Alchemist's Apprentice (16 page)

Tentatively at first but with growing courage, he questioned his staff about her. They were willing enough to share what they knew, and Jack's initial impressions of Eleanor were gradually augmented until he felt he knew her inside out. She was an excellent rider and a gifted musician; a bright, energetic character with an unbridled curiosity about the world. In general, he was told, she had a warm and outgoing temperament, but she could, at times, be wilful. If her heart was set on some course of action, no power on earth could turn her away from it. While he knew better than to criticize Lord Gordon's daughter, Marley contrived to suggest that this was not a commendable quality in a woman though why that should be, Jack wasn't sure. As far as he was concerned, Eleanor was perfect. If she was truculent and stubborn, then truculence and stubbornness were desirable qualities and Jack did his best to encourage them in himself. In trying to emulate her he went through a surprising change of character, becoming gradually calmer, more confident and outgoing in his manner, more assertive in his decisions. He would, he was certain, make himself a fitting partner for the girl he loved.

O
F ALL JACK'S MANY
pleasures on the Musgrave estate, the greatest was the chestnut colt. Under Jack's careful and patient guidance, he lost his mistrust of people and became mannerly and secure. Gradually, he filled out and grew into himself. Over the seasons that followed, he reached his full potential and Jack did too. They had the best of everything. Any deprivations their bodies might have suffered in their early years was made up for now. Jack grew like a summer weed on a compost heap, upwards first, several inches in a year, then outwards, bursting out of one set of clothes after another as his frame filled with muscular flesh. He was constantly active, out on his land day after day, learning the business from the estate manager, and getting on to first name terms with the tenants who farmed it. Any daylight hours that remained were devoted to sport; to archery and fencing and to hunting with hawk and hounds. The winter was long and there wasn't much of a spring, but the summer which followed was glorious and the long, hot days were filled with vigorous activity as Jack began to take his place in society. Although he was not entirely accepted by his peers among the county gentry, he worked hard to become their equal in the manly pursuits they employed. He ignored their occasional derision and refused to allow anything to undermine his determination. And it worked. The more he ran and rode and swam, the stronger his body became and the healthier his appetite. He grew so rapidly that, before the summer was out, a new set of braces had to be made for him. He buckled them up to their limit every night and learned to sleep despite the discomfort. Slowly but surely they were bringing about the desired effect. Jack grew fit and healthy.

And wealthy. Jack had no formal education, but he lacked nothing in intelligence. The estate had always run well, even in the absence of a resident owner, and before his first year as its manager was over, Jack had learned how to improve it further. With the help of Adam Corbett he turned the estate into a hugely successful enterprise. He treated his tenants and farm labourers well, and they worked well for him in return. He cleared a hundred acres of scrubland and used the cleared area for intensive beef production, employing extra men to tend the expanding herd. He used his eye for horseflesh to great advantage, attending every sale within reach, buying rundown animals and turning them out on his meadows to improve, then schooling them and selling them on at a profit.

To begin with, Neville Gordon kept a tight hand on Jack's finances. Until he married Eleanor, the estate didn't belong to Jack and he was merely learning about its operation while he waited for Eleanor to come of age. But as time went by and he saw that Jack was efficient and trustworthy, Gordon relaxed his grip and the Musgrave money remained at the house, in a strongbox in the office. Adam Corbett was uneasy about its presence there, but Jack had a poor man's mistrust of financial institutions and refused to have anything to do with banks or bonds. The money he acquired stayed where he could see it and feel it and count it.

Educationally, as well, Jack was accumulating merit. Marley, aloof and disdainful to begin with, could not fail to be impressed by Jack's energy and hard work. He discovered in himself a renewed enthusiasm for teaching and moved Jack rapidly through the available English texts. When the days shortened and the year turned towards winter again, they took up the study of mathematics and science and of Latin and Greek, and Jack was required to read extensively around his subjects. It was during this time that he arrived, for the first time, at a reference to Hermes.

It shocked him so much that Marley, who was sitting with him over the translation of the text, thought that he had taken a seizure.

‘Are you all right, James?'

‘Yes, I'm fine. I just … felt a little dizzy, that's all.'

‘Perhaps I'm working you too hard. Do we need better light? Put your head down between your knees for a while. That always helps.'

Jack did so, glad of the respite. His mind was still reeling. He had kept his experience with the alchemist so private that it was like part of his soul, and to find that Hermes had an existence outside the secret fraternity was like a discovery of betrayal. Marley patted him on the back with limpid concern, and gradually his curiosity overcame his shock. He sat up straight again and returned to the text.

‘Where were we?' he said.

‘Are you sure you're all right?'

‘Quite sure. Here we are. Zeus and Hermes. Who was Hermes, exactly?'

Marley's face took on an unexpected enthusiasm. ‘Ah,' he said, ‘I'm glad you asked me that. Hermes was not the greatest of the Greek gods, but he was certainly the most interesting. Zeus was his father, but his mother was a mortal, which gave him the ability to move easily between Mount Olympus and the world of mortals. Because of this, he was appointed messenger of the gods. He was also the escort of souls on their last journey into the underworld.'

Jack shuddered perceptibly and Marley looked at him with an anxious expression. ‘Are you sure you are well?'

‘Yes, yes,' said Jack. ‘Please go on.'

‘Well, Hermes was also the god of travellers, and of thieves and tricksters, that sort of thing. In fact, his first exploit in life was to steal Apollo's cattle from him,' Marley went on, but Jack heard no more. He was lost in the memory of his own first theft, and how he had attributed it to Hermes without any knowledge of what he was doing. For the first time in more than a year he became aware of the capricious presence hovering in the air around him, and for a while he was lost to enthralment. When he became conscious of Marley again, he was still talking.

‘The Romans called him Mercury, and the elusive quicksilver was named after him. That is probably the reason that he was adopted by the alchemists as their divinity …'

Jack interrupted him. ‘Alchemists? What do you know about alchemists?' His voice had an uncharacteristic urgency about it and Marley stared at him with growing concern.

‘Perhaps you might prefer to rest for a while, James? We could continue with this tomorrow.'

Jack took a deep breath and got a grip on himself. ‘No,' he said, adopting a more diffident air. ‘I was just curious, that's all. What on earth is an alchemist, anyway?'

Marley observed his pupil warily for a moment, but eventually continued. ‘Alchemists, yes. I think the best way of describing it to you, James, is as a sort of madness.'

‘Madness? What do you mean?'

‘There are no alchemists any longer. The practice was banned during the last century, and with good reason.'

‘Oh?'

‘Yes. The foolish practitioners of this science believed that by following certain rather ritualistic procedures, they could turn base metals into gold.' He gave a short, patronising laugh, which Jack tried unsuccessfully to mimic. ‘Absurd, of course,' he went on. ‘There is no such procedure.'

‘I suppose not,' said Jack.

‘No. There are other theories, of course. It has been proposed that making gold was never the purpose of the exercise, that it was, rather, a philosophy of the spirit.'

‘In what sense?'

‘Well, it is only a theory, and a somewhat preposterous one at that, but it is said that the alchemists' references to gold were purely symbolic. They made much of the Red King and the White Queen, equivalent to red sulphur and white lead, which are supposed to do a good deal of chasing around together in the chemical fermentation and eventually combine to make gold. But the proponents of the theory of spirit claim that this Red King and White Queen represent the male and female aspects of the alchemist himself, which must be brought to union within his soul, thus producing an offspring; the divine child. Otherwise known as immortality.'

Jack gaped in bewilderment. Marley laughed, quietly. ‘You are quite lost, I see. And so you should be. It is all so much nonsense and there is, in my opinion, only one definition of alchemy.'

‘And that is?'

‘I have already told you. It is a form of madness.' He smiled, clearly enchanted by his own erudition. ‘You see, James' he went on in a paternal tone, ‘it is now well known that quicksilver is highly poisonous. These alchemist chappies spent all their days locked up in stuffy little workshops refining mercury from cinnabar and mixing it with all kinds of noxious things. It is no wonder that they became mad. They were poisoned by the fumes, you see, which created delusions and hallucinations. Their writings are proof of this, apparently, though I have never seen them myself.'

He stopped, and for a while they sat in silence. Jack sent out feelers, hoping to find the presence of Hermes around him in the air, but the wind which rattled the shutters carried nothing more mysterious than rain. Jack felt a dreadful gloom descend upon the room and upon his life. ‘I think I will take that rest, after all,' he said.

That night Jack lay awake for a long time, revising his memories in accordance with what he had been told. Marley, with his piles of books and his massive knowledge of languages, science and mathematics, had to be right. In Jack's mind, the alchemist's face lost its previous charm. His gentle smile became a foolish grin; the mischievous glint in the eyes proof of insanity. His own belief in Hermes became frightening to him, a sign, perhaps, of some incipient madness that the alchemist had seeded, and he resolved to dismiss it from his mind and not think of it again. The only thing that sustained him through those bleak hours was the image of the Red King and the White Queen. They had to be real; their union had to come about. To even conceive that it might not happen would have been more than Jack could bear.

A few days later, Jack received a summons from the manor to call around in the afternoon. Still shaken by the sudden revision of his beliefs, Jack was unnerved by the prospect of a visit with Lord Gordon, and the remote, but nonetheless daunting prospect that he might catch a glimpse of Eleanor.

The little cob, still Jack's favourite, jogged along jauntily, happy to be out with the wind blowing through his tail, but Jack didn't enjoy the ride at all. He was cold, not from the wind, but from some numbness within. There was an ominous feeling about the day which, since he could no longer attribute such things to Hermes, Jack was doing his best to dismiss. But he was having little success.

At the manor, the Duke's mood seemed to match his own. The huge drawing room resounded with emptiness. Jack and the Duke were like strangers passing through it. They sat for some time in uneasy silence, and Jack found himself wondering whether some awful catastrophe had befallen them all. But eventually Lord Gordon ran a hand through his iron-grey hair and sighed.

‘I have to tell you, James, that all my efforts at persuasion have been without success. I had hoped to have good news for you today but Eleanor, I'm afraid, has still not resigned herself to this match.' He stood up and walked over to the fire, which was roaring more furiously than ever as the high winds dragged at the chimney. ‘I'm afraid I have wasted your time in fetching you here.'

J
ACK SHOULD HAVE SEEN
the truth then and realised the difference between fantasy and reality. But the Red King and the White Queen exerted such a powerful force in his imagination that he couldn't even contemplate the possibility that they would not come together and complete the roles he had assigned to them. At night he had disturbing dreams; of marriages forced at sword-point, and of Eleanor weeping inconsolably; but he preferred to ignore the messages they were giving him and hold on to his hopes.

But something had changed. Despite himself, Jack had lost his newfound assurance, and his underlying insecurities began to emerge in new and destructive forms. Outwardly, he continued to function much as he had before, but there were subtle changes that began to make themselves evident in the weeks and months that followed. The first was that Jack's appetite began to get out of control. The good food that had been so necessary for his undernourished body lost its taste for him. Nothing would please him but the youngest, tenderest lamb and pork, the richest sauces, the sweetest cakes and puddings. Twice a day he sat down to meals of seven or eight courses, and in between he would often call the cook or the housekeeper to serve him up some delicacy in the drawing room.

He got no exercise, other than the occasional ride around his property on the Arab colt, and his studies all but came to an end. He began to grow fat, but although he hated this manifestation of his gluttony, he didn't hate it enough to put an end to it. As long as he wasn't too heavy for the colt, he could see no reason to stop indulging himself.

The worst casualty of his excesses, however, was not himself, but the estate. With the assistance of Adam Corbett, Jack had managed the property brilliantly. Relations with the tenants were healthy and the land was producing good crops, good stock, and good hunting. But with Jack's new priorities, all that changed. He was no longer interested in efficient management; merely in profit. He examined the books and raised the rents. He increased the stocking levels on the land in order to have more sheep and cattle to sell. Worst of all, perhaps, he felled a huge acreage of ancient oaks, sold the trees to a ship-builder and ordered the land to be cleared for yet more grazing stock.