Her father did not remember falling from old Mrs Toomey’ s roof, which he and Jimmy Dunlop had been r epairing for winter . ‘One moment he had hammer in hand, and then I was looking down to see him upon the cobblestones,’ Jimmy recounted. ‘So much blood that you’d have thought someone had cut the throat of a goat.’ Insensible, but a pulse, so not dead, Caroline ascertained, but perhaps soon. Mama sent for Doctor Arnold, the surgeon, who made fair work of stitching up the wound. The skull itself was broken, the brain likely bruised. He set the arm where the wrist was fractured, and removed two teeth shattered in the fall. ‘It will be a marvel if he survives,’ he said. Caroline and Mama strapped his ribs with comfrey leaves. Complete rest and quiet were prescribed. Caroline measured a tincture of opium, mixing it with honey, placing it on her father’s tongue when he began to twitch and rouse. Sometimes he wailed in pain and other times in anguish, railing against some inner force of dream or memory . They strapped his arms to the bedsides to prevent him further injuring himself. That had been May . By S eptember, he was still in bed, the shining braid of scar across his brow giving him the look of a brigand. His clear, brown-eye d gaze was clouded, his vision blurred so that he mistook them one for another. They laid iced washcloths over his eyes to ease the vicious sparkles, as he called them. The drapes were k ept drawn. They trod softly and whispered in the hallway so as not to disturb him. When he could venture from the bedroom, he did so with a cane, his other hand stretched out before him, for all things appeared in duplicate. Sometimes he fell down in a fit and Mama had to place a wooden spoon between his teeth to prevent him from biting his tongue. Afterwards he had no recollection of the event. The man who had been the source of so much merriment had become a restless, irascible, unpredictable creature.
They tried to soften his world with love and kindness. Esther made hot wine with herbs at night and, in the morning, warm bread which they served him with butter and the citrus marmalade he loved. Every day Caroline offered to read to him. Sometimes they made their way through a poem or a few pages before he sighed. ‘ C’est suffisant. Merci, ma chérie . There comes a lightning storm in my head.’ When the fits receded and he was able to cross the garden to the greenhouse, navigating the pathways tired and frustrated him. The smallest inconvenience could provoke rage. After one event, which their mother refused to discuss, all knives and razors were removed from his reach and k ept in a locked cabinet. Caroline’ s and Augusta’ s schooling was interrupted, but Caroline was relieved to be free of the classroom and Miss Pinkerton’ s lectures on catechism and morality , the singing of hymns, the mastering of piano scales and the painting of flowers. Singing and piano and painting were Augusta’ s talents. She had friends amongst her fellow students, while Caroline preferred the seclusion of a book to the incessant conversations of girls. She would have liked to discuss literature and plants, astronomy and animals, but her fellow students had no interest, laughing at her passion for such things. It had quickly become evident to Miss Pinkerton that Caroline would be most useful teaching French. But beyond basic vocabulary and a few useful phrases, the girls, whose fathers were in banking and trade, were mostly indifferent. Caroline embarked on a translation of Les Liaisons danger euses , in an effort to revive their seemingly numbed imaginations, and found the girls enraptured. Miss Pinkerton, learning of this, was scandalised and r eprimanded Caroline severely . Once Papa could be left in the capable care of Esther, Hannah began opening the shop each morning. Having assisted her own father in Edinbur gh and Jacques-Louis in the establishment and running of the London apothecary , the work was familiar and the money necessary . At night, she showed Caroline the ledgers, teaching her the accounting of the various streams of income and expenditure. It interested Caroline, this work with numbers. Caroline k ept the inventory , made the salves and tinctures her father had taught her, ground the herbs, ordered supplies and ran errands while
listening attentiv ely to those who came seeking her mother’s assistance. She wrote labels in Latin: Isobeliae sulpatis , Tincturae jala ep. Midwives, herbalists and healers continued to make their purchases despite Papa’s absence, but the flow of men, including medical men who comprised a great deal of their business, dwindled. Enquiries were made as to Papa’s health, and the answer Caroline and Mama gave was always the same. ‘He is improving, thank you. We trust he will be returned to his work before long.’ Caroline had four years of her father’s training, but she was young and a woman. She knew it was easy for clients to doubt her knowledge. The year before, a pharmacist nearby had poisoned twenty-five people when he dispatched arsenic rather than daft, the powdered limestone cheaper establishments used to extend the mixture for boiled sweets. Papa had been furious when he heard of it. ‘ L’idiot! L’idiot! ’ he had declared. ‘How will people trust us?’ He had reminded Caroline of the responsibilities of correct labelling and the checking and rechecking of ingredients. ‘ Oui , Papa, poisonous powders in green glass bottles, liquids in pink. Ne t’inquiète pas. T u m’as bien appris ça .’ The balances on the ledgers declined. Caroline heard her mother discussing their household expenses with Esther. Casseroles became soups; soups became broth. Tea-leaves were reused again and again. Tante Henriette arrived with four plump chickens to add to the henhouse in the garden. A hamper of tea and Scottish shortbread arrived, along with a box of oranges and another of pears, two pounds of butter, almonds, dried dates and figs. Esther and Augusta baked a tart with the butter and pears. Augusta made several loaves with the dates and bottled the figs in syrup. Chickens reluctant to lay made their way into the pot or roasting tray and afterwards the bones were used for soup. Jacques-Louis’ black curls turned grey at the temples. There was grey in his whiskers, and shadows beneath his eyes. Then his walking began. At first it was only in the afternoons that he longed to be free of the house. Caroline accompanied him. But once he could walk without the cane, he preferred to go alone, wearing his wide-brimmed black hat to disguise the wound across his brow. Then he began to walk out in the
evenings and he did not always return. Mama went in search of him, hearing from this person or that in what direction the Frenchman, the apothecary , had gone. He was well known in that part of London. She alerted neighbours and friends, and sometimes they were able to find him wandering the streets and guide him back to the house. Then he began staying away for days, returning lean and hungry, the soles on his boots worn down, his coat and hat wet from rain, unable to say where he had been. When he saw their faces, he seized each of them and w ept, declaring how pleased he was to have found them. Some nights he burst in on Caroline and Augusta as they sl ept, pleading with them to turn down the moon for it was singing too loudly. Another time he urged them to come now, in their bedclothes, to see the tide turn on the Thames, for the waters flowing in were from the very centre of the globe. Mama led him away, saying, ‘Back to bed now, my love, and you too my darling girls, and don’ t mind your father . He is not well.’ He had known the things that intrigued Caroline’ s mind and soothed her soul. He knew which book would engage her, what fact would pique her interest, what story would make her laugh. He understood her love of polished boots and had always taken particular care to ensure they awaited her each morning, long after she was old enough to polish them herself. He had taught her to see and smell and taste the world, to look with kindness upon beauty and hardship in all its manifestations, to respect its rhythms and be patient with its particularities. ‘You are at the heart of all you create,’ he had said to her. ‘Which means you are immens e, but also very small, if we can allow those two notions to live side by side.’ Where was that man now? Was he still inside this person who resembled her father? Or had he d eparted, leaving this other man in his place? It was almost a year before Jacques-Louis stood at the counter again, consulting on an ulcer, a fever, the cleaning of rust from a lock, a tincture for sle eplessness . The man sitting on a stool measuring powders or sweets was a shade, a brittle semblance of the ebullient Jacques-Louis. Caroline discreetly corrected remedies he had assigned to certain disorders, remeasured quantities and amended entries in the notes and accounts. The ring of the bell above the door, the breaking of a bottle, a crying child,
horses on the cobblestones, all these things might agitate, disorientate and sometimes enrage her father . Despair brought him low for days at a time. At home he could not find the things he needed. He left books and clothes about the house. Sometimes he was excitable and energetic, other times he w ept with frustration. And then Caroline noticed the tremor in her mother’s hand. The stumble in her foot. ‘Mother , is something wrong?’ she asked. ‘Nothing to worry about, my love,’ her mother r eplied. ‘It will pass.’
Jacques-Louis was convinced he could find a cure. He searched through volume after volume upon his shelves and sought the opinions of numerous doctors and colleagues on Mama’s decline, but nothing—no tonic, potion, powder , not even the despised leeches—restored her . Within half a year, it was Mama who must walk with a stick. Who could not rise from a chair without assistance. Who tired if she attempted the simplest task. Whose hands could no longer hold a spoon. Caroline held her mother’s limbs and moved them for her, a strange in voluntary dance that seemed to soothe. She rubbed her mother’s feet with lavender oil. They smiled at the strangeness of the child who must care for the parent as the parent once cared for the child. ‘I wish you could be well again, Mama,’ Caroline said to her . ‘See the blackbird on the branch out the window there?’ her mother asked. ‘I grow jealous that it can feel the sunshine. That it can fly.’ She insisted the curtains were never drawn so she might see clouds, the sky, and the moon and stars at night. ‘We will try to move you outside on the next warm day ,’ Caroline said. Jacques-Louis resumed disappearing into the night and returnin g days later. Such episodes frightened Caroline so much that she begged him to do all he could to remain in the house. Her mother suggested adding a sle eping powder to his evening tea. Caroline did so and was relieved to find her father at home the following morning. ‘I would have loved to see you full grown and married, Mousie, and your sister , too,’ Mama said. ‘But the good Lord knows what’ s best.’ It had seemed so natural to find her mother pr eparing a meal in the kitchen with Esther, mending and sewing, working late into the night when there was a surfeit of berries to preserve, or vegetables to pr epare for bottling. Always ready to teach Caroline or Augusta a new skill, or note their achievements. Keen for them to carry themselves as young ladies and
make their parents proud. Her mother loved fresh flowers for the vases and candles lit for the dinner table. She wanted to listen to the news of the day, to upsets and irritations, offering reassurance, sagacity or a mischievous dose of humour . Caroline saw that her father had urged her to grow wings, but her mother had reminded her that there was a soft place to fall. ‘How will I settle Papa when he gets into his moods, Mama?’ she asked. ‘What will I do if he wanders and I cannot find him? What will happen to the shop?’ ‘At heart you’re Scots, Mousie, and don’t forget it,’ her mother r eplied. ‘You have your father’s mind, but you have a fair streak of your mother’s determination, too. You’re tough, my love, tougher than you know. Hold on to that.’ ‘I can’t do without you,’ Caroline said. Mama patted her hand. Her eyes were closed, her body so small in the bed. ‘There will be an end to earthly cares for us all,’ she said softly. ‘But first you must live your life, my Caroline.’ Some years before, Caroline had concluded that she could bear her mother’s Presbyterian church, with its hard pews and resolute liturgy, no longer. She knew it was a grave disappointment to her mother, but Papa said it was a choice Caroline had the intelligence to make for herself. Papa was an atheist, he had told Caroline, when she had shared her misgivings. ‘I have ruminated often on the nature of the soul,’ he said, ‘for I have seen too much of death not to.’ He thought that humans were no different from the celestial bodies in the sky. The sun breathed, the stars, too. Air was the source of all life. Life was breath. When the time came for degeneration, the illumination of the body faded and the breath ceased. ‘If there is a soul that carries us beyond death,’ Papa said, ‘I do not need a religion to attest to it. It is the mystery of life, and being a mystery it is, by its very nature, inexplicable and unknowable.’ After she stopped attending her mother’s church, Tante Henriette had invited Caroline to a discreet private chapel in Piccadilly where other French Catholic s worshipped. Mama had encouraged her, saying it was better to be a papist than to have no faith at all. Caroline liked the incense and chanting. Her eyes lingered on the rich carpets, the shimmering gold and green embroidery on the vestments of the priest. She observed the altar arrayed with a gold chalice, the elaborate candlesticks and tall slender
candles. She stared at the blood dripping from the wounds of Jesus on the cross behind the altar . In a painting, she saw him healing the sick. During the long months of her mother’s illness, Caroline went daily to the chapel to light candles. On Sunday mornings she accompanied Augusta to the Presbyter ian church out of sisterly companionship, but on Sunday evenings she attended Catholic evening prayer and went to confession. She had words to say to the Lord. Each night, before they blew out the candles, Augusta read aloud a Psalm and insisted that she and Caroline pray . Their mother’s words became harder to understand. Her face became less mobile. No more the quick smile, the twinkling eyes. She could not bathe, dress or toilet herself. The shapely woman with her shining smile and generous nature became a frail, wilted thing, barely able to tolerate the removal of the bedpan. Frustration and limitations se eped into the dust motes. ‘Read to me,’ she said, and Caroline read aloud the poems her mother loved. ‘ Happiness is but a name, Make content and ease thy aim. Ambition is a meteor -gleam, Fame a r estless airy dr eam; Pleasur es, insects on the wing. Round Peace the tender est flower of spring; Those that sip the dew alone, Make the butterflies thy own; Those that would the bloom devour , Crush the locusts, save the flower . For the futur e be pr epared, Guard wher ever thou can’ st not shun; But thy utmost duly done, Welcome what thou can’ st not shun ... ’ The new curate, tall and vital with red hair and pale grey eyes, visited each week. He recited his words with a gentle passion. ‘Dearly beloved , know this, that Almighty God is the Lord of life and death. Know your sickness is God’s visitation. Whether it be to try your patience for the example of others, or else it be sent to correct or amend in
you whatsoever doth offend the eyes of your Heavenly Father, know that if you truly r epent of your sins ...’ What did the Lord know of her generous, affectionate mother? Caroline wanted to argue. How could she have offended in the eyes of the Lord? Her mother was kind to everyone she met and seldom found fault. She had nursed their father day and night after his fall and had borne patiently the nights when he did not come home. She had walked the midnight streets in search of him. She had borne the loss of dear baby Isobel at two years old. Caroline saw that her mother had submitted to her life, and for what profit? This harrowing disease? How dare this be God’s idea of her mother’s passage into everlasting life. Caroline ceased her church visits. She said to Augusta, ‘It is up to us, here in the world, to make what we can of all that is too big for us. Prayer may bring solace, but it is not initiative.’ Caroline held her mother’s hand. She could feel her mother’s pulse beating on, stronger than her frail body, a determined animal with its own habits. Breath, a pause, a pause, a pause, and then at last another rattling breath. When her life d eparted at last, all that remained of the woman she had been was a withered chalice, her cheeks and eyes and mouth having lost all her essence, becoming within minutes an aged yellow mask. Outside the city was solemn after the wind and rain that had harried the streets for days. Caroline and Augusta w ept. Esther, inconsolable, showed the priest to the door. The house settled into a void. ‘Mama is not Mama anymore,’ said Augusta. ‘No,’ said Caroline. ‘But she will always be with us.’ ‘Not when we choose our husbands or birth our babies. What is to become of us then?’ asked Augusta. ‘What if Papa is never well again and we must close the shop? How will we live?’ Caroline took Augusta in her arms and held her close. She had no answers. Death was incontestable. Papa had fallen asle ep with his head on the counterpane, still holding Mama’s hand. When he woke he regarded Caroline and Augusta sitting on the other side of the bed. He said, ‘We will go to Paris. It’s the most beautiful city in the world. Jacques-Louis will go home.’ Then he laid his cheek again beside his wife’s dead hand and sl ept once more.
Oh, heart, you are a fickle friend, Caroline thought. She wanted to write it down, to find some poem to hold this moment, but she was so tired. They washed Mama’s body, Caroline, Esther and Augusta, rubbing her skin with bergamot and rose oil. Caroline and Augusta chose a gown for her. They arranged her hair. They managed to pull on stockings and shoes, although the undertaking was not easy and they began to giggle. ‘She would want you to laugh,’ Papa said. ‘Perhaps in this very room, she is watching on and laughing, too.’ At the funeral, Caroline found it hard to remember people’ s names.
The night after the funeral, Caroline woke and tiptoed to the room where her mother had lain. The curtains were still open. Esther had stripped and remade the bed so that Papa might sle ep there again. She went in search of her father, expecting to find him sitting late in his study, but he was not there. In the hallway she saw that his hat was missing, along with his brass-topped cane that held a vial of whisky. He had gone walking. He was gone for a week. ‘I have made arrangements,’ he said when he returned at last, a beard darkening his face, his clothes dishevelled. His mood was strangely placid. ‘Your mother has counselled me, and the solution is clear .’ ‘Arrangements, Papa?’ Caroline asked. ‘Arrangements with Mama?’ ‘Yes, yes. It is all agreed. You and your sister are to live with Madame Murray . She has agreed to of fer you both lodgings. It is for the best.’ Mrs Murray had the guesthouse next door with a little Baptist chapel in the rear courtyard where once there had been a stable. People visiting London went there to pray. Her only child was a son the same age as Caroline, a boy who took pleasure in practical jokes as they were growing up. Mrs Murray found such antics amusing, telling the girls that it was just the way boys were, and if they had a brother they would know all about it. Caroline and Augusta had learned to be wary of him. Late in Mama’s illness, Mrs Murray had offered to sit beside her so Caroline or Augusta might sle ep after a long night of watchfulness. In the shops about, Caroline began to hear how good it was of Mrs Murray to be caring for their mother, what a help she must be to Caroline and Augusta and their poor af flicted father , hardly out of the sickbed himself. Mrs Murray had begun entering their house by the back laneway they shared, surprising Esther in the kitchen. Esther had harrumphed to Caroline about people taking liberties. Such incursions happened when Augusta or
Caroline had d eparted on an errand. When running an errand was still possible. Caroline had wondered if Mrs Murray watched to see who was arriving and leaving the house. ‘I know she wishes to be kind,’ Mama had said, ‘but she pure exhausts me.’ ‘Papa,’ Caroline had protested, ‘we do not need to live with Mrs Murray . Esther can ke ep house, and Augusta and I will assist you in the shop.’ ‘I have advised an agent,’ he said. ‘I am selling the house. I will use the funds to make investments. We will make enough to go back to France. Yes. Yes! We will return to Champag ne and I will make wine. I have been away too long. We have all been away too long.’ ‘Papa, no!’ Caroline said. ‘Please don’t do this. We will manage somehow . Mama would not have wanted this.’ ‘Dear Caroline, do you not think she is with me every moment? Mrs Murray has offered to find you both employment. I am assured that you and your sister will be cared for .’ ‘But, Papa, what of the apothecary? Our life is here. Do you mean to abandon us? What is to become of Esther?’ ‘Esther ...’ he said, looking about as if he had misplaced her. ‘Yes. Esther must go back to Scotland.’ ‘Papa, please—you are going too fast,’ she said. ‘Time is unknowable. Too fast, too slow. You do realise, do you not, that nothing is real? If I do not leave London my mind will unpeel.’ He laughed and clapped his hands. ‘It’s a rhyme. Ha! We must pack, Carolin e. Pack up! All these bowls and plates. Come, let us make a start. My books. I must pack my books.’ Caroline took his hand and guided him to a chair. ‘Sit, Papa,’ she said. ‘You are very tired, are you not?’ She wet a cloth and placed it upon his brow, stroking his head the way Mama used to, her heart a rock in her chest. ‘The lightning in my head ...’ he said. ‘You must pack everything away, Caroline.’ ‘Yes, Papa,’ she said. ‘But first, rest. Hush now , hush now ...’ The next morning he was gone.
In the garden where she had grown up, she had sensed that plants were not living only to be harvested. Something more animated them, a communion of knowledge. She didn’t understand it, but she had observed it. The sun shone from behind a cloud and the lavender released its fragrant oil. When she watered the p eppermint, it emanated perfume in delicious waves. It was as if the plants were paying attention, trying to tell her, through their language, that they were aware of everything about them. She was sure they grew and flowered and offered more fruit when she paid close attention. She had sat and read poetry to them and was certain they were listening. ‘Goodbye mint,’ Caroline said, as she farewelled them all. ‘Goodbye French lavender . Goodbye strawberries, raspberries and currants. Goodbye brassicas, fennel, spinach, lettuce, radishes, celeriac. Goodby e potatoes. Goodbye jasmine growing on the back wall.’ She had loved its night scent wafting into her bedroom window . ‘Goodbye venerable borage. Goodbye red rose, pink rose, yellow roses, too.’ She put her face into the grapevine, smelling its soft green scent, remembering her father ’s voice as he talked, passionate but also gentle. ‘I was seven for my first harvest,’ her father had said. ‘There were many vineyards and winemakers in the village, so the picking was the work of everyone. Of course, it was different when I returned as a young man. The Moët family had many workers in the fields and in the caves. Still, the method is much the same for growing table grapes or wine grapes. The same pruning and weeding and the mulching of the soil—but carefully , for the roots of the grape are close to the ground. ‘As the fruit ripens, you must watch for powdery mildew , black spot and mealy bugs. D epending on the variety, some grapes will remain green, or even turn golden when ripe, while others become red and purple and almost black. Each variety ripens at a slightly different time. You must wait for the moment of optimal sweetness.
‘All the vines of France and England date back to the Greeks and Romans. Back to vines that grew when there were kings in Egypt, to the time of Pan and Ishtar, the Babylonians and the Assyrians. When wine was first made, we do not know. But it seems to have come to Europe with the assistance of the Etruscans, who imported both wine and vines from the Phoenicians. They stored them in clay vessels, the colour of the clay denoting a particular region. The people knew where the wine had been made by those colours. Thousands of these amphorae were shipped across the Mediterranean in ancient times. ‘The making of wine,’ he had said, ‘is a particular skill. But the making of champagne requires energy and alchemy , and something more. A type of magic.’ She remembered him asking if, in her estimation, the plants preferred one poet over another . ‘Marlowe and Marvell, Papa!’ she had said. And he had r eplied, ‘Ah yes,’ and recited: ‘ What wondr ous life is this I lead! Ripe apples dr op about my head ...’ She had joined in: ‘ The luscious clusters of the vine, Upon my mouth do crush their wine.’ And they had laughed. She farewelled it all, and could not believe this was really the end. Surely they would resume their work in the apothecary? It was only a temporary interruption while her father recovered. But how would they ever create such a garden again? Did he really mean for them to move to France? Tante Henriette was on a tour of the East, companion to a dowager who had wanted to see the Great Pyramids. Caroline was unsure when her aunt would return. Linens and bedding were packed away, the silverware and crockery , pots and pans, their father’s clothes, their many books, all the stuff of family life. It was to be housed in Mrs Murray’ s attic, on Papa’s instructions. But when they said goodbye to Esther, there was a sorrowful finality in their hearts. Each understood that the severing was not of the moment, but of something de eper—irrevocable and absolute. ‘You know where to find me in Dundee,’ Esther said to Caroline and Augusta. ‘Mind,’ she added, ‘that a sailor is not surprised when the wind
blows against him. Nor a doctor surprised when a patient becomes unwell. There will be better days, you dear wee girls. There will be better days.’
They were given a bedroom downstairs at the rear of Mrs Murray’ s house from which they could see, above the fence line, the trees in their own back garden. But it was no longer their home. New occupants had arrived. Mrs Murray had organised the sale of their furniture to help with the expense of ke eping them. She put them both to work in her guesthouse. Augusta was to help in the kitchen, pr eparing the lodgers’ meals and cleaning their rooms. Caroline was to change the guest beds and wash the linens. Mrs Murray said, ‘Not the lives you imagined, I am sure, but you’re both capable of work and more than old enough. I am not a charity .’ When Papa had been gone for three months, Mrs Murray secured both girls positions in service. ‘Too well educated for the work you can get,’ she said. ‘People like to think it causes trouble, a girl being as educated as a boy, but it gives a woman opportunity .’ Caroline was to be a governess nearby and Augusta was to train as a cook in Blackfriars. Both positions required them to live in. Each girl took a trunk of their possessions to their new place of employ . Father had made no arrangemen ts for the apothecary . Each Sunday, which was her day off, Caroline dusted and cleaned, imagining a time when the paper was taken down from the windows, the sign on the door turned to Open , the bell ringing as another customer entered. Deliveries continued to arrive and Caroline did what she could to return them to their suppliers and to cancel orders. There were silverfish in the calico, weevils in the wheat, moths in the silk. She contacted customers awaiting orders but she was rarely met with sympathy . She knew people believed her family had been cursed by ill fortune. She used money Papa had secreted in a metal box at the rear of the shop to continue to pay the landlord his rent. She packed a trunk with jars and bottles containing the herbs and remedies that seemed most important. It
was an impossible task, the choosing of one medicine over another, like plucking a handful of daisies from a field in full bloom and expecting to brighten the world. But she felt a sense of reassurance, too. She had the trunks removed to her place of employment, where they filled the little space between her bed and the door. When she looked at them, she knew she was waiting for her real life to resume. A family friend sent word to Caroline that they had seen her father in a state of agitation and dishevelm ent on Worthing Pier in West Sussex, and that he had not recognised them. When they suggested he return to London with them, he had fled. Each time Caroline locked the door of the apothecary , it was an effort to ke ep her despondency at bay . And then one Sunday her father was standing by the shop window as if he were waiting for someone. His black hat was badly weathered. He was no longer carrying his brass-toppe d cane but a carved stick of questionable provenance. His frock coat was in need of r epair, his beautiful boots worn down and unpolished, his hair long and lank. He had been gone for one hundred and twenty-three days. Caroline wanted to run into his arms. She wanted to turn and walk the other way. She wanted to rage at him, to hurt him, and yet she could not. She could not help smiling. Relief washed through her. He was back. Everything would be all right. She unlocked the door and they went inside, the dust and mustiness now of no concern to her. She turned and embraced him, resting her head against his chest, smelling his smoky unwashed self. ‘Where are you staying?’ she asked him. ‘I have taken lodgings,’ he said. ‘I must tell you that the inventory is to be sold. I believe Digby in Leicester Square will take it for a fair price. I have advised the landlord of my d eparture.’ Caroline felt as if she had been stung by a wasp. ‘Sold?’ ‘Madame Murray thinks it is too much for me,’ her father said. ‘It is too much. Your mother knew this. You know this.’ ‘Please, Papa. I will assist you as I have always done. We can find a new home and reopen the shop.’ But she could feel him trembling beside her . ‘ Je suis malade du cœur et de l’esprit ,’ he said. ‘ Je suis désolé, chère fille. Il est précieux, le calme bonheur .’
‘Let me and Augusta take care of you, Papa. Let us find that calm happiness together .’ ‘I cannot allow it. What life is there for either of you in that?’ Rubbing at the scar on his forehead, he continued, ‘I have made investments. One or two might yet prove their merit, but there was a shipwreck off the coast of Africa. And,’ he added, rubbing his unkempt beard, ‘some rogues convinced me that a certain publication would turn a profit. Perhaps I was hasty. Mrs Murray is taking care of it all now .’ ‘Papa, did you not think to discuss this with me? To entrust me with this responsibility? Did Mama not teach me to account for every pound, shilling and pence here in this shop? And to ke ep the ledgers for the expenses of our family, too?’ ‘You carry too many cares, sweet daughter ,’ said her father. ‘It is for the best. I will only disappoint you. Mrs Murray has been a friend in this time of need, a friend to all of us. I hear you both have excellent placements.’ ‘Am I to remain a governess, Papa? Am I not to become an apothecary?’ He took her in his arms and r epeated over and over, ‘ Je suis désolé. Je suis désolé. ’ Had it all been for nothing, all the schooling he had given her? She wanted to rail at the unfairness of it, at the stupidity of their situation. Jacques-Louis came and went. He wrote Caroline and Augusta letters. Sometimes they extended to many pages, the writing erratic and the sentences incoherent. Sometimes when he returned he was his old self, gregarious and joyful, taking them to tea, ordering cake and champagne, showering them with gifts—for each a new shawl, a pair of silk stockings. He took them riding in a carriage along the river. He hired a punt to row Caroline and Augusta up the Thames to the fields where they had often searched for chanterelles and pennyroyal, water pimpernel and cress from the nearby streams, greater and lesser celandine, dandelions and cowslips. But these lucid times were short-lived. When Caroline visited Jacques- Louis in the rooms he rented, she found the desk and bed overwhelmed with leaflets and books, writings and letters, as if a storm had rushed through the place. Wine bottles stood empty, remnant powders of cocaine evident on the table, an empty bottle of opium oil by the bed. Food mouldered in the cupboard, clothes and dishes lay about unwashed. Often her father was nowhere to be found.
‘Out walking, I expect,’ said the landlord. ‘It’ s what he does.’ Some days when she visited, she found he had not moved from his bed in days. Illness was evident in his eyes and the pallor of his cheeks. Sometimes he could barely be roused. Caroline tried to remember everything he had taught her. The pattern of leaf and flower, growing conditions and the time of the year for flowering, the ripening of fruit, the digging up of roots. The processes of drying and grinding, the distillation in milk, wine or honey, the boiling into syrups. She pretended it was possible she would find an alternative position, somewhere a female apothecary would be welcome. ‘You will be the first, Caroline,’ Papa had said to her. ‘My daughter will be the first. Perhaps you might even qualify as a doctor .’ But that was then. Now, looking into his shattered visage, she recalled what Tante Henriette had said to her when she told Caroline her mother was dying: ‘You must not rely on anything he has promised you.’ Not now, and maybe never .
It was a Sunday when her father sent word for Caroline to join him at Mrs Murray’ s. She had not seen or heard from him in weeks but, when she arrived, she found him wearing a new blue dress coat with lace at the sleeves, a purple cravat, polished shoes and white stockings. He ushered her into the drawing room, where a maid had just laid tea. Mrs Murray rose to welcome Caroline and showed her to a chair . Papa enquired of Caroline’ s young charges, and the curriculum she had established for them, while Mrs Murray served them all tea and slices of seed cake. Caroline sensed some revelation, but the conversation lingered on matters of little consequence, until Mrs Murray put down her cup and rose. She glided to a place behind Papa, and settled her hands on his shoulders in the way Mama had once done. ‘You see, dear Caroline,’ her father said, ‘Mrs Murray has made me happy again. Can you be happy for us?’ Caroline did not remember the words that were said, hers or theirs, the food she acc epted out of politeness but could not eat. She thought how her mother was not even a year dead. She thought of the soups, custards and jellies Mrs Murray had delivered, things that Mother could swallow , until she could not swallow at all. Mrs Murray counselling Papa to have Caroline and Augusta move into her home, to sell their house. The placements she had found them. It had seemed kind, but had it been that? Caroline had not seen Mrs Murray show Papa any special attention during Mama’s illness, but perhaps she had. Perhaps a friendship had grown between them and Caroline had missed it. Or had Mrs Murray sensed an opportunity? All their household goods, the beautiful things that had come from France during the Re volution, their silverware, ornaments, the brass clock, all their books, the linen and lace her mother had sewn, it was all in Mrs Murray’ s attic. There was a strange buzzing in Caroline’ s head. She had spilled her tea.
‘I am sorry,’ she said, standing abruptly . ‘I feel quite unwell. Please, forgive me.’ ‘Oh, my dear, let me help you,’ said Mrs Murray . ‘Do you need more tea? Or a little wine?’ ‘Please do not go,’ Papa entreated. Caroline was moving towards the door. Jacques-Louis attempted to follow but Mrs Murray told him to stay, and the two women walked together to the front door . ‘We are seeing a play at Covent Garden tonight,’ said Mrs Murray . ‘A carriage has been ordered, and we will dine afterwards at ...’ She mentioned the name of the restaurant, the name of the play. ‘Such things restore your father .’ Caroline saw that Mrs Murray had done something for her father that she had not been able to do herself. With Mrs Murray , he seemed to have found a new sense of himself. Perhaps this was a good thing. ‘Do you see that he is happy?’ Mrs Murray asked. Caroline wanted to say, I am not sure he knows his own mind. Instead she said, ‘For give me, I am not myself,’ and walked away . The following morning, after a restless night, Caroline wrote to her father and requested that he meet her at a cafe the following Sunday . Please come alone, Papa. Once he had been served coffee and Caroline tea, she said to him, ‘Papa, this may be difficult for you to hear, but I am unsettled by this attachment you have to Mrs Murray . I do not believe anything good will come of it.’ She could hear the wobble in her own voice as she asked, ‘Do you intend to marry her?’