The Alchemist's Daughter (34 page)

I recognized this because I knew how blind love was: Hadn’t I played exactly the same tricks on myself when I first set eyes on Aislabie? My father had convinced himself that I was all good and that any failing in me must be due to him. If there was a flaw, he patiently set out to correct it; if I was slow at learning, he plotted a different way of teaching me. The selectivity of this process drove me wild with frustration. I wanted the truth. I wanted to see myself as I had been, not as he saw me. At the very least, I wanted him to look at me and see my mother. But my mother was as absent from the notebooks as she had been from my childhood.

The second surprise was my father’s softness in writing. His alchemical notebooks were formal, concise, passionless. Whenever I had speculated about the Emilie Notebooks, I thought they would be written in a similar vein—a series of observations, analyses, and hypotheses. But instead I found a torrent of words and a voice that spoke of me with a vividness and tenderness he had never allowed himself in real life. In fact, he wrote about me with the same attention to detail, the same quest for the exact expression of what he saw and felt, that I associated with my feelings for Shales, whose study I could revisit in my imagination inch by inch, and whose speech replayed in my head.

April 14, 1716

Still working on Pascal’s
Traitez de l’Equilibre des Liqueurs
. . . I won’t allow the translation, so Emilie is struggling with both language and concept. I explained that water cannot be pumped up from a depth of more than thirty-four feet due to the density of the air. Then make a more effective pump, she said. She is never limited by what seems possible, my girl.

Thought she’d be delighted by von Guericke’s experiment with the vacuum pump, and indeed she was. Showed her the print in the book of how two teams of horses couldn’t pull apart the copper hemispheres from which air had been pumped and explained how amazed Emperor Ferdinand had been that the air outside could exert such pressure. She said, “Why was the emperor there?”

“To prove the experiment, to give it authority,” I said, but already I had misgivings. Knew where this would lead. Have learned not to give her any opportunity to direct the lesson away from its true purpose.

She said, “But if the emperor hadn’t been there, the experiment would still have worked.”

“The world wouldn’t have believed it,” I said.

“Does the world always believe an emperor?”

She takes me in directions I don’t expect; saw things in the background of the picture that I never noticed. She wanted to know who might have lived in the castle perched on top of the hill, whether I had once worn an old-fashioned coat like the emperor’s, and whether the domed building in the little town was a church or observatory. Was suddenly tempted to visit mountains with her or even to travel with her across the sea. Thought how wonderful to see her face when she set eyes on the ocean. Found myself justifying such a trip by contemplating all the learning we might do on the way.

N.B. Will make inquiries into cost of some such trip when next in town.

When later we went walking in the woods, she remarked how the engraver of the von Guericke experiment had chosen to watch from the shade so that he was in darkness and the amazing events with the copper hemispheres in the light. Astounds me with what she sees. Wonder if this tendency to think tangentially is common to other females, or whether it is something she perhaps inherited from her mother.

Picked up a fistful of dead leaves and made her smell the peat while we waited to see if a deer might come. All the time I watched her face. I see traces of her mother, yes, in her wide forehead and the shape of her ears, but my Emilie is so fine, so quick, so unlike anyone in the world except herself.

September 19, 1721

Back from London with the pus in a phial ready to engraft onto my dear child. She has grown while I was away and is more graceful. Her figure is almost a woman’s. In London, I took the opportunity to study other women, and none is as marvelous as she. None can talk as she does about the quality of air and fire. None has such clear white skin or such black eyes sparking with intelligence.

She wanted to know everything that I had done and seen, but I was sharp with her and sent her early to bed. Cannot bear to see her so healthy, knowing what I must do. My misgivings give me great pain. Have seen the evidence with my own eyes. All but one of those felons inoculated with the disease survived, and it’s not clear whether he died of smallpox or some other infection, but in this one case I mistrust the experimental method. It is not proof enough.

Am therefore in a terrible quandary. If I should be mistaken, it may cost her life. I consider other errors I have made, as when in 1689 we blew the chimney off the large furnace shed, or when a delegation from the village came to complain about the smell when we failed to achieve the correct temperature for the making of phosphorus. These were unfortunate only, but this projected experiment with the smallpox could be fatal. And if I don’t engraft her, she is also at risk. London is full of smallpox. There are cases in Buckingham. It will very likely come to Selden again.

September 20, 1721

This morning I engrafted her. Took her round, bare arm, scraped a little gash in her skin, and dropped in the pus. She scarcely flinched, but watched my face intently. Her eyes watered when I made the wound, but she didn’t say a word. Trusted me. We had earlier revised Harvey’s work on the circulation of the blood, and I described in detail the experience of the convicts. After an hour or so she seemed to have forgotten what had happened. Kept her beside me constantly and checked that the wound has not become infected, but she has gone to bed in good health.

September 25, 1721

These days are the worst I have ever lived. Watch her all the time. Am often angry with her for no other reason than that my worry is taking all my attention. Every time she puts her hand to her head I think she is sickening. Have asked Mrs. Gill to keep a record of what she eats, her excretions, her patterns of sleep. All seem normal.

September 27, 1721

The critical time. She seems distracted. Perhaps she is worried, too, though she says not a word, my brave soul. To take her mind off the engrafting, I told her that today we should release the owl. Gill has been pressing me for the last week to let it go, but Emilie has grown fond of it, and I saw no harm in keeping it confined a little longer. And we have begun work on phlogiston. Can hardly bear to see her so eager when at the back of my mind is the knowledge that I may have killed her. When we were together this afternoon, she seemed dull. I thought it was the illness coming upon her and was very sharp. She is better this evening. There are times when the worry of this girl is such that I wish she had never been born.

Tonight took the owl to the roof. Not once did she flinch as we watched it fly away, though I knew she had grown attached to it. Lapsed and held her by the arm. Could feel her warm, breathing body next to my hand and I thought, There, there, she is so strong, nothing can harm her. She will be well.

October 1, 1721

Emilie has eight spots, four out of sight, but she tells me they are on her chest, belly, and hip, two on the back of her left knee, another on the crook of her elbow, another on her wrist. Definitely smallpox, and I watch the most visible, on her wrist, all the time. Will not let her scratch it. This morning in the laboratory she complained of dizziness. Would not let her out of my sight, even though she asked to be allowed to lie down. Would not let her lie down. Have a dread of her not getting up again. This evening she seemed tired but a little better.

October 3, 1721

Danger is past. Have never lived through such in my life. Nor hope to again.

[ 4 ]

B
Y NOW THE
fair had ended, and the village street beyond my room was quiet except for the occasional flurry of conversation, the movement of sheep or goats, the squabble of hens, and the insistent striking of the clock. Meanwhile, they were still bottling fruit in the kitchen, and I was half stifled by the smell of boiled sugar.

My days in the attic room were numbered. I could get out of bed on my own now and walk a few steps. Mrs. Gill said so much enclosure was bad for me and I should be out in the air, but I wouldn’t leave the house. I was afraid of getting better and being sent back to Selden because of what I might find there. Besides, I had grown attached to the attic room and to being so near other human beings in the village. The ability of people to rub against each other in ways different to those that had operated at Selden and in the Hanover Street house intrigued me. Mention of anyone except me was rare in my father’s notebooks, and it struck me that this exclusivity had made me singularly unfit for other less-devoted men—notably Aislabie. My father had brought me up to expect that pairs of people should be everything to each other. No wonder I had found it so bewildering when Aislabie went sauntering off each day to spend time with people who weren’t me.

And then I came across a name in my father’s eleventh notebook that put Aislabie out of my head completely.

February 12, 1725

Banished Shales. Fool that I am—didn’t see the danger. Regarded him merely as a colleague, but when he came into the library sensed a withdrawing of her attention from me to him. Twice he suggested that she might visit his laboratory.

When he and I were witnesses to the experiment with smallpox, he had seemed sober and reserved. But with Emilie he was different, and she became unlike herself. Her pupils widened, her mouth opened, there was color in her cheeks.

I know that some male animals, once they have lost their partners—swans, for instance—can, after a period of grief, be predatory.

After he’d gone, she was withdrawn. Fortunately, he proved to be duller than I expected. Was mistaken in him. There is no reason for him to come here again.

So have banished him. This is what comes of attempting to include others in alchemy. In any case, acted partly out of pride—had a peculiar idea that I should try and convince Shales.

Told Mrs. Gill he was not to be allowed in the house. Said I cannot have that girl’s head turned by any male who walks in here, and we’ll have no more trips to the village. She was very sharp with me. Said I was a fool to myself, that if I sheltered Emilie she was bound to be vulnerable to the first young man who came and made eyes at her. Said she is like the young of any species and bound to seek a mate. I argued that this was instinct, not intellect, and my Emilie is pure intellect, at which Mrs. Gill shouted at me and said, “You must give some thought for the girl’s future, sir, we none of us will be here forever, and then what? You have left her without defenses. What good will all her learning be if she is alone?” Ordered her away. Have never known her so insolent.

Since then have done nothing but ponder the problem of Emilie’s future. There is the palingenesis to be sure, but I cannot rely on it. Wish I could. She will have Selden, but I don’t like to think of her alone here, as I was alone. But what is the answer? I won’t have her marry. Who is worthy of her?

March 6, 1725

Well. Well. So I shall take the following steps, and I have come to this decision reluctantly and after many hours of thought. From henceforth she will be allowed to meet up to three men per year (Shales being the first), but they shall be of my choosing, and when she is twenty-one I may take her to London and introduce her there. In this way I hope to teach her discernment. Shales, on reflection, has too many traits that might endear him to her; he is bookish and a natural philosopher and has a certain gentleness of manner that she might well admire. Such a man, with such skeptical views, is out of the question. He is too plausible.

In this way I hope she will learn to recognize the good from the bad, the true from the false in mankind, as I have taught her to be discerning in all other matters.

April 18, 1725

Might Shales be sent away from the parish? Plagues me with notes about the state of fences and asks permission to try crop rotation at his own expense and to set up a fund for the sick and destitute. Is currying favor in the village. Says a school is needed. I haven’t time for any of this.

He is very young. Unlikely to die. How to get rid of him?

May 13, 1725

Must a woman marry? Emilie has me. Shall probably live another decade at least, if I take care. There is no man to equal her. A man would confine her intellect.

June 24, 1725

I believe she has been infected by this Shales. Is restless and refuses to give her mind to palingenesis. Wants to pursue her own experiments on air and says she would like to meet him again. Whenever I think of that man, I grow sick at heart.

August 21, 1725

On the day of the picking of the rose, an omen. A visitor. There is a connection, clearly. Emilie returned to the laboratory with a perfect bloom. Truly, I have seen nothing like it. She held it against her bosom, my girl. Her hair was caught on a thorn and a lock fell among the rose petals, black on pink. Her eyes were on fire with excitement because now we could begin. She was, at that moment, all I have ever hoped of her. At long last she is convinced of the truth of palingenesis.

The visitor is a merchant from London. I thought at first there was a great deal to him. He talked of phlogiston and applied it to his own business with shipping. He has attended lectures at the society. Then I realized that he is a sham. After a very few minutes, he stopped listening to me and his eyes strayed to the laboratory door. He is here, I believe, because he has some passing curiosity about alchemy. Emilie doesn’t see that he is shallow, and so I am reluctantly forced to concur with Mrs. Gill that the girl is vulnerable. Am amazed that her wisdom in all other things does not extend to this. But I cast my mind back to my own youth and a predilection I once had for a young chambermaid. Margaret. I remember the toss of her head as she threw back her heavy hair and how a glimpse of her ankle or wrist used to excite me so much I couldn’t study. I longed to hold her earlobe between my finger and thumb. I thought that it would feel warm and succulent. My father pointed out that she was a distraction and I should learn to curb my desires. But I could not. When she was sent back to the village, I spent night after night yearning for her. She had an empty mind and a large, troublesome family. I saw for myself that she would bring me nothing but grief, but I thought of her constantly and was in physical pain until my father took me away to London. When I came back, she was married, and I never went into the village after that. I have often thought, however, that if I had been allowed to spend time with her, if I had spoken to her at length, I would have been repulsed by her coarseness and all my desire for her would have gone. So I have allowed this Aislabie to return, and trust Emilie to see for herself how worthless he is in relation to her. I believe in this respect he is far less of a danger than Shales.