FOUR
THE GARDENER FOUND the small bones. He had arrived to clean up the ground in front of the house and, although it was early in the morning, I thought I could smell drink upon his breath. He was wearing the headphones of a Walkman, and seemed to be swaying to some insistent tune. So I watched him as he set to work among the weeds and bushes; he was no more than middle-aged but he seemed very feeble, and immediately I regretted hiring him. The weeds defeated him, and he was bent over one patch of ground with a spade in his hand for several minutes. Then he began to examine the stone path tentatively and cautiously, as if it were about to collapse beneath his feet, before turning his attention to an area of tall grass. He was digging at its roots, without very much success, when suddenly he slipped and fell forward. I could see no other movement, so I hurried outside: he was sprawled inside a small pit which had been dug between some bushes but, more curiously, he had disturbed a ring of bones which had been neatly placed at the bottom of it.
'That's a very unusual thing,' he said, quite unperturbed by his fall. 'To see bones like that.'
My first sensation was that they were the remains of a child, and I looked at him in horror. 'What do you think they could be?'
'A dog. A cat. Some damn thing like that.' He picked up one of the bones and handed it to me; it felt oddly soft and pliable and I was tempted to put it up to my face, when I saw something gleaming by the side of the pit. It was a glass tube, snapped in half, and I recognized it at once: it was the same as the glass I had found in the drawer, with the odd distortion or protuberance at the end. But it had broken so neatly, as if something had been carefully poured on to the ground.
I went back into the house, and opened the table beneath the window in the ground-floor room; the glass tube was no longer in the drawer. I looked more carefully, letting my hand slide over the dusty wooden interior, when I felt something yield to my touch. Some sheets of paper had been laid here. When I removed them I saw that on the first of them had been written, in crude capitals, DOCTOR DEE'S RECIPE. I stared at the words in surprise: here was the strangest proof of what I had discovered yesterday, and the identity of the one who came before me in this house was now unexpectedly confirmed. But what kind of 'recipe' was this?
So that it may grow without the help of any womb! This is the secret of all secrets, and must remain so until that time of the end when all secrets will be revealed. Let the spagyricus take the seed and place it within a sealed glass, for preference the glass of Antwerp in which all light and heat seem to prosper. Bury it within horse dung for the next forty days, together with four true magnets in the shape of a cross, without forgetting to renew the water within the glass by pouring in the liquid of fresh dew each fourth day; then on the forty-first day it will begin to breathe and move its limbs. It will seem to you like a perfect human shape, but transparent and without any eyes. Now it must imbibe arcanum sanguinis hominis for the space of one year, all the while remaining beneath the glass, and at the end of that time it will be a pretty little infant thing. It will be a true homunculus, therefore, and can be taught like any other child; it will grow and prosper with all its intellect and faculties, until its thirtieth year when it will fall asleep and return to its first unformed state. One of the generation of the Inspirati must then cherish it, and place it again within glass, so that this secret and wonderful being may grow once again and walk upon the world. If you speak to it the sacred words it will prophesy about future events most cunningly, but its chief glory is that with proper care and reverence it will be constantly regenerated and so live for ever.
I looked up, and through the window glimpsed the clouds passing across the house. They formed such strange shapes that for a moment I thought I saw my own face among them; but the vision faded, and I looked down again at the papers I held in my hand. How could such things be? Margaret Lucas had told me that Doctor Dee practised black magic, but this was some monstrous fantasy. To create an artificial life within a tube of glass… I turned to the next sheet of paper, and then saw this.
PASSAGES IN ITS LIFE
It survived the Black Death by taking a compound of tannic acid, which it mixed instinctively. It prophesied the Great Fire, though no one listened. Dogs barked at its coming, and horses were afraid, but nothing else in nature recognized it for what it was. Yet it was loved by cats.
It knew Isaac Newton, and they held many learned conferences in which it explained to him the scientific meaning of the kabbalah. It was present at Newton's death, and was the thing which placed the coins upon his eyes.
It joined the Royal Society, and did several notable experiments upon the functions of the lymph gland.
It created the air pump, and then wrote in its pocket-book: Only our visions give us away.
It was employed in a glassworks, in Holborn, making lenses for the Greenwich Observatory.
It was once attacked by a London mob, which from its pale complexion thought it was a Huguenot.
It was a teacher at St Mary's Infant School in Walthamstow when it was first opened in 1824. Here it made a model of Trevithick's steam locomotive, to the great delight of the children. In the company of young people its natural colour was a light pink, which was ascribed by the other teachers to rapid circulation of the blood.
It has worked in the sewers beneath London.
It looked after Charles Babbage from his infancy, knowing him to hold the key to future prosperity.
It loved to walk among the New Docks at Wapping where there was an iron swing-bridge.
It worked on radar during the Second World War.
It travelled to the moon.
There are times when it leads an ordinary life in the world, without knowing anything of its destiny, but then by accident it causes wonders. It is such a loving subject that it helps others to find their true genius. It remembers nothing about its past or future until it returns home at the end of its thirty years, but it always does return home.
It has a doctrine — it believes in progress and the perfectibility of man. That is why, in the presence of superstitious people, it changes from white to red.
This is its vision of the future. It knows that contemporary science will develop so far that it will return to its origins, purified, and then expound the mysteries of the past. The doctrines of the alchemists and the astrologers, whom the homunculus knew very well, will then be revived within the great vision of quantum theory.
It knew Galen, and says that his beliefs were essentially correct. The doctrine of the humours will therefore be revived. The homunculus further tells us that the theory of the four elements is also accurate in a spiritual sense and will one day be employed by theoretical physicists.
It has one great fear. If the cycle of the ages is not mastered by great scientists, then the end of time (which it prophesies for the year 2365) will be reversed. It knows then that the centuries will roll back and that humankind will return in stages to its beginning. The Victorian and Elizabethan periods will recur, and Rome will rise again before crumbling into the darkness of what we now call pre-history.
I had read enough, but I looked at the paper a little longer; I seemed to know the handwriting, and then at once I realized that it was my father's.
There was a tapping at the door, and I went towards it in alarm. It was the gardener. 'What do you want me to do with those bones?'
'Bury them,' I said. 'Bury them as deep as you can.' He looked so worn and tired from digging in the old garden that I felt sorry for him. 'No. Wait a minute. I'll help you.'
So together we walked over to the pit and covered the circle of bones with dry earth; then I poured more soil upon the spot, and stamped it down with my foot. I had already taken out the two halves of the glass tube, and now I carried them down Cloak Lane and into the churchyard of St James. I would have been happy to linger among the graves, but there were two old men sitting apart on fragments of the stone wall there; it was as if they were waiting for resurrection. I did not want to distur
b them and so, on an impulse, I climbed the steps towards the front porch; the great wooden door was unlocked, and I entered the cool darkness of the church. I was still holding the glass, and as soon as I saw the baptismal font by a side altar I knew what I should do. I went over and filled both pieces with holy water; the water seemed warm to my touch, and I placed the halves of the glass tube against the small altar. Then I crept down the aisle, and sat in one of the wooden pews. I do not know if I tried to pray — there was nothing I really wished to pray for — but I remember kneeling down and putting my face in my hands. Somehow I wanted to lose myself, and so be at peace. But as I knelt there in the silence I knew there could be no rest for me here: my god dwelt where my love was, and my love was for the past. If I had any deity, it was contained within time itself. That was all I could worship and reverence — that passage of the generations which, as a researcher, I tried to enter. There was nothing for me in this place.
It was midday by the time I returned to Cloak Lane, and the gardener had gone. I hurried along the path, taking care not to look at the mound of freshly dug earth, and opened the door as quickly as I could: I did not want to admit to myself that I was afraid to enter the old house, now that I had found the notes in my father's handwriting. If I once entertained that fear, where might it lead? I might find myself permanently estranged or excluded from what was, after all, my inheritance.
Once again I was surprised by the silence of the house, and I could hear myself breathing as I sat down on the stairs. I was about to climb up to my bedroom, when I heard the low murmur or whisper of water. Was this what John Dee had heard, as the stream of the Fleet flowed down in his garden towards the Thames? Then I realized that the sound was coming from within the house. I could still hear my own breathing as I hurried into the kitchen, but nothing was wrong: I had left the tap running in the sink, and the water was flowing down the drain to the pipes beneath the earth. It was such a clear stream, too. It sparkled in the light of the sun coming through the window, and for a moment I closed my eyes in peace. When I opened them, the water was gone. The current had been stopped. And what was this? I recalled leaving my breakfast cup and plate in the sink, but now I could see them gleaming upon the shelf. I must have cleaned and dried them in some reverie, and it occurred to me that there might have been other occasions when I wandered through this house like a sleepwalker. I went up to my own room and noticed, with some surprise, that the bed had been made; as far as I was aware, I had left it in a state of disarray that morning. After a moment I realized that a small carpet had been laid across the carefully folded sheets. It was then I telephoned Daniel Moore.
He arrived soon after, and listened very quietly as I tried to explain everything that seemed to have happened within the house. For some reason I did not mention the notes about the homunculus, perhaps because it was too ridiculous a fantasy to entertain. But I did mention John Dee, and then for no particular reason started laughing. Daniel got up quickly from his chair, and went over to the window. 'Summer will be coming to an end shortly,' he said, rubbing his hands with satisfaction. 'No more late nights.'
I was about to ask him about his strange knowledge of the house — how he had found the recess under the stairs and how he knew about the sealed window — when the telephone rang. It was my mother and, before I could say anything, she began apologizing for her behaviour two days before. She would have called earlier, she said, but she had been ill ever since. 'I was coming down with something, Matty. I just wasn't myself. I wasn't myself at all.'
'How are your eyes?'
'My eyes?'
'Are you still seeing things?'
'Oh no. Of course not. I'm not seeing anything now.'
'It must have been the house, I suppose.' I was eager to have her opinion on this place. 'Did you like it?'
'How could I like it, Matthew, when I felt so ill?' Her curt manner had re-emerged, but then she apologized again and rang off.
When I came back into the room, Daniel was still looking out of the window and he started to whistle. Then he returned to his chair and leaned over to me, his hands clasped in front of him as if he were praying very earnestly. 'Let's put it this way, Matthew. Aren't we being a little too theatrical? Do you really believe that someone, or something, is living here with you?'
'But what about the dishes, and the carpet on the bed?'
'Perhaps we were doing a little sweeping, or dusting, and left it there by accident.' His hands were still clasped tightly in front of him. 'Haven't we been rather absent-minded recently?'
'Well…'
'I'm telling you, Matthew, that nothing out of the ordinary has happened here.' I suppose I was reassured by what he said, although the alternative — that something 'out of the ordinary' had occurred in this house — was too disagreeable to consider. 'Let's stick to what is known rather than what is unknown,' he was saying now. 'Tell me exactly what you found out yesterday.'
'Only that John Dee paid rates here in 1563 and that, according to Margaret Lucas, he was a black magician.'
'Oh, she always has something fanciful to say.'
'You asked me the other day how far I wanted to take this research.' I felt very tired and had the most peculiar sensation of hearing myself speaking from a distance, as if I were somewhere else within the room. 'I want to know everything, Daniel. I won't find any rest until I do. How does that poem go? "And yet can I not hide me in no dark place".'
He looked at me oddly for a moment, as if I had spoken out of turn. 'I suppose it is the right thing to do.'
'It's the only thing to do. It's my responsibility.'
'You make it sound as if you belong to the house.'
'I feel as if I belong to something. Don't you feel it, too?' It occurred to me suddenly that I might hang the carpets on the walls, so that the polished stone of the floor could reflect their colours. 'And don't you think there's a kind of duty involved? When you come to a place like this? I owe it to the house. I owe it to myself.'
'And to John Dee?'
'Of course. In a sense he's my ancestor now.'
I closed my eyes; I must have been more tired than I knew, because at once I found myself dreaming of the churchyard I had just visited. There was a tramp and a dog walking towards me. But I could only have slept for a moment because now, when I awoke, I could hear Daniel talking as if there had been no interval at all. 'In that case,' he was saying, 'John Dee may be waiting for us somewhere. Where shall we begin?'
*
Once upon a time I was afraid of libraries. Those shelves of books formed a world which had, almost literally, turned its back upon me; the smell of dust and wood, and faded pages, induced in me a sense of melancholy loss. Yet I began to repair my life when I became a researcher and entered the past: then one book led to another book, one document to another document, one theme to another theme, and I was led down a sweet labyrinth of learning in which I could lose myself. It has been said that books talk to one another when no one is present to hear them speak, but I know better than that: they are forever engaged in an act of silent communion which, if we are fortunate, we can overhear. I soon came to recognize the people who also understood this. They were the ones who always relaxed as they walked among the shelves, as if they were being comforted and protected by a thousand invisible presences. They seem to be talking to themselves but, no, they are talking to the books. And so I am a subscriber to the English History Library in Carver's Square, which, of all London libraries, is the most curious and dilapidated; the passages are narrow, the stairs circuitous, and the general atmosphere one of benign decay. The books here are often piled up on the floors, while the shelves can hardly bear the weight of the volumes which have been deposited on them over the years. Yet, somewhere among this ruin, I hoped to find John Dee.
In fact, to my surprise, there were two books devoted to him in an alcove labelled, in old-fashioned Gothic script, 'The History of English Science'. The most recent was John Dee's Natural Philosophy: Between Scie
nce and Religion by Nicholas Clulee, and as soon as I took it down from the shelf I realized that this was not the history of a black magician; there was a bibliography of thirty-four pages and it was clear, even from my brief examination of the chapters, that this was a serious account of mathematics, of astronomy, and of philosophy. Beside this volume was another, John Dee: The World of an Elizabethan Magus by Peter French; and when I took it down, he stared at me. He was depicted on the cover, and in my sudden fright I almost dropped the book. I had not expected to see him so soon, and it took me a moment before I could look at the painting again. The eyes were slightly too large, as if the artist had not known how to capture their brightness, and there was something about his expression that disquieted me. His capacious forehead was framed by a black skull cap; he had a medium-length grey beard, which spilled over his white ruff, and he seemed to be wearing a black gown. And yet what was wrong with his expression? He looked both menacing and confidential, as if he harboured some secret of great importance which he might or might not reveal to me. But his eyes were so wide, and so steady, that I could not help but meet his gaze.
I carried these books back to Cloak Lane, and placed them on the table beneath the window. I suppose that this was for me the strangest part of all — to leave these books about Doctor Dee in the same room where he had once walked. I felt as if I were some magician, trying to conjure him into existence from the grave. And then suddenly it occurred to me that he might have died in this house. I could have opened one of the books to discover the truth of this, but instead I turned and left the room.
The house of Doctor Dee Page 14
