The Lady of the Butterflies

by Fiona Mountain

  “I wish you a very speedy return, then,” James said, as the surgeon headed for the door. “But above all a safe one.”

  “Aye, I heard how your collectors keep dying off, done in by natives and mysterious diseases or lost at sea. Don’t worry, I’ll not fail you. I will be back.”

  “When do you sail?”

  “Next Thursday with the tide, wind permitting. Good day to you, Mr. Petiver.” He gave a nod to me as he passed me on his way out. “Good day to you too, Mistress Glanville.”

  James came around to the other side of the counter and took my hands. “You have come back at last. Why has it taken you so long?”

  “I honestly don’t know.”

  I looked for changes in him, but found none to speak of. Not even a hint of gray in his fair hair. He was just the same, lithesome and slight, with eyes that radiated warmth and boundless enthusiasm and intelligence, and were flecked with all of nature’s colors. I could not even see any lines around them.

  “I had not imagined your shop would be quite so extraordinary and grand,” I said. “Even though I know you are a member of the Royal Society and a respected man of medicine now.”

  He stood back to look at me. “You are grand and extraordinary enough yourself.” He smiled generously. “I still do not even pretend to follow fashion, but I know enough to recognize a very fine gown and cloak when I see one.” He touched my arm, seeing that my eyes were not half as bright as my clothes, even after a little flattery. “We cannot talk properly here,” he said. “I’ll close the shop and we’ll go to the tavern and you can tell me how everything is with you.”

  We walked up Aldersgate Street toward St. Botolph’s Church and the city gate. We passed numerous taverns on the way but James led me to the Bell Inn, a respectable establishment with wagons drawn up outside. Within it was full of gentlemen travelers, smoking clay pipes and eating oysters, beneath the low sloping ceiling. We took our pots of ale and found a quiet corner where a mongrel was curled by the fire.

  “You have achieved all you set out to achieve,” I said, after he’d drawn up a stool opposite mine.

  “Oh, there is always more to do, more to discover. I will never have the time to finish even a fraction of all I want to do, if I live to be seventy.”

  He could well live to such a great age. He looked so full of life and vigor still.

  “What has made you come back to London now, Eleanor? After all this time?”

  I looked down at my hands, lightly folded in my lap, and I did not know where to begin.

  He touched the cut on my lip, almost healed after four days’ traveling, but still visible. “He has hurt you?”

  “He did,” I admitted. “But only once. And not badly. It is his right, after all,” I added bitterly. “As my husband he has every authority, over my body and my conduct. If he wished to beat me, no law in the country would come to my defense. But I could bear a beating. It is not that. He says that I am mad.”

  Silence fell briefly. “It is not the first time you’ve had that accusation made against you, is it?” James said at length. “I have suffered it too, as has anyone who collects butterflies. Just last week I had a letter from a sea captain who was collecting for me in Spain when he was set upon by locals. They accused him of sorcery and of necromancy, of chasing butterflies in an attempt to commune with the spirits of the dead.”

  I was shocked. “Surely, nobody really believed he was a necromancer?”

  “I am afraid that the Age of Reason has not reached some parts of Spain.”

  “Just as it has not reached some parts of England.” I clutched my pot of ale. “I came to London because I am afraid of what Richard will try to do. I am afraid that he means to have me locked up so he can take possession of my estate. As my wedded husband, he could do that, couldn’t he? He could lock me up and seize everything. That is what they do to the insane, isn’t it?”

  “It happens,” James said bluntly, and I was so grateful to him for not trying to belittle my fears. “But he would have to bring lunacy proceedings against you before he would be allowed to keep you under any restraint. He would have to petition the Lord Chancellor and convince a jury that you were incapable of managing yourself or your estate.”

  “There are enough people who would support his claim.” I put down my pot and fingered the cascades of lace at the sleeves of my gown. “James, you must have been to see the lunatics in the new Bedlam?” I whispered the question with a morbid fascination. “Is it as terrible as they say? Are they filthy and naked and ranting, left to rattle their shackles and starve in cells that are stinking and damp and always dark?”

  “Nobody is going to send you to Bedlam,” he said quietly. “Nor anywhere like it. The asylums are for the poor.” He gave a half-smile. “Those who are wealthy and insane are committed to the care of a physician, and if they are confined, it is in a warm and comfortable room in their own country mansion. But Eleanor, you are not mad,” he reassured me. “You are exuberant and enthusiastic. You are passionate and you are obsessive. To many that may look very like madness, but you are probably the sanest person I have ever met.”

  “You do not subscribe, then, to the notion that there are demons which prey on obsession and passion?”

  “I believe that is a most convenient deterrent, put about to discourage obsession and passion, which I think is a very great pity and makes the world a far poorer place.”

  I smiled at that. “You are a wonderful person.”

  “Coming from you, that is the highest praise.”

  “You do not believe that all women are creatures of weak reason either?”

  He let his hands fall from mine. “I cannot speak for all women. I have known too few of them, and those whom I have known I have known too vaguely. I have always been too busy.”

  “That sounds a lame excuse.”

  “Does it? Perhaps it is. I admit I have little faith in the state of matrimony. It does not seem to bring many people contentment. You yourself have tried it twice and it seems to me that both have led to great sorrow and pain, of one sort or another.”

  “If I had not married, I would not have my children,” I said. “If I had not married Richard, I would not have little Ellen, who is as exquisite as a doll, and Dickon, who is so clever and kind it humbles me.” I smiled. “Oh, James, you should see how he turned the house into an ark with all the wounded creatures he takes in. He has a talent for healing them. But I worry for him. He is so sensitive. He has never really got along with his father. I shall have to go back to Tickenham, to face Richard’s accusations, but I do not want Dickon there with me.”

  “How old is he?”

  “Nine.”

  “Is he tall? Would he pass for a couple of years older?”

  “In manner, most definitely.”

  “Then bring him to me and I will take him as my apprentice.”

  Instantly I saw that it was a perfect solution. Since the Glanville family seat at Elmsett was ruined and there were no funds to repair it, Dickon would have to make his own way in the world. He would need a profession, and medicine would suit him more than most. I could not wish for a better master to tutor him.

  “Don’t worry.” James smiled. “I will not make him bed down under the counter, like the usual sort of apprentice. He will have his own dormitory and eat his meals at my table.” His eyes held mine with rare tenderness. “I promise to care for him as if he was my own son.”

  “Thank you, James.”

  “It is you who is doing me the greater service,” he said with his usual generosity. “I need help with my work, and I know any son of yours will be honest and quick to learn and very charming company with it.”

  I felt a little pang of shameful envy that I tried very hard to quash, but could not quite. All I could think was that I should like very much to be bound as James Petiver’s apprentice. I should like nothing better than to know that I would be learning from him, working side by side with him, every day for the next seven
years.

  ENVY MADE ME a little impatient with Dickon as I helped him sort his own possessions from the trunk and put them into a small portmanteau we had borrowed from John Burges. Dickon was as dejected as Cadbury, who trailed at his heels with her tail between her legs.

  “I’ll take care of her for you, I promise,” I tried to assure him.

  He turned to me then, his bottom lip trembling. “I want to stay with you,” he said, plaintively. “Mama, why do I have to go?”

  Faced with his doleful eyes, I felt my heart completely melt. I went to him and wrapped him in my arms, a knot in my own throat. I clasped his head to my chest and pressed my lips into his hair. “This is a great opportunity, Dickon,” I told him gently. “You could not have a better master than James Petiver. He is a good man, a clever man, my dearest friend. You will learn so much from him. Will you try to be brave, Dickon, for me?”

  He nodded.

  James welcomed him with an arm about his shoulders and took him off on a tour of the premises. The back of the shop was even more bizarre and amazing than the front, like a sorcerer’s laboratory, with cauldrons bubbling and steaming and liquids distilling in bottles and tubes. Outside was something equally amazing and sublime. James had established his own idyllic little physic garden.

  I felt like Cadbury as I trailed behind them, up the straight grassed avenues and neat rows of herbs and medicinal plants, trying to quell the pangs of regret that only magnified with each friendly, enthusiastic word James spoke to my young son and made me wish, now more than ever, that I had been born a boy.

  “You will accompany me on my rounds and become familiar with patients and diseases in a way that medical students in Oxford and Cambridge, who are restricted to academic learning, never have the chance to do,” James said. “There will be a few menial tasks, I’m afraid, but not too many. Most of the time you’ll be learning about the mystery and craft of compounding drugs and simples, and how to recognize medicinal plants and where they grow in woods and meadows. Several times each year we shall take the Apothecary Society’s state barge up the river with the other masters and apprentices and roam around the meadows of Gravesend and Tickenham, collecting plants to bring back here or take to the Company Hall for discussion.” James flicked a humorous sideways glance at me. “Your mother was always very interested to hear about those days and the riotous suppers which usually end them.”

  I glanced away, in case the envy had so magnified it had turned my blue eyes to green.

  When we had completed a full circuit and were back in the shop, I knew I could delay no longer. “I will be on my way, then,” I said, going to Dickon to kiss him good-bye. His lip was trembling again. “Don’t,” I commanded softly. “Or I will start too.”

  “Mama, I will miss you.”

  I stroked his cheek. “I will miss you too, my little love.”

  “Ach, stop it, the pair of you,” James said. “You will neither of you have the chance to miss each other. Dickon, your mother is welcome here anytime, she should know that. She can come to the shop every day to see you, if she wants to.” He was addressing my son, but his words were very definitely directed at me. Then he turned to me and I knew that it was a waste of time trying to conceal anything from him. My face was an open book to him. James, like Richard, read it as easily as my father used to read the Bible. He smiled, as if at some private joke shared between us. “She can be as an apprentice herself, if that is what she would like to be.”

  I MADE MYSELF GIVE Dickon a day or two to settle in on his own. When I went back to the shop, I was impressed anew by its extraordinary atmosphere, part scientific, part magical. For many, the study of herbs was still allied to magic, for all that apothecaries worked side by side with physicians. Camphor vied for shelf space with brimstone, artists’ dyes with substances used in alchemy. And in the midst of it all was James, standing betwixt the old world and the new.

  He looked up from grinding some dried leaves and salt in the mortar and smiled to see me. “He’s in the laboratory,” he said. “Go and see.”

  Dickon was seated at a bench, wearing an apron and measuring out ajar of juice into a bowl of oil. “It is self-heal and oil of roses,” he said. “If you anoint the temples and forehead, it is very effectual in removing headache.”

  “Always good to know.”

  “And if you mix it with honey of roses, it heals ulcers in the mouth.”

  “I’ll try to remember,” I said.

  “I cannot stop, or it will spoil,” he told me.

  “I’ll not interrupt you, then.” I wandered back out to the shop, feeling superfluous. “You keep my son too busy to talk to me,” I complained teasingly to James.

  He put down his pestle and gave me his full attention. “He’s a capable boy. He takes notes of everything I tell him and knows the properties of the contents of a good proportion of the jars already.” I smiled with the pleasure of any mother at hearing her child praised. “If he carries on at this rate, I’ll be able to leave him in charge in a couple of months and concentrate on cataloguing my specimens.” He saw my eyes brighten for a different reason. “I have so many sent to me now, from all over the world, that I can’t keep up. I am afraid they are in the most terrible muddle. But I fear your son will be no help to me in that respect. I tried to show him some lizard specimens but he became almost distressed. Couldn’t get away from them and scuttle back to the laboratory fast enough, in fact.”

  I smiled. “He does not approve of killing so much as a fly.”

  “It is no matter. My collection is not to everyone’s liking.”

  “You know it would be very much to mine.”

  He looked almost abashed. “If I am to show it to you, it would mean going up to my rooms.”

  “It may be improper, but I am a most improper person.” I smiled, linking my arm through his. “Ask anyone in Tickenham.”

  James left Dickon listening out for callers and led the way up a flight of steep, narrow stairs that ran up the outside of the shop and led to a little parlor. It smelled clean and fresh, with a hint of lavender and pencil shavings, but it was an utter mess. Clothes and books were heaped on chairs and the table, as were piles and piles of papers and letters. There were bottles of frogs, lizards, grasshoppers, and all varieties of small creatures—spiders, wasps, flies, lobsters, urchins—drowned in rum. Boxes of shells and cases of beetles were stacked on the floor or against the walls. There was an anaconda and a rattlesnake that still looked capable of slithering across the floor. It was like being in a dreamland, being given a tantalizing glimpse of a new world rich in color, utterly different from any I had ever known or even dreamed of.

  But I turned to James and pulled a face.

  He read my dismay and shrugged. “I did warn you.”

  “You did.” I laughed. “But still, I was not quite prepared. Good Lord, James, I have never seen such a jumble.”

  But it was a treasure trove of a jumble, filled with promise. I raised my skirts as I would in the wet, and picked my way over to the table, where I lifted a box of beetles and was met with a glimpse of a stunning butterfly beneath. It had black-and-white-striped wings, in the sickle shape of a Swallowtail, and came from South Carolina, according to the note pinned beneath it.

  “There are plenty rarer and far more beautiful even than that,” James said. He gestured helplessly around the room, scratched the back of his head. “If only one knew where to look.”

  I itched to see more, but was reluctant to relegate the precious South Carolina butterfly back to its precarious pile in order to free up my hands. I might be consigning it to oblivion forever. I looked round for a more suitable place but there was none, not one clear surface.

  James strode over a tower of collecting books and came to stand beside me. “I have tried to make some inroads.”

  “You have?”

  He removed the American butterfly from my grasp and set it down, turned to a cabinet behind him and opened a long shallow drawer like a tra
y, releasing a lovely scent of cedarwood. Contained within it was a box of butterflies, their silvery-white wings marked with brown and orange borders and striking black eyespots. “White Peacocks, from the West Indies,” he told me.

  I ran my fingers over the glass, and it felt like trying to reach the sky or touch the stars.

  “There are butterflies in this room from all over the world,” James said tantalizingly. “Antigua. Barbados. New York. St. Christopher’s Island.”

  “The sea captains and ship’s surgeons send them to you, just like you said they would?”

  “Aye, and in greater quantities than ever I had hoped.”

  I let my eyes linger on the captivating White Peacocks for a little longer. They were not perfect, missing a leg here or an antenna there, were ragged around the edges, but it did not seem to matter. It was heartening to know James no longer sought perfection. That he would not discard a pretty creature just for a broken wing.

  “I have promised my friend John Ray that I will catalogue them, so he can include them in his great history of insects. But I lack the time.”

  “What you need, then”—I smiled—“is a person with some experience of cataloguing. A person who has plenty of time and is badly in need of some distracting occupation.”

  “And would you happen to know of such a person, by any chance?”

  “Oh, I most certainly would.”

  Summer

  1695

  There was no formal arrangement as such, but I fell into a habit of going to the sign of the white cross at least every other day, and for most of those days, while James and Dickon were about their apothecary business, I climbed the narrow stairs to James’s rooms above the shop and tidied and organized and was happy as a bee in clover. I spent the mornings with beetles and lizards and shells; the afternoons were devoted to butterflies, which I ordered according to color and then subdivided by size, until they were neatly graded in their cases like jewels strung on a necklace. In this room, if in no other part of my life, I had complete control. It was cathartic, putting things to rights, restoring order, squandering hours just marveling at the glorious little beings.