I let the screen drop over the window and leaned back, clasping my hands in my lap. “It’s as important as can be. It’s a matter of life and death.”
Bess stared at me white-faced.
I laughed to see her look of panic. “Oh Bess, I’m so sorry.” I grabbed her hand. “I’m not ill. Unless, of course, Galen was right to treat love as a disease. It’s just that I’m afraid I might die of longing for something I can never, ever have.”
She looked bemused. “Dr. Sydenham has a cure for longing?”
“I believe he might. I pray he might. If only we can find him.”
I knew Bess was waiting for me to tell her what it was that I longed for, but I did not want to. For once, this was something I did not want to share. I did not want to have these powerful, delicate, confusing emotions held up to her scrutiny, picked over and belittled. I wanted to keep them close and safe, a secret, even as I sought to dispel them. Whatever Bess saw in my face then, it was enough to stop her from inquiring any further.
Onto Pall Mall, a fine, paved thoroughfare, lined with a row of shady elm trees behind which were grand mansions. I leaned my head and shoulders rather precariously out of the window, and searched up and down the street. We were passing a redbrick mansion with wings, pediments and porticos, which looked far too impressive even for an eminent physician.
“Be sure you have the right place or you could find yourself calling on the King’s mistresses,” Bess said. “Mary told me Lady Castlemaine has a residence here, and Nell Gwynn.”
I remembered dimly something else Mary had told me, from the time of the plague, when London was a place of death. I had listened as always to any details about it with a morbid fascination. I shouted for the carriage to stop outside the sign of the feathers, the only place where you could buy the Countess of Kent’s Powder Virtues, allegedly believed by all the physicians of Christendom to guard against malignant distempers.
I walked into the dark little shop, where a wizened old man in a long apron was busy behind the counter, dusting bottles of potions. He told me that Dr. Sydenham lived over near the pheasantry.
I set off toward a small grove of chestnut trees and did my best not to gape at two ladies who were walking down the wide pavement carrying vizards which they held up to their faces on short sticks, beneath which it was possible to glimpse the tiny black leather patches in moon and star shapes that they wore stuck to their cheeks. Even in my fine silk morning gown I looked like a country girl who didn’t belong here, much as I might wish I did.
I tried to appear serene and sophisticated, glanced up at the house I was passing.
And there I saw him, a face I recognized, despite the luxuriant periwig he wore upon his head, despite the passage of over ten years. He was sitting by the open sash window, deep in thought as he smoked a clay pipe, with a silver tankard set before him on the table.
My step faltered. I almost carried on walking. All at once I felt extremely foolish. What in the world did I think I was doing? What was I going to say? Well, it was too late now to turn back. I would be very annoyed with myself later if I did not go through with it, now that I had come so far.
I told Bess to wait on the pavement and made myself climb the stone steps to the door. He saw me and came to open it himself, giving me a bow.
“Dr. Sydenham, sir. I am sorry to trouble you, but we met when I was just a child, in Somersetshire.”
“Ah, of course. I remember you very well. Miss Goodricke, isn’t it?”
I was astonished. “I’m Mistress Ashfield now.”
He held open the door. “Won’t you come inside, Mistress Ashfield?”
I stepped into a regular and well-proportioned hall, from which tall white-painted double doors led into an equally sumptuous room, the light flooding in through enormous sash windows. The high ceilings were adorned with elaborate swags of plaster, the walls covered in flocked paper decorated with curlicues of flowers.
There was a huge gilded mirror on the opposite wall that completely diverted me from my purpose. It was so strange to see myself reflected within something so ornate and extravagant, and the gold frame reminded me of the gold dust that had once stained my palm, like a mark of destiny.
I turned my head. “I’m surprised you remember me, sir,” I said. “It was such a long time ago.”
“You made a great impression on me,” Dr. Sydenham said genially. “Such a brave little girl. I never felt my limitations as a man of medicine more strongly than I did then, not even when I ran from the plague because I knew I was powerless against it. I was very sorry I was no help to you either.”
“I need your help now, sir. You are the most learned gentleman I know, the only learned gentleman I know in fact, so there is nobody else I can ask. I wonder, do you know how I might learn more about the study of butterflies?”
He looked at me for a moment as if I’d dumbfounded him. Then the skin around his eyes creased and he bellowed with laughter. “Forgive me, Mistress Ashfield,” he said when he recovered himself and saw my puzzled smile. “I don’t mean to offend. It’s just that I have all manner of callers at my door making all manner of strange requests. But I do believe that is the most original inquiry that has ever been put to me. You were the most enchanting and unusual child and I am delighted to see you have grown into a most enchanting and unusual young lady. You will join me in drinking some coffee?”
“I wish I could, sir. But I was married only yesterday and I left my husband asleep at an inn in Marylebone. I mustn’t abandon him for too long.”
His eyes widened with renewed amusement. “I’d have thought any man would gladly wait a lifetime for such a remarkable person,” he replied. “Even if she did flit off immediately he had ensnared her.”
“Oh, I don’t know about that, sir.”
“Spare me the time to tell me this at least—why butterflies?”
I couldn’t very well tell him that I had come for the sake of my marriage. That I needed a distraction to stop me from lusting after another man, who happened to be my husband’s closest friend. Maybe I should have asked him for a cure for lovesickness too. But I doubted that the standard remedies would work nearly so well for me as the study of butterflies.
“I want very much to learn more about them,” I told him. “I find them . . . irresistible. And I’m sure I’m not as original as you suggest, sir. Surely there are others who are as interested in them as I?”
“Indeed there are whole hosts of dusty natural philosophers who devote hours to the careful study of insects and sit around in coffeehouse societies discussing their finds. But I’m afraid they’d not admit a woman, not even one of your intelligence, and in any case I’d hesitate to introduce you to them, in case their earnestness caused you to lose your spark.”
“Can you at least tell me how I might contact them, perhaps obtain their scientific papers?”
He reflected for a moment. “There’s an apothecary who lives on this street, a smart young man by the name of Thomas Malthus, from a very intelligent family who are good friends of mine. Young Thomas is a member of the Society of Apothecaries, naturally, and has mentioned an associate of his, James Petiver, who sounds like just the type of eccentric and enthusiastic young person you’d get along with very well.”
I smiled. “How might I find James Petiver?”
“Easily. I hear he all but lives at the apothecaries’ new physic garden in Chelsea, supposedly herbalizing and botanizing, but not in fact studying the plants at all, only the butterflies that are attracted to them. The best way to get there is by the river.”
I took a small step toward the door. “Thank you, sir. You’ve given me exactly what I wanted.”
“I’m glad to see you still know what you want and pursue it so single-mindedly, Mistress Ashfield.”
I thought of Edmund and how I had dreamed for more than a decade of marrying him. “I’m very afraid that I do, sir, and it will probably be my undoing.”
BESS WAS HUNGRY, so we bo
ught game pies from a cookshop and made our way toward the Thames. Our first sight of the bridge with its tall houses and archways of elaborate shops was marred by the shock of seeing the stakes impaled with the rotting heads of traitors, blackened gargoyles with rictus grins and holes where their eyes and noses once were.
I shuddered and looked down at the torrent of water surging with terrifying force beneath the stone piers. The tide was at low ebb. We made our way over stinking mud to the slippery pier to hire a tilt boat to take us upstream.
The Yeo in full gushing winter flood was nothing to the sheer expanse of London’s river. Bess cowered behind the narrow skiff’s canopy as we rocked alarmingly from side to side. I held on tight to the shallow sides and I was sure the swell and suck and power of the currents would capsize us or drag us under.
We negotiated a throng of pleasure boats and sailing ships, their masts as thick as a forest, and presently the air cleared and the river quieted and widened into a fine reach. Our oarsman said it was called Hyde Park on the Thames on account of the fact that it was a fashionable rendezvous, where even the King himself came to bathe in the calm, clean water.
So His Majesty King Charles, like Richard Glanville, also knew how to swim. With his rich velvet suit and sword at his side, Richard could easily be a royal courtier, my own sweet, dark prince. Except that he was not mine, and never would be. Somehow I must find a way to school myself not to think of him as anything other than my husband’s friend.
The busy wharves had given way to open fields and a large mulberry garden and then a country village with a terrace of redbrick houses that faced out over the water. Upstream from the riverside Swan Tavern was a small bay with steps leading up to a landing pier that our oarsman was steering us toward. “This is the place, madam.”
I could see now that the land that lay behind the pier, open to the river, had been transformed into a garden. It was laid out in regular beds with neat hedges of box, straight rows of plants and narrow avenues created between them. But it smelled like no ordinary garden. It smelled like Christmas, like Maytime, it smelled like the wedding day of my dreams. The air was filled with the scent of bay, rosemary, lavender and thyme.
In the center, where all the avenues converged, was a sundial. In the bed nearest to it a man bent low over one of the shrubs, plucking leaves and placing them in a widemouthed glass jar. Two bewigged gentlemen were standing about smoking pipes by an ornate boathouse. I drew myself up to my full height, such as it was, and walked toward them. I asked where I might find James Petiver, the young apothecary who studied butterflies.
One of the gentlemen nodded toward a secluded area of the garden behind some fruit trees. “Expect that’s who you mean.”
I told Bess to wait on a nearby stone bench and went on alone.
The first thing I saw was a little cloud of yellow butterflies, a whole throng of them. Then I saw that they were massing around the head and shoulders of a boy. He had a pleasant, clever face and corn-fair hair, two shades darker than my own. He was perhaps four or more years younger than I. His shirtsleeves were rolled up to his elbows and he was dressed in the blue apron of an apprentice. As many as a dozen butterflies were fussing and flitting around him, brushing him with their wings. He had one of them poised on the tip of his finger and, miraculously, it stayed there, perfectly still, as he lifted his finger until it was on a level with his nose, at which point it obligingly unfolded its wings as if for his sole admiration.
I stood and stared until he noticed me watching him. He crouched down and placed his finger next to a white flower. The yellow butterfly dutifully hopped off.
“How do you make them do that?” I said in wonder.
He stood. “Vin rose. You sprinkle it on your hands and they come and drink it.”
“Could I try?”
“If you like.” His smile was friendly but doubtful, as if he couldn’t quite believe I was interested, couldn’t quite believe I was even real.
I walked closer and offered him my hand and he sprinkled some pinkish liquid from a glass vial onto my skin. The butterflies started swirling around me. I stood very still. One settled on my shoulder, another in my hair and one on my hand. They were tame as kittens. I felt a curled antenna probe my skin, quick and fleeting as a grass snake.
“See, they think you’re a flower.”
I laughed. “I wonder what kind.”
“Something rare and pretty,” he said, matter-of-factly.
I raised my eyes but I could hardly see the sky. All I could see were butterflies. “I’m Eleanor. Eleanor Goodri . . . I mean Ashfield.”
He didn’t seem perturbed by the fact I appeared not to even know who I was.
“James Petiver.” He gave a quick bow, like a country boy from Tickenham would do, and I found it enormously refreshing in the midst of London polish and sophistication. I felt as if I had come home.
“I understand you’re interested in butterflies,” I said. “Well, I can see very well that you are.” Now both of us had them in our hair. “So am I and I want very much to learn more about them. I hoped that perhaps you could help me.”
He looked at me keenly, through the fluttering wings. “What is it that you want to know?”
“Oh, everything.”
“That’ll take a long time.” He smiled but not in a derisive way. “But if everyone learns as much as they can and shares that knowledge, then we shall make a good start. I’ll gladly help you.”
“You will?”
“Of course. Butterflies are such a neglected though beautiful part of God’s creation, but I hope in time that will change.”
I noticed some intricate drawings carelessly scattered on the ground at his feet and bent down to pick one up. It depicted a red and black butterfly, and beside it a thistle. “Did you do these?”
“Yes.”
“They’re beautiful.”
“Thank you. They’re not as accurate as I’d like, but I do my best.”
“I’m not very good at drawing at all.”
“No matter. You can make accurate descriptions instead.”
“I caught one of these,” I said, leafing through more drawings and recognizing the red and orange markings and the orange tips on the antennae.
“You have a Large Copper?” James Petiver’s eyes had opened wide. “They are most prized amongst butterfly collectors.”
I could hardly see why, when they were so abundant on the moor. “Do you collect butterflies too?”
“You can’t study a creature from a sketch.”
“Mine are pressed between the pages of a book, but they’re damaged so easily.”
“That’s not such a bad way. Adam Buddle and Leonard Plukenet preserve their specimens like flowers too. But butterflies have mealy wings so the colors get rubbed off. I place mine between sheets of mica, or sometimes in frames, like lantern slides. I’ll send you some mica, if you like.”
“Thank you.”
His enthusiasm and directness were a little overwhelming. Already my head was spinning with all this new information, but I was hungry for more. “And is there a way of catching them without damaging them?”
“Ah, what you need is one of these.” He produced a strange contraption that had been lying on a bench behind him. “It’s a clap net, or butterfly trap.” It was a strip of muslin held between two poles. He held them out to demonstrate. “You clap them together to trap the butterfly, see? The poles are of hazel.”
I imagined willow withies would do just as well. “Now, why didn’t I think of that?”
“It’s not my idea either. It’s the only useful piece of information I learned at school. One of the masters collected butterflies for his curio cabinet.”
“Didn’t you care for school?” I’d known him only a few minutes yet we were talking as if we’d known each other for years. I felt I could ask James anything.
“I was born in Warwickshire. My father was a haberdasher. My grandfather had high ambitions for me and wanted me
to have an education. He paid for me to go to Rugby but I’ve learned a lot more since I left.”
“We’re the same, then.” I grinned. “I don’t much like being told what to do, or what to believe.”
We were alike in so many ways. For a start, it was unusual for me to be able to have a conversation with a person eye-to-eye, rather than have to look up. His eyes, I noticed, were impossible to describe. They were hazel, flecked with green and gold and blue, as if they had absorbed something of the grass and the trees and the sunshine and the sky, and there was an extraordinary warmth and intelligence in them that was reflected in his smile. The butterflies still encircled and flickered around us, as if drawing us together, and I felt a bond between us, something strong and simple, not at all like my girlish infatuation with my husband, nothing like my disturbing desire for his friend. I thought of the dangerous rush of the Thames and of how this would be better than being able to swim, would be something to hold on to if my new life turned out to have such undercurrents. I knew I had found a friend, and had a strange sense that we were meant to find each other.
James was just a boy. He was the same height as I, lean as a withy, and his shoulders beneath his white shirt were bony still. He looked as if he had plenty of growing left to do but would never be particularly sturdy.
“How old are you?” I inquired.
I smiled to see him do what I so often did and straighten to make himself appear taller. “I became bound apprentice to St. Bart’s three years ago,” he said, with all the touching pride of a boy trying to be a man. I thought how frightening it must be to leave home and come down alone from the country to live in a strange city. “I’m supposed to be here studying plants, but everyone is doing that. I want to show that insects are equally worthy of effort, for the ultimate benefit of mankind.”
“How?”
“There are two reasons to collect and cultivate plants: taxonomy and nomenclature.” When he saw that I didn’t understand he added quickly: “So we can classify and name them according to their shared characteristics, as well as keep a record of their medical and commercial uses.”
The Lady of the Butterflies Page 20