The Lost Apothecary(62)
That wasn’t to say I would find myself alone; I expected the constables would soon bring in the countless other women whose names were in my register. Women I intended to aid, to comfort, would then be alongside me behind the iron bars, and we would be accompanied only by the unwanted groping of the prison guards.
No, I refused it. I refused both possibilities, because there was one more alternative.
This third and final choice was to lock up the shop, leave the register safely behind the false wall, and hasten my own death: to dive into the icy depths of the River Thames, to make myself one with the shadows of Blackfriars Bridge. I had thought of it many times, most recently while crossing the river with baby Beatrice in my arms, as I’d gazed at the waves lapping against the creamy white stone pillars and felt the film of mist on my nose.
Had all of my life led me to this destiny, that fateful moment when the cold water would braid around me and pull me under?
But the child. Eliza was at the shop, just where I left her, and I could not leave her alone to suffer the inquisition of a bailiff that might find his way to 3 Back Alley. What if Eliza heard a commotion, peeked out of the door and unwittingly exposed what lay behind the false wall? She’d made one grave mistake already; if she made another and found herself facing an angry constable, I could not ask the poor child to defend all that I’d done.
It had hardly been fifteen minutes since I left her. Stuffing the newspaper back into my bag, I stepped out of the alley to return to my shop of poisons. I could not choose a certain death. Not yet, anyhow.
I had to go back for her. I had to go back for little Eliza.
I heard her before I saw her, and fury rose inside of me. Her careless noisemaking could have ruined us, if the drawing in the newspaper didn’t do it first.
“Eliza,” I hissed, closing the cupboard door behind me. “I can hear your clatter from halfway across the city. Have you no—”
But my breath caught at the scene before me: at the table in the center of the room, Eliza sat before numerous jars, bottles and crushed leaves of all colors, sorted into separate bowls. There must have been two dozen vessels in all.
She looked up at me, pestle in hand, a look of concentration frozen into her brow. Her cheek was smeared with reddish pigment—merely beet powder, I prayed—and the strands of hair above her forehead jutted out in all directions, as though she’d been boiling water over the fire. For a moment, I was returned to this same scene thirty years ago, but it was me at the table and my mother stood over me, her eyes patient if not a bit vexed.
The memory lasted only an instant. “What is all of this?” I asked, fearing that the crushed leaves that littered my table, floor and instruments might be deadly. If so, the cleanup of such a virulent mess would be dreadful.
“I—I’m working on some hot brews,” she stammered. “Remember the first time I visited? You gave me—ah, it was called valerian, I think. Here, I found some.” She pulled a dark reddish jar toward her. Instinctively, I glanced to the third shelf from the bottom of the back wall; the spot where the valerian should be was indeed empty. “And here, too—rosewater and peppermint.” She thrust the vials forward.
Where to begin with this ignorant child? Had she no sense? “Eliza, don’t touch another thing. How on earth do you know that none of these may kill you?” I rushed to the table, my eyes scanning each jar. “You’re to tell me that you began pulling things from my shelves without any knowledge of what they may do to you? Oh, heavens, which ones have you tasted?”
Panic rose inside of me as I began to consider antidotes to my most lethal poisons, cures that could be quickly blended and administered.
“I have been listening very closely in recent days,” she said. I frowned, not believing I’d had any recent need for things such as rosewater and venom and fern root, the last of which was clearly marked on the wooden box balancing precariously at the edge of the table. “And I also referenced a couple of your books over there.” She pointed at the books, but they appeared untouched, meaning that Eliza was either lying about this, or she had the sleight of a well-practiced thief. “I’ve prepared a couple of the teas here, for us to try.” She bravely pushed two cups toward me, one of them brimming with liquid of a deep indigo color and the other, a pale brown resembling the inside of a chamber pot. “Before I leave for good,” she added, her voice trembling.
I had no interest in her hot brews and I had a mind to tell her as such, but I reminded myself that Eliza hadn’t read the news article that left me with such taut nerves. Now, more than ever, I needed to remain diligent and discreet—and it would be prudent to resume tidying the shop once and for all. Though I had no aim to return, I could not bear to leave it disheveled.
“Listen very closely to me, girl.” I set down the market bag, empty except for the newspaper. “You must leave. Right now, without a moment to waste.”
Her hand fell into a pile of crushed leaves on the table. Defeated and heartbroken, she seemed in that moment more a child than I’d ever known her to be. She glanced at the cupboard where the canister stood, the one that Lady Clarence had returned to us. How confused Eliza must have been by my forcefulness and the sudden necessity to make haste.
Still, I would not tell her my reasoning—I would not tell her what I knew. I meant, even then, to protect her.
I tilted my head, pitying the both of us. I wished I could send her to Lady Clarence’s, but knowing that the authorities were there, asking questions, it was much too close for my comfort. “Please go back to the Amwell house, child. I know you fear it so, but you must go. It will be safe, I promise.”