The Daylight Gate (6 page)

Southworth was ashamed. Only Alice Nutter talked to him like this. He was used to high theological arguments, great causes, single-minded passions, and she reminded him that every day poor people suffer for no better reason than that they are poor.

‘You are right’ he said, ‘but there will be no justice.’

Alice shook her head. ‘All the more reason that there should be love.’

‘Love? For the Demdike?’

Alice said, ‘You have a god to forgive you your past. I carry mine with me every day.’

‘Why do you call Him my God? Who is yours?’

Alice did not answer. She was standing up, looking out of the window into the dark and empty courtyard. She said, ‘I will tell you the story of Elizabeth Southern.’

Elizabeth Southern

HER FAMILY WERE
from Pendle Forest as mine are, but separated by the hill
. We did not know each other. Her family had a reputation for witchcraft but I had no interest in that.

I was married early to Richard Nutter and when he died just as early I was left to fend for myself. That is when I went to work in Manchester, at the Cloth Fair, trading some of my dyes and stuffs.

I was at my stall one morning when a grave and distinguished gentleman came to me and asked me the date of my birth. I told him, with some surprise, and he quickly made a calculation, nodding his head all the time. Satisfied, he asked me if I would meet him at an address that night. He told me to have no fear – it was in connection with the Great Work, he said. Alchemy, he said. ‘My name is Doctor John Dee.’

I went to the house at the appointed hour. There were two other people in the room besides John Dee: a man called Edward Kelley and the woman Elizabeth Southern.

This woman had been working for John Dee for over a year. She had a flair for mathematics and he had taught her how to work out the astrological computations he needed for his work. He used the lunar calendar of thirteen months.

Edward Kelley was a medium. He claimed he could summon angels and other spirits.

John Dee asked me if I would be the fourth of the group. He said he had seen it in my face and confirmed it by my nativity.

I asked him what he had seen but all he said was that I would be suitable for the Work.

He offered me a sum of money and proposed that we should pursue the Work in Manchester until such time as we would leave for London.

I had no reason to go home to Pendle and no reason to stay in Lancashire and so I agreed.

Several months later I was making a preparation of mercury when Edward Kelley came in and announced that Saturn was favourable for the double-coupling. He brought John Dee into the chamber and asked that we all make ourselves naked and invoke the higher power.

John Dee did not want to do this but Edward told him that an angel had appeared to him in a dream to say that our bodies should be shared in common. The Great Work was to dissolve all boundaries. The Great Work was to transform one substance into another – one self into another. We would merge. We would be transformed.

I was shy and modest. Elizabeth Southern was not. She asked Edward Kelley to take the long bellows and billow up the flames in the furnace and warm the room. While he was about it, she took thick sheep fleeces from the cupboard and spread them over the floor. Then she undressed.

I have never seen a more beautiful body on a man or a woman. She was slender, full, creamy, dark, rich, open, luxurious. In her clothes she was like any other well-formed woman, but naked she seemed like something other than, or more than, human. I do not say like a goddess but like an animal and a spirit combined into human form.
An angel
, Edward Kelley said.

Both men were erect. They moved to touch her and she kissed them both equally. She had no shame, no fear. What did I feel? I did not feel desire or fear. I felt proud. Does that seem odd to you? I was proud of her.

John Dee and Edward Kelley had intercourse with
her
in turn. When it was done John Dee went back to his books, for he was never comfortable with much that was not a book. Edward Kelley fell asleep. They had forgotten me and I had not minded.

It was evening and the room was hot now and the fire was red in the furnace and we had drunk wine. I was naked but covered.

Elizabeth leaned up on one arm smiling at me. Looking into her eyes was like looking into another life. She kissed me on the lips. She put her hand between my legs and stroked me until I had nothing in my mind but the colour of magenta.

‘This is our love,’ she said.

Another year passed and all four of us moved to London where John Dee had a laboratory at Mortlake. Then Edward Kelley and John Dee went for a time to Poland. For almost a year Elizabeth and I were alone.

We rented a warehouse at Bankside where we proceeded with the alchemical work, and where I discovered, quite by chance, the secrets of the dye that has been the foundation of my fortune.

That year 1582 was the happiest year of my life. Elizabeth and I were lovers and we lived as lovers, sharing one bed and one body. I worshipped her. Where I was shy, she was bold, and where I was
hesitant
, she was sure. I learned life from her and I learned love from her as surely as I learned astrology and mathematics from John Dee and necromancy from Edward Kelley.

One night there was a performance at the Curtain Theatre in Shoreditch, a mean and riotous place, but a place we enjoyed. I do not remember what we saw, but the Queen herself was there.

It so happened that I had perfected my magenta dye and I had a dress made that I had dyed myself. I wore it to the performance and every head in the theatre turned to stare at me, such was the shimmer and depth of the hue.

The next day the Queen sent for me.

And that was the beginning of my fortune and the beginning of my trials.

Elizabeth was jealous. She was a jealous woman by nature, and she was jealous of my success and of my money. I was at fault because I did not share everything equally with her. As I grew wealthier I invested my money. I bought her anything she wanted but I would not make her equal.

And I was no longer interested in the Great Work. What did I care about turning lead into gold when I could turn gold into gold?

My wealth increased.

And then the dark came.

*

I was at my labour one day when I heard terrible noises coming from the lower laboratory where Elizabeth worked. I ran to the door; it was locked. I begged her to open it, but she would not. I went upstairs, took an axe and broke down the door. Elizabeth was there, slumped at the table, blood streaming down her arm. There was a smell of burning.

I ran to her – my loved one, my lover, my love – and saw a parchment and paper on the desk. She was still and quiet. I did not know if she was faint or dead. I took some water and roused her.

‘I have sold my Soul,’ she said. ‘I have signed in blood.’

The following day she left the house on Bankside and took a splendid lodging in Vauxhall by the Pleasure Gardens. She had a number of young men and women living there with her. Every night there were parties and revels. Every day the house was closed and silent.

I called on her many times but her servants had been instructed not to admit me. I had no idea where her money had come from and I assumed she had become the mistress of a lord or a duke.

I never believed what she had said about her Soul.

And then John Dee came briefly back to London.

By this time the laboratory had been left empty. We had both abandoned the Great Work. John Dee came to see me and it is true I felt ashamed because all of this was through him – my chance at life had been through him.

‘Do you suppose,’ he said, ‘that the work was about gold, that it was about fancy stuffs such as magenta dyes? Do you not suppose it was about the Soul?’

‘I do not know about the Soul,’ I said. ‘We are required to live as we must while we can.’

‘Do you believe in God?’

‘I don’t think I do.’

John Dee nodded. ‘Do you believe in the life to come?’

‘I don’t think I do.’

‘Yet you have seen many strange things with me, have you not? Apparitions, spectres, unaccountable sights not of human form?’

‘I think these things are the magick of our own minds, not visitations from elsewhere.’

‘Then our minds must be multitudes indeed.’

‘I think we are worlds compressed into human form.’

John Dee looked at me and smiled. ‘Worlds compressed into human form. I like it that you say
that
. Whatever you are you are not the pragmatist I feared. And I believe that you will guard the secrets that you know – our secrets of alchemy and great intent?’

I told him I was trustworthy and he said he had always thought it so. Then his face clouded. ‘Elizabeth. I cannot save her. She has taken the Left-Hand Path.’

‘Do you say that there is a Devil – pitchfork, hooves, Hell – who has taken her Soul? Do you say that?’

‘The Dark Gentleman has neither pitchfork nor hooves but he is Lord of Hell.’

That night I wrote a letter to Elizabeth begging her to see me.

The Net

CHRISTOPHER SOUTHWORTH WAS
on his feet. There was a commotion in the courtyard outside the window. Alice looked out. She could see Harry Hargreaves talking angrily to her groom. His men had caught someone.

Christopher was pulling on his boots and fastening his dagger. She gave him a key. ‘My study is locked. Stay out of sight until I come for you.’

Alice tied up her hair, put on a dressing gown, took up a candle.

As she was about to go, Christopher caught her arm. ‘You said that time was 1582. That was thirty years ago, Alice. How old are you?’

She said nothing. She opened the door and went downstairs. Her servants were in the hall. There was Constable Hargreaves and James Device.

‘James! Have they caught you for poaching on my land?’

‘He escaped armed guard at Malkin Tower,’ said Hargreaves.

‘I dreamed I was a hare and as a hare I ran away.’

‘And what are you doing here, Jem?’ said Alice.

Jem looked at Alice and said nothing. Hargreaves punched him in the stomach, He doubled up, winded. ‘Looking for a place to hide.’

‘And so you came to the Rough Lee?’ said Hargreaves.

‘Mistress Nutter will protect me.’

‘And why would she protect the likes of you, you ditch-scum?’

Alice said, ‘Constable Hargreaves, it is late at night. I am not responsible for your drunken guards who let this man escape, nor for his decision to come here. I have barns and stables where he thought he might hide, and I am patron in charity to the Demdike. That is all. Now leave.’

‘He came to you …’ repeated Hargreaves. ‘He might have gone anywhere to hide, but he came to you.’ He punched Jem again.

Jem turned to Alice, hunted as the hare he dreamed himself to be. ‘Help me,’ he said.

‘I cannot help you, Jem,’ said Alice.

‘Take him away,’ said Constable Hargreaves. ‘Lock his legs this time.’

Gradually the noises of the men were silenced into the dark and the last of the flares disappeared into the hill. Alice went back inside and sent the servants to bed. Then she went to her study and brought out Christopher Southworth. He had heard it all. He took Alice by her shoulders.

‘Alice – they were hunting me and found him. I like none of this. The net is tightening and you do not feel it. Jem Device or some other of his demented kin will accuse you of witchcraft when they discover that you will not help them. You want to protect the Demdike but they will not protect you.’

‘I have not told you the rest of my story.’

The Dark Gentleman

THAT NIGHT I
wrote a letter to Elizabeth begging her to see me
…

The following day a servant came to me and asked if I would wait upon his mistress that night at her house in Vauxhall. It was Maytime, Beltane, and the full moon.

At sunset, as I had been instructed, I went to her house and dismissed my servant.

I could hear a great noise coming from the hall that was placed in the centre of the house. I entered and saw a large company of men and women unknown to me. All wore masks across the eyes. Some wore animal tails. I was not announced, nor was I given a mask. I walked freely around the room, looking for Elizabeth. There was a table piled with food and drink. Two fiddlers played.

A man in a mask kissed me. I pushed him away. He said, ‘We are free spirits here.’

Suddenly Elizabeth came towards me. ‘Alice! Tonight is our great ceremony of Beltane and I would that you were one of our company. You are rich but you could be richer yet. Your beauty will remain. Your power will increase. The Dark Gentleman has asked for you himself.’

I felt a chill on me like the beginning of winter. I looked across the room and there was a small handsome man staring at me with deep black eyes. He bowed briefly as I looked at him.