The Apothecary’s Apprentice 06
The Apothecary's Apprentice
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JENNET could not stop thinking about Anthony’s request to meet him on Sunday.
She had been taken aback and had not responded immediately.
Then the master had returned with the requested stillroom item and Anthony purchased it and left the shop.
Well, she was not going! She had better things to do than to dally with the son of a man whose fortune, according to her father, was made on the backs of his toiling mine workers.
But protest though she might, those blue eyes beguiled.
Jennet found herself smiling as she restored the grimy little shop to pristine order and ran errands for Henry Gryce.
The mundane tasks tried her patience and made her despair of ever getting down to the work she was in training for.
Towards the end of the week, Henry Gryce called her to him.
“There is a resurgence of the winter cough in the town. I need to restock the shelf. What would you suggest as a blend?”
Jennet considered.
“Would it be for childer or grown folks?”
“There is a difference in the remedy?”
“Yes,” Jennet confirmed.
To her surprise, a glimmer of approval appeared in his hooded brown eyes.
“I see you are not to be caught out! There are apothecaries who would prescribe the same, but watered down for a child.”
“Happen that would depend upon the nature of the cough.”
This time the master barked a laugh.
“Well done, Jennet! It is to loosen the phlegm in an infant.”
“Liquorice and ipecac, sweetened with honey,” she replied confidently.
“I was thinking along those lines myself. Employ yourself with pestle and mortar and ensure there is plenty.
“These ill humours will spread and we do not want to run short.”
He left her to it, and Jennet spent a contented hour pounding and blending, lost in the world of apothecary.
It was not until she was on her way home, pushing through the evening bustle, that she thought again about Anthony Venables.
Buoyed by her recent rise from shop skivvy to genuine apprentice, and looking forward to telling her grandmother about it, she felt abruptly emboldened.
What harm was there in falling in with his entreaty just this once?
Glistening shafts of sunshine pierced the bare branches of the spreading elms.
Anthony waited, and was about to go when Jennet appeared, cheeks glowing from the chilly morning air.
“Jennet! You are come!”
“I had nought better to do,” she said, nonchalant.
“We are just back from Matins. The rest of the day is mine.”
She wore a drab woollen cape over her equally drab Sunday best, and her glorious hair was hidden beneath a plain headdress.
Gowned in silks and velvets, Anthony thought, she would be a beauty.
“I looked for you in church. You do not attend St Mary’s?” he asked.
“We go to Acton. My parents were wed there and tes where I was baptised.
“Tes a fair step, but Father likes his fill of fresh air after being cooped in the brine pit all week.”
“Quite so,” Anthony replied, surprising himself.
In truth, he rarely gave a nod to the means that put a watertight roof over his head, good food on the table and stylish clothes on his back.
Maybe the time had come to show more interest in Papa’s talk of income and expenditure, and join him at meetings with the business heads of the town.
He might give the matter some thought tomorrow.
He offered his arm.
“Come, mistress. Let us walk together, and you shall tell me what drives so pretty a maid to dabble in potions and simples.”
This prompted a frown.
“You misjudge me, sir. Tes my intent to trade in apothecary under my own name.”
“Then your ambition is commendable.”