Scarlet Widow Read Free Page B

Beatrice had to measure out in very precise quantities – including opium, cardamom, frankincense, saffron, ginger, anise, parsley and acacia juice. Once measured, they all had to be pounded together in honey. Almost as popular was Venice Treacle, which had sixty-four ingredients – roots, herbs, peppers, even bitumen and animal parts, like roasted adders – although it was much more expensive.
    Apart from these, Beatrice had to mix up a mouthwash of dried marigold petals and erigeron, as a remedy for chronic toothache. For nosebleeds, she would stir together comfrey and plantain water, sometimes adding yarrow.
    Every time she smelled the pungency of yarrow leaves, she thought of the song that her mother used to sing to her when she put her to bed. If she wrapped yarrow leaves in a handkerchief, her mother had told her, she would wake up in the morning and know who she was going to marry.
    Thou pretty herb of Venus’ tree,
    Thy true name it is Yarrow.
    Now who my husband he will be
    Pray tell me thou tomorrow!
    She could almost hear her mother’s clear, high voice, and it was so hard to think of her lying in the crypt of St James’s Church, dead, cold, and in darkness.
    One of her father’s best-selling preparations was Bannister’s Patented Hair Invigorator, but she hated making it because it smelled so rancid. For this, she had to boil up houndstooth leaves in water, with a little oil and salt added, and then mould a poultice with pig fat which she had to buy at Smithfield Market, just up the street. The balding customer was supposed to spread this on his scalp overnight, covered with a hot towel, and wash it off in the morning.
    She didn’t like making calomel lotion, either, because the mercury in it stained her fingers black. It was supposed to cure the French disease, or syphilis, but she had seen for herself the effects on those men who had used it for any length of time. Their gums were rotted red-raw, all their teeth had dropped out, and their jawbones were so decayed that they could hardly open their mouths to speak.
    All the same, they still came into the shop and begged her father in mumbling voices for more because they believed they were taking too little of it, rather than too much.
    *
    On the last Monday of the year, Beatrice was rolling out a long pipe of pills when Clement pushed open the outhouse door with a bang that made her jump. He stepped unsteadily inside, bringing with him a gust of icy-cold air. Behind him, snow was falling fast and thick and silent. The walled herb garden was blanketed with snow and Clement had snow melting in his hair and in his beard.
    ‘Bea, my darling!’ he cried out. ‘Why aren’t you at Mrs Chew-chin’s?’
    ‘Papa – the door! It’s freezing!’
    ‘What? Oh, yes, I’m sorry! Can’t have my daughter catching her death! My lovely daughter sent by God!’
    He came up to the workbench and stood next to her, swaying slightly.
    ‘Papa, have you been drinking again? I hope you’ve locked up the shop.’
    ‘What? The shop? Yes, yes, I’ve locked it! Locked it securely! Locked it up tight as a drum!’
    ‘Perhaps we’d better go into the house. I was going to give you mutton for your dinner, with boiled potatoes and carrots. But you can have bread and cheese if you’d rather.’
    She started to rise off her stool, but Clement laid his hand on her shoulder and gently pushed her back down.
    ‘What are you doing?’ he asked her. He frowned at the long rope of dry white paste that she had rolled out on to a blue Delft tile, ready for cutting up.
    ‘I’m making those carminative pills you asked me for. You said they were urgent, because you’d run out of stock.’
    Clement leaned forward and sniffed. ‘Ah, yes. Peppermint and fennel and anise, guaranteed to settle the stormiest of stomachs. Good girl. Blessedly good girl. But you can stop for now.’
    ‘I thought you needed them in a hurry.’
    He tilted his head from side to side as if he had a stiff