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“Achiles millefolium”
said Elizabeth smiling. “I did. Is my father worse,, then?” She looked at her stepmother with mild affection and some amusement. Priscilla Fones was fat and good-tempered and ineffectual. Life constantly presented her with discomforts she had no notion how to ease except by a flow of gently fretful speech. She had however done her best to rear her three stepchildren, Elizabeth, Martha and Samuel; and to recover from her own frequent miscarriages and the birth of her little Mary, now eight, who ailed as mysteriously and continuously as did her father, Thomas.

“I don’t know,” said Priscilla vaguely. “It’s still his gout, I believe, but of course there’s so much sickness about - another case of plague near Newgate, I hear . . . and then all this worry about your Uncle Winthrop, though Mistress Margaret - thanks be to God that she came up here from Suffolk to nurse him - when I saw her yesterday she felt the ague was lessening ... if it
is
the ague; your father’s been wondering if your uncle had maybe one of the purulent fevers . . . Oh, Richard - “ said Priscilla, suddenly turning to the apprentice, “I’d forgot. You’re to go at once to the conduit and fetch us another barrel of cooking water . . . the conduit on the
Chepe,
mind you, your master feels ‘tis the purest at present.”

“Aye, mistress.” The apprentice began to stack the long brown tobacco leaves on a shelf.

“Is this the tobacco Mr. Harry sent from Barbadoes?” asked Priscilla, her harried mind lighting on a new topic.

“No fear, ma’am,” answered Richard scornfully. “That was foul stuff, that was, stinking and full o’ stalks. Master he wouldn’t touch it, not for
our
quality trade. We sent it to the grocers.”

“Oh yes. I remember now,” said Priscilla to Elizabeth. “I fear Harry’s a wild young man, costing so much money to set him up as a planter on that island wherever it is, and I know your Uncle Winthrop has near beggared himself paying Harry’s debts, and the tobacco he sends no good at all ... he was a most handsome lad though when he passed through London two years agone . . .”

“Was he?” said Elizabeth, stirring her mixture in the thick glass beaker. Two years ago, when she had last seen Harry, she had hardly noticed him at all, because his brother Jack had also been in London practising law at the Inner Temple, and her every thought had been for Jack; praying for their meetings, planning what she would say to him, and then too shy to say it when the time came. And Jack had treated her like a little girl, oh most kindly - gently teasing her, as he did Martha - but no more than that. . . until last summer . . . three nights before he sailed for Constantinople. Her fingers tightened on the wooden spoon, and she heard again Priscilla’s voice which had not ceased.

“.. . and then young John is so different in other ways too
_}
such a credit to the Winthrops, he did so well those years at the University in Ireland and then fighting for Rochelle with the poor Duke of Buckingham . . , what a fearful thing it must have been for Jack to hear of the Duke’s wicked assassination, after serving under him that is, though there were many who were glad the Duke was murdered - if Jack
has
heard way off there among the heathen Turks...”

“You know Jack has heard,” said Elizabeth sharply. “That my Uncle John and Aunt Margaret have several letters from him.” But I have none, she thought, though he promised. And in Jack’s letters to his family there had been no mention of her except the formal “remember me to all my cousins.”

“The mithridate is finished, I think,” said Elizabeth. “I’ll take it up to Father.”

“Send Martha down to tend shop, or I’ll stay here until Richard gets back, or perhaps one of the maids - but they’re so busy in the kitchen ... oh dear ... I wish we could afford another servant, two is little enough for a family like this, but these London wenches want so much in wages now, and the times so unsettled . . . one never knows just...”

Elizabeth quietly escaped, but as she reached the narrow stairs which led to the great bedchamber, depression seized her, and a stifling sensation, so that on impulse she put the little flask of mithridate on a bench in the passage, seized a cloak left there on a peg by one of the maids, and went out into the garden. On the hidden paths the snow crunched beneath her soft leather soles. The orderly herb plots were obliterated now, though here and there in sheltered spots, snowdrops pushed green spikes through the whiteness. Little icicles dripped from the trellis of the rose arbour and from bare branches of fruit trees; but it was of last June that she thought. Of the summer dusk when she and Jack had stood here together by the old, old Wall. London Wall. The Fones’ home halfway up Old Bailey Street was immediately outside the ancient fortification built by the Romans, and their half-acre of garden was backed by it London had long since grown beyond the Wall, it had crept in this westerly direction across the Fleet and along the Strand nearly to the King’s Palace at Whitehall. The Wall had no meaning now, in places it was crumbling, one could no longer easily circle the old City along its broad top. Ivy grew all over the Wall and it showed the mellow pathos of desuetude and ruin. Elizabeth had been born almost in its shadow and was fond of it. She had gone to it instinctively on the June night when she had last seen young John Winthrop.

He had come to say farewell to his Fones relatives, having suddenly decided to embark on an extended tour of the Adriatic and the Levant. At supper he had entertained them in his own vivid way with tales of the wonders he expected to see on his travels, the water streets of Venice where people had black and gold boats tethered at their doors instead of horses - the ferocious Sultan of Turkey with his seraglio of a thousand wives.

“Oh, Cousin Jack, what marvels!” little Martha had breathed. “And will you not see dragons and mermaids too?”

“Very likely. Shall I bring you back one to play with?” Jack had said with the twinkle in his dark eyes. For all that she was past sixteen, Martha was still so small and ingenuous that they all treated her as a child. But the old easy relationship between Jack and Elizabeth had vanished. On this evening there had been a new constraint. When they rose from supper she announced that she must see to the herbs, and he followed her to the garden.

At once, at his nearness, Elizabeth was seized with quivering embarrassment. Without looking at him she was yet oppressively conscious of him - of his body; not very tall, but strong and well muscled, of his quizzical brown eyes set beneath arched brows - of the long thick Winthrop nose and cleft chin, the full-lipped mouth indented at the corners like her own. “I must trim my herbs before the dew falls heavy,” she said, making great play with her knife and the herb basket, though tonight, skilled as she was, she could scarce tell rosemary from verbena.

“Bess - “ said Jack, smiling. “You’ve changed of late, little coz. You’ve grown into a woman.” As she continued to stoop over the plants, he took the knife and basket from her, and putting his hand under her chin, raised her face. He looked long at her, while her colour deepened, and she strove to stop the quivering of her lips. “A Winthrop face, but fairer than the rest of our women,” he said musingly.

“You think me so?” she whispered, smiling in a way she had learned would soften most men, looking up at him through her lashes with all the force of her yearning. But he came no closer, though he was troubled and removed his gaze with difficulty from her red mouth. “I have always been so fond of you, my dear,” he said. His hand dropped from her chin. “Fonder than of my own sister . . . Before I leave on this long journey I’d like to know that you have prospects of happiness . . . my Uncle Fones mentioned that you’ve several suitors ...”

She stiffened and turned from him. “I think not of marriage yet!” she cried. “Do
you?”

“N-no.” He was discomfited by her question but he answered it with his usual consideration. “I’ve thought once or twice to change my state, there was a lady in Dublin while I was there at Trinity, and last year the daughter of Sir Henry-----”

“Yes, I know,” she cut in. The whole family had known of Jack’s transient courtship, and it had cost Elizabeth many an hour of anguish, crying by stealth in the night so that she would not wake Martha. “And why did you not marry her, Jack?”

“I’m scarcely sure,” he said, puzzled by her vehemence. “We both cooled, I think, at least I found myself grow tepid - then her father had a better offer for her. I’m restless, Bess - I wish to see something of the world before I settle to a squire’s life at Groton like my father . . . nor do I wish to go on with the law, as he has -  though I will always try to do his bidding.”

“Aye,” she said softly, anger leaving her. She moved from him and rested her hand on the Wall, plucking and twisting at a clump of orange wallflower that grew in a cranny. It was
that
which kept him from seeing and perhaps returning the love she felt for him. Not the nearness of their blood, an impediment which could be surmounted by special licence or indeed without it, by going to one of the dissenting ministers who found nothing in Scripture to forbid the marriage of cousins. It was his father’s influence, the authority of John Winthrop, who was ambitious for this favourite son and heir, and who had never truly liked or approved of Elizabeth since the day he flogged her in Groton Manor eleven years ago.

“Bess,” said Jack coming slowly up to her with a diffidence unlike him, “How is it that of late we seem to jangle when we talk together? I feel you out of temper with me ... all I wished to say was that my friend Edward Howes, if you have set your heart on no one else - he loves you much, and ...”

“Edward Howes . . .” she repeated bleakly. “My Uncle Downing’s clerk. A dabbler in alchemy. A pettifogging lawyer. Is that what you’d have me marry?”

“Indeed you do him wrong, Bess. He has a brilliant mind, and property in Essex. I thought you liked him.”

“I like him well enough - “ She tossed the shredded flowers on the ground. “But - oh - I too am restless, Jack, I too yearn for freedom and far places and adventure . . . but I yearn more for something else . . . something that’s in my bones and blood . . .” She held her breath, looking up at him through the dusk. Her long hazel eyes were dark with tears, the white kerchief which bound her hair had loosened and her black curls fell on her shoulders.

“What is it you want so much, little coz?” he whispered,

“You don’t know?”

He shook his head. “But I pray that God will give it to you, and perhaps it is
God
that you want... I think you’ve never yet found him.”

After a moment she managed to laugh. “So farewell, Jack. Farewell on your journey to the far Levant.”

“The Lord be with you, sweet, I’ll pray for your happiness.” He bent and kissed her on the lips, as he had a hundred times, unthinking, but now he felt the lips part beneath his own and warmth as from a draught of strongest mead rushed through his body. He drew back, dismayed, and unbelieving.

“I’ll write to you, Bess,” he said quickly. “Aye, I’ll write to you, as soon as I’m aboard the ship.” And he walked from the garden.

She had hoped that he might have tried to see her again before he set off for Gravesend, where his ship, the
London of London,
would sail, but he did not. She lived then for the letter he had promised, thinking that surely in it there would be some recognition of the moment when their lips had met in a different way. But there was no letter - and I am a fool, thought Elizabeth, standing by London Wall in the snow, nearly seven months later. What greater folly for a woman than to love without requital.

Love. So it was to be a lean diet of that for her. Those who had truly loved her were dead, long ago. She thought with a forgotten ache of her mother, but she could remember nothing clearly except that once they had stood together at a window and looked at the moon. She thought of Adam, her grandfather; he had not died until five years ago, and always with him there had been a feeling of safety, and cherishing . . . but he had stayed in Suffolk and she had seen him so seldom. What of your father? said conscience. Surely you love your father and family? Her mind slid past them all rapidly, without acquiescence or denial, then checked itself on Martha. Yes, for that little sister there was love.

Even as she thought of Martha the house door opened and the girl appeared-calling anxiously, “Bess! Bess! Where are you? Are you out there?”

Elizabeth answered and started down the path, her feet numb with cold. Martha came running towards her, a small grey figure in her workaday homespun gown, her baby-soft brown hair bound tight by the linen kerchief. “Bess - Lady Carlisle’s come herself for the mithridate! At least she’s waiting in her coach, We couldn’t find you. Father’s so upset!”

“Oh Lud! - I’m sorry,” said Elizabeth. “I but went out for a breath of Christmas air. Don’t look so worried, poppet, the mithridate’s ready.”

She ran into the hall, retrieved the flask and rushed upstairs to her father’s bedroom to show him the potion. “I followed the prescription precisely, Father, I’m sure it’ll do.” She held out the flask of brownish liquid, “Aye, to be sure - I’m sorry,” she added to Thomas Fones’s burst of querulous reproaches, He sat in his dressing gown huddled in a large court chair by the fire, his nightcap pulled down over his ears. He took the flask in his gouty ringers, sniffed and tasted the potion. “It must do,” he said dolefully. “Hasten, Bess, her ladyship’ll be angered by waiting,”

“And if she is?” retorted his daughter. “What loss? Since she’s paid nothing in years and already owes you nine pounds! She’ll at least pay for this, if I can make her.”

“No - no, Bess!” the apothecary cried, knowing his child’s headstrong ways. “I forbid it. Say nothing. We can’t afford to lose her patronage. Why, she is close to the Queen, we may yet have a royal purveyorship!”

“Ha!” said Elizabeth, shrugging. “Can’t eat that! If the Queen pays no better than her lords, I know what the shop book says -  ‘Desperate’ next the accounts of the Earl of Ormonde, and Lady deVere, and Lady Carlisle...”

“Elizabeth!”
Thomas pounded the floor with his blackthorn cane, the moisture of helpless anger in his sunken eyes.