Free The Alchemist's Daughter by Mary Lawrence

took their first gulp of British air.
    Mrs. Beldam was present along with Pandy and Kara, Jolyn’s most familiar housemates. Banes stood to their side and a little behind, content to be ignored, and studied their figures at leisure.
    Bianca stood opposite the women of Barke House. She had abandoned testing the contents of the tea when a parishioner arrived to take the corpse. Bianca had pleaded with him to let her cleanse her friend’s body and anoint it with hyssop and cistus oils for burial. She had filled Jolyn’s mouth with dried lavender and rosemary to drive away bad vapors and then found a rough woven cloth to wrap her. That night, Bianca had not slept well. Her mind could not rest. She kept hearing the accusations and pondering the symptoms of Jolyn’s last moments.
    Bianca found it difficult to watch the sexton finish his digging. Each scrape of the shovel seemed louder than the one before. A group of muckrakers arrived at the gate, laughing and joking, their voices intruding on the solemnity of the graveyard. They ambled across the grounds toward the small gathering, lowering their voices when faced with the indignant stares of those already waiting. Bianca had never met any of them, but could put names to faces just by their appearances, which Jolyn had been expert in describing.
    There was Becket, a toothless codger, bony and reeking of the mud and stray pigs he pleasured in. Then there was Smythe, lanky and lithe, a “diver” working in tandem with Mackney, who was too old and pudgy to wiggle through windows anymore. The two ingratiated themselves with the watch in the borough so long as they gave him a share of their pickings. A few other muckrakers or desperate sorts milled about, shifty-eyed and restless, though intent to bid Jolyn farewell. But there was one who stood apart from the others. He caught Bianca’s eye because he was the beneficiary of Mrs. Beldam’s evil one. Bianca didn’t know who he could be; he fit no character that Jolyn had described.
    He moved away from the gathering and withdrew a small flask to take a swig. Bianca moved to observe him better and continued to survey the contingent of rascals and lowlifes. She was surprised when John appeared at the cemetery gate and crossed the grounds, finding her in the gathering, then averting his eyes as if he were there for a casual stroll. He came and stood next to her. Neither said a word. They each shifted their weight from one leg to the other and cast sidelong glances.
    At last the sexton stabbed his shovel in the pile of dirt next to the grave. He leaned out of the pit and started to tug Jolyn’s shroud toward its edge.
    “Shouldn’t someone say something?” said John.
    Bianca agreed but was unable to think what would be worthy of her dear friend. Finally, as the sexton pulled Jolyn’s body into the grave with a grunt and thud, she spoke out.
    “ ‘For the living know that they shall die: but the dead know not any thing, neither have they any more a reward; for the memory of them is forgotten. Also their love, and their hatred, and their envy, is now perished; neither have they any more a portion for ever in any thing that is done under the sun.’ ” She wasn’t sure if she had remembered the verses correctly, but she thought them appropriate and fitting.
    The onlookers “hear, heared” their assents as if she had offered them another round of drinks. The women of Barke House stared fixedly across at her as if trying to figure out what manner of nonsense she had just spouted.
    “May God have mercy on her soul,” finished Bianca. She stared down at her friend as the sextant threw a shovelful of dirt on her shroud. Unable to watch him roll other bodies on top, Bianca stepped back and observed the characters around her.
    “Sees, he never gave a piss for her, else he would have been here. ’E should have seen to it she didn’t end up in a community grave of wanton women. Jus’ proves to ye, he didn’t really care.”