The Apothecary’s Apprentice 02
The Apothecary's Apprentice
« Previous Post- 1. The Apothecary’s Apprentice 01
- 2. The Apothecary’s Apprentice 02
- 3. The Apothecary’s Apprentice 03
- 4. The Apothecary’s Apprentice 04
- 5. The Apothecary’s Apprentice 05
“Aye. We need your help, apothecary. ’Tis my sister. She’s back from a stay in the country and is taken with the smallpox.
“She fears for her looks, let alone her life. Ah, the weeping and lamenting! You must come quickly.”
The smile fled Gryce’s face.
Smallpox, with its deadly fevers and, if the sufferer survived, the terrible disfigurement, was ever rife in the town.
He looked regretful.
“Nay, sir. I cannot oblige. The risk, the ill humours! Think of my other customers.”
“Gryce, ’tis your duty to come. Honoria may be dying.”
Jennet stepped forward.
“Beg pardon, sir. You say your sister has been staying in the country?”
“Aye, maid, that is so.”
He looked at her with sudden interest.
There was no getting away from the delicate beauty of the fine-boned face from which intelligent violet eyes met his steadily.
“Honoria – my twin, in fact – has visited farming friends in the hills of Broxton.”
“Twins are close. That makes your concern all the greater.
“Would your sister have mingled with the farm animals?” Jennet went on. “The cows in particular?”
“Aye, I’d lay bets on it! Very likely she had a hand in milking the beasts.
“Anything with four legs claims Honoria’s attention.”
“And there you have it!” Jennet said triumphantly.
“What ails your twin could be nothing more than the cowpox.”
Gryce rounded on her, scowling.
“Fie, wench! You act above yourself. What do you know about such things?”
“Nay, sir. Let her speak,” Master Anthony told him. “You were saying, maid?”
Jennet bit her lip. She had not intended to intervene.
What drove her was an irrepressible desire to restore somebody to health.
She fought for calm and gathered her wits.
“My grandmother is of the mind that those who have had the cowpox bear an immunity to the other.
“I was sent to a farm deliberately to catch it and have never contracted smallpox, though I have been among those suffering from it.”
“You have a remarkably lovely complexion, maid. Happen your grandparent has a point.”
Gryce snorted.
“Twaddle, assuredly!”
“Beg pardon, sir, but tes proven.”
“Aye, by charlatans and fools! A pox is a pox, whether mild or lethal.”
The young man made a gesture of impatience.
“Gryce, I am here to request your presence. My father bids you attend my twin immediately.”
“Nay, sir.” Gryce looked fearful. “I have my customers’ welfare to consider. I must refuse.”
“Then I shall come,” Jennet heard herself say.
“Wench, you don’t know what you are about,” Gryce protested, horror-struck.
Jennet shrugged.
“Tes a risk, but there. The symptoms are similar, though I believe there’s a certain difference in the nature of the rash between the two.
“Do you have any calamint made up, sir? Tes calming for the itch. And a tisane for the fever?”
Gryce’s nostrils flared at her audacity, but a covert glance at his customer checked the words of outrage that sprang to his lips.
Mustering dignity, he swept into the stillroom at the rear of the shop, emerging again with the requested items, which he placed on the counter top.
“There, miss. And on your own head be it.”
The young man turned to open the door, then Jennet was hustled towards the outskirts of the town and Beam Heath, a wide stretch of common ground where townsfolk freely grazed their animals.
The pace was brisk and Jennet was hard put to keep up with her escort’s long-legged stride.
Realising it, he slowed a fraction.
“Forgive me, maid. The haste to get back makes me thoughtless. May I enquire your name?
“I am Anthony Venables, and you are . . .?”
She stole him a glance and remembered where she had seen him before – riding in a carriage with a flaxen-haired young woman, presumably the suffering twin, Honoria.
Then she’d seen him again, galloping a fine grey horse on the heath.
“I’m called Jennet, sir,” she replied, panting. “Jennet Parry.”
“Parry? Would your sire be foreman at my papa’s salt mine?”
“He is, sir.”
Jennet hesitated. The brine pits provided employment for able-bodied folk of the town, but the working conditions were deplorable, and the Venables mine was no exception.
Recalling her father’s views on the matter, and given that Ned Parry was not above voicing his feelings aloud, this seemed a subject best avoided.
“My grandmother is goodwife here,” she added by way of diversion.
“Then that will be where you have learned your skills, mistress,” Anthony Venables replied mildly.
Soon they were out of the town and taking the rutted lane to the heath.
The drizzle had stopped, the clouds dispersed and the rolling grassland before them, not yet showing a hint of springtime green, glistened under a pale sun.
“Nearly there,” Anthony assured Jennet.
To be continued…
