Alchemy

by Maureen Duffy

  ‘Please sir be seated,’ the boy said hastily knowing that he had gone too far in his arrogance, and retired to the back of the shop returning with an old man who pulled himself along with difficulty by clutching at the table and leaning heavily on a stick.

  ‘Well young master what do you have that I must see?’

  My heart sank at the sight of him for I had hoped that he might oversee my future but I saw instead that he had not long in this world.

  ‘It is a book of receipts of my father’s devising that was a noted physician and philosopher in his own country of Wiltshire, and a friend to Dr William Gilbard of Colchester, physician to his majesty.’

  ‘Lately deceased, whither I shall soon follow him. A man of great wisdom and learning whom the world will one day justly recognise as a prince among natural philosophers.’

  Drawing the book from my pocket I put it into his shaking hands.

  He opened the cover and read aloud: ‘A Dispensatory of the choicest and most efficacious receipts for use in the household, Robert Bostoni Sarumensis; augmento AB.’ And are you AB?’

  ‘I am sir, Amyntas Boston, physician to the Countess of Pembroke.’

  Among many, young man, in such a great household.’

  ‘Indeed sir.’

  ‘I shall need time to consider this. Can you return tomorrow?’

  So I left my book in his hands and went back to my lodging where I found a boy waiting on me come from the countess. It seemed the Lady Anne was sick and in need of my help, for the marriage of her brother was in only a matter of days at which she must play her part, to be closely followed by the masque in which she was among those ladies who principally attended upon her majesty.

  It was clear when I came into her bedchamber that she was indeed very sick. I would have had her rest in her bed but she cried out that she must rise and not be left out of the ceremonies and that if I could not give her something to restore her vital spirits her mother should send for someone who could. Thus I was driven to prescribe a pectoral syrup of Marrubium album, or horehound, which is hot and dry, to cut and bring away the concentrated blood of ulcerated lungs and congluti-nate them. And after, she vomited much black blood and phlegm, then lay back on her pillows exhausted. Next I prescribed a cordial of powdered gold to strengthen her heart, vital and animal spirits, a remedy only to be applied in extremis as being too costly for everyday use.

  The next day I prevailed with her to rest in expectation that she would be well enough to rise for her brother’s wedding, continuing the medicines as before until her breath came more easily and she voided no more blood, a sign that the ulcers were conglutinating indeed. So I passed the feast of Christ’s nativity in watching over her sick bed. In the afternoon of Boxing Day she rose for the first time and by the next day, which was set for the wedding, she appeared perfectly well and attended the ceremony in the chapel and after at the masque, but did not dance and I did prevail upon her mother to bid her leave the company at a reasonable hour, for the revels continued long into the night with all the usual jesting as at the young earl’s wedding.

  As the time of the great masque for Twelfth Night drew near I made sure she was fed well on broth, blancmanger of chicken breast, and eggs beaten in milk, so that by the 5th of January she appeared in the bloom of her youth. All this consumed so much of my time that I had not returned to Mr Short the printer his shop to hear the verdict on my book whether he would print it or not. Until on the eleventh day of Christmas leaving the Lady Anne in good spirits I was at last able to make my way there, only to find it all shuttered for the holiday, as I hoped, and not through any mischance of Mr Short.

  We rose in the dark next morning for the household had three masquing ladies to dress. After all had broken fast I persuaded the Lady Anne to take a draught of the gold cordial to sustain her throughout the long day’s festivities and then went to my lady.

  ‘You shall attend me as my page Amyntas so that you are at hand if the Lady Anne should begin to fail. I hope she will take no harm from the thin attire and the staining of her skin for personating Ethiopians. My brother says it is the queen’s own fancy to dress as a Negro she having the whitest skin in the world. My brother has a new suit for the occasion of ash-coloured satin, trimmed with peach taffeta and silver lace.’

  We set out in several coaches for Whitehall where the ladies were to be painted and put on their attire while the rest of us took up our places. At last his majesty being sat, by the light of what seemed a thousand sconces we saw a landscape of woods where hunters roamed until an artificial sea shot forth with waves and billows which seemed to break on the shore. In front of this sea were six Tritons, their upper parts human and their hind parts fish, with their tails above their heads of blue hair, blowing music on seashells. Behind them were two mermaids singing, then, mounted on the backs of seahorses, Oceanus and Niger came forward to introduce the masquers seated in a mother of pearl shell that rose and fell on the waters and was lit by a garland of lights that showed off the masquers’ attire, all alike in azure and silver, laced with ropes of pearl, their arms bare to the elbows and painted black like their faces with strings of pearl to set off their dark skins. Twelve torch-bearers were carried on the backs of the sea monsters illuming the whole scene, which was in motion and prospective as if the ocean were come into the hall under a cloudy moon.

  There followed a song and speeches by Oceanus and Niger. This last, who according to the poet was the father of the Ethiop masquers, explained that his daughters were to seek a land whose name ended in Tania where their black skins would be whitened in the temperate climate. The moon herself appeared all in white on a silver throne that seemed to float in the upper part of the hall. She proclaimed that the land they had reached was formerly Albion but now restored to its ancient dignity and style of Britannia. The masquers descended from their shell and chose everyone a man to dance with, her majesty leading out the Spanish ambassador for several measures and corantoes. My lady whispered to me that the music was by Mr Ferrabosco who was now in the queen’s service.

  After all the dancing two boys of the Chapel Royal sang in treble to call the masquers back to the sea which song was iterated in its chorus by a double echo from several parts of the land. So the ladies danced their way back to their shell, returning to the sea with these verses:

  Now Dian with her burning face

  Declines apace:

  By which our waters know

  To ebb, that late did flow.

  Back seas, back nymphs; but with a forward grace

  Keep still your reverence to the place

  And shout with joy of favour you have won

  In sight of Albion, Neptune’s son.

  His majesty led the applause which echoed round the hall. The music struck up again and the queen and ladies returned to refresh themselves and dance some more. A gentleman standing close behind her caught my lady’s eye. ‘Well Mr Carleton,’ she said, ‘was that not a pretty conceit of the poet to find cause to bring Ethiop ladies to Albion and also restore the old kingdom of Britannia as it was known to Caesar and Tacitus?’

  ‘You will forgive me madam that I must disagree. As one who has been part of his majesty’s embassy in Paris I am sorry that strangers should see our court so strangely disguised. The ladies’ apparel was rich I grant but too light and courtesan-like and their black faces and hands a very loathsome sight.’

  The Lady Anne came running to her mother with her new sister Lady Susan, and her cousin Lady Mary, still with their black arms and faces.

  ‘Were we not beautiful Negroes madam? The queen was so delighted with it she says we shall be blackamoors again next year.’

  Her face was very pale under its blackness, her eyes burning too brightly, and I knew that were her cheeks washed the red flush of fever would appear. She coughed a little and put her hand to her mouth. When she brought it away I saw a fleck of blood on her palm.

  ‘Madam, the Lady Anne should rest now.’

 
‘Oh your page is such a spoiler madam. I am here to dance. Give me some more of your cordial Master Boston to keep my vital spirits tuned to the music.’

  ‘I would rather give you something madam to make you sleep.’

  ‘You lean too much on the skills of a mere boy madam my mother. If he cannot give me the strength to play my part among my peers you must find me one who can.’

  I knew that it was the disease that spoke, for often with phthisis it is the case that it affects the humour making the person of an impatient that is to say a choleric temper by raising the heat of the blood even in those who are by nature phlegmatic, cold and moist.

  I fetched a box of remedies and drew out a flask of the gold cordial which I now kept always at hand, but as I was measuring it into a cup I was able to slip in a little powdered poppy for I feared to see her vomit blood from her lungs before her mother and the whole court. She took some wine after and some marchpane sweetmeats while I watched to see the poppy work on her, and after a little while she yawned and said: ‘Perhaps I will go to the ladies’ tiring room where is a soft pallet to rest on, and afterwards I will dance.’

  One of the maids led her away, and returned saying she had fallen at once into a deep slumber as soon as she lay down.

  ‘Is this your doing Amyntas?’

  ‘Yes madam. The Lady Anne was so lately sick almost to death, that she must not put her body to exertions it is yet incapable of if she is to recover her full strength.’ Yet I knew that when she woke she would be angry and would look for some way to punish me or rid herself of my care.

  And so it proved. ‘The Lady Anne is no longer willing that you should physick her. She has obliged me to send for Dr Adrian Gilbert to be her physician, for in talking to him on several occasions he has assured her of a cure and cast up her horoscope to prove it, as she believes. She says you have never attempted to make any such prediction or to call on the influence of the heavenly bodies that direct our fates.’

  ‘Madam this I confess, for my father…’

  ‘Your father also refused to help me when I almost begged him to come into my household.’

  I understood the danger I was in, yet I thought that I must speak for the Lady Anne her sake as well as my own.

  ‘My father did not believe that our fate is within the stars for he was of the opinion that they were not fixed and that the planets moved as the earth does about the sun and so could not determine the future; that Venus and Mars their influence were conceits of the poets. Madam be careful of false hopes raised in a sick person, especially one so young who desires above all to live and thrive.’

  ‘What are you saying Amyntas? Why do you threaten me? I cannot lose my only daughter.’

  ‘My lady, God knows I do not threaten, only warn that the Lady Anne must be treated with great delicacy and not weakened with purging or letting of blood.’

  ‘Some believe that such courses are necessary to drive out ill humours and diseases as a cat or dog will eat grass for physick, vomit up some foulness it has taken and then be well again.’

  I saw that this dispute was hardening her against me by the tapping of her foot, and her hand upon the arm of the chair she sat in. ‘You will be always disputing and yet you are yourself only a child, a child who thinks she knows better than men of learning. I will send for you if I need you. I am to rent a house of the Earl of Southampton, friend to my sons, at Crosby Place. I shall have much to do to furnish it to my liking. Perhaps you can be useful in this in some way.’

  ‘Madam you know I am only at your service in all things.’ So I bowed and left her, making my way to the little attic room in the goodwife’s house where I slept among rows of apples stored there and the scent of their sweet decay. The next day I went out into the city and resumed my search for employment with some master. When I returned to my lodging the woman stopped me as I was about to climb first the stairs and then the ladder for my attic, where I could sit upon a little stool beside the window under the eaves and look out on roofs and clouds and sometimes a bird beating its way against the wind or riding the air light as one of its own feathers.

  ‘Here is my neighbour Master Boston, who has a withered hand and begs your help. I have told him of the ease you brought about in my good man, so that now he is able to go about his business again.’

  I made the man, who was thin and stooped, with wire-framed spectacles on his nose, sit down at her table and stretch out his hand which he was not able to do easily it being turned in upon itself like a bird’s claw. ‘What was your occupation sir? It would seem that you suffer from scrivener’s palsy in an extreme state.’

  ‘I am indeed a scrivener but now I have lost my employ, and my customers, for I cannot hold a quill with this hand and however much I try with the other the letters are so crabbed that no one can be pleased by them, least of all I who have always prided myself on the neatness of my copying hand and the fineness of my penmanship.’

  ‘It will need patience on your part if there is to be an improvement. I cannot promise that it will be so but if you will do as I say you may be able to hold a quill again.’ I took his hand in my two and began to press upon it and to flex the crooked fingers while kneading in oil of Exeter. ‘Do you have a wife sir?’

  ‘No. But I have a daughter who helps me in my work as well as keeping house. Have while she is mine before a husband takes her from me.’

  ‘You must have your daughter do as I do now, morning and night, with this same oil warmed and her hands also. Now try if you can move your fingers of yourself.’

  I let go of his hand and placing it upon the table he found that he could move the fingers a little from the second joint of each. ‘As soon as there is more flexing in the sinews you must practise each day in spite of the pain and stiffness and continue your daughter’s rubbing the parts twice daily with the oil. That you can move your fingers now must give you hope and patience to persevere.’

  ‘How can I reward you young master? Here are two gold crowns and you shall have more if I can hold a quill again.’

  ‘If that should happen you may make me a fair copy of a little book I have which will be payment enough.’ For I feared that my dealings with the printer had been short indeed and stopped by infirmity or death itself so that now, apart from that I gave my lady, I had but one remaining copy and my own life was so in doubt that I could not foresee when I should have the liberty to make another.

  Now alone in my attic I felt the bitterness of being cast upon the world where no one knew me. From the bustle and constant movement of court and castle I was forced to pass my hours in solitude or in converse with my landlady or her good man.

  At last came a message from the countess to attend on her at Baynard’s but if I had hoped to be received alone and given some commission to do her service it was not to be for when I was shown to her chamber I found she was accompanied by her steward, a lady of her bedchamber and Dr Adrian Gilbert. It was he who spoke to me as soon as I entered while my lady remained silent and grave.

  ‘The Lady Anne is very sick and wasting daily. I believe you have poisoned her with your pretended medicines, either through envy or lack of that skill that comes only from learning and the accreditation of the learned men of the profession, I mean the Royal College of Physicians or some such. Your meddling has put her life in danger and I do not know if all my efforts can save her, in spite of the favourable prognostication given by her horoscope. I will not be blamed for the mistakes of another. The constable has been sent for to arrest you for practising as a physician without a licence like your countryman, the rogue and necromancer, Forman.’

  Then a servant entered. ‘Madam the constable is here and asks admittance.’ I fell on my knees before my lady.

  ‘Madam I cannot go to the common gaol. I would rather die.’

  ‘The information has been laid by the Lady Anne and Dr Gilbert and I cannot gainsay it. My sons and other friends are angry too and believe that I have been cozened too long. I cannot help yo
u Amyntas. You must shift for yourself.’ And my lady signalled for the servant and turned away from me.

  Last night I felt I’d been neglecting Amyntas Boston’s memoir through the pressure of the day and especially the developments in Galton’s life, if you can call it that. So I eschewed TV and settled down with my bottle of D’Oc (was that the Languedoc of the Albigenses?) to catch up on Amyntas’ story. After all that was what had set everything going. Or was it? Was the memoir just a blind on the part of Wessex to get rid of Galton or was it just a blind on his part to get me hooked on his case? But then how did he know it was the kind of story that would get to me? Because I called my firm Lost Causes and hers is such a lost cause. Maybe he waited to decide until he saw me or maybe some weird ritual of his own picked me out from the Yellow Pages. Eenie, meenie, minie, mo.

  A couple of glasses later I put down the neatly typed pages in horror. Once again I’m gripped. I want to reach back across four centuries and offer her help, comfort. She’s been arrested. The countess has turned her back on her. There’s not much more to go. The pages are thinning out. I could easily read on to the end. But I have to stop. It’s too painful and too late at night. I don’t want to know. I don’t want it to be over.

  Now it’s morning and other problems need my attention. You’ve got bread to earn, Jade. I’ve been asked to write another article on the difference between common law and civil law systems and how the twain can meet. I find myself actually enjoying it like chewing on a stale crust. I’m beginning to wonder whether I’m really an academic manque, not cut out for the harsh reality of commercial practice, when the phone rings.

  ‘Miss Jade?’

  ‘Charlie?’

  ‘Miss Jade, I am so sorry to trouble you but something has happened.’