The Apothecary's Daughter Part 55

The hackney driver reined in his horse beside them, the sound of hooves and his "Whoa now" interrupting their conversation.

The jarvey leapt down and opened the carriage door. Francis gave the driver the direction and handed him Lilly's valise. Francis offered her his hand.

She accepted it and stepped up into the carriage. She held on tightly for a fleeting moment, then let go. "Thank you," she murmured. Why could she not find the words? Tell him she'd been wrong?

The driver climbed back to his perch as Lilly took a seat and looked down at Francis from the open window.

Last chance, Lill, she thought. Say something. Say something now. Heart hammering, she opened her mouth and managed two breathless syllables. "Francis?"

He lifted his chin to meet her gaze, his brown eyes expectant.

She spoke the words before she lost her courage. "He isn't my Dr. Graves."

His eyes searched hers. The jarvey cracked his whip and the carriage lurched away.

When they reached Mayfair, the driver handed her down on her aunt and uncle's street. She tried to pay the jarvey, but he waved her away, saying the gentleman had already done so. Francis, who had always been so careful with his money. Now she realized he had been saving for his education all along. She picked up her valise and paused to take in the tall facade of the building. The stately white townhouse was still familiar, of course. Yet how long ago it seemed since she had thought of it as home.

She walked up the steps and was let in by stony-faced Fletcher, who barely concealed a smile at seeing her. Dupree dashed down the stairs and seemed about to embrace her, then thought the better of it and curtsied instead. Her aunt and uncle did embrace her and welcomed her warmly. How good it was to see them all again.

Stepping into her former room in the Elliotts' home was like visiting a museum of the past. Her best ball gowns, slippers, and hair ornaments were all as she had left them relics of another age -a day back agone. On the dressing table was a clipping from the Times, which announced the wedding of Roger Bromley and Susan Whittier. Lilly grinned ruefully. She hoped Roger would finally be happy.

Before going to sleep, she slid to her knees beside the bed. Something, she realized, she had not done a single time while she had lived here those eighteen months. Now she couldn't imagine not doing so.

She prayed for her father, far from home, and for the doctors and apothecaries who would endeavor to help him. She prayed for Francis and Dr. Graves. She prayed for Charlie, Maude Mimpurse, and her mother, wherever she was.

Then she climbed into the soft, lofty featherbed with a sigh of pleasure.

Her aunt and uncle had planned a full week of events and outings. Lilly would have liked to visit Guy's again while she was in town, to see how her father was getting on. But he had been adamant that she not worry about him that she allow the doctors to do their work while she enjoyed herself in London. She would do her best to honor his request.

The dear Elliotts no doubt hoped Lilly would yet return to them to stay. But Lilly knew then that she would not. Not for anything longer than a visit. As much as she enjoyed London, Bedsley Priors was, after all, home.

Remember, it's as easy to marry a rich woman as a poor woman.

WILLIAM MAKEPEACE THACKERAY.

CHAPTER 49.

I everal months later, on a wet day in late spring, Lilly stood upon 1_ I Grey's Hill, taking in the damp vale, the ca.n.a.l and the village her village below. The bluebells and plum trees were in bloom, and the mist carried the honeyed scents of their blossoms.

She was mildly surprised to see Mr. Shuttleworth climbing the footpath toward her. Reaching the summit, he paused to catch his breath. "I've become too sedentary. This mound seems a veritable mountain this morning."

"Good day, Mr. Shuttleworth."

He bowed. "Miss Haswell. How fares your father?"

"He is doing quite well."

"I am pleased to hear it."

In London, her father had undergone several courses of treatment aconite inhalation among them and had returned home greatly restored. The demise of Haswell's had produced that silver lining at least. She returned her gaze to the village below, wearing a veil of mist.

"A haypenny for your thoughts," he said.

Quietly, she admitted, "I was thinking about Mary."

He nodded, his features pinched as if in sudden pain. "You must despise me, Miss Haswell. For I know I disappointed your friend."

He picked up a handful of chalk and pebbles in one hand, and with the other, tossed them as far as he could not far at all. "I suppose I am a coward. But the thought of becoming attached to any woman, dear though she may be, who might succ.u.mb at any moment a I could not do it."

Do any of us know the number of our days? Lilly thought, but refrained from saying so. She watched as he dusted his hands, unaware that he had gotten chalk on his usually immaculate coat. "I believe I understand, Mr. Shuttleworth, and I know Mary did. But for my part, I would give anything to have a little more time with her, no matter the cost or risk."

He looked at her, then away again toward the village. He inhaled a long breath. "You were great friends."

"More than friends. Sisters."

He lifted his chin. "Ah. I heard the tale, but was not certain I was supposed to know."

"I am glad you know. Did you not once tell us we could be sisters?"

"Yes, angels the both of you. Sisters in spirit."

He was right in a sense. She and Mary had been like sisters even before they knew they were related by blood.

"She was an excellent girl. Truly. I regret I did not tell her so more often."

Tears brightened his dark eyes, and Lilly felt answering tears fill her own. Impulsively, she reached over and squeezed his hand. "So do I."

He looked down at their clasped hands, then turned his gaze to the ca.n.a.l below. "I should tell you I am leaving Bedsley Priors."

Lilly slowly shook her head. Must everybody leave? "I cannot say I am surprised, but I am sorry to hear it."

"Are you? Then perhaps you ought to come with me. See more of the world, as you once longed to do. I feel the sea calling to me and must visit her again. Why not come along? There is less to keep you here now, is there not?"

An incredulous laugh escaped her. "Mr. Shuttleworth! I know you have never concerned yourself with the rules of polite society, but even you must see the impropriety of such a suggestion."

He grinned ruefully, and she smiled in return.

"I do enjoy your company, Mr. Shuttleworth, and will miss it more than you know. But a" She sighed. "This is my home. I am at last content here. I wonder," she asked kindly, "if you shall ever be content anywhere? "

She spoke from genuine concern and was relieved when he seemed to take no offense.

"I wonder that as well." He looked out to the horizon. "But I cannot help thinking I will find it. Someday, somewhere, beyond that hill, or the next. In the next county or the next porta."

She nodded thoughtfully. "For my part, I would not wish to live always on the move, a few years here and there. Perhaps once, but no longer. I have become quite attached to Bedsley Priors since my London days."

"Yes, sometimes we must lose something a someone a before we realize its worth."

She remembered Francis once saying something similar. They were silent several moments, each one thinking of his own losses. Finally she asked, "How soon do you leave?"

"As soon as I can manage it. I've received an offer from the advertis.e.m.e.nt I placed in the Times. If all goes as planned, I shall be selling out and moving on in no more than a fortnight."

She groaned inwardly. Another new medical man to get used to. "I daresay your replacement will not realize how fortunate he is with so much less compet.i.tion now that Haswell's and Dr. Graves have gone.

"Has your father no plans to reopen?"

"None he will admit to. He is, however, expanding the physic garden. He likes the idea of making a tidy profit on his famous Haswell herbs."

Mr. Shuttleworth chuckled. "Perhaps he ought to stay on as a chemist, then."

"I think not. Haswells are apothecaries the way we are English. One cannot simply change citizens.h.i.+p at will."

Again he chuckled and nodded his understanding.

For several minutes they stood without speaking. Down on the ca.n.a.l, a narrowboat was slowly making its way under the Honeystreet Bridge. "I remember when I first arrived here and saw you standing on that bridge," Mr. Shuttleworth said. "One of the three lovely enticements to settle here."

She nodded at the memory.

"Do you know if Miss Robbins enjoys the sea?"

"Mr. Shuttleworth!" Lilly was incredulous and amused both. "Are you serious?"

"Why not?"

"She is daughter of a boat builder," Lilly allowed.

"My thoughts exactly."

Lilly thought about Francis. "Mr. Baylor seemed to think a lot of her as well."

"Do you think so? He was attentive to her, I own. But nothing to the attention he paid you. In any event, he departed, leaving the field open for me."

She shook her head, grinning in spite of herself.

"You judge me fickle, Miss Haswell? I protest your censure. I have always been completely loyal to whichever one of the three of you I could convince to fall madly in love with me and did not tend toward seasickness."

Nor sickness of any kind, she thought sadly, but did not say so.

"Nowa" He rubbed his hands together comically, looking down toward Mill House and the barge yard. "I wonder if Miss Robbins is in the mood for adventure."

Still shaking her head, Lilly watched him go.

Realizing she had lingered far too long, Lilly trotted down the damp, windswept hill to help Mrs. Mimpurse and Jane serve supper. She was enjoying helping at the coffeehouse. For all Mary's teasing, Lilly had learned to convert from her ingrained apothecaries' measurements to the standard with less trouble than she would have imagined. Still, many was the time Maude found her bent over the worktable with a frayed quill and sc.r.a.p of paper, checking her sums. Lilly was still no great cook, but was steadily improving. She took to baking more naturally. She liked the careful measurements required, the level teaspoonfuls of leavening or pounds of fat. Not the "pinch of this and handful of that" mode Mrs. Mimpurse used to throw together stews, soups, and other dishes with such easy flair.

When she stood in Mary's place at the old worn worktable, Lilly felt closer to her sister-friend. She took pleasure and comfort in mixing, in kneading, in shaping dough. Not so different from mixing and cutting pills, really.

Still, she found herself unexpectedly missing the shop. She hadn't realized how much she had enjoyed knowing how to help people and doing so as confidently as Maude whipped up a suet pudding or pasty. Francis had been right. Lilly even missed the feel of the mortar and pestle in her hands, and when she brought a small one from the shop to use in mixing spices, she saw Maude bite her lip, but the dear woman had not protested.

Now, as Lilly rounded the corner of the vicarage, she slowed her pace according to long habit. When she reached the coffeehouse and opened its door, she paused as she usually did to inhale deeply of the sweet, familiar aromas. Freshly ground coffee beans, cinnamon, nutmegs, ginger, and cloves.

Smells like home a She did not miss the alligator.

LOVAGE.

A known and much praised remedy.

-CULPEPER'S COMPLETE HERBAL

CHAPTER 50.

illy remembered it clearly, although it was years ago now. For she -remembered everything.

She remembered the day Francis arrived by narrowboat more than seven years before, as a seasick apprentice. She had been standing on the Honeystreet Bridge, as she often did, searching for her mother on every narrowboat that pa.s.sed by on the ca.n.a.l.

She stood there now on a warm springtime evening, a fortnight after her meeting with Mr. Shuttleworth atop Grey's Hill. One last time, she told herself. Once more searching searching G.o.d's will for the future, searching her memory for every moment spent with Francis Baylor, Mary Mimpurse, her mother even Roger Bromley and Dr. Graves. Dear ones lost to her. Any day now, Mr. Shuttleworth would join that list.

She watched as a barge approached from the east, followed by a narrowboat.