The Apothecary Page 0,63

up much of a city block. A butler let us in, looking Benjamin and Pip over suspiciously.

“These are my friends,” Sarah said. “They need some warm clothes to go out on a boat. We’ll just go look in the old wardrobes.”

The butler nodded. “Don’t you have school?”

“We were excused,” Sarah said.

“Ah,” the butler said. “Shall I take your things?”

I felt Benjamin, beside me, tighten his grip on the strap of his satchel.

“No, thank you,” Sarah said. “We won’t be long.”

We started up a grand staircase, past old portraits of pink-cheeked young men in tailcoats and willowy maidens in long dresses: generations of Penningtons who had been the richest and most attractive students at their schools. At the top of the stairs was a small painting of a little girl in a blue dress who crossed her ankles and gazed at the artist with a bearing that was already regal.

Pip stopped in front of it. “That’s you.”

“Oh,” Sarah said. “I was so bored, sitting for that.”

“You looked lonely,” he said.

“Lonely? I had a nurse or a governess with me every second!”

Pip said nothing, and raised his eyebrows at her.

“It was a perfectly ordinary childhood,” she snapped.

I bit my tongue to keep from reminding her that she had a butler and a nurse and a governess, which wasn’t very ordinary. I reminded myself we needed the clothes.

She led us down the hall to a bedroom done all in flowered upholstery, with a canopied bed and an enormous window seat. The room seemed unused and in perfect order. I went to the window and pushed the curtain aside to look outside. There were two men in suits standing on the other side of Knightsbridge, and I wondered if they were watching the house. But after a moment, they shook hands and walked in different directions without looking up at the windows. I let the curtain fall.

“This was my aunt Margaret’s room,” Sarah said, opening a wardrobe that ran along one wall. “She went off to America in the twenties, to Vassar or someplace, and brought back all kinds of shocking clothes.”

“Is she dead?” I asked.

“Oh, no,” Sarah said. “She’s just married. She lives in Scotland and she’s old and dull. But she used to be so glamorous.” She pulled out what looked like a diaphanous white silk handkerchief with spaghetti straps, embroidered with silver thread. “That’s one of her dresses. I don’t think she could get one arm in it now.”

“But we need warm things,” I said.

Sarah dropped the silver dress to the floor. “Where are you going again?”

“My uncle’s a fisherman,” Pip said. “He’s taking us on his boat.”

“Ugh,” Sarah said. “I get seasick in the bath. It’s tragic for my father, who’s terribly yachty.” She pulled out a long, dark fur. “That’s a raccoon coat. Everyone wore them in the twenties. I think it’s for a man.”

She handed the coat to Benjamin, who put it on and stood in front of a long oval mirror beside the wardrobe. He looked like a bear escaped from the zoo, and raised his arms as if to lumber forward in attack. Pip convulsed with laughter.

“Now this might be suitable for a boat,” Sarah said, pulling out a lined wool peacoat. “Here, Janie, try it.”

I shrugged the peacoat onto my shoulders, and it fit me. I put my hands in the pockets and came out with a navy blue watch cap, which I pulled over my hair. It was a good feeling, to be enshrouded in thick military wool like that—I felt oddly safer.

Sarah tilted her head to consider me. “That’s not terrible, actually,” she said. “It’s rather chic.”

Against my will, my eyes went to Benjamin in the mirror, to gauge his reaction. He stood with his arms hanging at his sides in the raccoon coat.

“What do you think?” I asked.

“Looks warm.”

“But your legs will be cold,” Sarah said. She pulled out some silk long underwear and a few pairs of heavy wool pants, and she added them to the growing pile on the floor.

“Try those on,” she said. “I’ll take the boys to my brother’s room.”

They left, and I tried the warmest-looking pants on under my skirt. They fit fine, and I folded the warm clothes and sat on the end of the bed. The mattress was soft and inviting, and the room was quiet, and I had an overwhelming urge to lie down. It felt so luxurious just to be alone. I lay back and let my body relax into the bed’s silk