By Heather Allen
The sun was high above the horizon by the time Eppie had completed her chores and readied herself and little Molly for their morning walk. Silas, Eppie’s father, was already busy at his loom in the cottage they shared, despite that she had told him he should rest. He had been getting very tired lately, and he did not need to labour so hard, not now.
“What would be the purpose of idleness?” he had replied, turning his large eyes to meet hers. “There is always a need for good cloth, is there not?” She could not disagree with that. There were always customers ready to hand over their gold for a good length of fine-woven fabric, and many uses for his weaving in their home too: clothes for Molly, household linens, and now all the bags and cloths needed for Eppie’s burgeoning trade.
This morning, as on many mornings, she and Molly set out to walk across the fields to the river bank to search for a few particular herbs. Eppie had a fine new rush basket, woven from reeds which had grown around the edge of the Stone-pit near the cottage. She had made a smaller one for Molly. Now they strolled, the golden sun climbing the sky, Molly a miniature of Eppie in her pale blue frock and pinafore, her red-gold curls bouncing as she broke away and ran across the meadow.
“Be careful, sweetheart!” Eppie called out, but knew it was pointless. Telling a six year old to be careful? She recalled her father’s tales of her own exploits as a wild child he could not bear to discipline, and took comfort in the memory. She had turned out well enough, had she not? But now—
“Momma, mom, is this one?”
Molly’s voice rang across the meadow. She stood next to a plant taller than herself, the familiar purple bells arranged around the long stalk, open mouths inviting bees in for a visit. A foxglove, and a fine example, standing at the front of a large patch of its fellows.
“Very good, Molly. Yes, it is. That is a foxglove. Well done.”
Eppie approached the foxglove patch.
“Now then, Molly, stand back. You must not pick this one yourself. It is very poisonous.”
Molly jumped back, her eyes round. “Poisonous? But I thought it was medicine?”
“Yes, but only if you use tiny amounts. It is very good medicine for the dropsy.”
“Dropsy? What is that?”
“It is a nasty thing where your arms and legs swell up. Your grandfather healed a lady in the village of it once. He helped her when the doctor could not.”
“Ooh! Grandaddy’s clever!”
“Yes, he is,” replied Eppie, as she produced her pocket knife from her pinafore pocket. She selected four of the best foxglove spears and deftly cut off the last ten inches. Then, reaching into her basket, she pulled out a square of waxed cloth, and carefully wrapped it around the cut ends of the stalks before putting them in the basket.
It had taken Eppie a long time to persuade her father she should learn to be a herbalist, despite his knowledge and affinity with the subject. He would frequently recall the times as a child when his mother had taken him with her on her plant-gathering walks near the northern town where he grew up. Eppie remembered Silas naming plants for her on their walks in her own childhood, and clearly remembered too the look of pain in his eyes as he did so. She had not understood his sadness at the time, but when she was old enough to understand, he recounted the tale of the time when, not long after his arrival at Raveloe, he used a herbal tincture to heal a lady, and his efforts were met with a confusing mixture of suspicion and demand. His refusal to heal anyone else, and increasing annoyance at the villagers’ pleas, had set minds and hearts against him for a time. Slowly, Silas had accepted Eppie’s exhortations that times had changed (indeed, herbalism was becoming quite the fashionable thing in London, so she had heard), and had begun to share his knowledge with her. As it turned out, that knowledge was extensive.
“You must remember, Molly,” she said as she continued to walk, “that your grandfather was taught how to use plants as medicine by his mother, who used them herself, like her mother before her. He knows the use of plants well, but if he had made a mistake with the dose…” she shook her head.
“The lady would be dead,” Molly said, emphasising the final word with gleeful relish.
“Yes, Molly, but unfortunately so might your grandfather.”
“Why?” the child’s voice was outraged.
“Because, Molly, some folks might think he did it on purpose. If the law ruled against him he might have been…” she swallowed, “hanged.”
“Oough.” Molly shuddered and rubbed at her throat. “Mommy, I hope you never kill anyone!”
“Do not worry, sweetheart,” Eppie said, bending to kiss her daughter’s warm curls, “I know what I’m doing.”
Presently, the pair came to the river bank, stopping to gather bunches of yarrow and dandelions on the way. Molly skipped along the bank, pointing at flowers.
“Is this one, Mommy?”
“No dear, that’s a buttercup.”
“This one?”
“No, that is a cowslip. Useful, but not what we are looking for.”
“This one?”
She stood by a patch of an unassuming, yellow-flowered plant with large green waxy leaves.
“Yes, my love, you have found the right one. Good girl! Coltsfoot, good for the coughs and the wheezes. This time,” she said, spreading out a piece of sacking and kneeling on it, “I want the whole plant.”
Eppie reached into her basket for a hand fork (a gift from the local blacksmith for helping with his rheumatics), and started to loosen the earth around the plant. Then, very carefully, she slid a trowel (another gift) into the hole she had made, and eased out the roots. She laid the plant to one side, then got to work on another. A third, and she put aside her tools. “That will be enough,” she said. “We have to leave some so they can grow back again.”
“But Mommy, there are lots and lots and lots!” cried Molly, waving her chubby hand up the river bank, where the yellow flowers were abundant.
“Yes, but we only need three. That is more than enough for now. We can always get more later. We must never, ever be greedy.”
Molly pursed her lips and shook her head solemnly. “No, Mommy, we must not.”
Eppie cleaned her tools carefully on a rag she kept for the purpose, then stood up, rolling up her piece of sacking and placing it in the basket with the plants. She smiled at her daughter, who stood in front of her, bouncing up and down, barely able to contain the life in her limbs as she waited for her mother’s next instruction. Eppie gazed across the meadow and saw what she was looking for. A wide expanse of globular purple flowers, nodding in the warm breeze. She smiled.
“A very important job for you now, Molly!”
Molly jumped up and down. “What is it, Momma?”
Eppie walked a few paces and picked a bloom, then held it out to her daughter.
“I want you to pick me some of these. Wait…” for Molly had already set off towards the patch, “you must make sure the stalk is long, like this, and do not disturb the roots!”
Molly glanced back. “I know, Momma!” She ran.
Eppie followed her daughter to the clover patch, picking stray blooms as she went. Clover, good for a gentle sleeping draught. That would help her father, who sometimes had troubled nights. She sighed. He was a good man. Good right to the soles of his worn brown boots. He did not deserve the troubles he had had in his life, but – here she smiled – he had her now, and her Aaron, the friendship of Aaron’s mother Dolly, and now little Molly. He was well respected, these days, in the village. He was a happy man. But sometimes the old troubles came back to haunt him.
Time seemed to slow as Eppie and Molly picked the clover blossoms. The sun was high in the sky now, gathering heat, and Eppie felt the deep contentment she always felt when surrounded by flowers under a clear sky. Birds sang – here a thrush pealing forth its music, there a charm of goldfinches chattering to each other, and there, a flurry of sparrows fluttering from bush to bush, gossiping as they went. She remembered the words of Godfrey Cass, the son of the old squire and the closest thing they had to gentry in these parts, when he had come to the cottage to announce that he was her true father. He had expected her, a grown girl of eighteen by then, to move to the manor with him and his wife, live a life of luxury and eventually marry a man with money. He had been offended when she refused to leave Silas; and incredulous when she married her Aaron, a lowly gardener and the best husband she could ever wish for. Shaking her head, she smiled at the memory. No rich father or high-born husband could make her life any better than this.
Molly came walking towards her, her little basket overflowing with clover blossoms.
“I cannot carry any more, Momma!” she said.
Eppie laughed. “Thank you, my love. You have done very well. Now…” she looked up at the sky, “it is time to go home to grandfather. He will be needing a bite to eat, and he will not stop for it unless I put it in front of him!”
Molly reached up her hand to her mother’s, who took it firmly. Together, they walked along the river bank, back across the meadow, to the little stone cottage that was their home.