The Apothecary's Daughter Read online

  “She is a vandal and a thief!” the furious Marlow shouted. “She trespassed upon our garden.”

  “I sent her for peony root, young sir,” Father explained, concern straining his features. “It was an emergency. Miss Mary has had her worse case of falling sickness yet.”

  The rest of the room came into focus then. I spun about and, through the surgery door, saw my dear friend lying still on the cot. Deathly still.

  “Am I too late? Is she . . . ?”

  “The fit has finally passed,” Father said. “I believe the valerian took effect after all.”

  “She’s fallen asleep, poor lamb,” Mrs. Mimpurse said, her voice returning to its customary softness. “So exhausted was she.”

  I held up the peony—stalk, root, and all. “Then . . . I stole this for nothing?”

  “Stole? Good gracious.” Mrs. Mimpurse tutted. “We are all neighbors, are we not?”

  “I will reimburse your family, young sir,” Father offered, reaching up to lay his hand on the young man’s shoulder. “We still need to distill a batch of syrup in any case. Or we can endeavor to replant the peony, if you prefer.”

  Roderick Marlow shook off Father’s hand. “No. Just stay away from our gardens.” He aimed his blazing glare in my direction and a chill ran through my body. “And away from me.”

  I would obey that command for almost three years.

  Not nearly long enough.

  PART I

  The apothecary’s house should [have an] inner chamber,

  wherein he may prudently observe through some lattice window

  whether his apprentices spend their time idly or faithfully. . . .

  —C. J. S. THOMPSON, MYSTERY AND ART OF THE APOTHECARY

  Thou art gone from my gaze like a beautiful dream,

  And I seek thee in vain by the meadow and stream.

  —GEORGE LINLEY, COMPOSER

  LILY OF THE VALLEY

  Strengthens the brain, recruits a weak memory,

  and makes it strong again.

  —CULPEPER’S COMPLETE HERBAL

  CHAPTER 1

  Knowing she faced a long day indoors, Lilly Haswell arose early to take in the crisp, fragrant air of a Wiltshire autumn morning. With a quiet greeting to Mrs. Fowler, already busy at the stove, Lilly left by the rear garden door and walked sedately out of the village. As soon as she rounded the corner of the vicarage, however, she picked up her pace. When she reached the hill just beyond Bedsley Priors, she began a loping climb, tripping over turf grass from time to time, relishing the burning in her legs and lungs. She did not stop until she crested modest Grey’s Hill. As she leaned over to catch her breath, her long russet brown hair fell around her shoulders. She’d not taken the time to pin it up properly, though she knew she should, especially now that she was eighteen years old.

  She straightened, taking in the view across Pewsey Vale, with its rolling chalklands, scant trees, and in the distance, the newly carved white horse on the ridge between Milk Hill and Walker’s. She had heard that the rector of Alton Barnes often took his telescope up to Adam’s Grave, the ancient mound atop Walker’s Hill, and with it could see as far as the Salisbury Cathedral. Lilly wished she might climb that hill for herself some Sunday after services when she had the entire afternoon to herself. She would like to see the Salisbury spire. She would have given just about anything to see such places in person—and far more besides. She wondered what sights and delights her mother was experiencing, wherever she was, now these three years gone.

  Lilly forced her gaze down to the village at the foot of the hill, with its Saxon churchyard, sleepy streets, and rectangular village green dotted with grazing sheep. How peaceful Bedsley Priors looked. How small and insignificant.

  When her mother had first disappeared, Lilly had felt a roiling tincture of emotions—bewilderment, grief, guilt—certain her leaving was due to something Lilly had said or done. But in her secret heart, she had also felt a shameful thrill. Something had changed. Change begot change, she knew, and she longed for more. Though Lilly still prayed fervently for her mother’s return, somehow she knew that had her mother not left, her life would go on as it always had. She would ever be trapped, working in an inconsequential shop in an inconsequential village. And Lilly was certain that would never be enough.

  Sighing now, Lilly began the jarring downhill slog home. Back to the endless duties of an apothecary’s daughter.

  Again rounding the vicarage, she slowed to a stroll, passing the butcher’s, the chandler’s, and the coffeehouse. Inside, Mary looked at her through the window and motioned for her to wait. Lilly paused as her friend hurried to the door. Her friend who had thankfully not had a fit in nearly a year.

  “Morning, Lill.” Mary thrust a warm, paper-wrapped bundle into her hand. “I insist. You need sustenance after your long . . . mmm, walk.” Mary’s grin was all too knowing, and her pale blue eyes gleamed beneath faint strawberry brows.

  Lilly smiled and accepted the scone. “Thank you. Currant?”

  “What else? Now, go on. I shall see you later.”

  She gave Mary a mock bow and continued across the mews to her father’s shop. She noticed the sign bearing the apothecary’s rose and Charles Haswell, Apothecary was looking worn, and the white paint of the many-paned bowed window was beginning to flake. She would have to suggest Father hire someone to repaint it.

  For a few moments she stood there, peering through the shop-window as a customer might, while she ate her scone.

  Upon the inside ledge of the bowed window stood her grandfather’s tall, ornate apothecary’s jar, bearing the Haswell coat of arms. Around it were displayed colorful carboys and ready-made remedies with gilded labels: Royal English Drops, Gaskoin’s Powder, True Venice Treacle, and many more.

  Three walls of the shop were lined with shelves of blue-and-cream Lambeth delftware pottery. Upon each was inscribed its contents in Latin: C: ABSINTHII—conserve of wormwood, useful for dropsy. O: VULPIN—oil of fox, distilled in spring water, good for chest complaints.

  And below these shelves were rows of knobbed drawers for small simples, such as leaves, seeds, and roots.

  The front counter was clear for pressing tablets, and rolling and cutting pills. The rear counter held the tools of the trade. Open for reference were several books, such as Lewis’s New Dispensatory, and Culpeper’s Complete Herbal. Mortars and pestles of various sizes stood at the ready, as did scales, syrup jars, scarificators and bowls for bleeding, and leeches in their jar of water, always kept hungry.

  To the left of the rear counter was the door to the laboratory-kitchen, where her father heated and distilled physic through snaking copper pipes. To the right was the door to her father’s surgery, the private office where he consulted with or bled patients.

  Already, the shop was busy and full of life. Father had his hand on Arthur Owen’s shoulder, talking to the old pig farmer in gentle admonition. Her brother, Charlie, three years her junior, dusted the shelves. Her father’s seventeen-year-old apprentice, Francis Baylor, stood behind the front counter, busy with mortar and pestle. She was pleased to see both young men engaged in such industrious fashion.

  She pushed open the shop door, barely hearing the familiar bell. The usual rush of voices and aromas greeted her. Treasures from distant lands and nearby meadows, dried, crushed, and distilled, filled the air with powerful, exotic appeal. It was only during these moments, coming in from the windy hills, that she could really smell their complex and ever-changing fragrance.

  From the beams that striped the ceiling, strings of poppy heads, chamomile, sage, and mint hung in bunches to dry. An ancient alligator hung among them in macabre pose, teeth bared. Several missing teeth rendered him less menacing.

  Once inside, Lilly realized the probable cause of the apprentice’s unusual dedication. He was serving the flirtatious Dorothea Robbins, whose father owned the timber mill and the new barge yard in the neighboring hamlet of Honeystreet.

  “It is not for me,
of course,” Miss Robbins was saying. “For I am perfectly well.”

  Francis Baylor shook his head in near wonder. “As I plainly see.”

  The girl giggled and Lilly rolled her eyes. Francis glanced up and, seeing her expression, had the decency to flush. “If you will excuse me one moment, Miss Robbins?”

  “Of course.”

  The gangly young man walked around the counter and paused beside Lilly. Quietly, he said, “You might wish to change your frock, Miss Lilly. You would not want Mrs. Mimpurse to catch you with muddy hems.”

  She looked down. “Oh! I did not realize . . .”

  But a glance told her pretty Dorothea Robbins had realized. The honey-haired girl in a charming bonnet was regarding Lilly’s frock with a condescending smile.

  The sound of shattering pottery brought Lilly around. Charlie stood frozen, feather duster in hand.

  “Suds!” He sank to his haunches and began picking up the sharp pieces of a broken ointment jar. “Not again . . .”

  Lilly hurried to his side. “It’s all right, Charlie. Only an accident. I shall help you clean this up. Mind your fingers.”

  Dorothea Robbins strolled past them, a small parcel in gloved hand and an aloof smile on her pretty lips. Francis nearly tripped over them in his hurry to open the door for her.

  Shaking her head in disgust, Lilly carried the broken pottery through the rear door into the laboratory-kitchen, where Mrs. Fowler was washing up the breakfast dishes. She thought to dash upstairs to change her frock and pin up her hair, but she had barely dumped the pieces and wiped her hands when she heard the shop bell jingle, announcing the arrival of another customer.

  “Good day, Mrs. Kilgrove,” she heard Francis call. “And welcome to Haswell’s.”

  “You need not behave as though you own the place, young man,” the old matron reprimanded. Mrs. Kilgrove was known for her sharp tongue, which she seemed to wield on everyone save Charlie.

  “Of course not, ma’am. I am only grateful to be apprenticed to such a respected apothecary. Now, how may I help you?”

  “You? I’d not tell you my troubles for all the prince’s ponies. Nor give you leave to sell me a single lozenge. Where is Miss Haswell?”

  Lilly sighed. So much for changing her frock.

  That afternoon, while Francis used the cork borer to fashion bottle stoppers, Lilly was bored indeed. She cleaned the front counter, all the while daydreaming about some gentleman traveler—wounded, ideally—falling into the shop, and in love with her. She had just reached the part where he begged her to run away with him when her cloth reached the bear-shaped pottery jar on the counter’s far end. She paused, fanciful images fading. She wondered once more why her father insisted on stocking the useless remedy.

  “Have we sold any bear grease lately?” she idly asked.

  Francis paused in his work. “Yes, to several gentlemen yesterday.”

  “Would you try it, had you the need?”

  He grimaced. “Why would I? I have a full head of hair.”

  A bit too full, Lilly thought, taking in his brown, wavy mop of hair.

  Her father came in and stood, arms crossed, before his apprentice. “Mr. Baylor,” he demanded sternly, “did I not ask you to compound another batch of Pierquin’s Diuretic?”

  Lilly saw the young man blanch.

  “Right. Sorry, sir.”

  “You do recall the instructions I gave you only last week?”

  Lilly held her breath.

  “Of course I remember, sir. It was, after all, only last week.” He stole a glance at Lilly, the plea for help evident in his wide eyes.

  Stepping away from the counter with the cleaning cloth, Lilly said with as much nonchalance as she could muster, “That one is simple at least, as it has only three ingredients.”

  “Three, right,” Francis parroted. “Very simple.”

  Lilly felt her father’s gaze on the back of her head as she began polishing the shopwindow. “I cannot bear to compound Pierquin’s,” she continued, keeping her eyes focused upon her task. “It is”—she wiggled her fingers dramatically, hoping Francis was watching— “a thousand times worse than any other.”

  Behind her, Francis caught on. “Which of course it would be, with all those . . . millipedes.”

  “Exactly,” she replied casually. “Which is why I am so relieved Father asked you to prepare it.”

  Glancing over her shoulder and seeing that her father was again facing Francis at the counter, his back to her, she breathed on the window glass and with her finger wrote berry. “I have not had to do so since June.” She then held up her little finger, miming the act of drinking daintily.

  After watching her surreptitiously, Francis announced, “Pierquin’s Diuretic: macerated millipedes and juniper berries boiled in tea.”

  “In white wine, Mr. Baylor,” Charles Haswell said between clenched teeth. “Tea, indeed. You had better study harder, young man, if you want to excel as my pupil.” He threw Lilly a flinty look of two parts irritation to one part paternal pride. “Professor Lilly will not always be on hand to rescue you.”

  “Right. Sorry, sir.”

  Shaking his head, her father left them, taking the day’s post back to the surgery to do a bit of reading and, she guessed, a bit of napping.

  Francis looked at Lilly, shoulders drooping. “How do you do it? I must read and reread things ten times over before I remember them. It all comes so easily to you.”

  She shrugged. “It is in my blood, I suppose.”

  “It is more than that. Is there nothing you cannot remember?”

  She strolled over to the old globe on its stand in the corner. Foregoing the cloth, she ran her fingers over its surface. “Probably a great many things.”

  “I do not believe it. Quick—Godfrey’s Cordial.”

  “Francis. That one is easy. You know it is so popular we must prepare it every week—sassafras, aniseed, caraway, opium, sugar . . .”

  “Stoughton’s Bitters?”

  She traced her finger over the West Indies. “Gentian root, orange peel, cochineal powder . . .”

  “On what page in Culpeper’s Herbal would you find, say, –saffron“I don’t know. . . .” She glanced up. “Maybe, one hundred forty-four?” “And what is listed after saffron?”

  “Do you not wish to check my answer?”

  He shook his head, waiting.

  She sighed. “Well, meadow saffron, of course, then scurvy-grass in all its varieties, self-heal, sage, saltwort . . . It is in alphabetical order for the most part after all.”

  He stared at her, shaking his head. “You should be the apprentice. Not I.”

  Walking back to the counter, she said, “You know girls cannot be apothecaries. I can only assist.”

  “Lucky for me, or I’d be out of a post.”

  She tossed the dustcloth onto the rear counter. “Never fear. Even if I could, I should not want to work here all my life.”

  He looked nearly stricken. “But, Lilly, with your abilities—”

  She cut him off. “You heard Father—even he realizes I shall not always be here to help.”

  Much to Lilly’s relief, the shop bell rang, putting an end to the uncomfortable conversation.

  When nearly an hour had passed and her father had still not come out from his surgery, Lilly grew concerned. His afternoon naps never lasted for more than half an hour.

  She knocked softly on the surgery door. There was no answer. She pushed the door open anyway. “Father?”

  Her father sat at his desk, head in his hands.

  “Father, what is it? Are you all right?”

  “No. I don’t believe I am.”

  Alarmed, Lilly stepped inside the small room, closing the door behind her. “What has happened?”

  He lifted his head. “I’ve had a letter.”

  Lilly regarded the fine piece of stationery upon his desk. “So I see.” She swallowed. “From . . . Mother?”

  The look he gave her held equal measure
s of surprise, incredulity, and pain. “No.”

  She bit her lip and waited.

  He sighed. “It is from Mr. Jonathan and Ruth Elliott.”

  “Elliott?” None of their acquaintances bore that name.

  “Your aunt and uncle Elliott. Your mother’s brother.”

  She almost blurted, Have they seen her? but thought the better of it. She did not want to conjure that look upon her father’s face again.

  Instead she said, “I do not remember an aunt and uncle Elliott.”

  “How could you? You have never laid eyes on them. But you shall. They are coming all the way from London to pay a call this Friday— whether I like it or not.”

  “Why should you not like it? They are family, are they not?”

  He looked away, toward the surgery window. “I suppose that depends upon your definition of the term.”

  “But you have met them?”

  “Yes, many years ago.” He frowned. “It was not a happy occasion.”

  “Do they know . . . ?” There was no need to spell out the painful subject her father habitually avoided.

  “Yes. I wrote to them some time afterward.”

  “What do you think they want?”

  Her father’s features were pinched. “I shudder to think.”

  Seeing his distress, she laid a reassuring hand on his shoulder. “Perhaps they merely wish to reestablish bonds with us.”

  He looked up at her, his blue eyes glinting in the late afternoon sun slanting through the window. “I admire your hopeful outlook, my dear. But I would caution you against it. Mark my words, Lilly. We will rue this visit for years to come.”

  When [Jane’s brother] Edward was 16,

  the Knights adopted him as their heir.

  It was not uncommon for wealthy relatives to take in a child

  from a less fortunate branch of the family.

  —JANE AUSTEN SOCIETY OF NORTH AMERICA

  CHAPTER 2