The Alchemist's Daughter (19 page)

“Nothing.” She picked up the gown, treating me to a glimpse of her neat little waist under the immaculate tie of her apron and her smart close cap. “Then I shall wear the feathered gown,” I said.

[ 14 ]

S
O THE BLACK
orphan bird scraped and glistened its way to church, accompanied by its maid, Sarah, demure in an appropriate gray cloak. St. Mary and St. Edelburga, Selden Wick, was a stone’s throw from the manor. We crossed the stable yard, took a stepping-stone path over the front lawn to the iron gates, turned left past a handful of cottages and the rectory—all now condemned by our plans for Selden—across a small strip of glebe land on which a solitary goat was tethered, and wents up three stone steps into the churchyard.

I paused, though it still rained a fine soaking drizzle. In planning this trip, I had fatally overlooked the fact that my father was buried in the church and that for the next hour I would be sitting within a few feet of him.

Sarah sighed impatiently, and we walked on. Inside the church, I blinked through the gloom of my veil at a surprising number of backs. There never used to be such a crowd in Reverend Gilbert’s day. The only sounds were the click of Sarah’s nailed heels and the scratching of my feathered skirts against the little doors boxing in each family. Two years ago, I had known our tenants well enough to drink tea in their cottages and tease their offspring. Now no one turned and smiled, and it dawned on me that word must have got round already that my husband had plans for the village. When I passed by, people clutched tight hold of their children’s hands and drew themselves upright. The door to my own pew was shut. I fumbled with the latch and fell to my knees, but though I pressed my hands to my face, I couldn’t help peering sideways through my fingers. Yes, one stone stood proud of the others, not quite settled.

The organist played a chord and the vestry door opened. I stared straight ahead at the flame of a solitary candle, but I saw Shales move at the edge of my vision and knew that he must be conscious of me and my monstrous gown.

At the start of the sermon, Sarah went rigid, her face turned the color of tallow, and she seemed to gaze straight through the thick stone of the church walls into the moist farmland beyond. Then I forgot about her as the subject of the coming spring led Shales to reflect on the natural order of things—or, in some cases, the lack of it. God had created a perfect mechanical universe working according to precise laws, but some people were so full of the wonderful achievements of mankind that they had forgotten man was created in the image of God. Instead, they assumed that God was created in the image of man.

I studied my clasped hands.

“For instance,” said Shales, “consider the modern fashion for building houses in the style of Palladio. These houses are built to reflect the glory of man, not God. They are designed to imitate the symmetry of the human frame. Measurements have been taken from one side of the human body to another, and it’s been found that the width is a sixth of the height, and the depth, from navel to kidneys, a tenth. These then are the dimensions that are considered most perfect, and suddenly all our great houses must be built according to them. Never mind the real needs of those who live in or near them. All must be sacrificed for a spurious ideal of beauty.”

I looked up. As always when I saw Shales, I felt a jolt of surprise because he was never quite as I remembered. This time he seemed more substantial and confident. When his eyes fell on my veiled face, there was a flicker of recognition between us. This sermon was certainly for my benefit.

“Architecture,” he said, “is a noble art. The best architecture reminds us not of the achievements of man, but the achievements of God. Man’s extraordinary skill with glass and stone, even in this little church, reflects our desire to get close to God and to express our sense of awe and delight in our world. But there are those who build purely to reflect their own sense of self-importance. They use the number of windows and the height of their walls to say, ‘Look how much money I have, what marvelous taste, what authority. I can tame nature and keep my neighbor at bay.’ But it is not the houses of the rich that need rebuilding so much as the homes of the poor. The wealth of a great nation is reflected not in the prosperity of the few but in the freedom and contentment of all, and architecture can be an outward sign of this.”

I was shaken to the core. His sermon was tantamount to sedition. If Aislabie had been here, he would have accused him of rabble-rousing. But more disturbing was the fact that I was on Shales’s side—in fact had come to church for the sole purpose of engaging his sympathies—but I certainly couldn’t confide in him now that he had publicly criticized us.

I stayed in my pew during communion, but Sarah got up, put her hand over her mouth, and headed down the aisle toward the door. As if, I thought, I have not been pilloried enough by Shales’s sermon; now my maid has to make a public display. Meanwhile, Shales moved above the row of heads, murmuring, “The Body of Our Lord Jesus . . . ,” and presented the host before the eyes of each communicant. “. . . preserve thy body and soul . . .” I scorned myself for feeling left out.

At the end of the service, I waited while the church emptied and the silence of stone and oak closed around me. The wintry arrangements of evergreen were aromatic and hinted at the coming spring. My ancestors lay about underground with their skeletal hands folded and their searching philosophical brains all rotted away—except for my father, whose flesh must still be intact.

At last I did go over to look at the tombstone, as creamy and clean-cut as a slice of cheese. The inscription read:

J
OHN
S
ELDEN

1656–1726

N
ATURAL
P
HILOSOPHER

Shales must have composed that. And what would I have written, had I been consulted?
Beloved husband . . . beloved father
. . . None seemed to fit. Only the forbidden word,
alchemist
, might have pleased him.

Shales was still in the porch with Mrs. Moore, a frail old parishioner with a pea head on a round body bundled up in a hood and shawls. They were laughing, but when the old woman saw me she backed away and wouldn’t meet my eye. Shales helped her down to the gate, she half on tiptoe, he stooping to accommodate her, his stride adjusted to match hers. There was no escape. I must meet him either on the porch or at the gate, where Sarah was waiting. He spoke a few words to Sarah, but she put her chin in the air disdainfully.

When he came back, his wig and shoulders were misted with drizzle. A little bit of residual laughter stayed in his eyes, and his features were all broken up by the flurry of rain. I slid my gloved fingers through his, exchanged greetings, and moved away, but he came after me. “Mrs. Aislabie, it was very good to see you in church.”

I said nothing.

“I hope you’ll come again.”

“I doubt it. Not if I’m to be mocked in front of the entire congregation.”

“That was not my intention.”

“But that was the effect.”

“My parishioners are afraid of losing their homes. I have tried to speak to your husband. I have called at Selden day after day and been turned away. I have written to him and had no reply. Of course, it is none of my business what happens to the house itself, but people need reassurance. I thought I must get your attention.”

“You should persist in your efforts to speak to my husband, rather than try to embarrass me.”

“He won’t give me a hearing.”

“Then I can’t help you.”

“Nothing I have heard or seen of you so far has led me to believe that you are a powerless woman. I’m sure that if you wanted to make a difference, you could.”

“As you probably know, a woman seems to have no say in situations such as these. And even if a wife dares speak out, her husband will still go his own way.”

“But you, Mrs. Aislabie, must have some sway.”

“Why? Why am I different? In your sermon, you preached about freedom and prosperity. I only have freedom and prosperity if my husband chooses to bestow them on me.”

“I’m sure you have some influence over him. No man could fail to be influenced by you.”

I remembered that when he had called in the early morning, my hair had been round my shoulders and my skin bruised with Aislabie’s kisses. Is that what he meant? “How much freedom did your wife have?” I demanded. His eyes went blank and he looked over my head, but he had maddened me with his self-righteous preaching, so I persisted: “Well? Did your wife rejoice in perfect equality? Did her voice matter as much as yours?”

“She was a woman of principle, certainly. She knew her own mind. But no. You’re right. I think at times she must have felt confined. Your maid is ill, by the way. You should take her home.”

We stood looking away from each other. This was his fault. His sermon had been an outrage. If only he’d kept quiet, we might have had an amicable conversation about how best to restrain Aislabie. As it was, I had no choice but to side with my husband, and I now found myself saying something I hadn’t planned at all. “There will be no room for a laboratory in the new house. I should hate all our instruments and books to be wasted. Perhaps you could make use of them?”

“This is terrible news, Mrs. Aislabie. No laboratory. Where will you work?”

“Oh, I have nothing to do with natural philosophy these days. It would be foolish to keep so many old, disused things.”

“But how can you give it all up?”

“I’m giving up nothing except what has already given me up. My father closed the door of the laboratory to me. You can hardly blame me for not wishing to preserve our work. So will you take my father’s things?”

“I can’t. My parishioners are in despair. How can I be seen to profit from the demolition of Selden? It’s my duty to resist your husband’s plans, at least until I’m convinced that your tenants have been consulted.”

“Duty. I hate that word. Duty. Do you do nothing, Mr. Shales, of your own choosing? Well, I’m asking you to do your duty by my father and take the valuable things that I am offering you.”

But he was now offended beyond measure. “Unfortunately, as you rightly say, my parish duties are very pressing, and you have seen how little space there is in my study.”

We stood apart from each other, and I wondered miserably if I should stay just a moment longer and thank him for lending me Sir Thomas Browne. But the chance was gone. While I hesitated, he turned away.

[ 15 ]

S
ARAH WAS STILL
a very odd color, but I was in no mood to sympathize with her, so we walked home in stony silence and found that the gates were flung wide and Aislabie’s horse was being unharnessed in the stable yard. I was too flustered by my argument with Shales to face him immediately, so I sent Sarah indoors and slipped through the stables to the stygian darkness of the cellars, intending to hide in the laboratory. The cellars had been hacked directly into the chalk hillside, so it was impossible to go there, however briefly, and not emerge smeared with white. Light came from unexpected sources: a vent in the ceiling, an opaque window high up under the wall of the house above, a grid let into one of the terraces in the garden. Among the empty ale barrels and apple stores, Gill had a hidey-hole of his own, which had both frightened and compelled me when I was a child, as it contained an enticing collection of old things: a blunderbuss, an ancient iron helmet, potato tubers, a selection of small rusty knives, nails, and beekeeping equipment—sinister leather gloves, a veil, and baskets.

I stumbled on him now hunched on a three-legged stool, his fists resting on his knees and his few remaining hairs pricking the tips of his ears. His fish eyes roamed the powdery feathers on my gown and rested on my bosom.

“Gill, it may be that I shall soon need your help. My husband has come home, so we shall have to pack away my father’s things and hide them.”

My words took a while to penetrate the flaccid channels of his ears. “Help.”

“Will you help me?”

He dropped his head and didn’t reply. This sulkiness was my own fault, because I had scarcely spoken a dozen words to him since I came back. I needed Gill, and the only way of winning him was to conjure up the past. “I’ve been meaning to ask. Did my father speak to you before he died?”

No answer, so I tried again. “Where did he die?”

“In his bed.”

“How did he get ill?”

He shrugged.

“For instance, had he been working with lead or mercury? Perhaps he inhaled some bad air.”

“I saw him do no work since last winter.”

“So after I’d gone, what did he do?”

“He carried on for a while. Then he gave up. He stopped the work. And then he locked me out.” Gill was so unused to speaking that his lips were sticky with a resinous substance unlike saliva. As my father had said, Gill was of the earth and had little of air or water about him.

“Gill, have you any idea where he might have kept . . . ?” But then I heard Aislabie’s voice. The porous nature of the cellar walls muted sound and gave it a slight echo. “Emilie.”

I glanced back at Gill, but there was already nothing left of him except a faint earthy odor.

Aislabie cursed as he crashed into something, and I saw first the glow of lamplight, then his shadow. “Emilie. Strange woman. What are you doing down here?”

“I was hiding.”

“From me?”

“From Sarah. I made her go with me to church this morning, and she was so angry she made herself sick.”

He slid his hands up my arms and murmured against my lips. “You are the mistress. Dominate her. Beat her. Lock her in a dark room until she does nothing but smile and curtsy every time you call for her. The girl needs a thrashing.” I imagined Sarah cowering in the corner of my bedchamber as I took her dress by its laundered collar, ripped it open to expose her pearly little back, and whipped her skin to shreds. What would I use? My husband’s riding whip, perhaps.

His breath was very sweet, and the pressure of his lips on my mouth, the nudging of his tongue against my teeth, struck the old chords in my body and made me hazy with desire, but I didn’t know what these kisses meant anymore. They seemed to be saying that he loved me, but what about his plans for Selden? He liked the feathery trim to my bodice and nuzzled his face to my breast while I held tight to the sides of his head and hoped that at least my gown would be so damaged by our frenzy that I need never wear it again. But there was something else that made me grip the short hair under his wig and pull it so tight that he gave a little gasp of pain. A shudder of defiance, hot, delicious, ran from my breasts to my fingertips. The cellars belonged to Gill and me. Aislabie was a creature of the city, of light and words and coins, and none of these things had currency here. We would win, Gill and I. Somewhere in the darkness Gill waited, obsessive, subversive. Aislabie didn’t know everything after all.