Provings

Chapter 4

Lucius was preoccupied with thoughts of business as he walked his nephew home. He hadn't intended to take such a forceful position with Burrit, but in his usual way the man had pressed the point. And why not proceed as Lucius had suggested? It had been a hard business, this financial trouble of the last six months - the Panic of 1837 they were calling it, and justifiably so. They had barely survived the summer; that much he knew even before he looked at Edwin's books, which he planned to do in detail once he had disposed of his nephew. What they needed now was a sure source of profit, not a risky venture, and counterfeit medicines sold. He had used them before; in fact they were the staple of every druggist in the country. It was only his brother's stubbornness had kept them from it. And the hypocrisy of Burrit to oppose him in it, he who had sniffed out formulas for Lucius long before Edwin had come. 

He felt a tug at his hand and looked down. Edwin's boy looked up at him, his face a strange mix of his brother's and his dead mother's. It was his eyes spoke most of the mother - sad eyes, sad and guarded, as if he knew some devastation he could not betray. The gaze of the boy had always made him feel uneasy.  

"Uncle Lucius," the boy said in his mewing voice. "There is something I must tell you." 

"Yes, what is it?" 

"I spoke with Papa today after you left him, and he wanted me to tell you something."  

"Well, out with it then." 

"He wanted me to tell you that the formula worked." 

"What formula?" 

"Well..." 

"What formula boy?" 

"Well, I guess I don't know if you don't Uncle Lucius. I thought it was the formula of the medicine you gave him." 

"What else did he say?" 

The boy just looked back at him like an imbecile and said nothing. 

Lucius looked away and shook his head. Pathetic, he thought, that the man would waste any energy to impart that information; it was clear the formula had worked. He was sick as a dog.  

It had been an obsession of Edwin's, that formula. From the time he had learned of the new homeopathy shortly after coming to New York City he had been drawn to the idea he could develop a medicine to treat typhus fever. Edwin had believed it was typhus fever that had killed his wife, though others had disagreed, and he was intent on making up for the fact he could not cure her himself with the creation of a medicine that would have done so.  

Hahnemann, the German doctor who came up with homeopathy, had tested many substances on himself first and Edwin had decided to do the same. So, over time Edwin had ingested several different formulas, to greater or lesser effect. It was only recently he had become convinced he had finally found the right one - a formula that would bring on symptoms to match those his wife had had. Now, in his excitement, Edwin had over dosed himself and he was in the throes of a pestilence, perhaps even typhus itself. There would be a strange retribution in that, Lucius thought, for courting such a thing.  

No Lucius had endured his brother's foolish obsession for long enough; he was right to put an end to this business. 

"If the formula worked Uncle, shouldn't we make some more to give Papa?" It was the child again, peering up at him. 

"No." 

"But why not?" His peevish voice grated on Lucius' nerves. "He seemed intent on telling me. Might it not cure him?" 

Now many things ran through Lucius' mind in answer to that question. His first impulse was to respond with a sharp "No" and explain to the child that it was the formula that had sickened his father, but he immediately thought better of it. He had administered the poison himself, as many people had seen; it would cast him in a negative role, perhaps even that of murderer if his brother were to die. His next thought was to simply lie and say that Edwin was referring to another formula altogether that he was working on at the shop, but he realized the child had heard he and Burrit argue over it and he couldn't be sure what he knew.