The Lost Apothecary(18)
“Mmm-hmm,” he said to her, his eyes never leaving me. “Bring that over here. Quickly now, girl.”
Stepping close to him from behind, I lifted his plate from the right side of the tray and carefully set it in front of him. As I did so, he reached his hand behind my legs and delicately pulled the heavy fabric of my skirt upward. He ran his hand over the back of my knee and upward to my lower thigh.
“Lovely,” he said, finally pulling his hand away and lifting his fork. My leg itched where he touched it, an invisible rash beneath my skin. I stepped away from him and set the second plate in front of the mistress.
She nodded at me, her collarbone still flushed. Her eyes were sad and dark, as dim as the maroon rosettes on the papered wall behind her.
I took my place at the edge of the dining room and waited, still as stone, for what would come next.
8
Caroline
Present day, Monday
When I woke later that night, the nightstand clock showed 3:00 a.m. I groaned and turned away from the dim red light, but as I tried to fall back asleep, my stomach began to churn and an unsettled sensation left my skin damp and hot to the touch. I pushed the covers back, wiped sweat from my upper lip and stood to check the thermostat. It was programmed in Celsius, not Fahrenheit, so perhaps I’d accidentally set it too warm the day before. I shuffled my feet along the carpeted floors, stopped to steady myself and threw my hand against the wall.
Suddenly, I heaved.
I dashed for the bathroom, hardly making it to the toilet before vomiting up everything I’d eaten the day prior. Once, twice, three times I retched, my body limp over the toilet.
Afterward, as my stomach unclenched and I caught my breath, I reached for a washcloth on the counter. My hand knocked over something small and solid. The vial. After I’d returned to the hotel, I’d taken it out of my purse and set it on the bathroom counter. Now, to prevent myself from nearly shattering it, I tucked the vial safely at the bottom of my suitcase and returned to the bathroom to brush my teeth.
Food poisoning in a foreign country, I thought to myself, groaning. But then I covered my mouth with trembling, damp fingers. Food poisoning, or...something else. Hadn’t I been queasy a couple times yesterday, too? I’d hardly eaten anything, so I couldn’t blame that nausea on bad food.
It felt, at once, like a terrible joke—if I was indeed pregnant, this was not how I imagined it happening. I’d long dreamed about the moment that James and I learned the news together: the happy tears, the celebratory kiss, rushing out to buy our first baby book. The two of us, together, celebrating what we’d made. And yet here I was, alone in a hotel bathroom in the wee hours of the morning, hoping that we hadn’t made anything at all. I didn’t want James’s baby, not right now. I only wanted to feel the uncomfortable, heavy ache of my imminent period.
I fixed myself a cup of hot chamomile tea. Sipping it slowly, I lay in bed for a half hour, wide-awake and waiting for the nausea to pass. I couldn’t bring myself to consider the idea of taking a pregnancy test. I’d give it a few more days. I prayed travel and stress were to blame—perhaps my period would start later tonight, or tomorrow.
My stomach began to settle, but the jet lag left me awake and alert. I spread my hand over the right side of the bed, where James should have been, and twisted the cool sheets in my fingers. For a brief moment, I couldn’t resist the truth: a part of me missed him terribly.
No. I released the sheets from my grip and turned onto my left side, away from the empty space next to me. I would not let myself miss him. Not yet.
As if James’s secret hadn’t burdened me enough, there was something more: so far, I’d only told my best friend, Rose, about my husband’s infidelity. Now, awake in the middle of the night, I considered calling my parents and revealing everything. But my parents had paid for the nonrefundable hotel stay, and I didn’t have the courage to tell them that only one of us had checked into the suite. I’d tell them when I returned, after I’d had time to think things through—after I’d decided what the future of my marriage looked like.
At last I gave up on sleep and turned on the nightstand lamp, then pulled my cell phone off the charger. I opened up my internet app and hovered my fingers over the keyboard, tempted to search London attractions. But the big sights, like Westminster and Buckingham Palace, were already listed inside my notebook with opening times and entry fees—and still, none of it appealed to me. I could hardly stomach James’s absence in the spacious hotel room; how could I possibly stroll the winding paths of Hyde Park and not feel the empty space beside me? I’d rather not go at all.
Instead, I navigated to the website for the British Library. While chatting with Gaynor in the Maps Room, I’d seen a small card advertising the online database search. Now, jet-lagged and feeling unwell, I burrowed deeper into the cotton bedsheets and decided to do a bit of digging.
Tapping my finger on Search the Main Catalogue, I typed two words: vial bear. Several results appeared, varying widely in subject matter: a recent article from a biomechanics journal; a seventeenth-century book on apocalyptic prophecies; and a collection of papers retrieved in the early nineteenth century from St. Thomas’ Hospital. Clicking on the third result, I waited for the page to load.
A few additional details appeared, namely the creation date of the documents—1815 to 1818—and the acquisition information about the documents. The site noted the papers were acquired from the south wing of the hospital and included documents belonging to both staff and patients of the ward.