Viper Wine

by Hermione Eyre

  She spoke relentlessly about any subject that took her fancy, and today it was Van Dyck.

  ‘He was the fastest I have ever sat to. So fast, and so ’cute. Oh, he’s the best of them all. He’s a diminuendo of a man, not much to look on. You’ll see. He’ll adore you. He’ll paint you uncommon well, Lady Digby.’

  For a fraction of a second, Aletheia looked sideways at Venetia’s bosom, which was swelling so much lately, because of all the pregnant mare’s urine she was drinking in her Wine. Venetia felt herself rising voluptuously against her gown every time she breathed. She was so much thinner now, she had her waist back, and yet her bosom had expanded pneumatically, so she was really something like an hourglass, a parody of womanhood, even without much lacing of her waist.

  Venetia explained that Kenelm had already commissioned Van Dyck, and they had both sat to him together. Every week they expected delivery of their portrait, but because it was a double canvas, requiring many hours’ work, it was delayed; and besides, the royal commissions took precedent.

  ‘He’s too much in demand. First it was Mantua, Venice, Antwerp. The Gonzagas shall have no more of him, at least. The Barberinis will probably get their hands in next. But when you do sit to him, Lady Digby, you shall mark my words: take the thing away with you, for little Jesus’s sake. Oh, you must, you must.’

  ‘What thing?’ asked Venetia.

  ‘The pittura. The canovaccio, the canvas, Lady Digby. Unless you do you shall never see it again. There were four years before I had possession of my Venice portrait by Rubens, and we’ve not seen the Earl’s Van Dyck since he sat to him. Never,’ she tapped her Tobacco Pipe out on the floor, ‘never let a portrait out of your sight. Take it with you. Even if the studio folk tell you, “Oh, it is not dry yet, it is not ready.”’ She was as vehement as if Venetia disagreed with her, although she had done nothing but nod and say, ‘Indeed, indeed!’ Aletheia tutted and shook her head. ‘Take it with you,’ she insisted.

  Venetia caught Aletheia’s companion, Dorothy, also glancing at her bosom. Venetia sensed something hanging in the air, with the Tobacco smoke, and though she did not entirely understand it, she liked it, and she was perfectly happy here at Tart Hall where menfolk never visited. She felt she could spend all her life with women, and it would be so much the better. Women adored her as men did, except with more understanding.

  Aletheia caught her eye. ‘You know I carry many titles, Venetia,’ she said, adding, sotto voce: ‘One of them is Baroness Strange.’

  Venetia hoped to become more like Aletheia as time went on, to cultivate her style and her queer brusqueness. What a wonderful thing it will be to be an old and magnificently rude woman, she thought. To be an old, rich, magnificently rude woman – now that would be even better. And in the conduct of her marriage, Aletheia had avoided the usual indignities, without any rancour between her and her husband, only distance.

  Aletheia asked Venetia, out of nowhere, if Sir Kenelm went behind her back.

  Venetia took this very calmly. ‘No i’faith, and it means he is always at my front,’ she said, as if she were weary with his desiring. But Aletheia’s question opened a problem she had considered closed. Was it not obvious to all that, in her gorgeous condition, she had full control of Kenelm? And yet Venetia remembered, in that moment, that even the most beautiful, most seemly wives are sinned against. Perhaps a man does not want rich jewels and satin every day. Perhaps – but no, Aletheia did not know what she was talking about. Her marriage had been a set-up between noble twelve-year-olds, stiff with silver.

  ‘Kenelm and I married for love, against our families’ wills,’ she said.

  ‘Mournivals and gleeks out, please,’ said Aletheia, by way of reply.

  They showed their hands.

  ‘Well, you can never come back,’ said Aletheia, snorting, as Venetia took up her winnings.

  ‘How does she do it, Lemuel?’ said Dorothy, asking the dog, who still could not answer.

  Venetia reached for her pocket to stow away her winnings. The floor here was covered in rushes and Lemuel lifted his leg to squirt against the daybed. Venetia did not think animals belonged indoors. Neither of the ladies seemed to mind, their nest here at Tart Hall being more like a cosy den of the old days, stuffed with curiosities. And yet Aletheia could have had a splendid wing of Arundel House on the Strand to herself.

  ‘Do you think it is a lovely helping of blancmange?’ Aletheia asked Dorothy. ‘Or two jellies on a plate?’

  ‘Aspic of pigs’ chaps,’ replied Dorothy. ‘With two apricots on top.’

  Aletheia and Dorothy laughed between themselves.

  ‘I fancy it is the Pope’s own panna cotta,’ said Aletheia.

  Venetia was not really listening, but she fancied she was being discussed, as usual.

  ‘Or at the very least a cardinal’s.’

  ‘Maybe it is a dish of pale broth,’ said Dorothy.

  ‘With two piglets in it,’ said Aletheia.

  After laughing they both sighed, as if their game was ending.

  ‘Have you never been to Venice, Lady Digby?’ said Aletheia, although she knew the answer. No women in London had been to Venice, apart from her and Dorothy and a few gypsies and ambassadors’ wives.

  ‘The Venetian trousers are the most famous export, and I have several pairs,’ said Dorothy.

  ‘Diminuendo, please, Dorothy!’ cried Aletheia. Venetia gathered it was Aletheia’s favourite word. ‘Lady Digby does not wish to know of your trousers, Dot,’ she said. ‘She is every inch a wife, just look at her marvellous frontage. We are both quite entranced. Do you not lose things down there frequently, purses and whatnot?’

  ‘Never,’ said Venetia. ‘Though others may lose themselves through looking.’

  ‘Oh bless her, for she colours! D’you see, Dorothy, she colours!’

  Venetia was not aware of blushing; in fact, she was convinced she was not.

  ‘No need to be bashful, Lady Digby. You have managed the Sackville brothers’ advances, I am sure you are not bothered by little me. Solo poco me! And you and I have a better affiatamento, a better understanding than you might think. For I know your Method.’ Aletheia blew a chute of smoke away from the table. ‘Your Method of Beauty. Your antidotum vitae.’

  Venetia searched her mind for slips or indiscretions she might have made. She looked up at Aletheia, feeling panicky and diminished, while Aletheia grinned at her like Goliath, her plucked forehead rising high up to her grizzled hairline.

  ‘Come with me and you shall see my meaning,’ said Aletheia, leading her out of the Peacock Room by candlelight into an interconnecting room, draped with crimson, and down a brown-yellow corridor to the Dutch Pranketing Room, which housed a larder full of Delftware, and there, beside fly traps and cake dishes, stood an earthenware still. Aletheia removed its lid triumphantly, and peering inside, Venetia saw three large, whorled Continental snails.

  ‘Your husband brought you the very same, no?’ said Aletheia, looking at her intently, studying her reaction. ‘Their slimy serum costs as much as silver. You entice them to move across your brow, and cheek, and even further, hmm?’

  Venetia laughed with relief so her white bosom heaved.

  ‘Why, Lady Howard,’ she said, ‘you have unmasked me. Now we are sisters, and I can never beat you at Glecko again.’

  ‘You use the Murex, then?’

  ‘I use all manner of matter for my face.’

  Aletheia looked at her with an offended expression, and put the lid back on the still. ‘Well, if you will not tell me, I will have it elsewhere,’ she said, off-hand.

  ‘They tickle and kittle the temples terribly, do they not?’ said Aletheia, trying again. ‘And it is such a long, slow march they make, even encouraged by una mosca morta – a defunct fly, placed upon the nose. Ha!’

  Venetia, playing her hand carefully as ever, gave up her suit and told Aletheia that Kenelm had indeed brought her the snails, although she did not mention that she was too disgusted t
o use them. But she also hinted, as she took her leave of the countess at the side-gate of Tart Hall, that Kenelm now provided her with a much better remedy, which was to remain a secret of their marital union.

  Aletheia declared her deep respect for the sanctity of marriage, all the while raising one eyebrow at Venetia. She did not subject Venetia to further questions, although inwardly she was already deciding how to find the secret out, as she let her go with a wink and a pat on her bum-padding.

  THE OPIUM GARDEN

  ANOTHER LETTER CAME for Venetia from Penelope, delivered by a hooded plague doctor. Venetia’s first impulse was to have it burned at once, but she had suffered a fit of penitence over her burning of Pen’s last two letters, fearing that she had destroyed Penelope’s final farewells to this world, or even admissions of florid secrets. This was unlikely, given Penelope’s nature, but every imagination responds to an unopened letter. Venetia would not touch this new letter herself, but curiosity drove her to make Chater open it, in front of the fire, using tongs, while she watched from the semi darkness of the other side of the room, dramatically covering her nose and mouth with her veil, her hands clasped in prayer for Penelope. Straining by firelight to read the writing, Chater managed to make out a few phrases.

  ‘Our Old Pippin . . . has had a ham bone. He had great pleasure of it, dragging it to his bed, even though his teeth are fewer than they were . . .’

  Chater and Venetia’s mood of spiritual earnestness cooled. The letter was full of platitudes about the weather, her dogs, and news of her embroidered bed-jacket.

  ‘So we risk our lives for kennel talk,’ said Venetia. ‘She is on her deathbed, and yet I never read a more boring letter!’

  But then Chater read aloud a few fond words of friendship, which touched her, as well as a passage in which she implored Venetia to come and nurse her, saying she would do well to catch the smallpox from her as it was a light visitation and not likely to cause much scarring.

  Venetia thought Pen must be out of her mind with illness, but she decided to send her a comforting little present – some tansy from the botanical gardens at Holborn.

  Venetia drank her draft of Venus Syrup – although she did it every day, it could never become so drab a thing as a habit – and an hour later, with the Wine stoking her blood, she rapped at the door of the Terrestrial Paradise, a small garden door in the long brick wall. It was known as Sir John Parkinson’s Terrestrial Paradise because it was a place of rare beauty, arranged like another Eden with all the herbs in harmonious groupings. He made a play on his name and called it the sole paradisus terrestris, Park-in-Sun.

  The bricks in the wall were deep red, and she was absorbed with looking at their marbled veins like lumps of beef, when a gardener appeared at the door, hooded, and carrying a broom.

  The Terrestrial Paradise was largely dank earth, dotted with greenish shrubs, hawthorn spikes, reeds and mouldy, broken bulrushes. Some plants had petrified where they stood, crucified to wires, while others had liquefied to mush. A small pond was cracked like a mirror in the middle, and frosted solid around its edges. All was hung over with a pall of blue woodsmoke, issuing from behind the brickwork nurseries.

  Venetia had forgotten, somehow, that the garden would be dead or resting, buried below the sod. In that darkness, as in the darkness of the womb, small seeds were swelling, kicking as they unfurled. Venetia tiptoed into the garden, careful not to wake the sleeping plants.

  ‘Are you Demeter? It’s winter now, until she come again, so tell me you are her, lady, and I shall give you a pomegarnet,’ said the Gardener.

  As she smiled, she could taste the dry, metallic wine returning in her throat, making her giddy again, and she swallowed twice so as not to choke. They passed a snoring beehive, and a vicious black bramble, which had formed itself into an empty cage, and a pair of seedy yellow-brown pokers, formerly red hot, now weeping glue. The walked past a row of stumpy trees, pollarded like beggars, and then they passed under the ribs of a trellis arch, and a bush bristling with anaemic sprouts of Old Man’s Beard.

  ‘Those that decay I leave to rot,’ said the Gardener. ‘It’s untidy, but Dame Kind likes it better that way. She’s a mucky lady. She loves a bit o’mulch. It makes everything else come up fresher. The old shrivellers make the new ones come on faster. It’s none that die but aren’t useful to the rest.’

  They walked onwards to the covered nurseries where Venetia expected she would find Parkinson pickling peppers, perhaps, while he waited for spring. But when the gardener opened the nursery door and Venetia ducked under the doorframe, she smelled at once the foetid warmth of artificial summer.

  There were sprays and blossoms here, green shoots and flung-open flowers. A bud-rose was splitting apart like a slashed doublet. Venetia could feel the pores of her skin opening in the wet warmth, her nerves relaxing. Titania wintered here, no doubt. Venetia wandered about the hot-house in a daze. There were miraculous little pansies, smiling, and tall papery blooms of Lady’s Slipper. There were blowsy orange poppies that they call Welsh poppies, which Venetia pinched between thumb and finger to check they were real and not made of silk, so she tore half a petal, and left her thumbprint upon its delicate skin – but who would believe this winter flowering without testing it?

  Spiky and shock-headed, comically proud to be alive, were a whole guard of daffodils, in December. And vegetables, too, peasquash, beans and marrows, putting forth bright yellow flags as if it were August. Parkinson’s greatest patron was the Queen – it seemed he furnished her with fruit and flowers all year round.

  ‘Are these goodly fruits and flowers,’ she asked the Gardener passionately, ‘fit to eat? Not hollow, or blighted, or corrupted by unseasonal flowering?’

  The Gardener laughed and shook his head.

  ‘They are real, in other words, and worthy of love,’ she murmured.

  One plant was squat like a marrow but spined like a porcupine. It bit Venetia’s finger when she touched it, and the buzzing of a blow-fly sounded very loud and large in her ear. As she walked unsteadily about, another bush reached out to pluck at her gown, and she turned about in time to see it recoil, its fronds whispering and shuddering.

  ‘The best plant to eat in here’, said the Gardener, ‘is the Vegetable Lamb of Tartary,’ pointing to a little plinth where sat a mass of wool and fern, somewhat like an old mop crossed with a dog.

  ‘He is the reason we keep this nursery pen so warm, because he’s a precious beast indeed. He’s come from beyond the Alps, beyond the Tartar Sea, from a place called the Ural, and he’s thought to be about to issue forth live lambs, which will graze around him, joined to this plant by an umbilical stalk. We’ve feed for the lambs in case they come early,’ he said, kicking his foot towards a sack propped against the wall, ‘but there’s been no bleating from this corner yet.’

  ‘Is he plant or animal, then?’

  ‘A mickle of one and a muckle of the other, my lady,’ said the Gardener, inserting himself between Venetia and the Vegetable Lamb, so that she would not harm him through carelessness.

  ‘Sometimes I make a melody, to bring him on a bit.’

  The Gardener turned and started sweeping, heaving his broom and singing:

  ‘Only the dove and the lamb live here

  Lions nor vultures nay breathe the air

  Sweet music and nay narry distress

  In the sole paradisus terrestris.’

  He carried on sweeping and singing, and he had such tenderness in his voice, she felt the Vegetable Lamb must surely grow with the nourishment of his tunefulness.

  ‘Master Parkinson is fixed on bringing about the production of lambs from this plant,’ said the gardener. ‘Namely, the production of meat from seed. He says none will go hungry if we can do it, and the taste of this lamb is said to be uncommonly good. Every time I sleep for more than a few hours, or our fire goes out, then he berates me, saying the Lamb is the Joy of Man’s Vegetable Desiring, and I jump to my work again, because it seems likely
that after the earth has discovered potatoes, meat should be picked from a tree.’

  Some visitors to the Park-in-Sun denied the Vegetable Lamb, and said it was no better than a bush wearing a wig, and called it a hoax and a nothing, and the Gardner heard them, and yet he kept his faith in the Vegetable Lamb.

  As Venetia stood in front of it she was convinced she heard it gurgle. The Vegetable Lamb’s tails hung from its stunted boughs, and as she looked at them, wondering what Kenelm would make of them, they began to shake and wriggle with the foolish happiness of cloned lambs, gambolling about transgenic laboratories where they were tended by a thousand white-coated shepherds. She blinked, looked again, and saw that the Vegetable Lamb’s tails merely trembled where she breathed upon them, though Dolly the Sheep’s great granddam (to the power of a thousand) already grazed on the Derbyshire vale. Moved by the strangeness of the Spirit, she performed a quick cross and genuflection, in front of the Lamb, and the gardener followed suit.

  ‘We always strive to build Utopia in our garden. For if we bring plants here from Every-where across the world, then here becomes No-where, a place that is only full of the best. And Utopia is a good place, and yet no-place, and so we have it here, where there are no seasons. My master always replies so: “God would be much honoured if we could do it.” And so I say also, God would be much honoured if we could devise a true understanding of the parentage of grasses and reeds . . .’

  Venetia wandered away, drawn to a peaky-looking lily that perched on the edge of a trestle of blooms. It was of an achingly sad, voluptuous disposition, its heavy head on an angle. She touched her cheek against its cantilevered petals. It smelled of summer, of Gayhurst, of Floralia, of her son’s bare suntanned legs. The skin was fibrous with a waxy touch upon it. It had flourished by special pleading, and careful maintenance, and yet it was as beautiful as any woodland or hedgerow flower – more so, because in its plenitude and hot-house refinement, there was something overly sensual and rare. It had been kept constantly warm here, taken outside into sunlight and shielded from frost, cosseted and fed and watered, nurtured against nature into a constant bloom. It was a lily that had drunk of Viper Wine. She looked at its pert stamen, and wondered if it was barren.