Viper Wine (35 page)

‘Oh, she shows an interest now,’ murmured Lettice, almost audibly.

A juggler tried to captivate them with his spectacle, but Lettice and Venetia shooed him away brusquely. Another man tried to give Lettice a handbill, and Venetia seized the handbill, tore it in half, threw it on the cobbles, and ground her heel upon it, just in case.

‘I was laid low and plightful for two weeks,’ said Penelope. ‘And then it was over.’

‘She needed very careful nursing,’ said Lettice.

‘’Tis mighty fine to be out again,’ said Penelope, smiling weakly.

‘I sat with her night and day,’ said Lettice, shrugging. ‘I do not say that I have any feeling for nursing, I do not, it was simply a matter of my friend in need, so what could I do? Of course I helped her and I did it gladly – we had so many conversations, so many long discourses of debate—’

‘The time passed very slowly,’ said Penelope.

‘Did you get the tansy I sent? It was out of season,’ said Venetia.

‘I had several cures sent me, dear,’ said the invalid, evasively.

‘Penny was too sick to pay great attention to which token came from whom,’ said Lettice witheringly, gathering her pocket up on its drawstring, beginning to gently guide Penelope away.

Not in her whole life had Venetia ever heard anyone call Penelope ‘Penny’. She was either Pen or Penelope. Venetia felt the blue vein begin to stand out in her forehead.

‘Did I mention I sat with her night and day?’ said Lettice. ‘But now she must rest, because this is too tiring for her, who is weak as a babe!’ And with that Penelope and Lettice walked off, not, Venetia noticed, to the seats, but into the throng of the shopping, where they promenaded in front of the cats in cages, and the jailed canaries, communicating, by their posture and carriage, that they had been done a grievance, while Lettice pretended to enjoy the market entertainments, yet looked back over her shoulder every so often, to check if Venetia was watching.

The sadness, even distress, which she might ordinarily have felt after such a confrontation rose within her, and yet it did not blossom. It was blocked and disallowed by the new smoothness of her complexion, and having been denied expression, the sentiment withered and dwindled within her, so that standing there on the cobbles of the now-darkening New Exchange, Venetia experienced that phenomenon later observed by medical science, which tells us that those who cannot grimace feel less discomfort, and those who cannot frown, less vexation.

Tears were more slippery, since those who cried were usually eased and purged, and yet tears could redouble a feeling, too – in fact, the very passage of wetness down the cheeks could make one feel sad, as Venetia knew from experience, because the droppers of almond oyl she applied under her eyes at bedtime left a maudlin track. So soft and suggestible are we, she thought – men and women both – and there is so much about us still unknown, and yet people adventure into foreign lands. I would sooner go to the edge of a woman’s tear duct, she thought, as to the great Cataracts of the Nile, to know the nerves behind a flayed man’s face, before I knew Madagascar, or the moon.

Her serene expression allowing her thoughts to roam, Venetia smiled agreeably as Lady Aletheia Howard tapped her on the arm with her fan and bid her visit her at Tart Hall again, which pleased Venetia, and yet she still pondered this new, tight little alliance between Lettice and Pen, deciding it would probably last until Penelope recovered her strength. It was a passing inconvenience. Not a dram, not a scruple of guilt did Venetia feel for not tending to Penelope during her illness.

Venetia curtsied to the good folk who were still waiting to talk to her, and gathered her footsoldiers for their departure, interrupting Olive, who was on the point of buying a sprigged garter, and causing Chater to break off his animated conversation with Aletheia Howard’s chaplain, and thus escorted, she sailed out of the arena, leaving the China Dogges with their eyes bulging and the caged canaries all agog. As candelabra in the likeness of a winged Athena were lit to keep trade turning into the night, Venetia quit the marketplace in triumph, all eyes upon her – and she had spent not one penny from her purse.

‘A clock face looks like magic – till I look on the other side and I see wheels, retorts, counterfoils . . . That every effect whatsoever must have of pure necessity some cause. We need not have recourse to a Daemon or Angel in such difficulties.’

‘A Late Discourse by Sir Kenelm Digby Made in a Solemn Assembly of Nobles and Learned Men at Montpelier, Touching the Cure of Wounds by the Powder of Sympathie’, 1664

Kenelm was at his studies, drawing up a curriculum for his sons’ education: a simple list of topoi taken from John Dee’s Preface to Euclid. He did not want to be an overbearing father, like Montaigne’s, who had made a project of his son by talking only Latin to him, till his teens, and teaching all their servants Latin also so they might not break the spell. An irony: while Montaigne’s Latin was his first tongue, his writings in French are all one wants to read. To wit, a gentle course of study for his boys:

Zographie
– painting, sculpture, architecture, &c. and their symbolical signification. The story of Zeuxis, and his murals of grapes, so well done the birds pecked at them.

The feather quill in Sir Kenelm’s hand fluttered lightly, longing to fly again.

Trochilike
– the properties of circular motion. Its use in wheels, mills and mining.

Helicosophie
– concerning spirals, cylinders and cones.

Did all good fathers write a curriculum? Sir Kenelm had never had a father, so he could not judge.

Pneumatithmie
– the study of pumps, air or water.

Hydragogie
– or how to conduct water uphill

To be sure, thought Sir Kenelm, his youngest son could not yet walk, quite, but he wished him to be native in these subjects – a child mechanician.

Menadrie
– the science of moving weights by means of pulleys.

Hypogesiodie
– underground measurements and surveys.

But then the son must be a scholar, too – so why not inculcate him in lightning-writing at a young age?

Brachigraphy
– note-taking at speed, writing but one letter-sign for each word.

Horometrie
– the art of measuring time by clocks and dials. As a boy learns to read a clock, so should he learn its workings at the same time. Therefore he has no Occluded beliefs, no Superstitions about Clocks, and knows that the soul of a clock, its animus, comes from the manipulation of weights.

Some had it that a child should not be loved, should not be celebrated nor encouraged, should be invested with no hopes, should be given no character, and no familial likenesses pointed out, no birthdays celebrated, no father–son matching outfits commissioned, and no astrological charts drawn up, because the risk was too great.

Navimaturgike
– the art of navigation.

A child was not definitely of this earth before it was six. It could be recalled to heaven at any moment. But Kenelm did not believe in keeping his heart safely in a strong box . . .

Stratarithmetrie
– the disposal of armies and soldiers in geometrical figures.

The boys would enjoy that study. It was important for them to be manly; scholarly, but not weak. Tomorrow young Kenelm was to be britched; he was six years old, full ready to cast off his baby’s coats. The tailor had put together his first outfit, themed like a page, and to be delivered on the morrow. Young Kenelm would sleep no more in the nursery and be no more a mother’s darling. He was now old enough to be out of danger.

A book tipped off the corner of Sir Kenelm’s desk, and was drawn to its nearest soul-mate, which was the tiled floor, stand-in for the earth, to which the book, like all heavy things, longed to return. If it were a paper dart, and had more in common with the clouds, it might have gone upwards.

Statike
– demonstration of the causes of the heaviness and lightness of all things.

The idea that there was an encircling and immanent power, a force called Gravity, by which God kept us bounded to this round and revolving world – now that, he knew, was fanciful talk.

He shifted his papers together and put them under the dead weight of a new-plucked dandelion.

Cosmographie
– the whole and perfect description of the lunarie and sub-lunarie spheres.

A baby bumblebee bashed into his window, causing the glass to shatter.

Thaumaturgike
– the art of marvels. The dove of wood, made to fly, peck and scratch. Vulcan’s self-movers (with secret wheels). The iron fly of Nuremberg. Fludd’s dragon.

He paused, and crossed out the entry
Thaumaturgike.
He did not want his sons to study this topic. Marvels had fascinated men of his father’s generation, but their quality these days was so poor that they were now like trifling toys. Tools, plans, schemes – these were what his sons would take to Virginia and the other plantations.

Nanobiotechnology
–

Sir Kenelm set down his pen, because he could hear a commotion in the hall. He went out of his study, and through the hall onto the stairs, where he found Venetia crying, because baby John had fallen on his head, and young Kenelm crying, and running around, angrily, protesting he had not caused the fall, and baby John howling his head off.

Seeing that no visible damage had been done, and that everything was in reasonable order, Kenelm shut his door against the noise and went back to resume and complete his syllabus for the boys. But when he came back he could not remember what was meant by
Nanobiotechnology.
It was – it was . . . He looked in his book again, but even John Dee seemed not to have it clearly in his Preface to Euclid.

Endymion confided once that he rarely went home, in order to avoid the constant havoc of family. Sir Kenelm felt that men should not be interrupted so much in times to come. Men would each have small marvels of perpetual motion in their pockets, like watches, which managed every interruption. These would replace the man in urgent communications, perhaps even impersonate him. Yes, in future times, men’s thinking would be respected as much as their sleeping. In time to come, men would really be able to concentrate.

M
ARY
T
REE: 217
M
ILES
T
RAVELLED

IF I HAD
not come to Gayhurst, I would not have met Annie Braxton, and if I had not met Annie Braxton, I would never have stood in Lady Venetia’s bedroom as I do now, looking at her glass gallypots and potions, her fine bed-drapes, her curling tongs. Annie goes in to dust and ope the windows once a week, and I have command of her dust-clouts today. The house is shut up, Sir Kenelm is abroad, the Lady Venetia is absent, all my long journey here was in vain, and Sir Richard is no more healed than before, and yet I feel strangely peaceful, as I wipe the motes off her bedposts, and shake out the sleepful hollows of her pillows. We can none of us do more than try in this world.

Annie calls from the closet that I should lie on the bed, to feel the feathers, but I cannot do that. Nor can I lean and look at myself in the mirror that sits in front of her dressing stool. Once you know what you are, you should live according to that knowledge, not against it. Father Jonas told us that some are saved and some are not, and there is little one can do about it. I am not sure – but Annie is calling again. She says that I should paint my face like a lady with fucus from the blue glass gallypot.

Annie Braxton, you are a minks indeed!

We both are laughing, and yet I think she has another purpose. I shake out the counterpane and watch the wingèd cavaliers of the air charging about. I think Annie wants me to cover my Mark, so I can see myself as I would be without it. Perhaps I should then learn to cover it with lead-white fucus every day, so it were only a slight raised welter on my cheek, not a liver-coloured botch where my Maker erred. But then I would still be botched, and only patched.