Chapter 3 #2
Gwen walked her to the door. The sky was already miserably dark and gloomy, with heavy clouds hanging over the rooftops almost as low as the fog that rose from the cobbles – so that there was barely three feet of clarity in between.
Miss Rosewood paid the weather no mind and walked off with a jaunty step.
Feeling no such merriness, Gwen returned to the kitchen and flopped onto her chair, quite overcome with astonishment.
The small bottle was still on the table.
Her back ached a little and she was starting to suspect she was approaching the change in life that women so covertly spoke of.
A little relief from that would be welcome.
She reached for the bottle, then drew her hand back.
No. It was a foolish, dangerous idea. She’d attempt to replicate the accident for Miss Rosewood, but she wasn’t going to be tempted into trying it herself.
Still, she’d better keep the bottle out of sight.
It wouldn’t do for Archibald to come across it.
She slipped it into her pocket and set about preparing dinner.
That evening, Archibald sat beside the fire playing chess against himself. Somehow, he seemed to have come up against a checkmate he wasn’t expecting, and he scowled at the board. The fire was dying down and the room was gloomy.
‘Shall I fetch you a second candle?’ Gwen asked.
‘No. Waste of money for very little improvement. Blast these cataracts!’
At least he no longer pretended his eyes weren’t at fault, unlike the early days when he had blamed everything from the sunlight that was too dim to the spots on the playing cards he failed to distinguish.
‘It will be very welcome when I can see properly again. For you, too, no doubt,’ he continued.
‘For me?’ Gwen asked carefully.
He put a bishop down. ‘When you no longer have to carry out any of my tasks. You’ll be able to go back to your housework and simply serving customers. Won’t that be nice?’
Gwen was glad that Archibald’s failing eyes could not see how false her smile was.
She was not sure at all that going back to her former life would be welcome.
Despite the terrible moment when Miss Rosewood had revealed her error, she was rather enjoying being a pharmacist. Miss Rosewood’s admiration had boosted her confidence, too.
She pressed her fingers against her temples. The dull throbbing suggested an approaching headache, which she could really do without. Her hand strayed to the pocket in her skirt where the small bottle nestled. Almost without consciously deciding, she stood.
‘I’m going up to Archie’s room to put away some things,’ she muttered. Archibald nodded distractedly. She didn’t think he had been listening, but he raised his head.
‘I wish you would not call it that,’ he snapped. ‘It hasn’t been his room for a number of years now.’
‘I know, but old habits die hard,’ Gwen replied. ‘Go to bed when you’re tired and don’t wait for me to come down.’
She went up to the attic room, taking with her the small bottle and a glass of water.
It had been Archie’s bedroom from childhood until he had joined the British merchant navy at sixteen.
His keen eye for numbers and excellent reading skills had seen him promoted, but for a secretary, Archie was poor at communicating with his parents and wrote far too infrequently for her liking. She missed him.
Since he had left home, the attic was used as a space for Gwen’s sewing machine and storage of the detritus of twenty years.
Caught by a whiff of nostalgia, she sat in the rocking chair beside the now unused bed.
She closed her eyes, remembering the weight of Archie on her lap and missing the unconditional love of a child.
She drew the bottle out and regarded it with suspicion. It hadn’t been her intention to create something new, but her interest was piqued. Before she could change her mind, she poured the dose into the glass and drank it down quickly.
Now there was no turning back.
She began searching through boxes to distract herself from waiting to see if there would be any effect.
In an old chest that had come with her from Wales, she found an old, leatherbound book that had belonged to her grandmother, and her mind tumbled back over the years until she could almost taste the salted air of her home beside the sea.
As a child, Gwen had loved reading the handwritten recipes and remedies, with lists of ingredients that sounded like poetry.
She had half a dozen of them on hand in the kitchen, and many of the ingredients featured in some of the modern medicines the pharmacy made.
Peppermint oil, nutmeg and cloves. Liquorice root and raspberry leaves.
She bit her lip, recalling the more unorthodox purpose of some of Nain Bevan’s mixtures that Archibald, or society at large, would never condone.
She put the book on the bed, planning to study it in greater depth when she had the time.
When the effect started, it felt like being stroked between the eyes with an ice-cold feather.
She felt a little nauseous at first but soon that passed and she was enveloped by a pleasant feeling of lethargy.
There was no sudden burst of creativity, much to her disappointment, but perhaps one needed to do something creative to be so inspired?
Miss Rosewood played the piano and Mr Rosewood painted, but all Gwen did was serve customers and keep the house.
There were worse things to do than be a wife, she knew, but it was a drab life.
If she could do anything, what would it be?
She would quite like a business of her own.
She glanced at the bed, which was made up with a sheet and blanket and her entire body felt heavy with longing.
She was the mother of an adult son who did not need her.
Who had never come home from that long voyage across the sea.
What an exciting life Archie must be living that he had no time even to write to his parents. She lay on the bed and closed her eyes, recalling the letters he had sent at the start of his employment, the descriptions of a world so unlike the London she lived in now, and the Wales she’d grown up in.
‘That’s what I shall do,’ she murmured, raising her hands aloft as if feeling the breeze. ‘I shall take a ship and find new worlds. Archie, shall I come to you?’
There was a tap on the door bringing Gwen down to earth. The door opened and Archibald walked in. He was in his nightgown and his feet were bare.
‘Gwen, what are you doing?’
She brought her hands down quickly and sat up, feeling as guilty as a child caught with its hands in the biscuit jar.
‘I’m reminiscing,’ she said, hoping that her voice sounded clear and decisive.
Archibald looked around. ‘We should rent out this room. It’s a good size and we could do with the money.’
Gwen felt a motherly stab in the heart at the suggestion, exacerbated no doubt by the effects of the tincture. She put her hands to her chest to stop the painful fluttering. ‘Archie may need it again. He’s sure to come back and visit before too long.’
Archibald gripped her hand tightly. ‘Gwen, come to bed. It’s late and I worry about you. All this work you’ve had to do must be tiring. You’re not accustomed to anything too taxing.’
‘Archibald Walters, I am not taxed in the slightest,’ Gwen said indignantly. ‘I enjoy it. Truthfully.’
She was starting to feel tired, though. The tincture was clearly working as intended because her limbs were starting to feel a little heavier.
A little easier. She yawned. The euphoria was starting to wear off, but it had been rather wonderful.
She understood perfectly why Miss Rosewood wanted to feel it again.
‘Yes, I suppose it is time for bed.’ She put her hand in Archibald’s and let him pull her upright. In the soft candlelight, she caught a glimpse of the man she’d fallen in love with years ago, and felt a quick pulsing between her legs that rarely came upon her these days.
‘Do you remember where we met?’ she murmured. ‘The Great Exhibition in London. I wanted to see the elephant and my father wanted to stay looking at the microscopes. You offered to escort me. Just imagine, we might never have met if you had walked into the hall five minutes later.’
‘Yes, I remember,’ Archibald said, sounding a little puzzled.
‘I remember the dancing, too,’ Gwen murmured.
The sleeve of Archibald’s nightshirt was loose, and she slid her hand inside the striped cotton to stroke his inner wrist. He drew his breath in sharply.
Audible proof of the effect she was having upon him.
The slight throbbing between her legs intensified, and for the first time in longer than she could recall, she wanted the closeness they had shared in their early days.
Archibald was always the one who initiated the conjugal act, but tonight she felt daring.
Could she rekindle some of the dying embers of affection?
‘Let’s go to bed.’ She leant into him and whispered in a husky voice, ‘Just not straight to sleep.’
‘Mrs Walters!’ Archibald’s voice caught in his throat and he stepped back. ‘I am exceptionally tired. I think I shall retire. Don’t be too long in coming to bed, but please tread softly so you don’t wake me.’