The Alchemist of London Read online

  How many summers had she spent like this? Many, many years now, following the same routine in this place where nothing changed.

  Including her.

  Her brow crinkled at the thought.

  In the conservatory, baskets of cascading plants hung from the ceiling and bright flowers spilled out of boxes. An easel stood in one corner, where her sketch of a rose was half-completed. Other sketches lay on a table, next to cut flowers, brushes and pencils, and a box of watercolour paints.

  At the other end of the conservatory was a desk, on which sat a small mirror and a candelabra. The candles had long sunk into piles of cold wax. Behind the desk was an open cupboard, in which row after row of bottles stood, full of ground herbs and petals. Next to the cupboard was a tall cabinet, in the French style. A sundial in the centre of the conservatory marked the change - half of the room was devoted to the study of plants, the other to a much older and secret study.

  Elise looked at a star overhead and marked its position in her notes. The stars this year were aligned perfectly. It was time to start preparing the elixir of life.

  She took an ornate key from her pocket, unlocked the cabinet and drew out a bundle of letters. Each was written on stiff, creamy paper and marked with an aristocratic crest - the crest of the Champillon family.

  She had no instructions on how to make the elixir, only the memory of what she had seen in Albert Price’s laboratory. The letters between her and Jean-Louis Champillon had formed a record of sorts, in which they both shared their observations and the results of their experiments. A hot summer affected the elixir as much as a cool spring. Together they searched for a pattern, sharing success or confirming a failure.

  “Although sometimes I fear I am working in the dark,” he wrote. “There are so many matters hidden from us.”

  She understood. She searched for his letter from several summers before.

  As she spread the letters over the table, she frowned at how many there were. One for every year she had been in England. Picking up the oldest letter she read the date - 1823, twenty-five years ago.

  She glimpsed her reflection in the mirror. Twenty-five years had passed and yet her face had not changed. Her skin had the freshness of a girl barely twenty. Frozen in time, as strange as the imitation French garden outside the window.

  “Dear Elise,” Champillon had written.

  “I am glad you have reached England safely. I trust the house is to your liking. It belonged to my great-aunt and has been empty for many years. The grounds are spacious, I recall, and I will send you all the funds you need for your conservatory.

  Unfortunately the story of Albert Price has not been forgotten. I have secured the house on the Rue Belle but the fire caused a great uproar.

  ... I am confident none know your identity. Many assume you are a servant still, which has caused much annoyance to the servant girls in Paris. Hoffmann and the bankers have made enquiries at all the houses, and often arranged for their masters to line up the girls for inspection, in the hope that you will be among them.

  ...I urge you to act as the lady of the house, no matter how unfamiliar the role is to you.

  I would advise you to stay clear of London and beware any enquiries from the capital. The bankers have been to Reveille many times and enquired at the convent. I believe the nuns are trustworthy and have not disclosed my role in your disappearance. I have however made precautions to change my name.

  These letters will reach you through my agent in London, to whom I urge you to address all correspondence. I have taken leave of Paris and currently reside in the Loire.”

  Reading the words now gave her the same chill as they had years ago. The bankers had tracked her down to the tranquil convent of Reveille.

  The next year, Champillon’s letter was calmer, but at the end he added a warning.

  “We have not quite shaken off our pursuers. I have concealed my identity, and convinced most of the world that Jean-Louis Champillon died in the fire. However I have heard that Hoffmann is obsessed with the idea that Albert Price had an apprentice. He seems determined to find you.

  I am certain they do not know of my great-aunt’s house in England. There are ways they could discover it, but fortunately it is assumed that you are in France.”

  She remembered sitting by the river as she had read this letter, watching the ducks bob and swim in the sunshine. The house in those years had been a sanctuary and a prison. Her pulse quickened every time she heard a carriage on the road or saw a boat on the river.

  But no one had found her. Gradually she began to plan her garden, replacing the overgrown hedges with the plants she remembered from her days in the medicine garden in Reveille.

  “I am glad to hear of your garden,” Champillon had written, after five years had passed. “I have also created such a place here in the Loire and am studying the qualities of nature’s bounty closely.”

  And a few years later:

  “Time may at last release us from our hiding. Hoffman died last winter. Albert Price has become a mere curiosity. I have begun to return to the Academy of Sciences, in cognito, to share what I have discovered. The century is moving on.”

  Then ten years later, a new young couple arrived in Little Bingham to look after the house.

  “I have arranged for the servants to go to the Lake District. I feel it is best to change staff. Although I have not seen you, Elise, I believe you may also be suffering from my ‘affliction’.

  While it is some fifteen years since the fire in Paris, the face that looks at me from my looking glass is no older than thirty-six. My contemporaries are showing the ravages of age, with greying hair and the many ailments that come with time. For you, Elise, having drunk the elixir of life even younger than myself, I imagine the physical effects must be more disorientating.

  You are no longer the girl I called to my house, but a woman, and I see from your letters that your mind is developing each year. Yet in the mirror you must also see a face not changed, and a body frozen in the sylph-like state of youth.

  Now I know how Price felt and why his eyes were full of sadness. For although alchemy is a path to greater wisdom, this state is unnatural.

  Of course, he was trained by a master alchemist. I believe Price had reached a higher level of enlightenment, for he often glowed from within. He did not drink the elixir by chance, as I have done.

  I am a poor wretch, a mere oil painting of myself, a young man with an old heart. I cannot believe this is God’s work and fear what force animates me.”

  Elise glanced in the mirror again. She was young in body but her heart was heavy - she understood Champillon’s pain.

  “I will leave the Loire now, as my appearance is creating too much curiosity - and envy. Even my agents in Paris have been regarding me strangely.”

  The next year his letter was from Switzerland. The move appeared to lift his spirits, for the letter contained only observations on his experiments.

  “I continue my work, rising early and walking in the mountains. Here in Switzerland I have seen the first real texts of alchemy (the sketches of the sun and moon which I attach come from Paracelsus’ own notes). There is indeed a Ladder of the Wise, setting out the steps an alchemist must ascend.

  Alchemy is a forgotten knowledge now. The Swiss and Italians to whom I speak are fascinated only with machines. It is my hope that the old secrets can somehow be used for the betterment of mankind in the modern age.”

  Over the next years, the letters continued. Champillon spoke of his inventions and often included his observations of the elixir.

  “The elixir is necessary for our health,” he wrote. “And, as you observed, it is best to prepare the elixir in the late stages of summer.”

  As the years had gone by, the tone of the letters had become more formal and scientific. They were fellow scientists, on the same quest. Each year she sent her letter to Champillon, telling him what she had discovered and eagerly awaited his reply.

  Recently, he
wrote from Paris.

  “I have returned to my house on the Rue de Rivoli. Many of my friends are dead now, and those that live, believe me to be a relative of the late Jean-Louis Champillon. No more shall I hide in the country. I am ready to join this new century.”

  Mortality would have claimed all her friends as well. Was the convent of Reveille still there? Who lived there now? Would anyone remember her? She had been relieved to think that Albert Price and the fire had passed from living memory - but then so had she.

  Perhaps it was time for her to rejoin the world. But she did not know what the world was anymore.

  Another summer passed.

  She stayed in the house by the river and studied the seasons and the formation of the clouds. She added more herbs to the garden and searched the woodlands for wildflowers. Flowers bloomed and decayed, and rose again with each spring.

  She trailed her hand through the feathery grasses and gathered dew at dawn and dusk. She watched the otters and badgers rear their young, and the sparrows flit through the sky.

  And at the end of each day, she sat among her books and studies, all alone.

  Elise suddenly felt a pang of sadness. Even the ghosts had left her now. The passing years may not show in her face, but they had passed, and another summer was coming to an end.

  She gazed over Champillon’s last letter. It was dated 1847, one year ago. She had replied just after she had received it. It was true the time between letters had grown longer, but his letter had always arrived by June. But that year, 1848, there had been no letter from Paris, and it was now early September.

  She brushed aside her worries and quickly found the letter she was looking for. She placed the letters carefully in the cabinet and locked the door.

  Night had fallen but she had not lit any candles. Two pinpoints of light reflected off the windows of the conservatory.

  Since she had drunk the elixir of life, she shared the strange power of the alchemists to see clearly in darkness. This ability was accompanied by an unearthly glow in the alchemist’s eyes. When she had first seen Albert Price’s eyes, the glow was wondrous, but lately, whenever she glimpsed herself in a mirror or windowpane, it unnerved her. It was a trait that scared even animals, and confirmed her own differentness.

  Quickly lighting a candle she did not need, she locked the door to the conservatory and followed the dark passage into the house.

  Quietly she went through the rooms, closing the windows and locking the doors. The candlelight flickered over the table in the dining room, the silent chairs in the sitting room and the portraits of people who had lived in the house long ago. She had never minded solitude, but that night the thought of the passing years created a hollow ache in her chest.

  The memory of Albert Price was as frozen in time as the portraits. Or perhaps there was part of her heart that she knew she must lock away. A part so hidden, she had forgotten where to find it.

  She began to close the shutters upstairs. The last room she came to was her large, airy bedroom. She blew out the candle flame and lay down on her bed.

  An owl hooted in the woods. Ducks cried out on the river. The moonlight glinted off the haystacks. Sometimes she wondered what lay beyond the woodlands and how these new machines were changing the world. She wondered too why Champillon had not written that year.

  She closed her eyes and tried to sleep. Another day was over.

  * * * * *

  Just when the past is forgotten, it swirls forward in dreams. That night she dreamt of a house in Paris. Vines and flowers filled the garden and a fountain bubbled in the grounds. At first lamps lit the courtyard and she was wandering carefree and happy toward the garden house.

  Albert Price was waiting for her. The gates onto the Rue Belle were open and soon they would escape together.

  Then the night was full of fire. A fire that was first white then orange, a fire that could not been contained. Flames were consuming everything. She was lying on the cobblestones and the heat was getting closer. People were crying out, but she could not move.

  She was staring at the sky and the smoke had hidden the stars. This was no longer a dream.

  This was the fire in Paris, the night her life changed forever.

  Chapter Two

  But at this time of year, the only thing that mattered was the elixir.

  Elise rose before dawn and crossed the lawn into the woodland. Beneath the trees, the wildflowers glistened with dew. She let the droplets slide down the petals into a glass. Lifting the bottle into the first rays of sun, she smiled at the splinters of sunbeams caught in the liquid.

  In the conservatory, she placed the bottle of dew under a cloth then spread the petals from the night before onto a canvas screen. As the sun rose, she carried the screen into the courtyard. She hurried upstairs and changed into her day clothes, a dress of black silk, pinning her hair high on her head.

  The servants arrived mid-morning. The young couple lived in the village and came by every second day. Elise led Tom into the garden, explaining what needed pruning and weeding.

  She returned to the house and took a seat in the sitting room, opening a book of Byron’s poems. From the corner of her eye, she saw Nell, the new maid, bustling around with a mop and bucket.

  “Do you ever take a trip to town, Miss?” Nell said.

  “To the village?”

  “No, to London, Miss. There is a train not five miles from here. A great big puffing thing. You can hear it on a clear night and it does scare the cows on the farms. But since the Queen herself has taken a train, it must be quite safe.”

  “The Queen?”

  “Queen Victoria. Took the train to Paddington Station. Didn’t you hear?”

  “I am afraid not.”

  “My cousin accompanied her mistress to London on a train, and said it was most exciting. In London you can get new clothes,” Nell added, giving Elise an unimpressed glance. “Something less - old-fashioned.”

  “I have no need for new clothes.”

  Nell fell silent. A moment later she said, “It is a shame you live here all alone,” she paused her cleaning. “You being so young. You should have friends.”

  “I have friends,” Elise said, although the words seemed hollow. “I used to read to Mrs. Grey once a month, before she became ill.”

  Mrs. Grey was an elderly woman who lived in a grand house beyond the fields. She had been taught by a French governess and spoke French well. Her eyesight was fading and Elise often visited to read aloud to her. This was how Elise had perfected her English.

  “Mrs. Grey is close to ninety, Miss. You need friends your own age.”

  Elise frowned. Mrs. Grey had been old when Elise arrived in Little Bingham. Elise guessed it was possible Mrs. Grey was ninety now.

  “I used to visit Dr. Barton and his wife every week, before they moved away.”

  “Dr. Barton, Miss?” Nell wrinkled her nose. “There’s no Dr. Barton in the village.”

  Elise lowered the book she had been reading. Perhaps it was ten years since Dr. Barton and his wife had left. Time had gone quickly.

  “I often speak to -” Elise paused. She was about to say the farmer who lived by the river and gave her fresh carrots, but she remembered that he had passed away the year before last.

  “It’s not good to be alone all the time. There’s been no letters from London this year,” Nell went on, dusting the mantelpiece. “From the French gentleman,” she bit her lip and shot Elise a quick glance.

  “I am sure the letter will come soon,” Elise said.

  “It’s just I think a young lady should enjoy life,” Nell said.

  “I am happy here,” Elise said burying her nose in the book.

  Nell sucked in her cheeks and rolled her eyes. She was silent for the next five minutes, polishing the candelabra.

  “Well, you’ll have a new neighbour soon,” Nell added.

  Elise lowered the book. “Did I have an old neighbour? I have never met one.”

  “That�
��s because the squire was eighty and well beyond visiting. But he’s dead now, and the house has been sold.”

  “The house?”

  “Bingham Manor, the house beyond the woodland, Miss.”

  Elise had never ventured beyond the woods. Bingham Manor must lie over the hill.

  “The house has been sold to a man from London,” Nell added, dropping the word as though it were magic.

  Tom appeared at the door, asking about the roses. Elise accompanied him to the garden. Tom and Nell left in their cart around three o’clock. Nell was a little too sharp and observant, Elise thought. But maybe her words cut deep because she was right. Too many years had gone by.

  Elise stood before the mirror in the conservatory and looked at her simple black dress. She had purchased it in Paris, just before the journey to England. It had been fashionable then. She wondered what ladies wore nowadays.

  Elise sighed and moved the canvas sheet of petals inside. They were drying well and she could add them to the elixir that night. Each element had to have time to settle. This year’s conditions were perfect and everything pointed to the elixir being stronger than ever.

  Everything except her heart.

  She took a book about medicinal herbs from the bookshelf. Her eyes fell on the handwritten inscription on the first page. The date was twenty years ago.

  “To dear Elise,

  We will miss our many happy afternoons in the garden. May you continue your work and discover new cures. I think you will certainly outshine the doctors of England, and Dudley agrees!

  Your friends

  Charlotte and Dudley Barton.”