The House of Doctor Dee (15 page)

I do still fear the damage of the world, and so pricked my horse to journey swiftly towards my father's hidden gold. I have watched often enough the blinded lady, Fortune, and know full well that no high estate can ever be secured; at the very peak of my prosperity (which was not so great), I had a panic fear that I might even at the very next instant be brought to stepping out of doors and becoming no more than a wanderer like the vagabond I had found in my garden. Even now I contemplate the means to save myself from starving, and keep remembrance of all my monies by score, tally and notebook. I have the fear, also, that I might fall under the thralldom of the usurer's gripes. And what if my house were robbed, and all my silver stolen, what then?

It was close to midday when I went down into the fields where I had once played, and I could see some little distance to my family's old weatherbeaten dwelling. Yet this was not a time for memory. Ahead of me was the De La Pry wall, which was no more than clumps of stone and a ragged trace of masonry that made an outline in the freezing grass. I got from my horse and refreshed him by a stream there, which ran but sluggishly in winter; I let him drink well and gave him some dates from my satchel, before leading him to a ruined barn over against the wall to find shelter from the cold. Then I toiled back upward to the bare elm which stood by the side of the field. The sun was low in the sky, and the ancient tree cast a long shadow over the ruined wall: I had my father's directions by heart, and stood against the bark. I took twenty paces forward, and then fifteen to the left, which brought me to the very edge of the wall; then I took five to the right hand, which led me to a section about eleven inches in height and so covered with moss and lichen that the ancient stone was scarcely visible; here, concealed, must lie my bag of gold!

I fell to work at once, my heart beating high, and with my little pocket-knife I began to cut at the cold earth; it came away in roundish lumps, not so big as a penny loaf but thick enough to make progress still. There was earth, and nothing but earth, but I dug down to the very foundation of the wall; here the soil and stone fell all in pieces, as small as ashes, and there was no gold yet. How long I toiled there I cannot say, but I laboured to the going down of the sun; I dug a pit on both sides and, even while I did so, I cursed myself for all hoping or dreaming upon anything that was not! I cursed my father, too, stinking within the alms-house, for crossing me in this matter: had I the back of an ass to bear all his foolish prattling, and the snout of a swine to say nothing? No, it could not be. I was not to be turned upon the wheel with Ixion, and he who is bitten may soon bite back.

So I laboured and drudged in the Acton fields, lathing myself in a sweat despite the bitter coldness of the air, and for all my labouring and drudging I had found nothing at all. There was no concealed gold, no bag of coins, no, no nothing. True it is that we are never long at ease but some cross or other afflicts us, and now at the waning of the day I had quite forgotten my good health and spirits of the morning. With heavy heart I led my shivering horse from the barn, and slowly in the darkness made my journey back to London.

It was good that I could find my way even being blind, because it was a wonderful dark evening in which my horse had to feel for the path homeward. And yet I feared for myself all the while, not knowing if a band of robbers or cutpurses might not make a rush at me; but even though I was grievously molested by such terrors, it was my own failure that almost brought me to despair. I, who had wanted a tower of gold around me, had been reduced to stooping before an old ruined wall where there was nothing but dirt and rubbish to be found. And what if I had caught a fever in the dampness? I felt a strange pang in my joints even as I rode, and suddenly my right shoulder and elbow joint were so extremely in pain that I could have cried aloud – even in my fear of calling forth robbers and other desperate men.

Yet perhaps these grievous pangs and pains were signs of some more general corruption; I remembered that, two or three weeks before, a humour had so suddenly fallen into my leg that it was as if a stone had hit me, and I had pain so intolerable that the veins and arteries seemed broken by some extreme stretching. In the autumn of last year, also, I had a show of grief in my kidney which I had thought to have cured. These present pains were no doubt part of the same very dangerous sickness, which now terrified me in my thoughts; then a humming in my ears began, as I stared into the darkness around me. And what if I were to die too soon? What if I should die, like him, alone and rambling? I conceived for myself every frame of agony upon which I might be stretched, picturing all the innumerable ills of the flesh and all the distractions of the brain till there was scarce any life left in me. Great pain I could perhaps bear, but to lose my wits in some fit or fever, to have the memory utterly dissolved and then to die in the corner of some hovel or upon the streets ... Yet why is it that I am surrounded by so much great anxiety and grief of mind that I can scarcely stay upon my horse, and am as frightened by the darkness within my own mind as by the night around me? I am still within the net of the demons who govern time: matter is in a perpetual flux, never at a stay, and I am so tossed upon its waves that I have become sick unto death. All my life I have tried to proceed
gradatim,
from things visible to consider of things invisible, from things bodily to things spiritual, from things transitory and momentary to things permanent. Yet why can I not change my own self? I am very much like glass, than which there is nothing more bright and nothing more brittle. How is it that I have any place in the world? How do I survive? Fear and wretchedness all at once crowded around me, at which point I leaned over toward the path and vomited up my terrors. Oh God within me, I must be strong.
Gloria laus et honor Dei in excelsis.
And now that I had fetched up a great vomit, I began to sing out loud from the old song,

'One and One is all alone, and ever more shall be so.'

Yes, ever more first and pre-eminent. By my art I shall be sublimed and exalted, brought to the third region and then returned in such a high state of grace that I need not heed the revolving world. Then, fear, I would bid you good day. No longer would I be held down by some man's first tripping of my feet, and by others afterwards overlying me with worldly policy and subtle practices. I would have no terror of mutability because I would know all, and the pygmies who now surround me would be spiteblasted away. I would fear no one. I would envy no one. So I must be like the iron drawn to the adamant: I must come closer every day to the great secret. Was I not already on the way to making new life without the help of any womb? And if I can create an everlasting creature, then will I have found the divinity within, that soul, that spark, that fire which drives the spheres. See. I spit upon the world. And in so doing I cleanse the last traces of vomit from my mouth, as London comes before me once again.

I was hard at my work on the following morning, considering the moist element in which the homunculus must breathe, when my wife's servant came to me. She called out, 'Are you up, sir?' and then knocked hard upon the door of my chamber.

'I have been up these past several hours, Audrey Godwin. What is it o'clock?'

'It is not so late as you think. It is but half an hour past seven. But come quickly, sir. It is your father.'

I turned pale for an instant. 'My father here?'

'No. A messenger has come from the alms-house, saying that he is ready to give up the ghost.'

'So. It is time.'

'Make haste, sir, or it may be too late.'

Yet I dressed myself with care, before I rode out with the messenger to my father's latest and last lodgings upon this earth. It was a day more bleak and bitter than the one before, so I wound a cloth around my mouth and nose to keep off the cold as we came out on to the Uxbridge way. Mr Holleyband was not within sight as we rode past the gatehouse, but I knew my path: I crossed the cloister and, having mounted the stairs which led to that dormitory of the dying, I advanced towards the wooden partition behind which my father was closeted. But he was not upon his bed, and for an instant I had a vision of him lying already within his grave; then I saw him. He was standing against the opposite wall, next to the tree of life, as pale as a corpse and naked unto his paps and privities; his hands were folded across his breast, and then he stepped across the floor towards me. I flinched away, but he passed me without sign or mark of recognition and, having crossed the room, lay down upon his bed in silence. Then he gave me a look, and burst out in laughter. 'What that black scarf signifies,' he said, 'I know not. But I suspect.' His eyes were set or sunken into his head, and there was not enough flesh upon him to hide his bones. I said not a word and presently he lifted his eyes from me towards the ceiling, and he began to utter a great deal of speech as to himself which I did not hear. Upon a sudden he asked me, what did you say? I answered, that I spoke nothing: whereupon he wondered what creature did use that voice. Then he said that he felt something crawling, as one writing on his back and at length ascending into his head. 'See it now before you,' he cried, rising bolt upright in his bed. 'There is a very little creature there on the cushion beside the window, making to play with you. Do you not hear it? Listen, it is saying
Put out your candle for you shall have nothing more to do today.
Do you not hear and see it, sir?'

'I see nothing. Nothing at all.'

'No, no, you are right. It is gone now. I see not a sign of it any more. And I fear, sir, that you are growing foggy and misty also.' I knew it to be the mist of death descending upon him and, though he beckoned to me, I did not wish to come too close. 'Boy,' he said to me then, 'bring some light. Make some fire that we may rest.'

I smiled at his foolishness. 'Cry once more aloud to that naughty boy. He does not hear you.'

'Give me my hose. Where is my doublet? Bring my garters and my shoes. And a clean shirt, for this one is foul.' He had lapsed now into his rambling speech, and many times plucked at his face as if there were already cobwebs upon it. 'Where is my girdle and my inkhorn, my jerkin of Spanish leather? Where are my socks, my cap, my cloak, my gloves, my pumps?' His voice rose higher as if it would become a scream of woe. 'I have nothing here. I have nothing beside me.' He began to sob then, but I thought nothing of it: when I had so much fear of the darkness within me, how could I pay any heed to the darkness now covering my father? I looked upon him as no more than a forerunner in the race, and not one to be especially pitied for it. I began even to condemn out loud his screechings and whisperings, for why should I listen to one who had but lately reviled me and cursed me and led me quite out of my way? Yet he heard nothing.

'Love me.' He uttered this so clearly that I looked at him astonished. 'And love my dog. Where is my dog? Have you seen him, sir?' At that he loosed such a volley of general lamenting that it made me fart. I recollected then that there had once been a dog who had followed him everywhere and who had kept house with him (so to speak) when he had lived alone in east Acton. What had become of it, I did not know. 'Good dog,' he said. 'Good god. Good dog.' Then he set up another keen wailing, so I went over to him and clapped my hand across his mouth.

'Do you love dog or god?' I asked him. He nodded in his delirium. 'Then shall you presently go to your reward. But keep your peace now, I pray you. Truly you are tedious.'

At that he quietened a little, as I knew he would: there is a force within me which could still a tempest if I so required it. After a few moments he began to count one to ten, over and over, and grasped at invisible objects upon his bed-sheet. Then he put up his hand as if to offer me something. 'Fill the glass,' he said. 'Fill not so full, that I may drink more easily.' I could see now that he was ready to expire, since he lay with his eyes closed as if already dead. Let him be gone, was my thought, I have seen enough. I have seen all. Let him no longer encumber my life, which is the more precious to me now that I have seen his dissolution. Go, sir, go and lead apes in hell! I had not spoken aloud, or so I thought, but at this moment he opened his eyes very wide and seemed to look upon me.

No, no, there was nothing to fear. At a glance I knew that there was no power of seeing and no light left within him. He had departed from life. Yet I could not withstand his dead gaze and might have stared at him for ever, were it not for a sudden noise coming out of the floor: it was a whistling, very base or low, like a
whu, whu, whu.
It was the wind, no doubt, or some screech-owl perched upon the roof, and I walked away from the corpse to look out of the window. There was no breeze stirring, and no sign of any bird. Then I felt something touch my shoulder softly, and with a great groan I turned as quickly as a leaf in a hurricane. 'Be not so sad.' Mr Holleyband stood behind me, smiling. 'He was a man of a good wit, and I exhort you to take his death very patiently.'

I glanced towards the corpse; the breath was scarcely out of him, and the body was still panting with heat, yet in truth I felt nothing but thankfulness. And I alive! 'You will bury him, Mr Holleyband, will you not?'

'If it please you, Doctor Dee.'

'Yes. It pleases me.' With a bow I left him, and went laughing on my way; he would be carried to the graveyard now without so much as a piss from me. I had saved four shillings on the charge for the winding-sheet, and six shillings on the charge of the burial. The cat loves fish but loves not to wet her foot: I had consigned him to decay and darkness, but at no earthly expense.

I called for my horse and was soon riding down Broad St Giles as the wind whipped about me; all the while I thought to have heard a horse and rider close behind, but when I turned at the crossroads there was nothing upon the path except an old wooden stall upon wheels. In the bitter cold the hooves of my own horse must have rung out on the hard earth, and so caused an echo all around. Yet it was not so cold that I could not be merry, and I resolved to make my way across the river to Paris Garden. The stage had lately been erected there, just on the spot of the old archery ground near the bear-ring, and who can resist a play when he is merry? Whether it be a work tragical or historical, it enlivens the passions and excites the spirit of emulation in those who wish to make their own progress across the stage of the world. I cannot look upon a great personage portrayed without wishing that I was standing in his place – yes, even before the stinking multitude. Then would I be able to master them all, without recourse to any other art except that of my own presence.