Page 6 of The Laudanum Ladies' Society

Miss Rosewood tapped her fingers against the edge of her teacup. ‘I mean what I say, Mrs Walters. I would settle for a new bottle made in the conventional way that I could give to my uncle while I kept this one for myself, but as it appears that the creation of this was an accident…’

She paused and looked up, her sharp, hazel eyes piercing Gwen’s conscience. ‘You are confirming that, aren’t you, Mrs Walters? It wasn’t intentional?’

‘Absolutely not!’

Gwen’s neck grew hot at the suggestion she might have deliberately done Mr Rosewood some harm. Her mind raced back to the day, earlier in the week, when she’d prepared the bottle, to try and work out what horrible mistake she’d made, but she couldn’t think of anything.

‘It was completely unintentional,’ she confirmed.

Miss Rosewood looked disappointed. ‘In that case, please make my uncle a bottle in the standard manner. This is a precious substance, and I would like to keep it for myself.’

Gwen frowned. ‘Yes, you’ve said that already. But why?’

Miss Rosewood pressed her lips together and looked a little shifty. ‘Why? Because I was very much taken with the effect, and I would like to experience it again.’

To calm herself, Gwen poured another cup of tea. ‘What exactly did you experience? And why do you want to repeat it?’

Miss Rosewood clasped her hands beneath her chin very much in the manner of her uncle. Gwen studied her with interest. They had only met once or twice. Miss Rosewood seemed like a perfectly normal spinster of almost thirty, though Archibald had once cruelly called her a ‘mannish-looking bluestocking’.

‘It’s quite hard to articulate. Not the lethargy that one would expect from a sleeping tonic. A general sense of relaxation, but it was accompanied by euphoria and an increase in the wish to create.’ Miss Rosewood shook her head slightly and her eyes grew distant. ‘Or rather, not an impulse to create, but a sensation of freedom from inhibitions so that I didn’t care whether what I created was sensible. I played the piano and I was caught up in the melody wonderfully. My uncle painted the most remarkable painting. I’ve brought it. Let me show you.’

She opened her satchel, unrolled a canvas and laid it flat on the table. Gwen stared at it. It reminded her a little of a day yearsbefore when her son Archie, then a child, had found a pot of jam and liberally decorated the floor.

‘Oh, my,’ she said eventually.

‘That’s what I said.’ Miss Rosewood came to stand behind Gwen, peering over her shoulder. ‘Uncle Conrad told me it was a crab mausoleum or some such nonsense. Of course, the following morning he didn’t remember that.’

‘I am not sure that represents unfettered creativity as much as it demonstrates madness,’ Gwen observed carefully. She tilted her head one way, then the other. ‘It’s rather beautiful, I suppose.’

She placed her hands on the table beside the canvas.

‘I’m sorry, Miss Rosewood, but I don’t think I can agree to what you ask. If this is what the tincture results in, I have considerable misgivings about trying to replicate it.’

Miss Rosewood snatched up the canvas and rolled it tightly. ‘Did you have misgivings when you decided to deceive my uncle about who has been making up the medicines for the past few weeks? What about when you made his personal medicine without his knowledge?’

She glared down her nose, and Gwen shrank back in her chair and bowed her head to avoid the steely gaze. Miss Rosewood was really quite alarming.

‘I had many misgivings, I can assure you. If there had been any other alternative, don’t you think we would have taken that?’

‘You just said women are capable of almost anything,’ Miss Rosewood said quietly. ‘I believe that, too, though we are seldom granted the same opportunities as men. Didn’t you mean that? Do you really hate what you have been doing?’

Gwen put a hand to her cheeks. They felt flushed, and it wasn’t just from the horrible swelling of heat that seemed to come over her more frequently by every passing month, but from indignation at being questioned. There was a touch ofguilt creeping in, too. She had been quite willing to step into Archibald’s shoes and hadn’t really considered alternatives. The first time she had taken over was because Archibald was tired. Afterwards, she’d been more than eager to supplant him. She did her best to give Miss Rosewood a stern look.

‘Miss Rosewood, you might try to threaten me, but what would your uncle say if I told him that you have asked me to make a concoction that has such effects? I know he is very traditional in his views.’

Miss Rosewood’s straight, dark brows met, telling Gwen she’d hit a target. Gwen studied her with interest. Her reddish-brown hair was twisted in a severe knot at the back of her head, with none of the curls and braids that a youngish woman might add for interest. She seemed an odd woman, but she had been orphaned at thirteen, and it could not have been very cheerful growing up with her old uncle.

Gwen gave her a slightly softer smile. ‘You have no mother, so allow me to caution you that it’s completely inappropriate behaviour for a young woman such as yourself to even think of experimenting with such procedures. Why, you might as well head into Limehouse to an opium den!’

Miss Rosewood folded her arms tightly, almost crushing the canvas she held. ‘I have few friends and few diversions, and I am not what the world would call young, even out of misplaced generosity. I will not allow you to judge me in the way you would not judge a man!’ She jutted her jaw out.

‘And perhaps I would venture into an opium den if women were permitted to do so! Perhaps I would venture to lots of places where women are denied entry!’

She looked so belligerent that Gwen smiled, but beneath Miss Rosewood’s anger there was a sense of longing and, Gwen suspected, loneliness. What a life she must lead. It was scarcely any wonder that she craved a diversion, and truth be told, herforthright retort was rather charming. As if she had read Gwen’s thoughts, Miss Rosewood dropped her shoulders.

‘Mrs Walters, I live a dull, respectable life with few opportunities to meet like-minded companions. I have no prospects and I am dependent on the goodwill and charity of my uncle. I have no husband and I am unlikely at this age to catch one, even if I particularly wanted one.’

To Gwen’s surprise, she realised she was nodding along as the younger woman spoke.