The Apothecary's Daughter (7 page)

“Lilly, good. You’re home. I need you to come with me to Marlow
House.”

Whatever excited words she might have spoken died on her lips.
“Marlow House? Whatever for?”

“Sir Henry’s man summoned me. Seems his master is in a great
deal of pain.”

“But, Sir Henry has been calling for Dr. Foster of late.”

“Yes, but Foster is home in bed with the very malady that has laid
our Mr. Baylor low.” He added a vial to his medical case and snapped
the lid shut.

She took a deep breath and blew it out between puffed cheeks.
“I see.”

“Why so forlorn? This is good news for us. Have I not told you
that it does not do for a medical man to fall ill? It costs business
patients. Which is why I never get sick.” He grinned at her, but she
did not return the gesture.

“Perhaps I ought to stay here in case Francis or Charlie needs
anything.”

“Mrs. Mimpurse is on her way over. Come along. You need only
carry two species jars. I cannot have them jostling about the gig while
I drive.”

Her natural curiosity trumped her trepidation. “What remedy
do you propose?”

“I prepared traditional gout powder, of course.”

Unbidden, her mind flashed the ingredients: birthwort, red gentian
root, leaves of germander, and centaury.

“But depending on his symptoms,” her father continued, putting
on his greatcoat, “I may need to prescribe something stronger.”

“James’s Powder?” she asked.

“Too strong.”

“Compound powder of ipecacuanha?”

He narrowed his eyes in thought. “Do you mean … ?”

Opium, potassium nitrate, vitriolated tartar, liquorice, ipecacuanha.
She gave him the outmoded name. “Dover’s.”

“Ah. Right. I have both.”

Lilly looked about her, intertwining and twisting her fingers. “I
could transfer smaller amounts to vials, Father. Then you could carry
them in your case.”

“I prefer not to delay.”

“But-“

He eyed her keenly. “You are not still afraid of Sir Henry’s son,
are you?”

“No. That is, not as long as you shall be there with me.”

Mrs. Mimpurse, buxom and energetic, arrived from next door and shooed them out, clucking like a mother hen. Lilly climbed up
into the gig, and her father handed her the clunky jars, then circled the
rig and climbed up into the seat beside her. Urging Pennywort, their
mare, into a trot, he drove through the dark, windy night the short
distance to Marlow House. Unlike his daughter, Charles Haswell was
not fond of walking. Especially in chilly weather.

Lilly thought of a dozen ways to bring up the astounding offer her
aunt and uncle had made, but she could not force out a single syllable.
Not yet. In any case, the howling wind would only swallow her words.
There would be time later, once the current crisis was passed and she’d
somehow found the courage to withstand the hurt that would surely
appear in her father’s eyes when she told him she longed to accept.

When they arrived, Sir Henry’s butler, Mr. Withers, greeted them
and took their coats. He then led them through the large manor and up
the long curved staircase. Following her father, Lilly carefully carried
the two pottery jars. At the far end of the corridor, Withers knocked
softly on a closed door and then opened it to them.

They passed through the outer dressing room and then entered
the inner bedchamber. From the canopied bed, the baronet lifted his
arm in a weak gesture of welcome.

“Haswell, good of you to come.”

“Of course, Sir Henry. And this is my capable assistant, Miss
Haswell.”

Even in his pain, the grey-haired man smiled politely to her, the
expression lifting the bushy silver sideburns. She knew the baronet
was in his fifties, yet he looked older. “Ali yes, your daughter. How
do you do?”

Lilly dipped an awkward curtsy.

“Very pretty,” Sir Henry said, then shifted his gaze to her father.
“More and more like her mother, is she not?”

Her father looked at her, then quickly away. “Yes, rather.”

Sir Henry studied her father’s averted face. “Still no word?”

Setting down his case, her father drew himself up briskly. “No word.
Now, let us see what we can do to alleviate your discomfort….”

Lilly waited at a polite distance from the bed while her father
questioned the baronet in low tones about his symptoms. Twice at
her father’s bidding she retrieved vials or instruments from his case
and once filled a water glass at the bedside table.

When her father began lifting the blankets from the man’s legs,
he paused.

“Lilly. I think you’ve done all I need. Perhaps you might take
yourself to the kitchen and wait for me there? If Mrs. Tobias is still
awake, she might offer you a cup of chocolate. And if not, at least the
fire will keep you warm.”

“Very well, Father.”

“Take a candle.”

Nodding, she took the candle holder and let herself from the
room.

She did not admit she did not know the way to the kitchen from Sir
Henry’s room. She had been to Marlow House before but had always
waited in the kitchen while her father went up to see Sir Henry, or
Lady Marlow, before her passing.

Lilly held the candle high and started down the dark, broad corridor. High upon its walls were formal portraits of Marlows past
men in coat and cravat, or military regalia; ladies in fine gowns and
jewels as well as paintings of the hunt, rearing horses, hounds with
bared teeth, and foxes with hideous wide-eyed expressions of pain
and fear.

In the light of the candle, those eyes seemed to glare at her. The
dogs, to growl at her. She shivered.

She passed the main staircase and continued to the corridor’s end,
assuming she would there find the servants’ stairway down to the
kitchen.

Suddenly she heard a noise behind her. She spun around, holding
her candle before her like a sword. But the corridor was empty.

She continued on until she heard footsteps to her left. She whirled.
But her candle only illuminated more paintings and tapestries upon
the wall.

She walked faster.

Nearby she heard a scrape, saw a dark stab of movement before
her, then felt a rush of air. Her candle was out before her mind could
identify what she had seen. And then she saw nothing at all. Nothing
but blackness.

“Who is there?” she demanded in an airy croak.

She took a tentative step backward, toward her father and safety,
but an arm grabbed her from behind and a hand cupped her mouth,
catching her cry and rendering it useless.

“Shh…” a male voice whispered. “Did you hear something?”

For one tense second, the arm remained clasped about her waist
and the other hand covered her mouth, but then, as quickly as it came,
the contact was broken, the hands gone from her.

Indignation chased away fear. Those had not been phantom hands
touching her. “Yes. I heard something. You, no doubt. You enjoyed
frightening me, did you not?”

A door opened nearby; footsteps receded and promptly returned.
Roderick Marlow appeared in a doorway, carrying a glowing candle
lamp he had apparently retrieved from the nearby room. With it, he lit
a wall sconce. In its light she could see that he was taller and broader
than he had been when she had last seen him. His hair and brows just
as dark. How old was he now three and twenty? Four?

“Why are you wandering about in the dark? ” He cocked his head
to one side, regarding her. “Are you lost?”

“No. Merely on the way to the kitchen.”

One dark brow rose. “And where you live, the kitchen is abovestairs?”

She exhaled sharply. “Of course not. I was on my way down.”

“You passed the staircase.”

“I was looking for the servants’ stairs “

“Are you a servant?”

“No. The apothecary’s daughter.”

“Ah, I remember. The bran-faced thief.”

Irritation surged at this ungentlemanly reference to her freckles.

Before she could respond, he continued. “That explains
why you are sneaking about. Perhaps I shall have to search your pockets.” He took a step closer. “See if you have helped yourself to any
valuables.”

She backed away again. “I have never stolen anything in my
life!”

“Except a peony?”

“Except a peony,” she allowed.

He parted his lips, then paused. “What is your name? I forget.”

“Lilly Haswell.”

“Ali. Haswell. Of course.”

He continued to step forward while she backed away, as if in some
slow, inelegant dance.

“And do you do miracles, Lilly Haswell, as your father supposedly does?”

She hesitated, shook her head. “No.”

“You do not believe in miracles?”

“I do.”

“Why? Have you not prayed for your mother’s return?”

She swallowed the painful lump in her throat. “Yes.”

“And has she? “

“Not as yet.”

He barked a laugh. “Still hoping?”

“Every day.”

He stopped where he was. “Such faith … such fervency. And yet,
nothing. Is it any wonder I do not believe? “

“No wonder. But sad if true.” She ceased moving as well.

“I prayed for my mother, too, you know. But that did not stop her
from dying. Where were your father’s miracles then?”

“I am sorry,” she whispered. “We can only do so much.”

“Which is why we must take what we want in this life, Miss
Haswell. Make our own way. Not wait for some fat, hairless angel to
deliver our whims on a silver platter.” He lifted the candle lamp and
peered at her. “Do I offend you?”

“Yes. As you no doubt intend to.”

He laughed again. “True, I am a skilled offender. Whereas my father is a skilled … ingratiator. And yours a healer or pretender -I
am not certain which. And you, Miss Lilly Haswell, what are you?”

When she hesitated, he smirked and turned away dismissively,
clearly not expecting an answer from a frightened girl.

“A rememberer.”

He turned back to her, studying her face in the flickering light.
Surprised, perhaps, to see how serious and somber she was.

“How so?” He asked, his smirk gone.

She swallowed and answered quietly, “I remember everything.
Whether I wish to or not.”

They stared at one another. He took another step closer. Suddenly
a door opened far down the corridor from which she had come. He
grasped her wrist and pulled her through a narrow door she had not
even known was there. She gasped, but did not scream.

“This old place is full of secret passages and trapdoors,” he whispered, leading her along a dark narrow passageway, holding the candle
lamp to light their way.

“Where are you taking me?”

“You said you sought the kitchen.”

He pushed open a timbered door and paused to light the lamp
at the top of a steep set of stairs. Growing anxious about being alone
with him, Lilly stepped around and preceded him down the narrow
stairs, even though her own shadow made it difficult to see. When
she reached the bottom door, she lifted the latch but could not make
it release. When she turned, he was right there.

“It sometimes jams.” But he made no move to open it. He brought
the light closer to her face. His eyes glinted oddly in the candle’s glow,
the right eye appearing a deeper shade than the left. “You know, Lilly
Haswell,” he said in a low voice, “freckles or no, you might be handsome one day.”

He reached around her to give the latch a sharp jerk, the action
bringing his hand close to the small of her back and his face near to
hers.

Feeling the door give behind her and imagining the safety of a bright fire and no-nonsense Mrs. Tobias beyond, she smiled sweetly
up at him and said, “Well, that makes one of us.”

She pushed her way backwards into the kitchen. Her smile of
triumph immediately fell away. The kitchen was empty, the fire but
embers.

In two strides he was before her, anger in his eyes. She took a step
back. He, another forward.

“Lilly?” Her father came into the kitchen and Roderick stopped
midstride.

“Oh! Father! You frightened me.”

“Did I? ” He looked from her to Roderick and his brow furrowed
at seeing the young man looming so close.

“Are you … all right?”

She swallowed. “I am perfectly well. My flame blew out, but Mr.
Marlow kindly lit another and showed me the way.”

Her father looked at her, then turned to scrutinize the young man.
“Did he indeed?” He held Roderick Marlow’s bold stare a moment
longer, then clasped Lilly’s hand. “Come, my dear. It is time we took
our leave.”

On the ride home, her father was quiet but obviously not at peace.
The wind had died down, but she still had not found the courage to
bring up her aunt and uncle’s offer.

“The Elliotts,” her father said suddenly. “They want you to go
to London?”

Nerves quaking, she forced her gaze to meet his and nodded
solemnly.

But instead of the arguments and cautions she expected, he
returned his eyes to the road. He drew in a long breath and said,
“Perhaps it is well that you leave for a time after all.”

She studied his profile for several moments, but he did not explain
further. Giving up, she laid her head on his shoulder for the rest of
the journey home.

DALBY’S GENUINE CARMINATIVE

Superior to all other remedies for the wind… .
This invaluable cordial medicine
is prepared by Frances Gell, daughter of the late
Mr. Joseph Dalby, apothecary.

THE EDINBURGH EVENING COURANT, 1815