Alchemist's Apprentice (15 page)

Jack ran a hand down his delicate dished nose and patted his sleek, muscular neck, talking all the time. ‘We're both captives now, lad, aren't we? Was I right to bring you here?'

The colt sniffed at Jack's fingers, his lips nibbling but never biting, then reached up and blew sweet breath into his face. Jack laughed and blew back. The colt nuzzled at his hair.

‘My god,' came a soft voice from somewhere behind. ‘Would you look at that.'

Jack turned round. The head groom was standing in the middle of the yard, a look of amazement on his face. ‘He remembers you,' he said.

‘Of course he does,' said Jack, laughing again as the colt caught a fold of his sleeve and tugged gently at it.

‘But you don't know,' said the groom. ‘That horse is a demon to handle. We had the devil of a job to tidy him up. Took four of us to manage it. You wait there while I go and get his lordship.'

Jack waited willingly, rubbing the colt's forehead and letting him lick the salt from his hands. When the Duke arrived, he was as astonished as his groom.

‘I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it,' he said.

‘It's because the lad … Master James that is, pulled him out of the mire,' said the groom. ‘They do remember, you know.'

The Duke nodded thoughtfully and a few minutes passed. The other stable boys gathered and watched from a distance. Finally the Duke seemed to reach a decision. He turned to the head groom.

‘How would you like to go and live at Musgrave House?' he said.

‘Me, sir? Why?'

‘Because I intend for the colt to be kept there with James, at least for the time being. If we have a chance to put some manners on him we must take it, otherwise we'll be fighting with him for the rest of his life. Perhaps between the two of you, you can get his confidence.'

Jack was delighted with the idea, but his spirits rapidly diminished as the Duke led him into the house.

His betrothed was sitting in an armchair in the drawing room, her face turned towards the embroidered screen which protected her complexion from the direct heat of the fire. Her mother sat opposite and the Duke settled in beside her on the long couch. Jack was offered a second armchair, close beside Eleanor's. He sat down gingerly. She did not turn her head.

‘Meet James, Eleanor,' said the Duke. Still she did not turn. Jack glanced at the side of her face. He tried not to stare, but from the beginning it was to be a losing battle. It wasn't that she was beautiful, although she probably was, in her own, indefinable sort of way. What struck Jack with a force that made him weak at the knee, was her resemblance to the White Queen in the picture on the alchemist's wall. The image imprinted itself afresh in his mind, all but obliterating the scene in the room in front of his eyes. The face of the queen was her face.

‘Eleanor,' said her father again, a hint of admonition in his tone. ‘Please say good morning to James.'

‘Good morning, James.' Her voice was devoid of all feeling. She did not look at him.

‘How do you do,' said Jack. His voice sounded as though it was struggling past a huge restriction. He did his best to clear the croak out of, then tried again. ‘I'm very pleased to meet you.'

Lady Gordon stood up and walked across to her daughter. Gently but firmly she took her by the hand and drew her to her feet, then turned her round to face Jack. Her eyes were the palest blue and piercingly bright, but disdainful as those of the hawk that Jack had once seen watching him from a roadside branch.

He leapt to his feet, his fingers nervously twisting the lowest button of his waistcoat. Slowly, scornfully, Eleanor looked him up and down. He dropped his gaze to the floor, and when he found the courage to raise it again Eleanor had gone from him and was standing face to face with her father. In a voice that was gritty with rancour, she said, ‘I hate you.'

‘Eleanor!' said her mother, but the girl was not to be silenced.

‘You love your horses more than you love me,' she said. With her head high and her back as stiff as a poker, she walked to the door and opened it. Then she threw a last, withering glance at Jack and said, ‘I thought it was only in fairy tales that princesses were obliged to marry frogs!'

She was gone. Lady Gordon followed, a furious expression on her face. Her husband remained seated on the couch, his head in his hands. A dreadful silence fell. Eleanor might be the White Queen, but Jack was no longer the Red King, nor any other sort of dignitary. For an instant he wished he really was a frog, and could scuttle in behind the heap of logs beside the hearth.

‘May I go, sir?' he found the courage to say.

The Duke seemed slightly surprised when he looked up, as though he had forgotten Jack was there.

‘Yes, if you wish,' he said. ‘You mustn't worry about my daughter, James. She is wilful, but she will come round, I promise. When the time comes, she will marry you.'

U
NTIL THAT MOMENT, THE
idea of marrying anyone had been so absurd to Jack that it hadn't even entered into his thinking. Before he met Eleanor, Jack had not been aware of any need for female companionship. But now, it seemed to him that his existence, despite the extraordinary changes in his circumstances, was incomplete without her. She became the most important thing in his life. It seemed to him, as he reflected on the events that had brought him to that place, that everything had been designed, by Hermes or some other instrument of fate, to bring him to Eleanor and her to him. But every time his thoughts ran along these lines, he came up against the same, unpalatable truth. Eleanor didn't feel the same way about him.

Over the next few days, Jack existed in a state of abject misery. He felt like an intruder in the huge house and skulked around the place, seeking out dark corners, trying to keep out of everybody's way. Even the dogs appeared to consider him unworthy of their attention and declined his offers of friendship with contempt.

Each morning, Adam Corbett took Jack out around the estate in an effort to familiarise him with his new responsibilities. Together they walked the forests and parklands and were driven in the carriage to outlying reaches of the land, where flocks of fat sheep were tended by shepherd boys who were introduced to Jack as their new employer.

Jack tagged along unhappily, but took in little. His mind was fully occupied by images of Eleanor, and her words drowned out Adam's attempts to involve him in the running of the farm.

‘… a frog … only in fairy tales … marry a frog.'

The turning point in Jack's attitude came one afternoon when Adam took him to visit one of the tenant families in a remote, hilly area at the edge of the estate. The house was on the poorest of land, battered by the harsh weather, and the instant Jack set foot inside it he became profoundly uncomfortable. The unhappy dreams of Eleanor dispersed and he began to come to his senses.

The damp little cottage reminded him of his own origins; the sick child who lay on the settle bed beside the weak fire might have been one of his own dying brothers. The family offered Adam and Jack the best of their hospitality; a drop of precious rum from a dusty bottle kept on top of the dresser. It burned Jack's belly as he rapidly drank it down, eager to be finished and gone from that awful place with its uncomfortable reminders of unhappiness. Back outside in the carriage he waited for the more courteous Adam to rejoin him.

The rum added fire to his emotions. Life was the same everywhere. The poor suffered and died and there was nothing they could do about it. Their lives would never improve. Health and happiness were the prerogatives of the wealthy.

It was a full minute more before the truth dawned on Jack. He was no longer one of the struggling poor like the people beneath that leaking roof. He was one of the gentry.

When Adam came out again Jack, emboldened by the rum perhaps, had completed the mental shift into his new role. His voice shook slightly but it was, nonetheless, the voice of authority.

‘Send the doctor out to that child,' he said. ‘And collect no more rent from that family until he is better.'

Adam Corbett smiled. ‘Very good, sir,' he said.

Jack was no longer a frog. He was a rich man. He was the Red King and the flames beneath his feet were already fuelling his determination to be all that his White Queen could wish for in a husband. When she saw him as he intended to be she would look upon him with amazement and delight. Like the figures in the picture they would turn towards each other and their lives together would be rapturous, a true union of souls. Musgrave House would ring to the sound of their delighted laughter and to the calls of the divine child that would be born to them.

What Jack failed to notice was how rapidly the satisfaction of one desire led to the birth of another. He was wealthy. All the needs he had been aware of could now be met; he would never have to be hungry again.

But instead of satisfaction, he had merely shifted his attention on to a new need. There was something else that he wanted.

O
N THE MORNING OF
Jack's sixth day in residence, a small, portly man arrived by carriage at Musgrave Hall. He had with him a large number of cases and parcels of books tied with string which the servants proceeded to carry into the house. Jack stood inside the front door and tried to keep out of the way, but the newcomer bore down on him with an outstretched hand.

‘Jacob Marley,' he said. ‘And you are James?'

Jack nodded and took the small, pink hand. It was cool and damp and lay limp as a dead frog in his own. He let go of it hurriedly.

‘I am to be your tutor,' said Marley. ‘I will teach you to read and write and to comport yourself properly in good company.' He smiled slackly, and added, ‘If it is possible.'

The following day, and every day afterwards, an instructor came to give Jack riding lessons. A second teacher turned up three times a week to teach him archery and falconry and Jack was soon so busy that he no longer had time to worry about the extraordinary changes in his circumstances.

A large part of every morning was given over to learning how to run the estate and look after the books. Before dinner and again afterwards, Marley drilled Jack with letters and numbers, grammar and pronunciation, manners and comportment and ethics. Any hours of daylight that were not taken up with outdoor activities seemed immediately to be filled by barbers or shoemakers, or by tailors coming to measure him for yet another suit of clothes. Every night he went to bed exhausted with the day's new knowledge circling his mind. Often he slept poorly because the rich food that the cook provided to build up his constitution disagreed with his digestive system. Then, just as he was beginning to get accustomed to that, the Duke came up with a new form of torture.

He appointed his personal surgeon to examine Jack's rickety legs and accompanied him on his first visit to Musgrave House. Once again Jack felt like an animal being inspected. He was required to take down his trousers while the surgeon poked and prodded and squeezed at his legs, sometimes quite painfully. When he had completed his examination he offered his opinions and suggestions to the Duke as though Jack wasn't present at all. Then, a few days later, he arrived with his solution. It was a pair of steel braces which he attached to Jack's legs with stout, leather straps. They exerted a strong, inward pressure on the bowed thighs and calves, causing immediate and severe discomfort. The surgeon assured Jack that it would all be worthwhile; that in time his legs would straighten if only he were resolute enough to wear the braces all the time except, of course, when riding.

It was almost more than Jack could bear. At night the pain brought tears to his eyes and banished any hope of sleep. He wondered what pleasure there could possibly be in having such wealth when the pressures of such an existence were so intolerable. But even at the worst of times the prospect of becoming the Red King and living in harmony with his partner sustained him. And when, in the quietest moments of the night, he thought of the alchemist, the memory of Barnstable's mischievous smile brought him some degree of comfort.

As time went by things began to improve for Jack. His legs and digestion adjusted to the new conditions and he began to get an appreciation for good food and comfortable living. He realised that the servants were, in fact, there to serve him and, timidly at first, he began to order things to suit himself. He did not want a fire in his bedroom; it made the place stuffy and gave him a headache. He preferred some foods to others. The dogs had accepted him now that he was the undisputed leader of the household, and he insisted that they be allowed to sleep on his bed at night and sit on the comfortable chairs in the drawing room. In addition, he wanted to take a walk on his own from time to time, with no questions asked.

During those walks he returned, in a limited way, to searching for the
prima materia
, slipping off the main paths of the estate into spinneys and ditches. When the condition of his clothes began to arouse suspicion, he asserted that he had an interest in relics and it was his privilege to search for them as he pleased. The staff accepted his eccentricity, as they accepted all eccentricities of the gentry, without question.

Jack's confidence began to grow, especially after he made an abrupt leap forward in his lessons with Marley. All those letters and words that had previously been nothing more than a cause of extreme anxiety suddenly took on meaning for him. The books on the library shelves were no longer forbidding monstrosities but friends waiting to make his acquaintance. Reading was still an enormous struggle and there were far more words in the language than Jack could ever have imagined, but one by one he was coming to know and appreciate them.

And if ever he grew tired or frustrated, dreams of his White Queen revitalised him. Although it was to be a long time before they met face to face again, Jack occasionally caught glimpses of Eleanor walking in the meadows and gardens around the manor or out riding on her light-boned hack. If she ever noticed him she gave no sign of recognition, but it didn't matter to Jack. Each sight of her added fuel to his dreams and his determination to prove himself worthy of her.