Alchemy (28 page)

I returned with the chariot to Baynard’s Castle. My lady told me after on her coming home, that there had been masking, dancing and making merry at the banquet and many had gone drunk to bed. She was driven back in her coach a little tipsy herself and when her ladies had undressed her, fell into bed saying she had no need of a sleeping draught for she was so weary, and contented with all, that she should sleep with ease. From this I understood that she had received that respect that was her due as one of the noblest in all the realm. Indeed as I watched by her bedside until she slept I heard her murmur: ‘The name of Sidney is still potent in the land.’

The next day all others slept late. Myself was restless and rose early. It was in my mind that Knightrider Street was but a step from the dark bulk of Baynard’s which lay like a vast ship wrecked upon the shore of Thames and that I could walk up from the castle towards Paul’s by Godliman Street and be at the College of Physicians in but a few moments. This I determined to do. So after a breakfast of bread, stew from the pot and small beer, I left the household sleeping, apart from the cooks who had served me in the kitchen. I knew I must be back before the countess woke and called for me. And was this expedition in itself not a little betrayal for what was I about but looking to secure my future if my present employment should fail? Therefore I slunk through the gate as one guilty but when I stood upon the road outside and saw it rising up towards Paul’s with a little mist coming off the river, for although it was but March yet the sun shone and the many boats at anchor at Queenhithe Wharf bobbed on the smiling water as symbols of freedom and adventure, I felt my heart lift and set off uphill accompanied by the mist that was like a benediction from another world although I knew it was but a common vapour.

Turning into Knightrider Street itself I soon stood before the College of Physicians where so lately Dr Gilbard had lived when busy with his duties as secretary in London but it was all
shut up, perhaps on account of the holiday. I stood before it wondering what I should have done had it been open. Would I have been brave enough to enter and look for the doctor’s assistant? But that was foolishness. He would be still in Colchester at the doctor’s house there or already removed in pursuit of his own business. Now there must be a new secretary to the College who would know nothing of my father or the experiments with electrics, so quickly do a man’s concerns fade from sight after his death. My dream of freedom and a way to earn my bread if cast away was only that, a fantasy from a head heated with wine, risen like the vapour that accompanied me here, now dissolving as the morning advanced. Had I indeed been what I seemed I could have looked for an apprenticeship to a practising physician but such a course was too dangerous for that, inhabiting the same house as I should, it would be hard if not impossible to prevent discovery. In this only my lady could protect me.

And now I longed again for my father in whose house I could have worked and learnt without deception and yet it was in that same house that my confusion had begun if not in my mother’s womb itself. Again I could not see how to make my way in the world except to abandon my nature and future happiness which I knew lay among my experiments and in the laboratory, for only great ladies can mix such pursuit with marriage, unless I could find one with like interests whose helper I could remain. Yet even such a one must mean a subjection to the desires of another for which I was all unready.

As I cast around in my mind for some passage through my difficulties it came to me that if I could make a book of some of my receipts and experiments and find one to publish it I might by this means earn my bread. I determined to have again and soon my book which Dr Adrian Gilbert had taken away and to try to make acquaintance through my lady with a printer who might issue such a book and pay me for it. Then I thought
that she might be suspicious of such a desire and that I must be careful to find some way to present it that would not offend or alarm her and bring about the very thing I feared most, to be put away from her presence.

Looking up at the College I made a vow that when I had my book printed I would return again with a copy so that at least my name should be known among the learned. I made my way quickly downhill towards the river and found the castle beginning to stir although I had been away but a little while. My lady was calling for me and taking a silver tray I loaded it with a cup of wine and fine white bread thinking that after the surfeit excitements of the day and night before she would need some sustenance easy of digestion and a draught of liverwort bruised and boiled in small beer to calm and cleanse her stomach.

She declined the draught saying she felt exceeding well. ‘We are bidden to a play in her majesty’s private apartments given by the king’s servants. It does not please his majesty to be present but to make ready for the progress that he intends. And indeed I observe that he thinks such toys are principally to amuse women and young courtiers and therefore he leaves such presentations to the queen while seeing their use in the entertaining of foreigners as ambassadors and the like. It may be that the coldness of Scotland both of their clime and their religion makes men less susceptible to poetry than is the custom among the nobility of England. It might be expected that the Danes being on the same cold sea would be of the like temper but they say the queen’s brother keeps musicians always around him, as indeed some from England who could not stomach our religion being that of her late majesty and could get no preferment under her. And our actors went there in the reign of Queen Anne’s father to the palace at Elsinore during a time of plague before the Spanish invasion. So her majesty delights in plays, masques and all manner of entertainment and has taken a poet, my son’s
old tutor Master Daniel, to be groom of her Privy Chamber. You will attend me again as my page Amyntas. The Lady Anne is still asleep and will not be present. I must excuse her to the queen.’

That afternoon we rode to Whitehall again but this time through no cheering crowds. Already the seven arches began to appear the things of paint, cloth and wood that was their nature stripped of illusion. On our entry to the queen’s apartments we found new magic however. A stage had been set up as before at Wilton but with more lifelike scenes painted in prospective on flat screens so that we looked into a little world within our world as if we had passed through the hill of the fairies as some old wives tell, or the old song of True Thomas, and could perceive their realm with our mortal eyes.

The ladies and Prince Henry took their seats while I placed myself behind the countess her chair. This time I was prepared for the players’ illusion and was not to be deceived by their rich silks and air of command to think them other than they were. I looked about me at the courtiers lounging at ease, gossiping among themselves. My Lady Bedford leant to whisper in the queen’s ear, she sitting close as the favourite since she brought her majesty out of Scotland.

The play began and all were hushed. There entered four personages all in black. A lady and her son, an old man and a maid. The lady was parting from her son, a ward of court as the young earl had been, and chafing at it as he had. The old man spoke some words in praise of the king to which the lady replied asking for news of the king’s condition. The old lord answered that his majesty had abandoned his physicians and resigned himself to death.

The lady spoke again and at her words in spite of my resolution that it was but a sham, I felt tears prick my eyes for it seemed she spoke of me.

‘This young gentlewoman had a father – O, that had, how sad a passage his – whose skill was almost as great as his honesty; had it stretched so far, would have made nature immortal, and death should have play for lack of work. Would for the king’s sake he were living! I think it would be the death of the king’s disease.’

The he/she that played the physician’s daughter began to weep and I felt to my shame my own tears, until then pent behind my eyes, begin to fall at which my lady reached up a hand and touched mine where I held to the back of the chair behind her so that a drop fell on it shining in the light of the torches.

As to the rest of the play I remember Lite of it. The maid applied her father’s prescription to the king and cured his fistula but there all resemblance to my case ended for she acted out of love for a young count whose mother had befriended her as Naomi did for Ruth. The count was a cruel boy that she could win only by a bed trick. The lady his mother seemed nobler to my eyes and ears and I was all the more ready to say with the maid who cheated him into his wife’s bed, ‘Marry who will, I’ll live and die a maid.’

My lady called me to her when we had returned to Baynard’s. ‘Well my young physician, what did you think of the play? Did it not bring home to you that maids must marry and it is time to leave this game? Your tears for your father, as I took them, should have perhaps been for you that like Helen have none to provide a dowry for you that would help you to a husband worthy of you. You know that when my son shall marry I shall lose these houses that have sheltered you. You must think of your future.’

I felt the tears come again and went down on my knees before her. ‘I will never be a charge upon you my lady whatever falls out. Only do not turn me away until you must. When the time is ready let me go of my own will.’

Then she lifted me up and kissed me on the mouth. ‘We shall play our game of Arcadia a little longer child until the world and time decide otherwise.’

As I’d expected when I confronted the police I was ‘informed’, you’re never just told, that a member of the public had reported lights and vehicles where none should be. There was a question about whether the owners, some kind of environmental trust, would want to bring a private prosecution. It sounded as if the police themselves were wondering about pressing charges. What after all would they get: a fine, community service? Was it really worth the time and expense? I pointed out that my client was of good standing, without a previous record. I suggested there were no independent witnesses and that the whole affair could smack a bit of farce if it came to open court before the local press. I also queried the public order implications if the media went over the top and whipped up local anger. I tried a cool, measured, faintly amused tone and waited. They said they would let me know. He could be served with a summons to appear in due course.

‘What isn’t clear, Ms Green, is what your client was doing there. Maybe the public could feel safer if he was on the sex offenders’ register.’

A red light was flashing in my head. For that they would need a conviction. It would make Galton unemployable anywhere around young people or children at least. I would have to risk the truth or some of it.

‘I can assure you that there was nothing of a sexual nature involved. Any more than there is in people gathering at Stonehenge for the midsummer sunrise. Like the Druids. The right to practise one’s religion is a fundamental human right.’

‘The Druids have their clothes on, Ms Green, long robes and hats like the Archbishop of Canterbury. If they were stark naked we should have to arrest them.’

‘My client was changing out of his robe.’

‘Can you produce this robe?’

‘It was among his clothes when he was arrested.’

‘Everything was returned to him when he was bailed.’

Mentally, I crossed my fingers and took a deep breath.

‘Exactly. So we can produce it.’

‘Is this it on the list? Red nightshirt or dressing gown.’

‘That’s it.’ I hoped it was, and that Galton hadn’t felt the robe had been contaminated by the experience and thrown it away.

‘You or your client need to bring us this garment so that we can verify its existence and its purpose.’

‘We’ll get it to you as soon as possible.’

‘Today, if you want to avoid a charge of withholding evidence as well.’

So that’s my day fucked. I ring Galton and arrange to meet him at the station.

‘Do I have to go in, Ms Green? That place, those officers, terrify me.’

‘That’s what they’re supposed to do. The public likes it like that until they’re subject to it themselves of course. If you’ll pay for it I can meet you at the train station and go there by taxi. Then you can sit in the cab, in case they insist on seeing you and taking a further statement.’

‘I do hope not.’

He’s his usual neat self when we meet at the station. He hands me a brown paper parcel in a plastic carrier bag and we join the taxi queue. ‘If they want you to make a statement I’ll come out and get you. All you need to say is you were there for the purpose of practising your religion.’

‘Do I have to mention anyone else?’

‘God, no. Then it could become a conspiracy. You’d have to give names. They’d be dragged in as witnesses. Keep it simple.’

‘I wouldn’t want anyone else to be involved. I was trying to protect them by being the last to leave.’

‘Try not to lie. Just be a bit selective with the truth, that’s all.’

I leave him sitting in the cab and go in with my parcel If I can I want to keep Galton out of it. In his present jumpy state he might say far too much or too little. I ask to see Sergeant Parry who had dealt with us before and sit meekly waiting while he’s fetched. This time the monitor doesn’t show him coming. Suddenly he’s emerging from the bowels of the station with an expression on his face as if I’ve got him out of bed. ‘Ms Green? Come this way, please.’

We traverse the corridors again. Today there’s no flutter in my gut, just a numbness that’s probably lack of sleep, or else familiarity already breeding contempt.

‘Have you brought the garment?’

I proffer the carrier bag. Perry takes it, wrestles with the Sellotape bindings and finally bursts it open. I see a piece of red cloth with some gold embroidered edging. Perry opens it out and holds it up distastefully.

‘What was he doing, rehearsing for Father Christmas?’

‘I believe it’s part of a ritual.’

‘And were there other persons involved in this ritual? The officers reported the remains of a fire still warm though an obvious attempt had been made to put it out and conceal the evidence. The caller reported lights and vehicles present.’