The Alchemist's Daughter (44 page)

[ 2 ]

M
RS.
C
ALDER SAID
that for a small fee she could recommend a butcher’s wife with a brood of healthy infants who would fill in as a temporary nurse, so I walked up and down the cramped attic corridor jigging the baby against my inexpert shoulder while Mrs. Bess Gardner was fetched.

The baby, who had a remarkable ability to unravel herself from a cocoon of blankets, astonished me with her urgent needs. Her spasmodic cry twisted my heart, and she nuzzled my chin with her pink mouth. From time to time one of the women came up to offer advice or take a peek, but I wouldn’t let them hold her. I thought it might damage her to be transferred from one set of arms to another.

At last Mrs. Gardner arrived, well-scrubbed and agog with curiosity. Annie had cleared the room next to Sarah’s and the woman unbuttoned her gown, planted herself on the edge of the bed, spread her knees to receive the baby, pinched her dripping nipple into a teat, and thrust it between the little gums.

I couldn’t take my eyes off that child’s bobbing head and frantic mouth. My breasts ached in sympathy when I saw Mrs. Gardner’s flesh compressed as the nipple was milked. All that was visible of the baby now was the back of her dark head, while the woman gave me a look of great ease and self-congratulation, as if the baby was lapping away at the heart of her.

I
N THE NEXT
room, Annie and Mrs. Calder were laying out Sarah’s body. When it was done, I went with the other women to stand beside the bed. We were a ragbag: Mrs. Calder, the smartest and most respectable; Annie, as composed as ever, and the rest of us, wild-haired and crumpled. The house was closed for business and the shutters fastened, so the room was very quiet with the racket of London kept at a distance and a pair of candles burning at the head of the bed. Some of the women were weeping; others looked anywhere but at the body. They were restless and uneasy and soon filed out past the little brown-eyed girl who hovered by the door.

Sarah was shrouded in white wool, her swollen hands folded on her breast with a sprig of rosemary between her fingers. I studied her face, which was still puffy but with the neat features clearly visible again, especially the fine arch of her brows and the soft curve at her hairline. The country girl crept forward and put her finger on the shroud. I smiled at her, but she was blind with fear.

I wished that Shales was there so that he could tell me where Sarah had gone because gone she was, completely, with not a hint of her battling spirit left behind. I called to her from the bottom of my soul: Sarah. Sarah. There was no answer. Sarah. The gulf between the living and the dead gaped fathomless in front of me as I looked at her shut eyes and mouth. Another thing you never taught me, Father: that death is the one field of knowledge we can never explore.

After a moment, I went to the door and slipped a guinea into the young girl’s hand. I thought it would give her chance to leave if she wanted, but she went on gawping at Sarah as if she couldn’t comprehend what had happened to her. So I pushed her toward the head of the stairs and then went back to the baby, who had been expertly swaddled by Mrs. Gardner and now lay fast asleep in a basket. And there I sat, hour after hour, watching over her fiercely and committing myself to the protection of every corpuscle of her being.

M
EANWHILE, THE LIFE
of the house went on. It was now the afternoon, and occasionally a customer came to the door and got turned away; I heard low voices on the stairs, then the arrival of the undertaker come to measure up. I thought about the country girl and wondered whether she’d escaped with her guinea or if it had been surrendered to the woman in my feathered gown, who now seemed to be in charge.

I told myself that I was in my mother’s territory and this is where she perhaps would have felt most at home, and I listened more intently in case something in the house stirred a secret memory. Then I crouched beside the baby’s basket, wrapped my arms round my knees, and willed her heart to beat strongly so that the blood might flow through her arteries and carry each new breath of air to her tiny organs and make them grow strong enough for me to take her home to Selden.

[ 3 ]

M
RS.
C
ALDER DECREED
that the baby would be able to travel when she was a week or ten days old, provided she was well fed on the journey. Annie had a married sister who she thought would nurse the baby once we were at Selden, so I wrote to Mrs. Gill, asking her to prepare for our return. I was troubled by the cost of all this and saw my precious funds drain away in the hiring of the carriage and the paying of Mrs. Gardner, who would have to come with us.

And then there was Sarah’s funeral. Her women were ambitious to give her a fitting send-off and seemed to think I had a bottomless purse of guineas. I wrote to Aislabie, care of his club, informing him of his daughter’s birth and Sarah’s death. I suggested that he might see his way to providing immediate support for one and funds for the other. It was a brief note, somewhat halfhearted because I didn’t expect a reply.

G
IVEN
S
ARAH
’
S DISLIKE
of churches, the funeral had to be planned with considerable skill and the priest instructed to say the briefest of prayers. We buried her in the evening so that we could carry torches through the dark streets, which the feathered woman said would suit Sarah more than anything. The women, including the young girl who seemed to have gained confidence and status, were sumptuously dressed, mostly in my cast-off or stolen clothes, and wore smart mourning rings engraved with her name. Annie and I followed at a discreet distance, as if Sarah might appear catlike from an alley and hiss us away.

The women were right to choose darkness. Sarah had lived in the shadows. When she hadn’t been in the room with me twitching my laces or brushing my hair, I had no idea where she was. The inside of her head had been a foreign country. The glimpse I had of her other life, the house in Powder Yard, was as alien to my own at Selden as Calabar or the Americas. But as I followed her coffin, watched the torchlight flame over its embroidered shroud, saw strange faces spring out of the darkness and fade away again, I knew that she would always be inside me, a gritty reminder of what I might have been.

There was no sign of Aislabie, of course. At Sarah’s graveside, I stepped forward and threw in a sheaf of pink roses tied with half a yard of the finest Mechlin lace, in deference to her great skill with the needle. It had been a day of yet more wind and rain, and our skirts were heavy with mud. Rain pattered on the coffin and ran in little channels from the top of the grave. My flowers opened their petals wider to receive the moisture, and it seemed a terrible shame when the first handful of mud thudded down on them. We stood in a tight little bunch and felt the warmth of each other’s bodies. Sarah would have fretted over the damage to the fabric of our gowns, taken mine away, and restored it to me later in perfect order. Not once had I thanked her properly for all the little services she had done me.

T
HE NEXT DAY,
we moved the baby to Hanover Street, where the air was cleaner and there was less disruption. It must have been bad for trade in Powder Yard to have a crying baby in the house. Hanover Street had been transformed in the five days since I was last there and was half stripped of its furniture and hangings. One huffy maid had been left in charge of the house, the parrot hung dolefully in a near-empty kitchen, and our feet echoed on the bare staircases. There was no sign at all of Aislabie. I sold my remaining books and instruments to the bookseller near St. Paul’s and raised sixty guineas. Given the debt still owed Harford, it seemed a small enough sum.

[ 4 ]

T
HE MORNING WE
left London was gray and drizzly. First into the carriage went Mrs. Gardner, next the parrot, then Annie. The baby, lovingly dressed in the tiny bonnet, gown, and shawl that used to be at the bottom of my mother’s chest, was tucked up in a basket. I was about to hand her to Annie when a familiar figure came swinging round the corner of the street, waved a gloved hand as if astonished to find us there, and quickened his pace.

I realized that my husband’s arrival was impeccably timed. As usual, Aislabie had paid minute attention to sartorial detail and had achieved a look of charming, somewhat nautical dishevelment—a blue morning coat draped at the waist with a scarlet sash, matching satin slippers, a bob wig, and a loosely tied neckcloth. He bowed over my hand, but his gaze slid down to the baby. “A word with your old man, Em, before you go?”

I brought the basket back inside, and we went into the former dining parlor, now empty of every stick of furniture except the table, which was presumably too badly marked with tobacco and drink stains to be of any value to the bailiffs. We stood on either side of the dirty window, looking out at the street and the waiting carriage. Aislabie was very ill at ease, chinking the change in his pocket and darting anxious looks into the basket on the table, as if at any moment his daughter might reach out clingy tentacles and wrap them round his throat.

“
Flora
sails tomorrow,” he said.

I nodded.

“Ain’t you going to wish us well?”

“I have no idea what to wish for that ship. I can’t help feeling it would be better if she went down with all hands before she reached her destination.”

“That’s very ungrateful of you considering all I’ve done to fit her out. And your well-being depends on her, remember, like all the rest of us.”

“I want nothing to do with
Flora
. She will be trading in human misery. My father once said that if you dissect two dogs—one black, one white—they will both be the same under the skin. I have thought about it a great deal since visiting
Flora
, and I believe it must be the same with humans. And in any case, the chances of anyone coming home safely from such a voyage seem remarkably slim. I’ve seen her and heard about the type of combustible cargo she’ll be carrying.”

His blue eyes flickered. “There are risks, but nothing out of the ordinary. And at least I’ll be living. I’ll see the other side of the planet. I’ve had enough of this little corner of it. London confines me, shrinks me down. Anyway, you’ve no choice but to take an interest, Emilie, since every last penny we have is invested in
Flora
. As well as half of Selden.”

“What do you mean?”

“Fitting out a ship is an expensive operation. I had to mortgage land to raise the funds.” He drifted across to the basket and peered at the child’s face. Then he touched her forehead with the back of his index finger. I nearly cried out in fear, “She’s not yours. Don’t claim her now.”

When he looked up, his eyes were moist. “Does she have a name?”

“She does.”

“Well?” He touched her again on the ear.

“We called her Aurelie Sarah. Aurelie because she arrived with the dawn. It comes from the Latin word for gold. And because it’s a French name, after my mother.”

“Aurelie.” He nodded approvingly. “Aurelie.”

“So I hope you’ve found some means to support her,” I said coldly, “if not even Selden is safe from your creditors anymore.”

He leaned back on the table, crossed his legs, and produced an envelope and a folded paper from his pocket. “I sold a picture for you. Broke my heart, but it raised nearly a hundred pounds. I’ve brought you fifty. And then there’s this. Your father was a wily old sorcerer. He wanted a clause in the marriage settlement in case I died or abandoned you and left you short of money. Seventy pounds a year. So there you are. A little nest egg in the event of my not coming back.” His attention wandered to Aurelie again. “She’s got a good face, I think. She’ll be a beauty. You take care of her, Emilie.”

The amazing thing was there was so little self-knowledge in the man that he truly believed in the veracity of each moment. When he took my hand and pressed it to his lips, I think he really did feel every inch a brave seafarer setting out on a hazardous voyage for the sake of his wife and child. And the touch of his fingers, which were clammy, convinced me that he actually was afraid. “Give me your blessing, Em. Wish me well.”

I was silent.

He threw back his head and gave me that sliding look down his cheek that used to make me tremble with desire. “Dear God, you’re a cruel woman.”

I took the papers he’d placed on the table, picked up Aurelie, and went out to the carriage. Aislabie sprang ahead to help me in and dabbed Aurelie’s forehead with his thumb, as if in benediction.

The coachman closed the door, and I looked for the last time into my husband’s face. His smile was exactly as when I first saw him, boyish and full of promise.

[ 5 ]

A
LTHOUGH THE JOURNEY
home to Selden seemed very long, the baby, rocked by the lurching of the carriage or clasped to her nurse’s breast, made few murmurs of complaint. Annie stared wistfully out of the window as if she was etching the streets into her memory; then, as we plunged away from the straggle of houses and smallholdings marking the edge of the city, she took out
The Castle of Knowledge
and began to fumble her way through the second page. Sometimes the parrot fixed me with a beady eye and squawked. Mrs. Gardner dozed. Meanwhile, rain drummed on the carriage roof, the horses plodded on and on through the miry lanes, and the baby sucked and slurped at the nipple.

I had tucked the envelope of money into my bodice but held the parchment, folded in thirds and sealed with red wax, in my lap. My father had addressed it in his tremulous hand:
For my daughter, Emilie
. I thought everybody in the carriage must be struck by its significance, but they took no notice. After we had driven well beyond London, I slid my finger under the flap and broke the seal. The paper was somewhat bent where it had been in Aislabie’s pocket but otherwise undamaged.