Free The Physic Garden by Catherine Czerkawska Page A

for seven than for eight.
    * * *
    After Janet died, my mother was very low in spirits. ‘We shall starve, William,’ she kept saying. ‘Starve or freeze! Starve and freeze.’
    I didn’t think we would freeze; there was an abundance of dead timber in the gardens, and it was there for the taking. But money for food was another matter, and she was right. I had been thrust into my father’s shoes with scant experience, and my headfairly buzzed with wondering how year after year he had managed to bring in the income that had kept our little ship afloat. I began to understand his weariness and how he had squeezed every last ounce of productive time out of his days. Once the money from the work on the Molendinar bridge was gone, we would barely have enough to keep body and soul together, never mind to give the younger children a modicum of education.
    At last, having racked my brains for ideas, I recollected Sandy Adams, the old gardener, and his wife’s successful apothecary venture . I suggested that we might follow their example, rent a front room in one of the properties adjacent to the university and set up our own apothecary business there. I thought that my mother could run it, much as Mistress Adams had assisted her husband.
    My poor mother, however, was no Mistress Adams. She was so bemused by the sudden death of my father that she could say nothing but, ‘if you say so, son!’ which was certainly the wrong answer, because I knew as much about the business of being an apothecary as I knew about the subject of women, love and marriage in those days, and that was precious little. But then, we are all full of wild and unrealistic aspirations at that time of life. It would be a poor world if the young did not have their dreams. Anything seemed possible to me, and I was too foolish to realise that my mother was still stunned by her twin bereavements.
    I mourned my father with a sorrow that frequently took me by surprise, took the breath from me. Sometimes when I was digging in the garden, I would fancy that he was standing just behind me. I would turn round, expecting to see him, and find nothing but empty air where he should have been.
    ‘Put your back into it, son,’ he would have said. I could almost hear him say it. Then the grief that dogged me would seize me by the throat, and I could feel the tears start behind my eyes.
    I felt that the most fitting tribute to his memory would be for me to make the best of things for his widow and my brothers and sisters. Pursuing my dream of financial independence for all of us, I forged on with the apothecary plan. When a moneylender cameto our door, I let myself be persuaded into borrowing a sum of five pounds, to lay down as rent on the proposed apothecary shop, to fit it out and buy in some supplies. They have an uncanny ability to sniff out need, and this man had, no doubt, heard of my father’s untimely death.
    ‘Young man,’ he said. ‘You’ll not regret it. And I wish you every success with your new venture!’ he added, as he walked away, no doubt sniggering up his sleeve at my naivety.
    It was not a clever move. I was very foolish. I thought I knew everything about life, but I had not the smallest measure of wisdom . Not at that time.

CHAPTER NINE
The Water of Life
    After the death of my father and my infant sister, I threw myself into the work that had killed him with renewed vigour, out of a sort of defiance against fate itself. I moved earth, cleaned out the Molendinar, took down the old stone bridge and did some work on the new one. There was rebuilding and planting up of the banks of the burn to be done with such plants as would spread and bring some stability. I hoped that if I could convince the authorities of my capabilities, then – although I was only eighteen years old – they might agree to make me gardener in his stead.
    It was at about this time that Thomas Brown singled me out for his particular friendship. He had always been disposed to be