Alchemy

by Maureen Duffy

  It had once been adorned with a plume of feathers of which only the stumps remained. Now I felt myself indeed to be the amazon, Zelmane of that Arcadia her brother had written for my lady in his exile or that Forsaken Knight worsted by Amphialus. I therefore determined that I should return again to the mansion with all necessary ingredients and tools to restore the armour’s brightness. Yet I wondered about its first owner and what had been his fate that it should be left behind in that manner when the house was shut up.

  So I now had more reasons to return there often as the summer weeks passed. And soon when I had finished the cuirass and helmet to my liking I set up a ring on a pole that I might practise riding at it with the lance and found that my horse that I was accustomed always to take, showed some remembrance of what was expected of him and of the exercise, for instead of rearing up in fright at the pole he carried me bravely on and would repeat the pass until I grew quite skilful in winning the ring with the point of my lance. Then I wished there might be dragons to slay or that I could rescue my countess from a giant’s castle as in the old romances. Yet now the jousts are only in sport, in imitation of those of former times and instead of the chivalry in single combat of the lance, for warfare there is the thunder of the musket and the cannon.

  With the coming of autumn when harvest was over my lady sent to tell me that the wedding would be soon and she would be returning. I was to go to the great house and help to make all ready there. So I packed my chests of instruments and medicines and rode back to Wilton, not stopping to lie anywhere on the way but sleeping one night under the stars beside my horse who had become my familiar in our long weeks together and seemed to understand my humour whether it was light or dark. But before I left I fetched my armour, for now I believed it was indeed my own, from Sir Harry Stilman his old house and hid it in another chest under a cloak to be sent down with my other things in a wagon.

  The maids and men had already received warning of my lady’s return, brought by Dr Adrian Gilbert on his way to his friends in Devon with news of how Sir Walter his brother did in the Tower and with what equanimity he took his imprisonment, not railing at his ill fortune but determined to win his majesty’s favour when the opportunity should arise.

  As soon as my chests arrived, I restocked the laboratory and began again to treat those sick who hearing I was returned presented themselves at the house. One day when I was busy washing the wound of an old man who had gashed his leg chopping wood, a deep cut which had festered and become quite rotten before he had come into my hands, Dr Gilbert entered the barn where I was working.

  Coming up behind me he peered at the wound. ‘No good may be done for that. You must take off his leg if that is not beyond your skill.’

  ‘Oh sir,’ the old man said, ‘leave me my leg. I will live with the badness and aid myself to walk with this stick but leave me my leg.’

  ‘Do not distress yourself,’ I said. ‘We have not come to such yet. And see the wound is already less inflamed in the two days I have treated it.’

  ‘We shall have you cried for a miracle worker Master Boston if you can save this. What magic have you been using or have you had the help of demons?’

  ‘No sir. I use only nature herself to drain out infection. This wound being of an axe is nothing supernatural and therefore needs treating by natural means and remedies.’

  ‘And what then may they be? If it is no secret from the world?’

  ‘I wash it daily in a distillation of cinquefoil.’

  ‘Cinquefoil?’

  ‘It is a small creeping herb, very common by the roadside and therefore may be overlooked by some. It grows like a strawberry in strings with little yellow flowers. The root boiled in vinegar I have used distilled to wash this man’s wound, thereafter leaving it to dry. He will testify that the inflammation is abating.’

  ‘And is this also in your little book of receipts which my lady commanded me to bring to her?’

  ‘No sir. It is only in my head as yet being a simple remedy, but I shall include it in the fair copy she bade me make for her use. And in that which I will one day hope to place before the world.’

  ‘You must buy yourself an accreditation first before the world will accept your homespun scribblings as of value to it. Perhaps this silly old man will testify to your skill before the bishop.’

  ‘Indeed sirs I will. If the young master do save my leg from the saw he shall have my prayers and my wife’s as long as we live. And see she has sent some fresh eggs from her hens being all we have to pay you with.’ And he drew a kerchief from his hat which he had nursed carefully while I was washing of his wound, which I knew must sting mightily from the vinegar, and showed the four speckled eggs nested in it.

  ‘These old rogues always cry poverty. He will have a nest egg of another kind under his straw pallet.’

  ‘No sir, for all our money has gone to buy books and pens and paper for our son who is learning to be a clerk in Salisbury so that he may keep accounts and one day if God wills be the steward in a great house as this.’

  ‘You will find that he has learnt only to despise his parents and that station in which God has placed him.’ And he left us.

  ‘Keep your eggs old man for they will do good for you and your wife and strengthen you against the winter. We must have your leg healed fully before then or the cold and wet will inflame it again. I will take just one of your eggs to bind up a poultice for a boil that must be brought to a head.’

  When the old man was gone and I thought on what had been said I blamed myself for boasting of my design to Dr Gilbert for I saw that it could only feed the envy he nursed towards me, and had since our first meeting, fearing perhaps that I would supplant him in the countess’s favour in spite of his advantage of birth and schooling, and her love for his brother Sir Walter.

  The next day with the clattering of many horses and the groaning of cartwheels my lady returned. With joy I went to greet her and hand her from her carriage, for the Lady Anne was sick again and her mother had travelled with her from London where commonly she was accustomed to ride horseback like her late majesty.

  ‘Perhaps country air and your attentions can do her some good Amyntas. Certain the stink of the city, now that the people begin to burn coals against the winter, has made her worse since the wedding was over and we left Penshurst. God grant this marriage go well for my brother writes that his new son is discontented already. It is very soon for an unkindness to begin but she must endure as women must or be shut out from a household of her own and live dependent on others.’

  I heard this as a reflection of my own state but my lady’s thoughts were elsewhere. She went on: ‘And how have you occupied yourself in my absence Amyntas? I hope you have not allowed your skills to decline through idleness. My daughter has need of every attention and I myself am worn down with the cares of this marriage and her sickness. Attend on her as soon as you may and for me I would have a draught for ease of this black melancholy that has settled on me when I hoped that the sight of my own home would raise my spirits. Also it will soon be mine no more for the earl my son has it in hand to be married to the daughter of the Earl of Shrewsbury. As yet no contract is agreed and all may still founder on the terms of it. Still I feel in my heart that this time matters will go forward and his majesty himself shows a great liking for the match which must promise well. Then all will be change and confusion. You will go to the Lady Anne.’

  ‘Madam I will go as soon as she is rested from the jolting of the carriage over so long a way. Now I will attend you so that you may be rested and refreshed too.’

  For both of them I prepared a light sleeping potion that would give them rest without heaviness, bringing hers for my lady with my own hands, and sending for her daughter as well a dish of coddled eggs and creamed white breast of chicken. When I judged that the Lady Anne would be rested, I went to her chamber where she was used to He when visiting her home, taking with me the duenna who was returned with her mistress and, in spite of her a
ge, in better health than either the countess or her daughter.

  The Lady Anne was sitting up in her bedgown, a little lawn cap upon her head. Her face bore two red spots of fever in its whiteness. She was very thin as one who had been these last weeks at a fast not a feast, and when she coughed she spat green phlegm into her kerchief. I took her pulse which was shallow but fast. I conceived that the immediate cause of her fever was a pleurisy for which I could prescribe a soothing linctus, for I noticed she held her hand to her side when she coughed. But I feared more from her general appearance, and particularly from that wasting I observed, that underlying it was a consumption of the lungs, phthisis, for which I would prescribe her an electuary of plantain which I kept in a pot, to be taken at night three hours after supper and because the base of it is honey then it soothes and is easy and pleasant to swallow.

  ‘She will never make old bones,’ the duenna said. ‘Can you make her well enough Master Boston, to be married before she dies?’

  ‘If as I fear she has indeed a phthisis then I can only try, for this disease apart from canker is the hardest of cure, especially when it appears in one so young and takes such hold as I see in her sunken cheeks which should be in full bloom of youth. And indeed no physician can truly cure it but only drive it underground for a time where it ferments in the body until, like a mine engineers tunnel to lay a charge under a city wall, it suddenly explodes and brings all down with it.’

  ‘You must keep your fears from the countess, and pretend to that confidence of care you do not have, for I have seen these past weeks that her own health falters from some woman’s complaint that makes her think her own youth and even life are gone. In her old home of Penshurst she was most sad, remembering those days before her marriage when she and her younger brothers and sisters played and learnt together after Sir Philip was sent away to school. Both her sisters died young and she must see the same danger for the Lady Anne although she conceals it perhaps in the hope that what is unspoken may not happen.’

  I thought that my lady would not take refuge in such a superstition but I kept this for myself. Two days later she called me over to her again together with the rest of the household.

  All is concluded,’ she said, addressing us in the hall. ‘My son the Earl of Pembroke is to be married for the Lady Mary Talbot, daughter to the honourable Earl of Shrewsbury, the match to take place here on the 4th of November. Their majesties themselves will graciously attend and it will be a most splendid occasion for which there is little time to prepare. There will be presented a masque and a tilt for the nobles and gentlemen on the meadows beyond the river. We must begin at once and all must bear their share.’

  The countess her household broke out clapping and cheering, each vowing to do their best but my heart was heavy with dismay at the news and what it might portend, and when I looked upon my mistress her face I saw that same unease written there although she was forced to try to disguise it before her family.

  It’s a long time since I’ve been to the Gaos or maybe it’s just that so much has happened, it feels like for ever so I get on my bike and ride over. It’s Saturday night, their busiest time. Mary seems pleased to see me. She blushes a bit and looks down at her order book not to catch my eye. Packing the carrier with an order and riding the darkening streets is somehow soothing as if life could be this simple but I have to tell them tonight that I can’t go on with it. Whether it’s by some kind of osmosis from the Galton affair, or more people needing a cheap lawyer, or our increasingly litigious society I read about in the press when I’ve got time to read a paper at all, but suddenly all sorts of clients with their sad or corny stories are beating a way to my door. Maybe it’s because I’ve set up my own website for Lost Causes and they like the spiel I put out there. Anyway it leaves me no time or energy for delivering takeaways especially since these things seem to have an exponential growth rate, the demands multiplying by some mysterious X-factor so that if this goes on I’ll be looking for an assistant to make the tea.

  So after I’ve done my stint and Mary is packing up my supper in the little silver lidded boxes and Mr Gao comes through from the kitchen to smoke a joint, I begin to apologise and explain.

  ‘We wonder that we don’t see you so much,’ Mr Gao says. ‘Charlie he say he see you in college. Then we wonder why you need for go there.’

  ‘You can’t have too many qualifications,’ I say.

  He nods. ‘Charlie agree with you. He very clever, very fit. Martial arts. He long time in America with my brother.’

  ‘I thought Charlie was from Hong Kong.’

  ‘He first from Hong Kong. His mother my sister there. Then he is in San Francisco and American college.’

  ‘I wondered about his English being so perfect. Will he stay here now?’

  ‘A little maybe. I don’t know. Chinese people all over the world, make businesses, where can work. Now make business in China, Quanjiao, Shanghai, good business for all over the world.’

  I thought it was a pity Mary and Charlie were cousins and wondered if she was a little in love with him. I hoped Charlie would stay and look out for them but not break her heart.

  ‘How are the friends next door behaving themselves?’

  Mr Gao looks round nervously, as if the room might be bugged: ‘At first they try to give trouble. Let down Charlie’s tyres. Break a window, stop customers coming in. Say “our food better – you come to us”. But they don’t come. My customers stay with me. Call me up to order food and now email. Charlie fix that up. Next week I take on new boy for delivery, so many orders. Charlie writes a letter to say we will sue them for harassment. Now all quiet. Maybe they thinking they buy me out, is better. Maybe I think so too.’

  ‘Well, my offer is still open. If you need me, I’ll always come and do what I can.’

  “Thank you, Miss Jade. Your business do good now?’ It was an imperative Mr Gao understood.

  ‘It’s doing better, Mr Gao. How long for, we shall see.’

  ‘Business up, business down,’ he shrugs. All the same in the end.’

  I feel a part of my life is over as I head back towards Waterloo, and I’m sad about that and a bit frightened too. Working for the Gaos gave my life some sort of structure, was less lonely for the snail out of the shell it had retired into so that it could stretch out its horns, put out feelers into the world before recoiling back in to hide. Now it’s time to move on if I can free myself at last from Settle and Fixit and Helen.

  She had finally rung me to flirt a little while letting me know she was busy elsewhere. I texted Joel and spent an evening getting pissed, trashing the government and the world generally.

  ‘You OK?’ he asked halfway through the session.

  ‘Don’t I seem it?’ It wasn’t like him to ask

  ‘You seem a bit tense, look a bit tired.’

  ‘Thanks. I’ve been in love but I may be falling out of it.’

  ‘Oh love. That old merry-go-round.’

  ‘Roller coaster is more like. Nothing “merry” about it.’

  ‘Well I wouldn’t know. Since the big A I’ve been virtually celibate. Virtual sex. Maybe that’s the thing to go for. Trouble is it’s served up by some grubby sleaze merchants thousands of miles away and nobody even gets to touch.’

  ‘All breathing human passion far above…’

  ‘Something like that.’

  We’d moved away from my danger ground. I’d lied to Joel, except that it was just a bit of self-defence not grey enough to be a real lie. And he probably knew that anyway.

  James Chalmers called me in to talk about a case we were involved in, a squabble over merchandising rights in a toy that was itself a spin-off from a tele advert. The company that had made the original short claimed they’d been cheated out of a share of profit on the toy. The toymakers who’d enjoyed a Christmas killing said it was all theirs. The advert had come from a small indie production company making films on a shoestring. The toy boys were a branch of a conglomerate marketing aroun
d the world. Now the makers of the original product being advertised were asking for their share too.

  “This is counsel’s opinion. ‘James pushed it across his desk at me. ‘It gives us the backing we need.’

  We were representing the puppet masters whose product would delight the hearts and bring smiles to the little faces of children throughout the globe, of every hue and feature. It stood on James’s desk, a hairy blob of jelly in green bendable plastic with no neck and a toothy grin. The makers had given it a name, the Whirly-gon, which was part of their case. It had started life as a germ to be driven out by a new cleaning fluid. They hoped it was the next ET.

  ‘I don’t think this is right.’

  ‘Jade, you can’t just dismiss counsel’s opinion. It cost enough. And well, he is rather more experienced than you. One of the most prestigious in the field, in fact.’

  ‘I know his reputation. It’s just that in this case I think he’s too optimistic. After all there was a contract, though not a very well drawn one.’

  ‘That’s his point. Hardly worth the paper it was written on. Back of the envelope stuff.’

  ‘But a contract. I think the judge could take the view that given the inequality of the parties the weight must lie with the original creator. Saltire versus Ableson for instance.’

  ‘That isn’t how counsel interprets it. We must go with his advice or rather advise the client to.’

  ‘I think I’d like my doubts on record,’ I said carefully, ‘and I think the clients should be warned. If they were prepared to come to some arrangement…’

  ‘You seem to be keen on settlements, Jade. We don’t get money or prestige out of settlements. Winning damages and costs – that’s what counts.’

  ‘But losing counts even more. Against us.’

  Chalmers sighed. ‘I wish I could carry you with me, Jade, but in view of your opinion, I think I’d better handle this on my own. I can understand that women don’t have the same stomach for a fight, that you tend to avoid confrontation, but there are times when you have to stand up and be counted, even take a risk.’