Alchemy

‘I have others madam he shall not find so easy.’

‘Then you must try them another day. The game no longer amuses me.’

Gilbert bowed and left us.

‘Did your father not seek after those things Amyntas? Tell me truly,’ she asked when he had gone.

‘He did madam but not in my presence and not for gain but for knowledge. He laboured ceaselessly and it brought him early to his death as I see it but he never allowed me to observe him at that work.’

‘A pity. We might have continued with it. I should like to be first to find that which so many have lusted after. Did your father believe with Copernicus that the earth and the planets circle the sun?’

‘He did madam. He said that it was only pride that had led us into that error that the sun revolved about the earth and made man the centre of all things, and that Copernicus his theory was not contrary to scripture, for the Bible says only that God created the sun, stars and moon and set them in the sky as lights to divide day from night, and to govern the length of days and years and the seasons, but nothing of which should circle the other. And that all is to be understood as in a picture which shows on a small flat plane that which in life has depth and magnitude so that a whole landscape of trees and meadows may fit into a work by Hilliard or Oliver less than the size of a child’s palm.’

‘Some say that the matter cannot be resolved, for the same calculations in astronomy are agreeable to both theories and satisfy the same phenomena. Therefore it is wise to accept both indifferently until the philosophers agree with each other or some astronomer finds a way to settle the question. Now how shall we amuse ourselves in these twelve days of Christmas? Shall we make an actor of you Master Boston?’

‘I cannot say madam.’

‘Bring me the new little book of pieces, Mr Davison’s Poetical Rapsodie my son has sent, hoping to soften my heart. It is beside my bed. And call my ladies.’

I went on my errand through the long dark passages of the house and up the stairs, taking a lantern with me whose flame leapt and flickered in the draught, for the short day had closed on us already.

‘Your mistress bids you attend her in the great hall.’ They had been gossiping of lovers past, present or to come, I thought, for their chatter had stilled as soon as I entered the room. Some were playing cards while one picked out a new song by Dowland brought over from Flushing by my lady’s brother Sir Robert. The lutenist was a papist forced to seek employment overseas in Denmark since the queen would not let him come home although she kept the papist Byrd as her organist in the Chapel Royal.

‘I saw my lady weep,’ the girl sang.

The duenna clapped her hands. ‘You will all weep, if you do not put by your cards and attend her at once.’

Going through into the bedchamber I picked up the book. Her bed was still tousled as if she had just risen from it and I put my hand between the sheets almost expecting them to be warm. I thought I could smell the now familiar fragrance of her perfume. Picking up her nightshift of fine white linen embroidered with black silk and with panels of delicate lace as also at the neck and wrists, I held it to my cheek and drew in her scent. Then I was forced to hurry behind the ladies as they clattered down the stairs.

In the great hall the sconces had all been lit, the fire burned bright and the countess had caused a little dais to be brought in with a Turkey carpet over it on which she sat in a great chair as if enthroned. I thought no queen could have looked more regal and that truly this was a court in little so that I bowed as I presented her the book.

‘This is the dialogue of Astrea I wrote for the visit of the queen’s majesty that was suddenly cancelled. But she need not be present for it to be played in her honour and the country invited to see it. You Amyntas shall play Piers. Now I need someone for Thenot who be old.’

‘Not I my lady,’ said the duenna. ‘I am too old to keep words in my head. And besides it is not womanly. I could not dress myself in breeches at my age.’

‘Then we shall have to try you Mistress Griffiths how you shall look in a grey beard. You may hide your legs under a long gown like an alderman or beneath a shepherd’s smock.’

‘I do not care about the legs madam but the grey beard I hate.’

‘Then Secretary Samford must do it. He will need no addition to his grey hairs. One of you fetch him.’

‘He has been confined to his chamber with a rheum madam ever since we arrived here.’

‘See if he is well enough to attend us.’ When he came, for of course he darst not refuse, she said, ‘We shall have an entertainment for twelfth night that shall be my dialogue of “Astrea” made for the queen’s majesty.’

‘Why did her majesty not come madam when all was prepared for her?’ I asked.

‘It was a bad year, rain fell all through August, and her advisers thought it might injure her health. They said of course that it would be injurious to her people to wait on her in such weather which they knew was the argument she would best heed.’

‘Madam I have never acted before,’ Secretary Samford said.

I myself had never yet even seen a play except for the Salisbury street mummers at festival time enacting some old story of Robin Hood.

‘You remember Mr Samford,’ the countess went on, ‘that in my husband the late earl’s time we had our own troupe of players when four years after the coming of the Spanish ships the plague closed the London theatres and sent them out on the road where they were forced to sell their very play books and attire. Yet my lord had them to play in Shrewsbury and Ludlow and other places of his patronage. My brother Sidney writes that the lords are every day at plays in London when they are not at court, and even there the players come to perform after at the queen’s bidding. Now take the book between you and read the verses to us.’

So we began with our theatricals and although we stumbled at first because the words were new to us, the countess was pleased to say that we should do very well with practice and that we should quickly get our lines by heart.

‘We shall need rustic music to bring you in,’ she said, ‘and after it is over there shall be country dances. Then there must be shepherds’ weeds for the actors, and for my ladies they shall be dressed as shepherdesses and dance a hey. That should make us some sport.’

That night as I lay on my pallet outside my lady’s door I thought that the actor’s life was strange personating others, for I felt a confusion in my own mind that Amyntas-Amaryllis must now be Piers. Yet when I thought on the words that I must say which the countess had written, it was not Astrea I praised not even the great queen she personified but my own queen.

Naught like to her the earth enfolds.

And as I lay there I saw in the half-light from a lantern far off, a shape glide into the passage and towards her door. It stayed beside me and I could hear its breathing in the gloom and smell the pomander that hung on its belt. I judged it to be a man for there was no rustle as from lady’s skirts. I let my hand creep towards the little dagger I had bound about my leg under my nightshirt, for I distrusted the great house since we had come there and the many unknown persons about me. Feigning sleep I was yet ready to leap up and defend myself. The shape stood a minute or two beside me as if deliberating and truly a quick thrust of a rapier and I would have been dead. Whether that was in his mind I have never known but at last while I breathed heavily as deep in slumber he turned silently away, leaving me sick with fear either for my life or for my sex.

For I had begun at last to see those changes in my body that might unmask me and show me up as an imposture. When I had held my lady’s nightshift against my face and smelled her perfume, as when I put my hand between her sheets, I was aware of my heart keep intemperate time and a sweet tingling in my secrets, then a little gush between my thighs. After when I examined myself I was still moist as with a thick milky dew that I was afraid might appear as a stain on my slops if I should be seated so I took care to remain standing. I determined to wear some rag of linen always about my loins.

Also I felt a little ache and swelling in my breasts though not such as would appear beneath my doublet and shirt but only if I should be surprised naked without my nightshirt which I made sure never to be. Nevertheless I determined to bind my breasts for greater safety. I did not yet wish to lose my life as Amyntas for Amaryllis, to be confined by skirts and forced to consider marriage but would serve my lady as long as I could.

And while I lay there on my pallet I felt for the first time a fear of what would become of me, how I should make my living. Cast out by my countess I could only practise as a wise woman or a midwife and I had no mind to marry, to become subject to a husband and bear children. Perhaps I could continue in disguise in some place where no man knew me but that was to lose sight of my lady and daily intercourse with her. Suddenly my life which seemed so sweet and easy had been darkened by that shadow standing over me and all seemed at risk that before had been secure.

‘Secrets’: what a sweet word for it. Or them. Like bees thrusting into the trumpet bodies of newly opened flowers. And not like cunt that rhymes with grunt, hunt, runt, stunt and National Front. All hard rude masculine monosyllables. The female organ as devourer, a mouth with teeth that would chop a prick down to size. Not petalled softness. Just an excuse for violence and rape. A word to be shouted back in defiance or orgasm, that can be used for men as well as women. ‘You fucking cunt!’ I suppose the American equivalent is motherfucker. The ultimate insult. Coney, cunni was gentler. And pussy. Each with a slightly different feel to it.

My delight is a coney in the night

When she turns up her furry tail.

A fun bunny. Whereas pussy is more dangerous, with claws, naughty and a bit spiteful. Twat is just contemptuous, taken over by schoolboys and shouted on the bus going home.

After the boat docked at Westminster I walked back along the Embankment elated with booze and lust, not wanting to go tamely home to my studio flat. The city was afloat on the river, the floodlit Shell building, Somerset House and on the opposite bank, the County and Royal Festival Halls were moored ships that seemed to rise and fall with the dark waters as they leaned over their own reflections. Other drunks came towards me out of the night but I was too exultant and pissed to care. I was fireproof, more alive than for years. Would she seek me out? Would I ever hear from Helen Chalmers, my charmer, again?

The bridges were slung across the Thames on ropes of stars. I turned up Beaufort Street, crossed over King’s Road where London was still swinging its Friday night away. Then memory goes blank. I must have gone on up Dovehouse Street over Fulham Road and up into Earl’s Court, got out my keys, unlocked the house door and climbed up to my first-floor flat but in the morning I remembered nothing after I left the river and my vision of the floating city.

My clothes were hung up neatly. There was an untouched glass of water by the bed.

Saturday morning. Nothing could happen for two days. How to pass this time? I could call up Joel and we’d go to Heaven. I felt like dancing. I was still high.

‘You wouldn’t like it,’ he said when I told him my great idea.

‘Why not? I haven’t had a dance since for ever.’

‘That’s the point. We’re too old. It’s strictly for kids now.’

‘How do you know?’

‘I thought the same as you. You know: haven’t been for a long time. Check it out. It took me half an hour queuing to get in. I thought the bouncers on the door gave me a funny look. I left after another half hour. It was embarrassing. Nobody over twenty. Thirty you might as well be on crutches.’

‘Where do all the thirty-year-olds go then?’