The Lost Apothecary(54)
She clutched the book tighter to her chest. “Yes, fine,” she mumbled, glancing at the dark clouds building overhead.
We made our way back to the shop, Eliza silent next to me, and I sensed she was not only confused by my stealing her away, but irritated that I had seized her attention from whatever she busied herself with a moment ago. As we drew close to the shop, I hoped to find Lady Clarence inside, returned with the cursed jar in her hand—and indeed if that were the scene we came upon, my question for Eliza would be unnecessary. But could I really send her away again so soon?
It was of no matter, for the shop lay empty and Lady Clarence had not yet returned. I sat down at the table, feigning calm, and wasted not a moment. “Do you remember putting Lady Clarence’s powder into the canister?”
“Yes, ma’am,” Eliza said quickly, her hands neatly folded in her lap, as though we were strangers. “Just as you said, I retrieved a proper-size jar from the cupboard.”
“Show me,” I said, a small tremble in my voice. I followed Eliza one, two, three steps across the small room, and she crawled onto her knees, opened a lower cupboard, and leaned her little body in. She reached to the very back and I clutched my belly, fearing I may vomit.
“Back here,” she said, her voice distorted as the sound echoed inside the wooden cabinet. “There was another one just like it, I think...”
I closed my eyes, terror finally rising in me and seizing my throat, my tongue. For this cupboard, the one in which Eliza now found herself halfway inside, was full of my mother’s things, including treasures with which I could not bear to part, old remedies of which I’d had no need, and yes, a terrible, shuddering yes, several of her old containers that I knew for certain were engraved with the address of her once-reputable apothecary shop.
The address of this shop, which was not so reputable anymore.
Eliza’s tiny body slithered out of the cupboard, and in her hand was a cream-colored jar—about four inches high, one of a pair, 3 Back Alley hand-engraved onto the side of it. Without her saying another word, I knew its mate was in the cellar of Lady Clarence’s stately home. A familiar, sour burn rose in my throat, and I placed my hand on the cupboard to steady myself.
“It was like this,” Eliza said, her voice hardly more than a whisper, her eyes downcast. “The one with the powder looked like this.” She slowly, bravely looked up at me. “Have I done something wrong, Nella?”
Though my hands itched with the urge to strangle her, what did the girl know? It was a terrible misunderstanding—the room was full of shelves, and was it not my own fault for asking her to choose a canister? Was it not my own fault for bringing the girl into this shop of poisons in the first place?—and so I resisted the urge to slap her flushed face, and instead, I placed my arm around her. “Did you not read the jar, girl? Did you not see the words on it?”
She began to cry and sucked in a breath full of snot and tears. “It hardly looks like words,” she hiccuped. “See here, just a few messy etches. I cannot even properly read what it says.” And while she was correct—the impression was old, nearly illegible—it remained nevertheless a terrible oversight on her part.
“But you know words from a picture, don’t you?” I said.
She nodded slightly. “Oh, I am so sorry, Nella! What does this say?” She squinted as she attempted to read the words on the jar. I slowly traced the fading outline of the words, running my finger along the fat loops of the 3 and the letter B.
“Three B—” She paused, thinking. “Three Back Alley.” She set down the jar and crumbled into my arms. “Oh, can you ever forgive me, Nella?” Her shoulders heaved as she sobbed uncontrollably, tears dropping to the floor. “If you are arrested, it will be all my fault!” she said through her hiccups.
“Shhh,” I whispered. “Shhhhh.” And as I rocked her forward and back, forward and back, I was reminded of baby Beatrice. I closed my eyes and put my chin on Eliza’s head, and thought of how my own mother had done this after she’d grown very ill; how she had comforted me when I was sure her end was near. I had cried so hard with my face nuzzled into her neck. “I will not be arrested,” I whispered to Eliza, though I did not entirely believe it. Lord Clarence was dead, and the weapon—with my address on it—was still in his cellar.
The tap tap tap had not left me, and the demon in my skull was not yet at rest. I continued to rock Eliza back and forth, hushing her tears away, thinking of the lies my own mother told me about her illness and the severity of it after she fell sick. She had sworn she would live many more years.
And yet she had died in only six days. As a result, I had spent a lifetime wrestling with the abruptness of that grief, the incompleteness of it. Why didn’t my mother tell me the truth and use her last days to prepare me for a lifetime alone?
Eliza’s dewy tears began to dry. She hiccuped once, twice, then her breathing slowed as I continued to rock her back and forth. “All will be well,” I whispered, so quietly that I could hardly hear my own words. “All will be well.”
Two decades after my mother’s death, I found myself reassuring a child exactly as my mother had reassured me. But to what end? Why did we go to such lengths to protect the fragile minds of children? We only robbed them of the truth—and the chance to grow numb to it before it arrived with a hard knock on the door.