The House of Doctor Dee (28 page)

'Tomorrow? Why change the order of our proceedings now?'

'We must warm our hands, Mr Kelley, while the fire is still high.'

'I had thought to rest myself, sir, for these things are terrible to behold. Yet now, so soon again...'

'We cannot rest now. We must march on.'

Soon after that he left me, pleading once more the great fatigue of the scrying, and I walked into my study for the better contemplation of all that had occurred. I will confess here that my mind was still troubled, so I took down and opened
Of Wicked Spirits
by the learned Abbot Fludd, in which he counselled against the calling-up of any apparitions whatsoever they might be. I did not follow him in this, however. If these spirits have knowledge greater than our own and if, as the commentators agree, all knowledge is virtue – why, then, where is the fault in acquiring virtue? The breath of the lion engenders the dove as well as the serpent, but for fear of serpents, are we to have no doves? I was meditating upon this when I heard my wife's foot upon my study stairs, and I counterfeited the reading of my book as she entered.

'I have given Mr Kelley's boots to be cleaned,' she said, without wishing me good day or any such thing.

'It is well done,' I replied without looking up from my book. Thereupon she sat down in the chair by my table and, softly humming to herself, took up in her hand one of the other volumes I had left there. 'Do not lose my place, mistress.'

'Do not worry about that. These pages are so stiff I can hardly turn them.' It was my copy of
Maleficia Maleficiorum.
'It makes my head ache merely to look upon these words,' she continued. 'What is that, husband?'

I saw her looking upon a symbol of the star demon, much used by certain good scholars of Prague and Hamburg. 'It is part of the kabbalah. Take care that it does not burn you.'

'I have seen Mr Kelley examine your books eagerly enough, and he was never scalded.'

'Edward Kelley here?'

'He is often among your papers when you are away from the house. I wonder he has not told you.'

'Well, he needs no permission to use my library.'

'If it be so, it is good. For I have often heard him murmuring words into the air, as if he were trying to learn them by rote.' This caused me a little disquietness of mind; in spite of my calm words to my wife, there were papers here that I wished no one to see without my leave or well-liking – no, not even my wife herself, for who knows what may be blabbed out without doing any good by it? I knew well enough that I had left here certain notes on the preparation of new life, which were for no eyes but my own. But what were these words that Kelley had by heart?

'Why do you frown,' she asked me now, 'is there something amiss?'

'Nothing. Nothing at all.' I looked steadily at her. 'Have you any more that you would say to me?'

'No.'

'But you seem in disturbed sort.'

At that she got up from her chair, and began walking up and down as she spoke. 'Mr Kelley has stayed with us in this house for many months, and yet we know no more of him than any citizen passing in the street. He slips in and out of his chamber as if he were not willing to be seen, and looks with such scorn upon Philip and Audrey that you would think they had crawled out of some kennel.'

'These words are very large, mistress, but I think there is nothing within them.'

'Nothing? Is it nothing that he has the key to your private chambers, and goes among your books and papers when you are away from home? That he takes volumes from your study and pores over them with the light of a candle?'

'He is a scholar, Mrs Dee, and has a great thirst for knowledge.' She laughed at that. 'A thirst for everything, sir. I have seen him drink so much wine that he must have a quagmire in his belly.'

'He has an elevated mind, and it is said that those who see furthest drink most.'

'And what does he see, sir?'

'I cannot speak of these things today.' I was angry with her, and was unwilling to let her go without a bite in her arse. 'I tell you this, mistress. I would sooner bequeath all my papers to the privy, leaf by leaf, than have them examined by a fool or a thief. But Edward Kelley is not of that mould. He is
semper fidelis,
and I demand that you afford him as much trust and reverence as I do.'

'If that is your wish, then so be it.' She rose, curtsied and was about to leave the chamber. 'Far be it from me,' she added, in a low voice, 'to mention that a plaster may be small amends for a broken head.' I did not understand her words, but before I could question her further she turned like a little whirlwind and was gone.

In the following week, although he and I came each day into the scrying room, all about the stone was quiet; on having conference together, we agreed that the sudden change in our practice had perturbed or angered the spirits. So we agreed, further, that no more was to be done for the space of seven days.

In the meantime Mrs Dee had taken my words to her heart, and conversed in all civility with Edward Kelley when they sat together at the table. In the gallery, too, she bestowed kind and amiable words upon him. 'Tell me, sir,' she asked one afternoon when we all sat together, 'do you prefer to work by means of memory or inspiration?'

'That is a nice question,' Edward Kelley replied. 'Suffice it to say that memory without inspiration is barren indeed, while inspiration without memory is like the horse that gallops without a rider. Does that answer you?'

'Very well, sir. It is what I would expect from a scholar such as you are, who knows in which direction he must ride.'

This was merry talk indeed, and yet two days later she came suddenly into my study. She seemed to be in a marvellous great fury and rage, and held up her hand as if she were willing to strike someone. 'My bracelet and rings have gone,' she said. 'All of them clean gone.' She was in such a great rush of words that I asked her to calm herself. 'I was looking for my bodkin,' she continued, 'because the eyelet holes of your hose were broken, and so I went into my closet where I keep my boxes of stuff. And it was gone.'

'What was gone?'

'The wooden casket where I keep my rings. Good God, what a short memory you have! Did you not buy it for me last year, in Poor Jewry? The very intricate carved box, with the figure of the mermaid upon it? Well, it is gone! Conveyed away, with my rings and bracelet!'

'You mean that you cannot find it. Where did you set it yesterday?'

'I did not have it yesterday. It sits where it always sits, and I mean that it is stolen.'

'But who would do such a thing? Philip? Audrey? We have no other strangers in the house.'

'Philip and Audrey are no more strangers to you than I am. You have forgotten your Mr Kelley –'

'Katherine!'

'Did he not tell you of his friendship with that jeweller in Cheapside? And I have heard him discourse on the virtuous properties of natural stones.' I thought then, as she talked, that he spoke only what he had learned from me. 'How do we know that he has not secretly bereaved me of my goods, and carried them into the city?'

'Katherine. Mrs Dee. There is no more honest man living than Mr Kelley. Has he not worked by me, and assisted me, these last twelve months?'

'You are as blind as a mole when you are buried within your books. Have you not seen, by diverse actions and express words, that he is a hollow friend to you? All his dreams are of gold, all his hopes are for advancement and the Devil take the hindmost. I cannot abide him. No, I abhor him. And here, in my own house, I am misliked by you because I favour him no better.'

Her words were spoken in great pangs and disquietness of mind, and I tried to soothe her. 'It is not so, wife. It is not so. Has the loss of your rings meant that you have lost your wits as well?'

'I tell you this, Doctor Dee.' She went over to my window, and looked out on to the garden. 'Audrey has observed him by the path there, muttering to someone over by the wicket-gate. She swears to me that she has heard slanders against you and all your work.'

I was amazed at that, but even in my first alarm I could not believe any such abominable misusing me behind my back: it was the knavery of Audrey, I knew well, and I was about to bring her up in order to examine her when Kelley himself came indiscreetly upon us. I thought that my study door had been shut, and I greatly feared his rash opinion of such words as he might have overheard. My wife stepped back, and put her hand to her mouth. 'The woman Audrey,' he said, 'is a brazen-faced liar. Bring her here, and see if she is ashamed to affirm so apparent a falsehood before my very face!'

My wife's words were of more smarting efficacy than she could have known and, being heard by him, had that steel and metal in them which pierced and stung him to the quick. 'What is the cause,' he said to my wife now, 'what is the cause that you will not be better acquainted with my feelings for you and for your husband?'

'I know your feelings very well,' she replied. 'Like the ravening crocodile, you have pity for no man other than yourself.' Whereupon he declared that she did fable, and she was so moved that she called him 'hypocrite' and 'conniver'. I told her then to remove all spitefulness, and tried quietly to pacify them, but it was all to no avail. 'Well, I have forewarned you,' she said, turning to me with the fire still in her eyes. 'I have done the part of a wife. It had been better for you not to have changed an old friend for a new.' Then with an angry look she walked away, and shut the door of the study upon us.

I arose and went after her, and took her by the shoulders to keep her from the stairs. 'My opinion of you, mistress, is clean changed. How could you spin such fantasies and wild words?'

She said nothing for a moment, but looked steadily at me. 'You speak of spinning, but I know of one who spins lies better than any man. And remember this, sir. There is no wool so white but the dyer can make it black. I have no more to say.'

'Then go to your duties. And call Audrey to me.'

I went back to my study, and with all levity I tried to entertain Edward Kelley. 'There never was such a shrew as my wife,' I said. 'But words are mere words, and she means no harm.'

'I forgive her. She has been tricked by her brain-sick maid into false witness against me.'

After a few minutes up came that slattern, shaking like an aspen leaf. 'Why is it,' I asked her, 'that you have spread false reports and malicious slanders against Mr Kelley, who has done you no harm in the world?' The water stood in her eyes, and she was not able to answer one word until she had well wept. 'When did you enter the year of your service?' Still she stood, weeping, and said nothing. 'Was it not on Michaelmas Day? You have from me three pounds a year in wages, and a gown cloth of russet. Is this how you repay me? What do I get by this expense but mischief?'

'I meant nothing by it, sir. Only –'

'Nothing? Do you call it nothing to condemn my guest as a thief and a malicious backbiter?'

'I heard him in the garden, sir.'

'Yes, and where were you? Close under a hedge, playing at jack-in-the-box? Or was it something worse? Well, you are discharged. Do not come near my house again.'

At that Kelley stepped forward, smiling upon her now. 'Do not be so harsh, Doctor Dee, I entreat you. I see from her tears that she is in a state of contrition. Can we not play the priest and shrive her?'

'Do you hear, Audrey? What do you say to that?'

'I would humbly thank you, sir, if I were forgiven.'

'No. Do not thank me. Go down on your knees now and bless this gentleman for preserving you.' She did so, with a few broken words, and then left us weeping as hard as if she had been burned through the ear. 'You were kind,' I said, 'to one who was less than kin.'

'I do not blame her wholly.' He went after her, and firmly closed the door to my chamber. 'There is something else. There is something in this house which is more busy than any bee that I know.'

'How is that?'

'What melancholy conceit is it that pesters their brains, so that your wife is turned against me and her servant sees nothing but phantasms? Who whispered those abominable words to that errant strumpet, Audrey, and who devised those most unhonest and devilish dealings against the property of your wife?'

'How did you know about the property?'

'Audrey told me of the theft.' And then he went on, more quickly than before. 'Do you not understand that these spirits we have raised within the chamber of practice, and have seen within the holy crystal stone, have not returned to their habitation (wherever that might be) but have entered the walls, the floors, the very frame of this house? Upon what black shore of mischief have we sailed, to take on such passengers?'

I was amazed at this. 'Surely you put a false construction upon words which signify no more than a fart? Do the spirits haunt my privy?'

I could not help but smile, despite the cause of my ill-humour, but this provoked him all the more. All at once he damned and condemned anything that had been heard or seen in the chamber of presence. 'Our teachers are deluders,' he said, 'and are not good or sufficient instructors.'

I told him that he did err in so saying, and that there lay before us a world of knowledge and of power. 'What does it profit us now to turn our backs upon that golden city, the first of Albion, when lying under the ground are treasures beyond dreaming? We must recover that which has been lost to our country for many thousands of years. It is too late for us to consider what we should have done, in addressing these spirits or apparitions, and it rests only for us to determine what we must do. It would be the worse for me if I lose my labour in this, Mr Kelley, and I mean to make my chance and prove my destiny.'

'Do you call it destiny? It is the maddest destiny that ever I heard, but if you wish it, then so let it be. I make only one condition for going forward with you.'

'Which would be?'

'That you no longer conceal from me any mysteries of your craft, even to the highest, and that you share with me all secrets contained in your studies or in your alchemical practice.'