Alchemy. Maureen Duffy

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СКАЧАТЬ many years since I have opened it, when last I closed it for the printer, at the end of my labours to restore his work to the world in full. I have a mind to visit it again now that I am alone and my time is my own.’

      ‘My lady is still young. She may marry again.’

      ‘I am the age now the earl was when he married me but it is not the same for women. A ripe man may marry a young maid who will give him children as I did. And you are the age I was when I was espoused to him after two years at court in her majesty’s service. Sir Philip, my brother, wrote of passion between young lovers but I have never known it. Only duty. Yet a woman must marry, and not be too picky in her choice, for without marriage she has no domain, no power. When he was away the earl left all things in my hands. I have had, you could say, my own little court far removed from London. All this will change now, changes already, and will change more when I am just the dowager and mother of the earl and my son takes a wife to be his countess. Enough of sighing, come my young Amyntas-Amaryllis let me hear you read to judge whether your voice and your understanding be good enough for my brother’s words.’

      So began my new life in the lady’s household as it moved here and there between her domains, now in London, at Barnard’s Castle or at her three country estates in Wiltshire or in Wales at Cardiff Castle. The young earl was still in disgrace with the queen for he had got her lady-in-waiting, Mistress Fitton, with child yet would not marry her. It was said Mrs Fitton had tucked up her clothes and gone out from the court disguised as a man in a white cloak to meet her lover. The child was born dead and Earl William, after a stay in the Fleet, banished to Wilton, where he moped about the house. His mother could not forgive him and kept herself apart while he wrote begging letters to Sir Robert Cecil to be taken back into her majesty’s favour and given some small posts which his father had held, and be freed of the royal wardship he suffered rather than enjoyed. I was glad not to go to Wilton in my maid’s clothes at this time, for the young earl was said to be immoderately given up to women.

      In the mornings my lady prayed privately and read from her own book of psalms which she and her noble brother had made together. Then when we had breakfasted on milk, white bread and honey we went to our work in the laboratory where we made medicines from all kind of herbs, seeds and minerals, both salves, cordials and other potions.

      I would chop and grind the ingredients with pestle and mortar, then transfer them according to her instructions to the limbec for distilling into the liquors that gleamed bright as gemstones, sapphire, emerald, ruby or the garnet yellow of sulphurous emetics from her own receipt ‘The Countess of Pembroke’s Vomit’ for purging.

      There were many little drawers with clay boxes of substances such as I knew from my father, already powdered: saltpetre and opiates, poppy and St John’s wort, saffron, and spices from the East, sandalwood, spikenard or our own meadowsweet that brings a merry heart.

      After, her patients would come to her with all manner of complaints and sicknesses: ulcers, wounds, bruises, ills of every member and part of the body and we would apply the salves, plaisters and dressings or mix up fresh remedies to cleanse the insides, or wash the skin or eyes, and to dispel melancholy. When she had attended to her own family there would come those from the town and the villages round about because of her reputation for skill and kindness.

      All this I helped her in and also was at her side when she wrought at the business of the household and her estates, writing letters and paying bills and keeping her diurnal of instructions and accounts for food and drink, bed-linen and clothing, tutors’ and stewards’ reports, for her hand was in everything, great and small. Sometimes she would sigh and regret the days of her youth when she, her noble brother and her ladies would laugh and read together, lolling on the grass under the trees, or be pleasantly busy at their writings.

      Other times though we were all merry enough: the ladies at their cushions and tapestries according to her pattern, for she is the finest needlewoman in England at making hangings of her own devising to adorn the walls and beds of Wilton, and other her houses. As they worked I would read aloud or Signor Ferrabosco, the younger, as he was known still even though his father had long returned to his native Italy, would play upon his lute and sing of his own composing. But best of all I came to like those times when we were alone together and I read to her from the Arcadia or she opened her heart to me and talked of past, present or future cares. Then some about her began to be envious that she should spend so much time on her page and labourant who was not of noble birth. I thought I heard whisperings, words that broke off at my appearance, small acts of spite, as drink spilled by my elbow jogged when I had fresh clothes on, the toughest cuts of meat and smallest portions, and sometimes rough teasing from her ladies when she was absent. Once I heard one say that she had loved her brother too well and was like to make the same mistake again.

      Then one day she sent two of her ladies to fetch me from the laboratory when I was alone, Mistress Marchmont an old duenna, and the young Mistress Griffiths, the countess had fetched from Cardiff at her mother’s request that she might be polished for marriage and found a husband.

      ‘Why Master Boston,’ the old one said, ‘you must leave your potions and devil’s cookery and come to our lady the countess.’

      ‘Can you make love philtres Master Boston?’ the young one asked, ‘for they say you have bewitched our lady. Make me a potion that will do the same for the young earl and when I am married I will reward you handsomely.’

      I saw that I must be cautious. ‘Alas madam, there is no such thing or all physicians would be rich men.’

      ‘They say your father was a great necromancer seeking the philosopher’s stone and the elixir of life. Is that what you and my lady do here together?’ She began to open the many little drawers of the cabinet and put in a delicate finger.

      ‘Be careful madam for many of those substances, tasted by those who do not know their properties, are strong poisons that will harm you.’

      ‘But they are safe in your hands Master Boston. You understand them. They say that when your father’s house was cleared after his death there was found a great quantity of eggshells used in transmutation.’

      ‘I have never seen my father use such.’

      ‘What is this transmutation you all seek? Is it not against God’s will that things should become what he has not made them, as gold from base metal, or that men should live for ever?’

      ‘Nothing can be done without it is God’s will. He has made all things, even the earth itself as the poet Spenser has it, subject to mutability in some degree. We must therefore call it a divine principle.’

      ‘Unless it be of the devil and witchcraft. Are you a priest, Master Boston, to decide such matters? When were you at the university? Or perhaps you learnt such supernatural counsels from your father’s divinations.’

      ‘My father was a physician and chymist madam, and no magician.’

      ‘And have you never seen things change their nature or spirits arise?’

      ‘Both those things are possible, but by the workings of nature not the charms of magicians. Look I will show you.’ I placed a little heap of salts of mercury in a clay dish and put it over a small fire we kept always burning to heat water for cordials. ‘Now watch.’

      They both drew near. ‘It is liquefying.’ The duenna, who had not spoken since her first words summoning me to my lady, stared into the dish. ‘It is becoming silver.’

      ‘No madam, only quicksilver by the agency of the fire. Think how cold changes water to solid ice that men may walk upon or snow that drops from the sky and when it melts there is СКАЧАТЬ