The Lost Apothecary(70)
“James and I learned, last week, that we have a few things we need to work through. I came to London to get away for a few days. I meant to be here alone. Call the hotel and ask the registration desk. I checked in by myself.” I straightened, looking the second officer in the eye. “In fact, James showed up in London unplanned, with almost no warning. Go ask the nurse. James can’t deny it.”
The two officers eyed one another warily.
“Let’s finish this conversation over at the station,” the officer across from me said, glancing toward the door. “I sense there’s something you’re not telling us. Perhaps our sergeant will have more success.”
My stomach clenched; a sour taste flooded my mouth. “Am I—” I paused, gasping. “Am I being arrested?” I looked around helplessly for a trash can in case I needed to vomit.
The second officer placed his hand on his hip, near the dangling handcuffs. “Your husband—with whom you are having marital problems—is down the hall, fighting for his life after ingesting a harmful substance that you gave him. And your ‘research notes,’ as you call them, mention substances ‘needed to kill.’” He emphasized the last three words as he unlatched the handcuffs from his hip. “Those are your words, Ms. Parcewell, not mine.”
27
Nella
February 11, 1791
If the departure from my shop was to be a temporary one, I would have reached into the cabinets—beginning with my mother’s, along the side wall—to withdraw certain sentimental items I wanted for safekeeping.
But death was permanent. What earthly objects, then, did I need?
I could not tell this to Eliza, of course. After she helped me with my coat—my strength, mercifully, had returned for the moment on account of the frankincense—we stood together at the threshold, ready to leave, and I was forced to give appearance that I would come back to this place after the crisis had passed.
My eyes fell on the line that Eliza had drawn in the soot on her first visit and the clean, unblemished stone hiding underneath the filth. My breath caught. From the moment of her arrival, this child had unwittingly begun to unravel me, to expose something inside of me.
“Is there nothing you want to take? Your book?” She pointed at the register in the center of the table, the one I had just slammed shut. Contained within were the thousands of remedies I had dispensed over the years, harmless draughts of lavender alongside deadly, arsenic-laced puddings. But more important were the names of the women recorded inside. I could open the book to any page at all and easily recall the memories of the women within, no matter their ailments, betrayals or boils.
The book was evidence of my life’s work: the people I had helped and the people I had hurt, and with what tincture or plaster or draught, and how much and when and on account of whom. It would be wise for me to take it, so the secrets could sink with me to the bottom of the Thames; the words smeared, the pages dissolved, the truth of this place destroyed. In this way, I could protect the women within the register.
Yet to protect them was to erase them.
These women were not queens and great heiresses. Rather, they were middling women whose names would not be found in gilded lineage charts. My mother’s legacy embodied the brewing of potions to ease maladies, but it also meant preserving the memory of these women in the register—granting them their single, indelible mark on the world.
No, I would not do it. I would not erase these women, obliterate them as easily as I’d done with the first batch of cantharides powder. History might dismiss these women, but I would not.
“No,” I said at last. “The book will be safe here. They will not find this place, child. No one will find this place.”
A few minutes later, we stood in the storage room. The hidden door to my shop was closed and the lever latched. I placed my hand on the top of Eliza’s head, her hair soft and warm against my fingers. I was grateful that the frankincense had numbed more than just my bones, for my innermost turmoil had also been tempered. I was not breathless or forlorn, nor did I await the rushing water with any sense of dread.
I considered it fitting that in the final moments of my life, I was aided by one of the many vials on my shelf. In life and in death, I relied on the palliative nature of what sat inside those glass bottles, and I was reminded, then, of more good memories than bad: more births than murders, more blood of life than of death.
But it was not only the frankincense that gave me comfort in this decisive moment; it was also the company of little Eliza. Despite the fact that her error had brought all of this upon us, I chose not to harbor ill feeling toward her, and instead I regretted only the day that Lady Clarence left me her letter. Indeed, if it weren’t for her renown and her scheming lady’s maid, I would not be in the predicament I now found myself.
Yet, there was no use in looking back. In the face of this hard goodbye and, very soon, my own departure from life, Eliza’s inquisitive spirit and youthful energy were salves upon my heart. I never met my own daughter, but I suspected she would have been much like the girl standing next to me. I put my arm around Eliza’s shoulder and pulled her close to me.
With a final glance behind us, I led Eliza out the storage room door. We stepped into the alley, the cold air wrapping around us, and began to walk. “Up here—” I motioned to where Bear Alley opened up to the avenue “—you will continue on to the Amwell house, or wherever it is you choose to go, and I will go my own way.”