The Lost Apothecary(15)
It was a dead end, and my face fell as disappointment crept in. I thanked Gaynor for her time, pocketed the vial and stepped away from the desk. But as I turned, she called out after me. “Pardon, miss, I didn’t catch your name?”
“Caroline. Caroline Parcewell.”
“Are you visiting from the States?”
I smiled. “My accent gives me away, I’m sure. Yes, I’m visiting.”
Gaynor picked up a pen and leaned over her map. “Well, Caroline, if there’s anything else I can help with, or if you learn something about the vial, I’d love to know.”
“Of course,” I said, then I pocketed the vial. Somewhat discouraged, I resolved to forget the object and the mudlarking adventure altogether. I didn’t much believe in the fate of finding things, anyway.
7
Eliza
February 5, 1791
I woke to a pain in my belly unlike any I had felt before. I placed my hands underneath my night shift and pressed my fingers into my skin. Beneath them, my skin felt warm and swollen, and I clenched my teeth as a dull ache began to spread itself wide.
It was not the same bellyache I might have had after too many sweets, or after spinning ’round in the summer garden with the fireflies back home. This ache was lower, like I needed to relieve myself. I rushed over to my chamber pot, but the heaviness still did not go away.
Oh, but what an important task lay ahead of me! The most important one my mistress had ever given me. It was more important than any dish I had scoured, or pudding I had baked, or envelope I had sealed. I could not disappoint her by saying I did not feel well and would like to stay in bed. Those excuses might have worked on the farm with my parents on a day when the horses needed brushing or the beans were ready to be plucked from their stalks. But not today, not in the towering brick house belonging to the Amwells.
Wiggling out of my night shift and walking to the washbasin, I resolved to ignore the discomfort. As I washed, as I tidied my garret room and as I stroked the nameless fat tabby cat who slept at the end of my cot, I whispered quietly to myself, as though saying it aloud made it more believable: “This morning, I will give him the poisonous eggs.”
The eggs. They remained nestled in the jar of ash, tucked into the pocket of my gown hanging near the bed. I removed the jar and pulled it to my chest, the coolness of the glass reaching me even through my nightgown. As I clutched the jar more tightly, my hands did not shake, not one bit.
I was a brave girl, at least about some things.
Two years ago at the age of ten, I rode with my mother from our small village of Swindon to the great, sprawling city of London. I had never been to London and had heard only rumors of its filth and its wealth. “An inhospitable place for people like us,” my father, a farmer, had always muttered.
But my mother disagreed. Privately, she would tell me of London’s bright colors—the golden steeples of the churches, the peacock blues of the gowns—and of the many peculiar shops and stores in the city. She described exotic animals wearing waistcoats, their handlers ushering them through the city streets, and market stands selling hot almond-cherry buns to a line of customers three dozen deep.
For a girl like me, surrounded by livestock and wild shrubs bearing little more than bitter fruit, such a place was unthinkable.
With four older brothers to help on the farm, my mother had insisted on finding a placement for me in London once I reached the proper age. She knew if I did not leave the countryside at a tender age, I would never see a life outside the pastures and pigpens. My parents had argued about it for months, but my mother would not relent, not even a bit.
The morning of my departure was a tearful, tense one. My father hated to lose two good hands on the farm; my mother hated the separation from her youngest child. “I feel as though I’m slicing off a piece of my heart,” she sobbed, smoothing out the lap quilt she’d just placed into my case. “But I will not let it doom you to a life like mine.”
Our destination was the servant’s registry office. As we rode into town, my mother leaned close, the sadness in her voice now replaced with exhilaration. “You must begin where life has slotted you,” she said, gripping my knee, “and move upward from there. There is nothing wrong with starting as a scullery maid or housemaid. Besides, London is a magickal place.”
“What do you mean by magickal, mother?” I’d asked, my eyes wide as the city began to come into view. The day was clear and blue; already, I imagined the calluses on my hands growing smaller.
“I mean that you can be anything you want in London,” she replied. “Nothing great awaits you in the farm fields. The fences would have kept you in, as they do the pigs and as they’ve done to me. But in London? Well, in time, if you are clever about it, you can wield your own power like a magician. In a city so grand, even a poor girl can transform into whatever she desires to be.”
“Like an indigo butterfly,” I said, thinking of the glassy cocoons I’d seen in the moorland during summer. In a matter of days, the cocoons would turn black as soot, as if the animal inside had shriveled up to die. But then, the darkness would lift, revealing the butterfly’s striking blue wings within the papery encasement. Soon after, the wings would pierce the cocoon, and the butterfly would take flight.
“Yes, like a butterfly,” my mother agreed. “Even powerful men cannot explain what happens inside a cocoon. It is magick, surely, just like that which happens inside London.”