The Poisonous Seed Read Free

rose from his bed, he was frail and stooped, while his mind was afflicted with a melancholy from which she feared he might never recover. Since the death of her mother, an event Frances did not recall as it had occurred when she was only three, all William Doughty’s hopes for the future had rested on his son, and nothing a daughter could do was of any consolation. Frederick’s clothes were still in the wardrobe, and despite Frances’ pleas, William would not consent to them being given to charity. Often, she found him gazing helplessly at the stored garments and once she had found him clutching the sleeve of a suit to his face, tears falling copiously down his cheeks. Only once before her brother’s death had she seen her father weep. She had been ten years old, and had asked many times to be taken to her mother’s grave to lay some flowers. After many weary refusals he had relented, and on a bleak winter day took her to the cemetery where she saw a small grave marker, hardly big enough to be a headstone, bearing simply the words ‘Rosetta Jane Doughty 1864’. To her horror, her father had fallen to his knees beside the stone and wept. When he had dried his eyes they went home, and she had never mentioned the matter to him again.
    It was Frederick who had talked to her about their mother. ‘We had such jokes and merriment!’ he would say, eyes shining. ‘Sometimes we played at being lords and ladies at a grand ball, and danced until we almost fell down, we were laughing so much.’ Then he took his little sister by the hand, and whirled her about the room until William came in to see what all the noise was, and suggested that they would be better employed at their lessons.
    In the December that followed Frederick’s death, William had once again assumed his duties in the shop. In truth, he was there only as the nominal qualified pharmacist. His professional knowledge was intact, but his hands were weaker than they had been, with a slight tremor. The work of preparing material for the stock of tinctures and extracts fell largely to Herbert and Frances. In the stockroom at the back of the main shop there was a workbench where the careful grinding, sifting and drying of raw materials was carried out, the mixing and filtering of syrups and assembling the layers of the conical percolator pot. Although William observed the work, he seemed unaware that by unspoken agreement, Herbert and Frances were also watching him. He had confined himself to making simple mixtures from stock and filling chip boxes with already prepared pills. The sprawling writing in the book recording Garton’s prescription had been his. Behind the counter it was usually Frances’ nimble fingers which would wrap and seal the packages so William could hand them to customers with a smile. It was the only moment when he looked like his old self.
    Gazing at her sleeping father, Frances noticed, with a tinge of concern, the small ribbed poison bottle by his bedside, which contained an ounce of chloroform. He had taken to easing himself to sleep by sprinkling a few drops on a handkerchief and draping it over his face, declaring, when Frances expressed her anxiety, that if it had benefited the Queen it could scarcely do him any harm.
    She closed the door softly and returned to the parlour. ‘Sarah, I don’t know if you have heard about Mr Garton.’
    ‘I have, Miss,’ she said grimly. ‘I had it off Dr Collin’s maid. I don’t want to upset you, but they’re saying terrible lies about Mr Doughty.’
    ‘I know,’ said Frances with a sigh.
    ‘I’ve heard that it’s Mrs Garton herself, who’s accused him. Well I’ve said that the poor lady is so beside herself she doesn’t know what to think.’
    Frances sometimes wondered if the servants of Bayswater had their own invisible telegraphy system, since it seemed that once any one of them knew something, so the rest of them instantly knew it too. ‘My father mustn’t be troubled with this,’