Chapter Twenty-Six
The outside of My Lady’s Apothecary was simple wood.
The only grandiose thing about it was the elaborate lettering of the name on the placard above the door.
The hinges squeaked when she stepped in and a bell tinkled above her head.
There was a table to her right with sparse wares, and a chair to her left that resembled something akin to a throne.
On it reclined an older woman in exquisite clothing whose face was all the more beautiful because of her icy disdain. She was not warm or welcoming, but her attitude made Janelle want to duck her head in deference to the higher title. Such had been ingrained in her from the beginning.
“My lady?” she inquired, wondering if this might indeed be the “lady” of My Lady’s Apothecary.
The woman smiled by slow degrees, her teeth revealed in tiny bits while triumph burned in her expression.
Ah. She was not a titled lady. Only the social climbers showed such delight when someone mistakenly used the honorific. Janelle lifted her chin and straightened her knees. She need not bow before this woman.
The woman’s eyes cooled, seeing the change. “So you don’t know who I am.” A statement, not a question.
“I was sent to speak with the Chinese chemist.” She’d learned that much at least. Gossip that had finally filtered to her ears from Nanny as Janelle had laid in a laudanum daze. The owner of the apothecary was none other than the Chinese princess Yihui, now engaged to the future Duke of Fernbury.
“And so you shall. If I allow it.” She regally inclined her head. “You may call me The Lady.”
Well, that was certainly grandiose. Janelle reframed from rolling her eyes. It was clear if she wanted to talk to the Chinese princess, she had to go through this woman. So she spread her hands and smiled.
“What do you want?”
“So much,” The Lady responded. “But let us begin with what you want.” She rose slowly from her chair, every moment graceful in the most sensuous way. She was a seducer of men, that was for sure, but what did she want from Janelle? “You are a midwife, but what do you know of potions?”
“Enough to say that none help against childbed fever.”
The Lady arched her brow, as if that were of little interest to her. “Anything else?”
“Like what?”
She waved her hand. “Love potions, creams to make the skin glow, sleeping draughts, poisons.”
“Is that what is sold here?”
“Of course. And any other posset you might desire.” She leaned forward until Janelle could smell the spice of her perfume. “So why does she need you?”
Another time, Janelle would have listed her skills. If she weren’t still in pain, she might have offered to create a draught to prove she had some knowledge. Today was not that day.
“I can see that this will not work.” She sketched the barest of curtsys. “I bid you good day.”
“Truly? You want to leave this?” the woman said.
She pushed open a door in a wall that Janelle had thought was hard wood.
Beyond it was a stillroom that caught her breath.
Shelves were full of ingredients, all labeled in a shaky hand.
There was dust on the top jars, cobwebs in the corners, but nothing could diminish the sheer possibility in the room.
And better yet, there were two books, one left open to a recipe.
Janelle moved forward slowly. She wanted to inspect every aspect of the room, but the books were what drew her the most. She touched the heavy tomes, seeing that they were generations old, handed down from mother to daughter, healer to apprentice.
She had seen other such books, none this old.
Mrs. Sundy had one that recorded all her recipes for healing draughts.
Janelle had one as well, much smaller than these, and every page was copied from Mrs. Sundy.
None of her experiments had yielded steady results.
But these books would give her a place to start.
They would show her things that others had tried before her.
Her hands were shaking as she turned page after page.
It would take time for her to decipher the words.
The language appeared to be French or Italian, perhaps.
Janelle had never been good with languages.
But the newest pages had scribbles in English and in Chinese.
She was on her fifth page, her breath suspended as she tried to understand, when the woman slammed the book closed fast enough to catch Janelle’s fingers. Janelle cried out, not from the pain, but from the possible harm to the book. Didn’t this “lady” know how fragile some of the pages were?
“Be careful!” Janelle snapped. “They could tear!”
“Would you like to know what they say? In English?”
No point in denying it. “Yes.”
“Would you like to study here? Learn from the woman who wrote them?” She leaned forward, her voice dropped to a throaty purr. “Learn the secrets from the Orient, perhaps?”
“Yes!”
“And what would you give up to remain here and learn?”
Everything, but she knew better than to say it.
Instead, she looked pointedly about the room.
It was clean with a decent amount of jars and the scent of strong tea, but there weren’t any customers out front.
It was hard to believe that the sensation of the Chinese princess had already faded.
More likely, the lady had lost interest or was occupied with wedding plans.
Either way, there was no one here who could teach her. At least not right now.
“The owner of the apothecary is not here,” she said. “You have nothing to offer me.”
The lady sniffed. “Madame Illie is here.”
“Who is Madame Illie?” She’d heard the name before, perhaps. An old woman who hid in the back of a different apothecary shop. One run by a patronizing man. What was she doing here?
“She is right through there.”
Janelle turned, annoyed with herself for not seeing the doorknob before now.
It was on the far side of the room, and she quickly turned the handle only to gasp in surprise.
She had expected a dark room on the opposite side.
Perhaps a dimly lit fire with an old woman shivering next to the coals.
Instead, she walked out into what was supposed to be an open courtyard.
Instead, it was a massive garden—at least massive for London—complete with a narrow stone path that led to a central bench where an old woman sat with her face lifted to the sun.
She wasn’t asleep because she turned the moment Janelle stepped through.
Her hands and dress were dirty from working the garden, though it was hard to tell on a black gown.
And her smile was warm beneath her bright brown eyes.
Only the streak of gray from her left temple betrayed her age and the tremors as her head bobbed in an uneven tempo.
Janelle wasted no time as she moved along the path to greet the woman. “Madame Illie? I am Janelle Caddick, a midwife. I should very much like to speak with you.”
Madame Ille smiled, nodding her head in acknowledgement. “Will you tend while we speak?” she asked, her voice strong enough to hear, but long since its prime.
“I will happily do as you instruct,” she answered as she looked about her. “I have little knowledge of my own on how to tend a garden as magnificent as this.”
The woman shrugged then waved Janelle off. “There are others who will be my hands here, then.”
Janelle looked around. There was a slender woman in the shadows carrying a bucket of water. She carefully scooped water and dripped it along the farthest edge of the garden. Janelle narrowed her eyes to look closer. Perhaps the woman was Chinese, but she couldn’t really tell.
“Is that Miss Wong? The Chinese princess?”
Madame Illie chuckled. “Yihui has been called away. Preparations for her wedding occupy her time. But she will be back soon. Wild horses would not keep that woman away.”
A moment later, the unknown woman disappeared.
That left them alone except for The Lady who watched from the doorway and Madame Illie who ambled slowly along the path, keeping her skirts from damaging young shoots.
And when Janelle looked at her, Mme Illie spread her arms and lifted her powdered face to the sun.
“The Lady owns all of this,” she said. “We rent this space, and Yihui brought me here to tend it.” She waved absently at tiny windows above the store that indicated rooms. A few looked lived in, some were obviously empty. “We have rooms above for those who need it.”
“Patients?” Janelle asked.
“Sometimes,” The Lady answered as she stepped into the garden. “Mostly ladies from the Rose Garden who need a rest. They come here and garden for Madame Illie. They mix her potions too because her hands are so unsteady.”
So that was the problem. Madam Illie needed help to set all that was possible here to rights.
And The Lady needed someone—a young someone—to create inventory.
And maybe bring in customers. It was likely that the Chinese princess brought in attention and possible customers, but she had other duties.
No person had enough time to be a duchess and an effective apothecary. There weren’t enough hours in a day.
“You could have a room upstairs,” The Lady continued. “One for you, another for deliveries.”
It took her a moment to realize she meant delivering babies, not packages of linens or the like.
The Lady smiled at her, the expression oily. “Think of things you could learn here. Think of women who could deliver safely thanks to your able hands.”
She didn’t want to consider it. This woman, whomever she was, likely took her due in all sorts of uncomfortable ways.
If Janelle had to guess, The Lady would expect free services, a portion of all sales, and a bit of worship every time she wandered through, disrupting things.
And yet, the possibilities were hard to deny.
There was unused space here. Such space! “What is done here now?”