedral. The city had mourned and many people
were ruined but it hadn’t taken long for the Londoners with their indomitable spirit to roll up their sleeves, clear the rubble
and start rebuilding. And who knows, thinks Susannah, perhaps the cleansing by fire, though as painful as cauterising the
wound of an amputated limb, might ensure better health for all who lived there.

Susannah potters about for a while, tying herbs into neat bunches and making new labels for the gallypots. Writing an entry
into the latest journal, she notes the ingredients for a new prescription for quinsy. She glances out of the window and sees
that the sun is high in the sky. It is time. She locks the door of the apothecary behind her and sets off down the garden
again.

In the orchard she opens the door in the wall and slips through onto the grassy river bank.

Emmanuel and Joseph are fishing at the far end of the landing stage with their feet dangling over the water.

Susannah sits on the grass and waits.

Presently she sees a boat approaching and shades her eyes against the sun. A moorhen splatters to the opposite bank in sudden
panic, casting diamond drops in her wake.

Leaping to her feet, Susannah waves both arms.

The boatman ties up at the landing stage and William jumps out and enfolds her in his embrace. ‘I’ve missed you,’ he whispers.
Then he turns back to the boat and helps a woman to disembark. ‘This is our new guest, Mistress Picard,’ he says, ‘come to
rest with us awhile.’