A Dangerous Collaboration (Veronica Speedwell #4)(87)

“Wiles! If you think that Helen Romilly possesses one wile—”

We were still arguing when we reached the stillroom. I had hopes of bearding Mertensia in her den. She was not there, but the pan gently steaming on the hob intimated a return shortly.

We occupied the time investigating our surroundings, and the stillroom offered much to see. The room was fitted with shelves from stone floor to beamed ceiling, spanning the length of the walls. Each shelf held an array of glass jars, some clear, some amber, some green, and every jar was filled with something interesting. There were potions and decoctions, creams and salves, elixirs and balms. From the beams hung clusters of drying herbs, and in the corner stood a copper distillation device and next to it a large sink. A worktable had been placed in the center of the room, its surface scrubbed clean, and behind it a bookshelf had been hung and stacked with herbals, physic books, pharmacopeia, and florilegia. Another set of shelves held an assortment of equipment, glass beakers, pans, spoons, measuring devices.

“I’ll be damned,” Stoker said in a low voice. “This is nothing like my nanny’s stillroom.”

“I should have thought the Templeton-Vanes grand enough to have a stillroom maid,” I remarked as I thumbed my way through the books. I was still annoyed with him but curious in spite of myself.

“We did, but that was Nanny’s first post starting in the house and she guarded our stillroom like a dragon. And if she had seen this one, she would have raised holy hell with my father until he had equipped hers better.”

“What sort of things did your nanny brew up?”

“Toothache remedies and jams,” he said promptly as he studied the shelves of herbal mixtures. “Nothing to touch this. My God, she has a preparation of foxglove here!”

I glanced over to where he stood enraptured with Mertensia’s collection. “For treating heart ailments?”

“Or poisoning people,” he returned. “Everything on this shelf could kill a man—or woman—in sufficient doses.” He began reading off the labels, each penned in Mertensia’s tidy hand. “Peppermint syrup for digestion, lettuce juice for headache, fig syrup for constipation. Those are the harmless ones. But this shelf”—he returned to the foxglove preparation on the top shelf—“this lot is altogether different.” He paused, moving closer to the bottles as he extracted one. “Mertensia does more than dabble in digestive tisanes,” he said as he lifted the bottle to the light.

I plucked a book from the shelf. It was thick and bound in dark green cloth stamped with a golden mermaid. I flipped through the pages, realizing that it was a sort of receipt book, recording her various preparations with notations and scribbling as she perfected each. Within the leaves were loose pieces of paper, laundry lists and notes from Mrs. Trengrouse, doubtless thrust aside to be forgot in the fever to brew a new batch of potions. I skimmed them, stopping when I came to a sheet of cheap paper headed with the name of a barely respectable hotel for ladies in London. There was no salutation and the text picked up in the middle of a paragraph. Clearly the first page had been lost, but I recognized that flamboyant hand immediately.


—why I am so terribly desperate. I cannot describe to you the awfulness of this place. There are beetles in the beds and blackflies in the bath, and oh, Mertensia! How much better I could bear it all if you were here. Remember what jolly times we had at school? A few short months, but the happiest I have ever known because of your friendship. The lumpy porridge and lumpier beds were nothing at all when I could listen to your stories of St. Maddern’s! Mermaids and giants and piskies—I remember them all, just as you told me. How I envied you, my dear, having such a place to call your own. I used to think that nothing in the world could possibly be as wonderful as seeing it for myself, if only to know that splendor like that exists somewhere in the world. I should not tell you this, sweet Mertensia, but I am afraid and a little sad to think of what the future holds. I need not imagine; I know it as clearly as if it were a picture someone painted and hung upon the wall. I shall grow old as a governess, each year thinner and sadder as I hurry to do the bidding of others. Never a home of my own, never a husband or children or a single square inch of land that belongs to me. Nothing of mine except a shelf of books and a handful of handkerchiefs. What a desolate thought! I know I must go to my fate, as Andromeda to the Kraken, ready to be chained upon the rock and wait for my doom. But there is no heroic Perseus to wing to my rescue. I must break my own chains, Mertensia. Will you help me? For the sake of our friendship, I recall to you the promise you made—



The letter stopped there, the following pages not to be found. “This is fascinating,” I breathed. I read the letter to Stoker as he poked about the bottles upon the shelf.

“A genteel bit of extortion,” he said when I had finished. I thrust the page back into the book and replaced it where I had found it.

“I feel rather sorry for her. She was clearly dreading her next post in India. Her prospects were grim.”

“Not as grim as this,” he told me as he scrutinized a bottle plucked from the shelf.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“Henbane,” he told me. “Used to treat rheumatics or breathing troubles, but even a drop too much is fatal. There’s any number of deadly things here—jimsonweed, nicotiana, poppy—each with medicinal properties as well as toxic. She has taken great care to mark them as dangerous.” He gestured towards the row of bottles. Beware the sister, Mother Nance had cautioned. I went to the bottles and inspected them.