The Apothecary's Daughter (17 page)

“This is a teaching hospital,” he explained. “Apothecaries, surgeons’ apprentices, physicians’ pupils, and dressers come here for
courses of study.”

Her attention was piqued by the mention of apothecaries, but this
time she kept her mouth closed.

A young man bearing a stack of books and papers whipped around
a corner and collided with Dr. Graves. Graves reached out his hands
to prevent a blow, but still the young man’s books and papers fell and
scattered to the floor.

“I say, Keats, have a care.”

“Sorry, old man.” Young Mr. Keats sank to his haunches and
began picking up his papers. Lilly did the same, picking up the sheet
that had landed on the toe of her boot. She glanced at it, surprised to see,
in a lovely hand, stanzas of a sonnet. A few phrases leapt off the page.
0 SOLITUDE! … climb with me the steep … flowery slopes …

As he rose, Lilly saw that the man, near her own age, seemed
distracted and flighty as a sparrow.

She held out the paper toward him. Eyeing it, his frenetic movements
stilled. He lifted his gaze to hers, warily. Without comment, she handed
him the paper. He tucked it under the book on the top of his stack.

“Thank you, fair miss.”

“Miss Haswell, may I present Mr. John Keats.”

The young man bowed. “How do you do.”

“Mr. Keats is training to become an apothecary. Are you not,
Keats?”

He ducked his head. “Yes … and other pursuits as well.”

Graves peered at the book Keats bore. “A volume of lyric poetry …
I do not recall that in the curriculum.”

“No, sir. Only in my spare time, sir.”

Bowing again to Lilly, John Keats strode quickly down the
corridor.

Watching him retreat, Dr. Graves shook his head. “Keen student.
But a bit of a dreamer, I’m afraid. Fancies himself a poet. Writes such
nonsense in the margins of his work ..

Graves then led her up two flights of stairs. “I would not bring you
up here were any operations scheduled. But you might find the theatre
itself interesting.” He pushed the door open and ushered her inside.
The air that met her held a sour, cloying odor, which she recognized
instantly as blood. The theatre was horseshoe shaped with three rows
of benches rising high on two curved sides.

He led her down the steep stairs to the operating pit below. A narrow wooden table stood at center. Light from a skylight and two gas
lamps suspended from the ceiling illuminated the scene. Beneath the
table was a box of sawdust for collecting blood, she guessed. Beside it
was a common dining room chair and a sideboard of instruments. A
mop and bucket stood at the ready against the wall.

From this lower vantage, Dr. Graves pointed up to the rows of
benches rising around them. “The first two rows are for the dressers,
and behind that partition sit the other pupils. All are required to attend,
whether future surgeons, physicians, or apothecaries.”

Suddenly the door above them, from which they themselves had
entered, burst open, and a stream of young men rushed in, filing into
the rows with friendly shoving and jocularity.

Graves frowned and looked at her apologetically. “Must be an
operation after all. An emergency perhaps. Let us take our leave.”

Before they could, the side door opened and two aproned men
came in, carrying a draped figure on a litter.

Lilly climbed the steps quickly, but midway up, glanced back.
Behind the two assistants came a man she identified as a surgeon by
the old frock coat he wore, stained with blood, dried and fresh.

“Miss Haswell,” Dr. Graves urged from behind. “Please.”

She continued to the top, Dr. Graves at her heels. By now, the
pupils were packed in as tight as pills in a bottle and pushing each
other and maneuvering to see below.

Whenever their views were blocked, whether by fellow pupil or
by surgeon below, calls of “Heads, heads,” rang out. The air was filled
with anticipation, laughter, and whistles to chums across the theatre
all of which seemed to belong not to this grave occasion, but to some
macabre sporting event.

Once the door was closed behind them, her escort said earnestly,
“Miss Haswell, please forgive me. If I had any notion they were operating today … I … I never meant to expose you to such sights.”

Moved by the concern in his eyes and voice, she took a deep breath
and considered what she had just seen. “I own I was relieved not to
witness the operation itself, but I found the theatre, the wards, the
dispensary … why, the entire hospital, quite interesting.”

“Truly?”

“Yes.”

He shook his head, eyes wide in amazement or disbelief, she could
not tell.

As they walked on, leaving the din behind them, Lilly remarked,
“Had Ito require surgery, I should not like it above half to be observed
by such a crowd.”

“Nor I. It is mostly the poor who come here. They are willing to
bear spectators because this is the only place they can afford treatment.
Wealthier patients are operated on in their own homes. Usually on
their kitchen tables, I understand.”

She nodded without comment. In Bedsley Priors, people had to
call upon the surgeon in Wilcot for such services. Her father did only
minor procedures himself.

“Sadly the death rates are shockingly high. Therefore such operations are usually only performed as a last resort. I will be pleased to limit my practice to physic, if I may though I suppose in smaller
villages a medical man might need to do a bit of everything.”

They descended the stairs and were once again in the long main
corridor.

“Do you plan to establish yourself in a small village somewhere?
I had not thought it of you.”

He shrugged, then asked shyly, “Does the thought displease
you?”

“Not at all. Why would it?”

He paused, examining her countenance closely. “Can you really
be so perfect?”

Lilly felt her cheeks heat. She darted a look at him and saw his
face redden as well.

“Hardly perfect, no.” She was again tempted to disclose her father’s
trade and even her mother’s disappearance. Certainly her aunt would
not wish her to withhold the truth once a man was courting her, would
she?

As they returned to the welcomed fresh air of the courtyard, he
said, “If your father were alive, I should ask to meet him.”

Confusion puckered her brow. “But he is alive.”

He stared at her. “Is he? Well, dash it, what a blunder. I was given
to understand that you were a ward of the Elliotts.”

“I suppose I am. But not an orphan. My father is alive and well
in Wiltshire.”

“I see. Well, this changes everything. Do you think a letter would
suffice? “

Here he was again, the timid man full of self-doubt.

She did not want to mistake his meaning. “What … sort of letter
do you mean?”

Again, his face reddened. “I suppose a letter of introduction and,
well, to … express my interest.”

“In courting me? ” she asked bluntly. How far afield she was from
the subtle language of fans and flirting her aunt had paid so dearly
for her to learn!

“Well, yes. For now.”

“Then perhaps my uncle is the person to speak with in my father’s
stead.” She thought once more of revealing her secrets. But if her uncle
withheld his approval, might they both be spared the telling? “However, I must warn you that my aunt prefers I keep my distance from
medical men.”

“Why?

“I am afraid in that, you will not find her much different from the
mother of your previous fiancee.”

“I see. I take it your aunt would be quite shocked to learn where
you spent the afternoon?”

She shook her head. “Shocked, no. But certainly disappointed. I
shall tell her the truth-” she grinned up at him “that we enjoyed
a most interesting walk.”

He smiled back at her and again his features were transformed.
He truly was a lovely man.

The shop bell jingled as Lilly and Dupree entered Monday morning. Polly Lippert looked up from her books and exclaimed, “Miss
Haswell!” She rose, smoothing her apron over a patterned muslin
frock. “How good of you to come again.”

“I hope you don’t mind my calling unannounced.”

“No, you are most welcome. Any time.”

“This is Miss Dupree. Dupree, this is Miss Lippert.”

The maid bobbed a curtsy, then turned to Lilly. “Mind if I have
a look around?”

“No. Go on.”

Miss Lippert led Lilly back to the kitchen far neater than theirs at
home. Lilly realized the Lipperts must keep a separate laboratory.

“I am sorry my father is not here,” Miss Lippert said. “He and
my brother, George, have gone to the Docklands.”

Lilly would have liked to meet George Lippert. A person like
herself, skilled in physic but wanting little to do with it.

“Two colliers are just in from the Cape,” Polly continued as she set a pot of water to boil. “The advertisement promised an immense
shipment of new exotics and a live rhinoceros.”

“I should have liked to see that.” Lilly said, though she could just
imagine how her aunt and uncle would cringe at the thought of her
venturing to such a rough, dirty place.

Polly pulled two teacups from the cupboard and set out a pot of
tea infused with mint from their shop stores and a plate of butter
biscuits. The two young women enjoyed tea and half an hour’s visit.
As Lilly and Dupree prepared to take their leave, Polly wrapped up
a new bottle of Warren and Rosser’s Milk of Roses, which Dupree
insisted Lilly use daily to diminish her freckles. Lilly was just tying
the ribbons of her wrap when a startling crash rang out, quickly followed by the shattering of glass. Polly rushed to the shopwindow, and
Lilly and Dupree hurried to join her there. Through the wavy glass,
Lilly saw a man in a blue gown standing in the threshold of a shop
on the other side of the street. In his arms he held a crate of Lambeth
pottery.

Lilly cried out in shock as he heaved the jars into the street.

The pottery exploded into pieces. Oils and syrups spilled like jeweled blood onto the beginnings of a pile in the street wood from a broken medicine chest, perhaps, and shards of blue and brown glass.

“What is he doing?” Lilly exclaimed.

“Dash it. Father told Hetta to be careful.”

A woman of middle years ran hysterically into the street, shrieked,
then grabbed hold of the man’s sleeve as he carried out another load.
He did not even seem to notice her. This time he held a decorative
blue and gold apothecary jar, nearly half his own height.

“No!” the woman cried.

The man seemed to hesitate for a moment, but perhaps it was only
an illusion of the wavy glass. His expression stern, he heaved it onto
the pile, the priceless piece shattering in a shower of blue and gold.

Lilly ran to the door and opened it. But Polly caught her arm and
held her back. “Don’t, Miss Haswell.”

“Can we not do something? “

“What can we do? He is the beadle, and the man there” Polly nodded toward an officious-looking man in black watching the proceedings with cool detachment “is the master of wardens for the
Apothecaries’ Society.”

Stunned into silence, Lilly watched from the open doorway.

“They are within their rights,” Polly went on. “Everyone knows
Hetta diagnoses and dispenses physic. Last week a boy nearly died
from mislabeled medicine.”

“Oh no.”

“And it isn’t the first time. There have been charges of selling
inferior and adulterated medicine before.”

“But why would they?”

Polly shrugged. “Mistakes. To save money. I don’t know. Her
poor husband.”

Lilly looked at her, brows raised.

“He’s under the cat’s paw, that one is,” Polly explained. “He’s
never been able to manage Hetta. Always insists she is as qualified
as any man in the row.”

The woman named Hetta covered her face and disappeared back
into the shop. Finally the beadle brought out a large armful of dried
herbs, stuck bunches in crevices among the rubble, and heaped the
rest on top. A few seconds later he returned once more from inside
the shop, this time bearing a smoldering stick of tinder, which he put
to rapid use. The herbs smoked for a few seconds and then, fed by the
alcohol in several of the syrups, leapt to angry life, the fire devouring
the wood and filling the narrow street with pungent smoke.

Lilly stared. The flames and smoke rose to both frame and obscure the
sign hanging above the desecrated shop. J. W Fry, Apothecary. Though
the heated air touched her skin where she stood, Lilly shivered.

A certain noble lord had brought his health into a very critical state
and the physicians recommended marriage
as the most certain method of restoring his constitution.

THE GENTLEMAN’S MAGAZINE, 1769