Viper Wine (45 page)

Which brings me to my name – oh my name! It is Crush-Evil-’Neath-Your-Toe. I am glad Annie Braxton is not here for she would laugh until she shook. I was given the name at prayer circle the evening I was received into Communion. I support the crushing of evil, only it is not pleasing to find oneself replying to the name of ‘Toe’.

At prayer meeting yesterday Zealous Goodenough declared that godly men and women shunned beauty, as a false witness, a lure, a trap and a trick to send us mad, and then as he was talking he came over and smiled at me and put his hand on my shoulder, as if to say: Look at this unbeautiful one we welcomed in. Then he asked around the room in turn, Do ye shun beauty, do ye shun beauty? But they never asked me, because it would be like asking a cripple if they shun walking. Perhaps it was as well they did not ask me, because I do not shun beauty. I long to catch a glimpse of beauty, to grasp its trace in every living thing. I see it in the hedgerow and the brook. I see it in the clouds. I thirst for beauty as much as any other girl who never owned a pretty kerchief nor a gay garter.

My name is not ‘Only By Marriage’, nor ‘Crush-Evil-’Neath-Your-Toe’, I said to myself, as I tiptoed out of the lodge last night with my pack at my back. My name is Mary Tree. The white owl beckoned me with her call, and I feared it was Sir Richard’s spirit. At least I have weathered out the worst of the winter here, although it was not so warm yet that I was minded to rest, but I kept marching all night, till I walked into dawn, with Richard’s shard always at my back.

As it began to be sunny, I came upon some milkmaids with their pails full for skimming, and it pleased me so much to learn none of them were called Here-Be-Zion nor Have-Faith-In-Him, but only Jane and Susan. I thought I must have been brain-sick to linger so long with those Puritans, and yet I met many more Brothers and Sisters along the way as I trod the green paths onwards.

A
DULTERATED
C
ANDIES

AT THE SILVER
Thistle, a dirty apothecary’s on Shining Lane, the stock was being despoiled, the Cures and Healing Tinctures shaken out of their stock-jars so they collected on the floor in great powdery pyramids, sherbet-coloured ground coral mingling with verdigris and sparkling talc. Clouds of marbled dust swirled in patterns unknowable in the light from the little round window. The proprietor of the shop had buried her face, refusing to witness the waste of her goods, and crying silently into a huge grey napkin. The doors to the premises were locked; one boy was searching the back room, while another climbed the ladder, upending the jars one by one. The College of Physicians was making a raid.

The Censor stood with his hands folded, a tall figure in his royal purple gown, making his customary speech.

‘We, being informed that your practice was a low operation no better than a quack-salver’s, and your co-conspirator, Thomas Leake, an unskilled glyster-pipe pusher, specialising in powdered pigs’ bones, and you a medicastra, or that is to say, a base and female Empiric—’

‘Ay me.’ She shook her head.

‘Who learned all she knows of Physick under a country hedge—’

‘Nature’s cures are my cures,’ she interjected, looking at the Censor with one pale blue eye, and another clouded by cataract.

‘And so, Madam Garley—’

‘Gurley,’ she said. ‘Begg Gurley.’

‘If you will. Madam, we find cause to censure your trade in the strongest terms, and investigate your operations.’

‘Can’t it wait, sir?’ she said in a soothing voice, like a big pigeon. ‘Master Leake’s coming back within the day. He’s gone up Islington way, to do some fishing. It’s the Lord’s Day, isn’t it?’

She was attempting to cast a spell on him with her gentle voice, and her pale eyes, and he would not look at her in case he gave in.

‘We have tested your wares with our expertise, our physician’s assay, and thus we learn’ – he pointed with his wand at the heap of shimmering powders – ‘that your Gold contains no Gold but Fool’s Gold, that your Frankincense is two parts lavender, and that your Tincture of Coral is chalk stained with cherry juice.’

Begg made a gesture close to a shrug and turned her face away.

‘All your wares must be impounded. None can be trusted. What further miseries must you cause the sick, the needy, by selling them these adulterated candies, when you could be treating them honestly by bloodletting them at the right time of the moon . . .’ The Master was about to expatiate on the importance of astral timing, when he caught sight of a mouldy box behind the counter marked ‘Begg’s Cabinett of Egsquisite Rarity’.

‘And what further criminal dissembling do we find here? Myrrh that is nothing but your own perfumed ear wax, perhaps? Ah, the favourite Unicorn’s Horn—’

‘Now leave that be, for that
is
the real thing,’ cried Begg, standing up heavily. ‘I paid a pretty pound for it. A king’s ransom, that was.’

The Physician Censor shook his head gravely. He popped the lid off the small box, sniffed the white ground.

‘Where did this come from?’

‘From a unicorn’s forehead, of course.’

‘Begg Gurley, I tell you: the True Horn is so powerful you would never afford it. No physician can, come to that. If they could then London would be a healthful place indeed.’

He tipped the box upside down, creating a small snowfall of valuable scurf. Begg Gurley yelped, seizing her fist in the air, her tongue vainly protuberant.

‘Now we will sweep up and soon be gone, and your fines will be charged accordingly.’

Just at that moment one of the boys came in from the back room carrying a box and some scales. He said something in the ear of the Censor, who suppressed any satisfaction as he made his final pronouncement: ‘And on top of everything, your weights are off, so I am confiscating these as well.’

Aware, in theory, of the College of Physicians’ raids, but unaware that one was being visited so thoroughly upon his fellow apothecary a few streets away, Master Choice continued, unperturbed, to welcome his best customer. He had not seen Venetia for almost a month, and he was interested to see the results of his labours.

‘Well, what do you say?’ asked Venetia, stepping into the light and revealing a half-healed face to her Creator.

Master Choice looked at her steadily, and did not speak.

Choice’s premises had expanded, so he commanded a full house on Fenchurch Street. Upstairs was kept clean and dainty, draped with fashionable flame-cloth hangings, while downstairs was given over to the ever-expanding pits, the furnaces, the vats and racks. To contain the problem of splatter, there was even – of this Master Choice was particularly proud – a dedicated disembowelling closet.

Choice usually came closer, so Venetia could feel him breathe upon her, but this time he moved away, as if he were trying to see the whole picture rather than the brushwork. He still did not speak, and he frowned as his eyes roved across what he had done.

Most customers were now scheduled to strict half-hour appointments. Some were more trying than others. Little Lettice spent so long expressing her thoughts on the war in Saxony, the use of the colour red in the clothing of unmarried women, and, in order to explain the Wine’s effect upon her, the usual hues and clarities of her chamber pot, that Choice wondered if she was unhinged by the Wine, or if she were always a babbler. When her allotted time was over, he turned away to the wall and started humming to himself while he wrote up his Observations, made a note of the astrological position, and tidied away his Instruments. Lettice did not infer the significance of these actions. She talked on without ceasing. He also needed to stand, and open the door for her, before she would leave.

In his innermost heart, Choice looked at Venetia’s face, and asked himself,
Ye gods, what have I accomplished?

To his customer, he spoke thus:

‘Well, madam, I have delivered six Viperish Infusions to my lady’s face, in symmetrical manner, across the forehead, in the crucible of the frown – which is between the eyebrows – around the eyes, and in the crease twixt nose and lips. The fruits of my labour are now before me.’

And, he might have added, all around him: two of Venetia’s infusions had paid for a portrait of Master Choice, which now hung above the sign of the star; two had gone towards the rent; and the last two, prescribed belatedly, eased the pressing cumulative deficit of his coffers, and allowed Margaret Choice a new mattress.

Aletheia Howard’s patronage was a great financial blessing, although she had warned him most peremptorily that she was
una Contessa
, but she would not pay
una Contessa
’s fee, so he must charge her
uno prezzo giusto
– a fair price. He laughed as if she were an ill-informed woman and said that prices varied according to the season, the availability of vipers, the composition of the Wine . . . Aletheia looked hard at him and said she had great experience of the antiquities merchants of Naples, and that she would pay what her friend Olive paid.

Lancelot Choice still had not replied to Venetia’s question. He swallowed.

‘I see before me a forehead that has no creasing upon it, and no trenches. I see eyes that are free from crow’s feet, a little swollen, but not so much that my lady’s eyesight is impaired, no?’

‘I retain my perfect sight, thank you.’

‘And as for the cheeks, well, they are fuller than they were. Time and palpations will bring them into shape a little more. Now, I need to see the motion of your notions. Is it that time of the moon with you that you might give me a wee smile, my lady?’

Venetia smiled without emotion, like a string puppet.

Olive was now in the habit of sending Choice scrawled billets-doux, in exchange for his vials of Viper’s Wine. Of course, she paid for her Wine, but she had started to feel that it was cruel to acknowledge his matchless weekly offerings with money alone. So she wrote back with thanks, observations on her health and kind solicitations. Every week he replied with more wine, and their phantom correspondence kindled Olive’s desires to ever stronger heat.

Endymion was home again, loving-stern, full of expectation and demand. He wrote to her from Le Havre, telling her to ‘make much of herself’ before his return. She put on her new stomacher of incarnadine satin, laced about with silver, and her petticoat of tabby rose, little thinking that when he saw her he would set about her with a horse’s bit, a metalwork contraption from Vienna, designed not for breaking in beasts but for men’s gratification. She refused to wear it, but she let him prick her sides and rump with his toy whip, which sent him faster into tilt, as he shouted old jousting cries and battle oaths. His roughness made Olive’s fantasies the sweeter; how she longed to condescend to Choice, to lavish herself upon his surprised and grateful person.

When he saw Venetia’s smile, Choice felt a cold stone on his heart: this will do for me.

Her face was still her own, give or take a lumpy, swollen aspect, not unlike a water-corpse. The puffery looked unfortunate, though it served to eliminate her runckles. But he had gone too far, and the movement of her smile was stiff and uneven, like warped parchment, tighter on one side of the face than the other.

‘Thank you, my lady. Hear what I say to you now: there’s no cause for concern. With time and palpations . . .’

Venetia turned her back on Choice and strode towards his mirror, his new bevelled mirror. He chid himself for speaking amiss: whenever people are told there is no cause for concern they always cry panic.

‘Good Choice,’ she said in a small voice, which he dreaded would become shrill, a scream as she looked in the mirror. But the low purr continued. ‘
Dear
Choice, thou art a Daedalus, a fabulous artificer.’ In the mirror, she turned her face this way and that, like a lady trying on an invisible hat. He wondered if it was a distorting mirror, a scrying glass, to show her such a different image than the one he saw. ‘Your art is beyond my happiest imaginings. I am only sorry we did not do this sooner. I think a little more, here and there, and I will almost be ready.’

‘Indeed, my lady,’ swallowed Choice. Ready for what?