The Alchemist's Daughter Part 11

I knelt up and tried to put my clothes straight. "I've been to church. Everyone's very angry with us."

"Who is everyone?"

"The congregation. Shales."

"Shales. This Shales is a troublemaker. I hope he's not been stirring things up."

"You should talk to him. I'm sure he's not against change for the sake of it. But people are frightened. They don't know what you have in mind."

"Well, they must wait until the plans are drawn up. Then we'll show them how they'll be much better off in the end."

"I felt a fool, unable to explain why you have ignored him all this time."

"Then you shouldn't have gone out. You should have stayed home and cooked up some more alchemical brews in your laboratory. When are you going to show me what you're up to, Em?"

"I'm up to nothing."

He plucked feathers with his teeth and arranged them on my bosom. "Not what I've been told. My friends say you're in there night and day."

"Where else can I go? There's no peace elsewhere in the house."

"What are you up to, Emilie?" He hung over me and planted little kisses between my nose and ear, then nipped my chin. "What are you doing in there?"

"Working on phlogiston. It's still not resolved in my mind that fire is caused by the phlogiston in combustible materials."

He bit again, this time my earlobe. My eyes watered. "What else?"

"Nothing else."

"Nothing else. Well, just you let me know when you find that old philosopher's stone, because I could do with the gold."

I turned my head aside, and he suddenly kissed me softly on the nose. "Now, don't be peevish, Em. I've brought you a present." He kissed me again and again on the cheeks and lips and eyes until I began to kiss him back. "Come on, my dearest girl, come and see what I've brought you."

The remaining feathers on my gown drooped, my hat and veil were ruined, my hair had come unrolled on my shoulders, and I smelled of s.e.x and cellar. My rebellion, my desire to stand apart from him, was utterly defeated. He had turned me inside out; my mouth was slack with kisses, my thighs wet and bruised, but even so I wanted more of him. When we reached the stables, he pushed my hair behind my shoulders, squeezed my breast, and kissed me long and lazy on the throat. Then he took me by the hand and led me along the kitchen pa.s.sage to the dining parlor, where candles were lit, though it was barely noon, and Sarah, who seemed better, was unpacking his saddlebags. She lifted out a porcelain bowl glazed a b.u.t.tery yellow with a design of leaf and flowers in green and orange. On the inside was a painted parrot, a replica of the real bird that perched in our dining parlor on Hanover Street. It had mossy green feathers, chocolate brown claws, and folded wings tipped with a dusting of dull gold.

"French," said my husband. "Paul le Riche."

Sarah held the bowl to the candle flame so I could see every detail. When I stepped forward for a closer look, she paused for a moment to take in my ruined clothes and bruised skin before placing the bowl on the table with infinite care.

CHAPTER SIX.

Westminster Abbey [ 1 ].

AISLABIE RETURNED TO Selden with a new idea. He had met the designer of the gardens at nearby Hall Barn and decided that we must have a cascade that would gush down to the lake through a broad avenue in the woods directly opposite the dome. Everyone was so absorbed by the detail of this plan that they failed to comment on my long absences. I made myself visible at breakfast, dinner, and supper, but not in between or at the end of the day, when the wine bottles came out.

I now had two lives: the life I shared with my husband, a life of violent emotions, pa.s.sion one minute, despair the next; and my life in the laboratory, the one I shared with my dead father. Never before had I applied myself to alchemy with such intense devotion.

Compared to the dissonance beyond the laboratory, alchemy seemed straightforward, even rational. I simply had to follow my father's method. On November 8, 1725, he had written, The calx obtained from prolonged and gentle heating next has to be dissolved in oil of vitriol. At Selden, we always used vitriol for this stage of the alchemical process because we thought it purer than nitric or sulfuric acids. And we needed an outside force, concentrated white light, to consecrate the dissolution. My father preferred to work by moonlight, but his diary recorded night after night of cloudy skies, so by early December he had resorted to candlelight.

He must have hated this defeat, but it suited me because it enclosed me deeper in the laboratory with him. I polished a lens and adjusted it in front of a candle, turning the gla.s.s until a steady beam shone onto the workbench. My father's notebook was a pressing weight in my lap, and his staff rolled in my hand. If I looked up, I would see the gleam in his cold, clever eye, the many layers of his clothing, each pocket with its allocated function-pipe, pen wiper, pipette, wire, string, or measure-the sleeves tucked with a row of his own neat st.i.tching and his little black slippers trodden down at the heels. I could smell him, shade on shade.

But instead I stared at the candle flame, like water in its fluidity and movement but lighter than air, tongue-shaped, blue at the base, gray and cool in the center, then a pure yellow drawn up and up to a point as if dragging against the pull of gravity. Flame-too little air and it would go out, too much and it would blow away.

[ 2 ].

ON MARCH 22, Aislabie came back from a visit to London and summoned me to the library, where I found him sprawled in my father's chair, surrounded by teetering piles of unsorted books. His feet were propped on a small chest with leather straps, and he held a long furl of paper.

"Your friend Shales has been busy," he said. "Fifty names. Or rather crosses. Most of them ain't literate." I took the paper and saw Shales's precise handwriting above the list. Aislabie folded his hands and seemed to be examining his thumbs, but I knew he was weighing up my reaction. "He's taken against the plans for the house and got the tenants to protest."

"What will you do about it?"

"I shall have a word with Reverend Shales. I expect loyalty. He depends on me for his living."

"I'm sure he doesn't intend to be disloyal."

"The fact is, if he wasn't stirring up dissent n.o.body would say a word. He's a subversive, and I won't have it. But never mind, my dearest love, none of this affects you. I've brought you this." He nudged the chest with the toe of his boot. "Open it up, Em."

Inside was a vast black l.u.s.tring mantle that went on and on, pouring into my lap. I threw it round my shoulders, and the heavy gathers settled at my throat and went tumbling to a slight train at the back. The weight and coolness of it was like being caught in a deluge of rain; it had a brilliant crimson lining and the hood was so deep I had to fold it away from my face.

Aislabie slid down the chair and thrust his legs to the fire. He flashed gold and bronze in a new wig and cinnamon waistcoat with winking b.u.t.tons, and his drowsy eyes watched me examine the cloak. Then he drew me down so that it shuddered into a black pool. "You need a mourning cloak, Em. The news from London is that Sir Isaac Newton is dead. People don't talk of anything else. He's to lie in state and have a funeral at the Abbey. Good G.o.d, I bet if Walpole himself died he wouldn't get half the attention. Everybody will be there." My first thought was that it was high time Newton died. After all, he was fifteen years or more older than my father. "Genius," added my husband surprisingly. "He put the fear of G.o.d into counterfeiters. Ferreted them out and saw them hung. They were costing us a fortune in lost revenue."

"My father was a great admirer of Newton's scientific work."

"That's the difference between your father and me, Em. It all boils down to money in the end. I make it, he spent it. The thinkers of this world need the doers to keep their bread b.u.t.tered. Newton just happened to be both. That's what I admire. He didn't limit himself to one line of interest."

"My father's career was thwarted because of me; otherwise, he would have done as much as Newton. When my mother died, he chose to live at Selden with me rather than retain his fellowship at Cambridge."

"Exactly so. What a distracting bunch you women are. Newton was eighty-four years old. Never married. A moral for us all, eh? Anyway, I expect you'd like to go to the funeral."

This was such a surprising offer that at first I couldn't take it in. "I thought women never went to funerals in London."

"This woman can if she likes."

"But I would be out of place."

"So what's new, Em?"

"I can't leave Selden."

"Em. That ain't very gracious when I brought you this lovely cloak and came back all this way to fetch you."

"All the same, I'd rather not."

"Matter of respect. Your father would have gone."

The question I should have asked was why he wanted me in London, but all I could think of was that I couldn't leave the alchemical experiment. "It's because of my father that I can't go. I couldn't bear it."

Aislabie had been caressing my neck and hair, but his fingertips were a little less gentle as they kneaded my scalp behind my ear. "Can't have you rotting away down here, Em. London needs a glimpse of your lovely face. So do I. We should be seen at the Abbey. It's been the devil of a job getting us an invitation. And you will be welcome because of your pa. Lord, Em, you've no idea how you're talked about in some circles. Come back with me before they forget all about you."

I knelt in the silken folds of my new cloak and bent my head as his fingers worked my neck and b.r.e.a.s.t.s. I love him, I do love him, I thought, kissing his knee. He wants me in London, so to London I will go.

[ 3 ].

AISLABIE RODE, WHILE Sarah and I drove in the carriage. I thought she'd be glad to leave Selden, but at first she seemed more miserable than ever, with her arms wrapped tightly under her breast and her chin sunk low. Only after an hour or so did she rouse herself enough to plan my costume for the next day. She unstrapped the chest containing the cloak and ran the fabric between finger and thumb. "With such a cloak, it will hardly matter what you wear beneath."

"Something plain, I suppose, for a funeral."

She shook her head. "In Westminster Abbey, you must wear your finest. And your black-and-white petticoat. First thing in the morning, I will buy new ostrich feathers for your hat."

"Does it matter about the feathers in my hat?"

"It matters. Of course it matters. And no veil. Veils are not worn this season."

What a pity. A veil provided a convenient screen behind which I could hide and observe. The prospect of immersing myself once more in the fashionable world frightened me. London was not a place where I knew myself, and as we drew closer I remembered vividly the bewilderment and sorrow of my wedding day. Hanover Square, for all its elegance, had a harsh symmetry unrelieved by lines of elm trees just coming into leaf. When I ran up the steps of our house in Hanover Street, I was met by the scent of potpourri and the clutter of too many fabrics: pine cones printed onto flock wallpaper, sprigged muslin, the fateful French painting by Lorrain, silk rugs, brocade, linen, lace. But I was glad to see the parrot, who had been moved down to the kitchen, though he was almost as rigid as his porcelain counterpart and glared at me from one round eye.

Aislabie, who wanted to take a look at Flora, said he would meet me at the Abbey in time for the funeral, if possible.

"Am I ever to see this ship?" I asked.

"One day. When she is scrubbed, polished, and watertight. You'd fuss if you saw her all exposed in her dry dock."

"I never fuss. And I should really like to visit her. I have never seen a great expanse of water or a large ship."

He kissed my mouth and smiled into my eyes. "Listen, Em, in May Flora sets sail for France on her first little voyage-just to try her out before we send her farther, pick up a few bits of cargo. How would it be if you came with me? A maiden voyage for my maiden."

I caressed the back of his neck in the warm place I loved and ran my thumbs under his jaw as I saw myself flying under crisp white sails across a blue sea to France, and my French mother a tiny, waving figure on the opposite sh.o.r.e. I imagined the vastness of the sky, the creatures in the ocean, the salt of the air.

[ 4 ].

SO I WAS happy as I set out for the Abbey swathed in my new cloak. I told Sarah that once we got there she would be free until evening, and she sat pressed to a corner of the carriage, watchful as a frog on the brink of its pond. Almost before I had stepped out, she was gone.

The black ripples of my mantle and the sweep of my hat made me prominent, and I wished that Sarah had not forbidden a veil. My heart was pounding. Since babyhood, I had lived under the long shadow of Isaac Newton and the Royal Society. Now we-the Royal Society, Isaac Newton, and I-were all gathered under one roof. Only the pivot, my father, was missing.

My husband was there already, glorious in inky blue velvet and black armbands, working his way along the pews, shaking hands and making a show of boyish charm and respect. I realized suddenly that I was the only woman in sight. Surely I shouldn't be here? But at that moment Aislabie came up, ushered me into a pew, and began pointing out the a.s.sembled dignitaries. "James Thomson, see there," he said, nodding to a girlish-lipped, quite young man who made no acknowledgment in return. "Alexander Pope-you recognize him from last winter?" How could I forget tiny crookbacked Mr. Pope? "Monsieur Voltaire, French, exiled due to some argument over a woman I expect-you have to admire the French. John Gay, playwright, artist; Hogarth-G.o.d, look at them all." I studied Voltaire long and hard, and indeed his nose was satisfactorily long, even longer than mine; his thin, upturned lips were unlike those of any Englishman I knew, and his eyes were dark. My husband, meanwhile, was less pleased to note the arrival of Thomas Shales, who stepped into a pew several rows in front. I shuddered when I remembered the acrimony of our last meeting, but he turned and bowed gravely as the organ struck the first vigorous chords.

The music was by a German visitor, George Frideric Handel. I feared his work and understood why my father had taught me theory and harmonics but given me no chance to play. Music tapped into a darkness that was not rational. My imagination was unleashed; I couldn't hold it back. I no longer saw Newton's coffin, draped in crimson like the lining of my cloak, accompanied by a procession of somber scientific gentlemen. "Sir Hans Sloane," whispered Aislabie, nodding to the largest and most imposing of them all. "Lord Foley, Mr. Folkes, Dr. Halley . . ." Instead, I was in the church at Selden Wick, where the box pews were empty and shut fast except for the one belonging to the Gills, who stood with their backs to me, Mrs. in a dusty black shawl, Mr. bareheaded. Shales was at the top of the nave in his starched surplice, book in hand, praying over my father's coffin. And I so wanted to be in that little church with Shales, the Gills, and my father. Just to say good-bye.

So it was not Newton I mourned, but my father. The sight of that coffin, the knowledge that the man inside would never emerge but would soon be covered by earth and stone, the howling draft that seemed to blow through my life because he wasn't there, broke over me. And then another, keener shock that I tried with all my being to hold back, tried to duck, but it would keep coming: the lost baby, the perfect curledness of it, the packed potential of its being. All lost. And for the first time, I dared to think, Was it lost because of Aislabie, because he didn't bother himself to be gentle with me that night?

By the end of the service, the neck of my gown was wet with tears. No wonder women are not encouraged to attend funerals, I thought, if this is what happens. I touched Aislabie's arm and asked if we could leave quickly, but he squeezed my hand, darted out of the pew, and began to circulate, dropping a private word or two into distinguished ears. I felt a rush of despair at being abandoned among so many strangers and tried to follow him, but my tears made me inarticulate.

During the past eighteen months, my father's education had been shown lacking in certain vital respects, and the business of crying was apparently one of them. Sobs now kicked out of my chest so violently that I had to cover them with a coughing fit, leave the pew, and hide behind a pillar. I didn't know how to stop crying. Though I trembled and gasped and wiped away a stream of tears, there seemed to be no reaching the bottom of my grief. I hardly knew where I was or what I should do.

"Mrs. Aislabie." I turned my head aside. Shales would surely have the sense to leave me alone. He didn't go away, but stood beside me for a while, then said again, "Mrs. Aislabie," and I saw that he was offering his arm. "I wonder, is this your first visit to the Abbey?"

I couldn't speak.

"Perhaps you would allow me to be your guide."

"I'm waiting for my husband." I reached out my hand, as if Aislabie would come up and take it at any moment.

Shales glanced over his shoulder. "Come with me until he's ready," he said gently.

There was Aislabie on the far side of the Abbey, an arm flung round the shoulders of one of the pallbearers. I was still shuddering with grief, and the distance between Aislabie and me threatened to overturn me again.

"Come." Shales tucked my hand under his arm, pressed a handkerchief between my fingers, and led me over to the portrait of a sober, flat-faced n.o.bleman. "As far as we know, this is the first portrait ever painted of an English monarch . . ." The Abbey boomed in my ears. Again I looked for Aislabie, but he was nowhere in sight. I mopped my face with Shales's handkerchief and was comforted by the scent of linen. He waited while I pulled my hat lower over my eyes, and then we walked on. The strangeness of his coat under my fingertips, of drifting with him, of all people, deeper into the Abbey, soothed me. The scene was mellow: ancient oak burnished by candlelight, the scent of seven-hundred-year-old stone, the swaying of banners, the murmur of educated voices. We paused frequently to acknowledge bows and nods, and he introduced me as "Mrs. Aislabie. Sir John Selden's daughter." I kept my tearstained face averted, but I heard their respectful comments: "Delighted . . ." "Your father . . . luminous mind" . . . "great privilege . . ."

And then we left them all behind, until they were a distant echo. Shales, presumably well practiced in the art of soothing distressed females, kept up a steady flow of conversation: "I suspect that though Sir Isaac would have been pleased by the numbers here, he would also have been scornful of the fact that some who picked quarrels with him or took no interest in his work while he was alive should wish to be seen at his funeral."

A rush of air heaved up from my chest in a shuddering sigh and shook me from head to toe. I made a mental note to study the anatomy of tears so as to be prepared next time. Shales led me to the tomb of Edmund, Duke of Lancaster, and I moved about on the ancient paving stones, breathing deeply and thinking, This is all very well, but what if Shales knew what I was up to in the laboratory at Selden? What if he knew that I was experimenting with palingenesis? Under the circ.u.mstances, it seemed deceitful to allow him to be so kind to me.

At last I recovered enough to speak: "Where do you think Isaac Newton is now?"

He smiled. "If you'd asked him that question, he would probably have said, 'In one of G.o.d's many mansions.' He was a great one for believing in heaven for the blessed-a giant laboratory, probably, where G.o.d could share the secrets of his creation with those few mortals with wit enough to understand."

"What do you think?"

"I have no idea what heaven contains. I like to think there is a place of rest, particularly for those who have suffered too much on earth."

"Did my father suffer?"

"He was very ill, Mrs. Aislabie. It was terrible to see him struggle for breath. But he was fighting a great many demons, I think, that tortured him more. For instance, I didn't understand at the time how much he must have fought his longing to see you."

This was nearly an apology. Perhaps it would do. Perhaps I should forgive him. In return, I tried to repair some of the damage I had done in the church porch. "Did your wife suffer much?"

"She did. Too much."

"How did she die?"

"Of smallpox."

"How long ago was that?"

"Nearly three years."

"She wasn't inoculated, then?"

"No."

"But I thought you met my father during the experiment in which convicts were engrafted against the smallpox."

"Nevertheless. When I said the household should be inoculated, she refused."