Chapter 13 #2
‘What’s happened with you today?’ Augusta asked as soon as Gwen entered the upstairs room.
‘Nothing,’ Gwen answered innocently. ‘Why?’
Augusta walked around the table and put a finger on Gwen’s cheek. ‘You look like a woman today, if you don’t mind me saying so. Has your husband found renewed vigour as his eyesight has failed?’
‘Augusta!’ Gwen’s cheeks burned.
Augusta laughed. ‘It’s nothing to be ashamed of if he has. In fact you should be thankful. At our age we don’t often get the opportunity for a bit of gratification.’
‘I haven’t been having any gratification,’ Gwen retorted, bristling slightly at ‘our age’ when Augusta was at least a decade older by her estimate.
Augusta rolled her eyes so dramatically that she would have suited the stage. ‘My dear Mrs Walters, you say that proudly. My heart bleeds for you.’
‘Well, it shouldn’t,’ Gwen snapped. Ordinarily she would never speak to anyone in that tone, much less Augusta, who was intimidating like no other woman Gwen had met, but her recent meeting with Daniel had made her feel hot in ways she wasn’t comfortable – or familiar – with.
Augusta gave another smile, this one with a hint of supercilious pity. ‘I’m sure your husband’s hands work, even if he can’t see you.’
‘That’s none of your business!’ Gwen said hotly.
‘Now what have you brought for me?’ Augusta clapped her hands together then rubbed them vigorously.
‘Four bottles,’ Gwen said, unearthing them from her basket and placing them on the desk.
Augusta’s lips tightened. ‘Only four?’
‘Four is what we agreed. They’re big enough each for ten doses. Remember that I am producing this in my kitchen without my husband’s knowledge. He’s already asked why the house still smells of the … ingredients, now that Christmas has passed.’
She caught herself before naming them, but Augusta’s eyes glinted all the same and Gwen cursed her free tongue. Still, there were many flavours and scents associated with Christmas.
‘Oranges are not always easy to come by,’ she grumbled, hoping to at least lead Augusta down another path.
‘I suppose you and Miss Rosewood kept some measures to sell yourselves, of course.’
‘That was always our arrangement, and I did not use any of the opium you provided for them. If you don’t like that, then of course we could renegotiate,’ Gwen said.
Augusta raised her brows and Gwen’s heartbeat began to jump around.
The floorboards outside creaked and she wondered if Wolf or his companion had taken position on the stool.
Gwen had a sudden creeping sense that antagonising Augusta would not be wise, especially as she was alone and in a place no one would suspect her to be, except Jenny.
If anything happened to her, who would come to her aid?
The last person she had spoken to had been Danny, but he was only staying in London for a few weeks and no one knew their connection.
‘I would like to be able to produce more for both of us,’ she said in a conciliatory voice.
‘I’m glad you feel that way, Mrs Walters, because I have been thinking about production, too.
You and Miss Rosewood might be content making pin money for a few bottles, but I know that one must always move forward.
Think of the opium dens of Limehouse. Men like my husband are raking in profits with little effort on their part.
Imagine your product supplying an establishment with the potential to sell ten times what you could sell to my customers who fancy a change from gin. ’
‘There is an opium den here?’ Gwen said, looking past Augusta to the window.
The area wasn’t the nicest, but she couldn’t imagine anything like the sordid opium dens she had read about in popular literature.
It struck her for the first time that Danny had mentioned an interest in the area, and she now wondered what it could possibly be.
Augusta crossed to stand beside her, standing so close that Gwen drew her elbows in. Augusta looked down at the alley. ‘My husband would laugh in my face if he thought this was the best I could aspire to. No. I own another property.’
Gwen gave her a sidelong look. ‘Do you care what he thinks, now that you are separated from him?’
Augusta looked around at Gwen. ‘I do not care what he thinks, as such – but it gives me satisfaction to know he has not seen me drown in helplessness without his protection.’ Her eyes were again smudged with kohl, and they blazed with memories Gwen couldn’t even begin to imagine.
Augusta’s lips twitched. ‘One must always seek to move forward. You have placed your step on the first rung of a ladder that so few women even reach for. Are you brave enough to climb higher?’
Gwen swallowed. ‘I don’t know. I think I would like to.’
‘Good. There is a small room here that I don’t use for anything.
You could use it as your kitchen. I will provide you with the opium and cocaine.
I can see that you guard the recipe and certain ingredients close to your breast, so you may bring whatever else you need.
Produce it here and then you may take away your portion. Does that sound fair?’
Surprisingly so, Gwen thought.
‘I’ll need to speak to Miss Rosewood. It’s not a decision I can make on my own,’ she said. For one thing, if she was going to work in the lion’s den itself, she would like Jenny to accompany her for safety.
‘Of course. I would not dream of asking you to make such a decision without your partner. But speak to her soon. Remember, that rung is waiting for your foot.’
Archibald was waiting for Gwen in the pharmacy when she arrived home. The sign on the door was turned to closed, and the blinds were pulled down over the windows. Gwen dropped her basket and rushed towards him.
‘Archibald, what’s wrong?’
‘Rosewood knows!’ he shouted as soon as the door had closed behind her.
‘Knows what?’ Gwen tensed. Surely, no one could have found out about the visit to Augusta and the plan so quickly?
‘Knows about my eyesight!’ Archibald stormed towards her, forcefully gesturing at his eyes with his forefinger.
‘He came visiting. Apparently, his blasted niece has been gallivanting off with you, even though I told you not to keep her company! He thought he’d pay me a visit and caught me unawares, using a magnifying glass to read the order book! ’
‘I wasn’t with Miss Rosewood this morning,’ Gwen said, flustered by too many pieces of information landing with such vicious rapidity, and too late, realising she couldn’t explain her absence.
‘You shouldn’t have been anywhere except at my side! What do you say to that?’
‘I say that I was out shopping,’ Gwen snapped.
‘We’re trying to economise, and I’ve been walking – walking to save money, please note – further afield.
’ She pulled out an apple and waved it at him, feeling the need to prove it.
Archibald raised his hand, and for one awful moment Gwen believed he was about to strike her.
She flinched but he merely batted the apple from her hand, then lifted his chin and eyed her coldly.