Mischief Acts, page 15
I gorge on my luck.
What am I?
Anon
Answer: a hawk
8
HERNSER: HERON
1821
Charm: When witches sport in the sky, with this song I bewilder them and send them wandering home.
BERMOND GOES HERON-HAWKING
He sends her up, his hawk Queen Mab, his dark witch of the sky. So rare the vision, theirs to make, of the gracious heron turned frantic in flight.
It is as sweet to the heron-hawker’s soul as any dream, to watch Hernser, vain daydreamer, Narcissus of the woodland ponds, tumbling Lethe-wards on awkward wings. His hawk Queen Mab, in her darkling majesty, calls the heron down, her cruel magic a kind of sublime—
The moment he longs for, when time stops, and two feathered bodies drop, queen hawk and king heron, agony and ecstasy.
Bermond’s heart floods as he scrambles and leaps the still stream to where Mab and Hernser turn in their throes, all panic wing and grasping claw on bloodied ground.
Mab’s eye gleams. She arches, and at Hernser’s elegant head merely nudges with that merciless beak, half-open.
Her nudge is a slice. Hernser, limp, reclines.
The hawker stoops, a bow to his Queen Mab, a nod to a heron’s dying wish: admiring love.
THE HERON DREAMS
Up the hillside is a glade in the forest dim. There is a pond where, still in the reedy shallows, Hernser gazes often at the heron that glimmers on the water. So many blissful hours, all the same, spent in admiration of slender neck, upright leg, that wise and charismatic eye.
Leaving the near meadows, ringing he climbs until the pond, blemished moon of the wood, shines from her deep-delved earth.
Into cool water he wades. The wood sings of summer. Flies drone at the dog roses. Ripples ebb and Hernser bows, to the heron of the pond.
Instead, a man looks up at him. The slow wave of weeds is turned to ivy nodding in a breeze. The man wears a stag’s crown, its branches shifting in the shadow-light.
They gaze at one another, two persecuted kings. At Hernser’s breast, a stabbing ache, then sky, earth, and the dream breaks.
HERNE DREAMS
Always the hunt, the tireless headlong, hoof and heart at glorious judder, and the cry, the howl, the bright blaze of horn, the deepest shriek of the wolf interval, that heart song, that blood moon, red spilt over verdurous gloom, always the chase, the bottomless hunger, whip and bone that crack together, but this time I hear the cry, the terrible, warping scream of Hernser, the heron falling into me.
And now I am my namesake, not hunter but hunted, the claw of Queen Mab at my panting chest, and never till now did I know the fear that a hawk carries with her, as near to love as anything the heart can bear.
HERNE WAKES
Two tumblers, we rolled like lovers, in the endless fall, the all-too-brief fall, the jolt—
Herne jolts awake.
Where has he been?
Nowhere. Underground, overhead, lost in a shrinking wood.
But he dreamt! He fell from the sky and he knew who he was.
He is Herne.
Where has he been?
Hunting. Herne thinks: I had forgotten how. But Queen Mab has woken me.
He looks around, looks up, looks down. Does he dream still? That nightmare of relief turned to dread, the petals opening to reveal another bloom, another then another?
Herne shakes his head, pinches his knees, bites his cheek. He is, ever was, Herne. Where has he been?
He has been watching the wood, his wood, divided neatly into pieces and shared out like so much cake. He was not in his own head.
But here he is, refreshed. And this wood, his wood, is not a dream, Queen Mab does not fool him, but she has given him a nudge, a gentle reminder, because he has been forgetful lately.
And it is plain: if the wood is chopped up, shared out, reduced to crumbs, so will he be.
Herne stands, wipes the heron blood from his throat. I am the wood. It’s me: bale-worker, ever-booming, frenzy-maker, horned one.
The wood never sleeps. I must not dream again.
ARBOR REVOCANDA
a mnemonic verse
Black is the thorn of prunus spinosa,
Potent the bark of alnus glutinosa,
White is the wood of tilia cordata,
Deadly the seeds of taxus baccata.
Populus tremula, betulus pendula,
Quiver so sweetly in spring breeze and shower.
For cramp, boil the bark of viburnum opulus,
For hearth fires that last, burn carpinus betulus,
Ward off plague with prunus padus,
Soothe any ache with frangula alnus.
Crataegus monogyna, sambucus nigra,
Clothe the May hedge in her soft white dress.
Brew up the fruit of sorbus torminalis,
Twist up a basket from salix viminalis,
Sour is the flesh of malus sylvestris,
Brittle the branch of salix fragilis.
Quercus robur, fraxinus excelsior,
Are the green-garbed giants of summer’s rest.
Reverend George Joye
9
NULLIUS IN VERBA
1877
Charm: This song you must sing when the sick want healing.
FRIDAY, 18TH MAY
I write this sitting in a pool of electric light. It is the only such one in this house – in any of the houses on Sydenham Hill, I dare say – and it is in Hugo’s study. Bold of me! But I did wait for Euphronie to retire, the maid too, and creeping here in secrecy has only augmented my excitement.
The electric lamp has not been switched on since the incident. As Euphronie put it, when a great light has gone out, none should shine in his house. But there is no more appropriate illumination for this writing than Hugo’s incandescent bulb, and she will forgive me using it when I tell her of my plan.
It came to me yesterday, as I passed another lonely afternoon of so-called convalescence in the guest room at Fairwood. The dizziness of the past few days had faded. The bruise on my head was far less tender. I felt well enough to be bored, but mine is not an idle mind, and my plan shall prove it. It was whilst sitting at the window, contemplating the woods beyond Hugo and Euphronie’s rather staid garden, that the clever thought came to me.
From the house, one cannot quite see the plot Hugo had already purchased. It is further down the hill, towards Dulwich, the other side of the railway line. But I have seen it, of course, and I saw it then in my mind’s eye. It is only a patch of useless woodland now, so grown with ground ivy, bracken, and other sprouting things, that on our visit Hugo and I could hardly beat our way through it. But while we stood there, bothered by flying insects and harangued by noisy birdsong, Hugo shared with me his vision, and it is this which has informed my plan.
In homage to Hugo, I will be the man to build the scientific school. I will bring his academy to life, and it will be grander even than he imagined. Its students will be tutored to the highest standard, and learn of all the latest advances in electric lighting, so that their work will make the bulb originally designed by Hugo, but now championed by me, the leading light – yes! – amongst all those lights currently baffling their slower inventors across the country. My academy will be lit inside and out. It will be an electric beacon where now only gloomy trees stand, themselves blocking out light.
And my plan will achieve many important things. First – though not really foremost – it will make up for Euphronie’s loss, for I know she blames me. And furthermore, she will surely allow me to stay on at the house while I oversee the school’s construction. I cannot face a return to Suffolk, which now seems so far away as to exist in a previous century. Secondly, it will allow me to become an expert such as Hugo was in theories of both electricity and light, and to make my name known in the same leading circles he used to frequent. Thirdly, this rise in status, knowledge, and surely fame, as I spread this new electric light across Norwood and beyond, will take me finally to the Royal Society, and there, to Fellowship. Put bluntly, this plan will serve us all: me, Euphronie, society, and the Royal Society. And even Hugo, if he be in the heaven he did not believe in. From there, he will see the Bergmann-Ship electric bulb – as it shall then be called, uniting his name and mine – illuminating first the wood, and then, the world.
I will have to convince Euphronie, of course, but once she is feeling better I am certain she will see the perfect sense in all of this. Her spirits are low, not surprisingly, but really, her bitterness over a few scratches and bruises has been disproportionate. It has been tiresome indeed to hear her moans from the adjacent chamber, and to see her lunch tray removed untouched despite so much bright coaxing from the maid. Suzy has no need to coax me. My appetite has returned doubled, and she seemed to think it quite improper when I asked for a second plate of eggs yesterday. She glared as if I had asked for golden ones! But now I must match my bodily strength to that of my mind, and begin my battle against bramble and creeper to properly survey the plot. This part of the plan, at least, does not require Euphronie’s approval. In fact, completing it will almost certainly help to persuade her that it is the right thing to do, and I am the right man to do it.
Concerning bodily strength, I still marvel that I escaped from the incident so little damaged. While the bump on my head did protrude alarmingly at first, it has subsided so that I can touch the spot with only a slight wince. And the dizziness that made me sick to the stomach the first two days, and distressed my vision as much, is now so slight that, so long as I take measured movements and do not swing my head about as if dancing, I can forget it was ever with me. My stomach has settled – though I feel it grumbling now, so with my plan recorded, I will creep next to the kitchen to see what Suzy has squirrelled away in her larder. As for my vision, there is still the occasional blurred patch. I may, for instance, need to look sidelong at the larder shelves to be certain what lies there in the dark. But in this pool of electric light, every word I have written is as clear to me as if I looked through a magnifying glass. This only stirs my new sense of purpose. We must all have this light, and we must have it from the Bergmann-Ship bulb!
SATURDAY, 19TH MAY, MORNING
As I was about to leave Fairwood early and set out for the plot, I was confronted by Euphronie, leaning on her crutch at the top of the stairs.
‘Should you not be resting, Mr Ship?’ she said, and scowled at me. She resembled a sort of diffident witch, insisting as she does on wearing a black nightgown, so that she may be in mourning even as she languishes in bed. Her dark hair was in a messy tumble down her back. Perhaps this slovenliness is a habit of the French, but it offends an English gentleman.
I did not ask her, yet again, to call me Walter, nor correct her displeasing pronunciation of my name, which renders it sheep. ‘I’m much better,’ I told her. ‘And you might be too if you would take some air.’
‘I will not ever be better,’ she said. ‘Honestly, I wish you had never come here. But since you are so recovered, perhaps it is time for you to go home.’
It was not the right moment to tell Euphronie of my plan. But I could not resist hinting. ‘All will be well,’ I said, and smiled, though she did not much deserve my goodwill. ‘I will make you feel much better myself.’
‘Why did Suzy find the bulb switched on in Hugo’s study this morning?’ she asked. Her tone was quite icy.
Now that I recount this, I am quite proud of my quick remark. ‘It is a good omen,’ I said, and sped away down the hall. Though the crutch is excessive – she only sprained an ankle – she did not follow me.
Musing on this encounter, I concluded that, before introducing my plan to Euphronie, I had better try to win back her friendship. And the best way to do that would be to persuade her that her husband’s sad demise was not my fault. Hugo was very dear to us both, and it is right that a widow should mourn (though perhaps not in a morbid nightgown), but to blame another who is suffering an equal loss is unseemly. It is also obstructive. So, I have delayed my urgent survey of the woodland plot, in order to spend some time considering how I will lay out my case to Euphronie, in such a way that she cannot possibly argue with it.
It is perfectly natural that I should come to stay at Fairwood in the first place, having exchanged letters with Hugo over several months. While mine were significantly longer than his, we all know that he was a busy man, whereas I had time to think and write as my interest in all things electrical grew – being all the more encouraged by this new correspondence. We were all three delighted, I am sure, when Hugo agreed to my request for a visit, to see his fascinating prototype bulb.
It is perfectly natural that, Fairwood being as close to the Crystal Palace as it is, and the wondrous Exhibition being in full flow, that I – a man so enamoured of all things worldly and scientific – would wish to see it. And Hugo, being a generous host and a man of science himself, was very kind to accompany me along with his wife. What a marvellous afternoon we had – Euphronie cannot possibly deny that – perusing the displays of wonders and inventions, walking amongst the soothing fountains in the gardens, discussing Hugo’s work.
It was perfectly natural that, upon witnessing the hot air balloons rising from the terrace below the Crystal Palace to drift in all their majesty across the blue skies of Norwood, I should wish to pay the reasonable fee and take such a ride. In fact, in my excitement, I paid the ticket price for all three of us, and I distinctly remember Euphronie giggling, like the girl she is very far from being now, as we shook the balloonist’s hand.
Indeed, it was Euphronie herself who told the balloonist that Fairwood stood only a mile or so away, and asked if we might look down on it from our floating eyrie. If it had not been for this comment, we would surely have sailed the same route as the other balloons, south of the Crystal Palace, and not, as it turned out, risked the winds on the north side of the geological ridge on which the palace stands.
Hugo enjoyed himself as much as I did, pointing out local landmarks as we rose beneath the swell of the great balloon, as serene and steady as the sun itself. As we soared higher in the clear blue air, we gazed across at London, shrunk to the size of a map, and St Paul’s Cathedral a fat pin stuck in it. Euphronie did not stop asking the balloonist questions – about all his methods and materials and how he dealt with the dangers of travelling by air. I dare say her prattle was quite distracting, such that the danger we were in ourselves did not become apparent until Hugo interrupted his wife to ask if we were not travelling a little fast.
And it is perfectly natural that, fearing for his life, thinking of his bright future, a man might choose to jump into a sea of trees rather than risk being engulfed by the remains of a gas-filled balloon.
As it was, we know now that cowardice won out, and those of us who remained in the gondola were flung only a little way as we lurched down through the leafy canopy. Having lost consciousness myself, I could not run to Hugo’s aid. And it is not Euphronie’s fault, either, that she did not find her husband for some time, during which much blood had leaked from him.
In this way, I will absolve us both of the blame for Hugo’s death. I will present him as a man braver than the rest of us, and not as one who paid too high a price for foolish panic. I also paid too high a price for the tickets.
SATURDAY, 19TH MAY, EVENING
I would have delivered the above absolution today, but since I have returned from my tour of the academy site, Euphronie has remained shut in her room. I noticed, however, that the bulb had been left switched on in Hugo’s study, and so I made use of it again to write these words. Besides, her withdrawal permits me to attend to the far more important task of recording today’s extraordinary events.
To begin with the necessary observations. The woodland plot is, as I remembered, quite overgrown, and what a satisfaction it will be to clear those looming trees and malicious brambles, gradually to reveal the ground that will be a foundation for learning. Still, the day being warm for May, I was able to turn the dense shade to my advantage and sit awhile, pondering my plan. While the ache in my head is now only mild, bright light still hurts my eyes somewhat, and the tree shadow was a welcome relief.
There is much work to be done – the clearing, then the construction. This I will leave to rougher hands and swarthier temperaments, while I concentrate on the details of laboratories and lighting. Perched there in the shadows, I pictured neat rows of benches, piled with the peculiar glass vessels, jars of powders and fine measuring instruments that are the scientist’s tools. All of these will gleam beneath the electric bulbs, arranged so that not a single awkward shadow falls, thus ensuring the path to truth is brightly lit and sooner found.
I do not yet have a clear view myself of how best these students will advance the technology of the Bergmann-Ship bulb, but I can soon learn this. Hugo’s study contains many books, including his own notes, and I will no doubt be the sole inheritor of these. (Excepting Euphronie, who will surely have no use for them. Had she provided an heir for Hugo, she might have passed on her husband’s precious writings to him, but she did not, and that is not my fault either.)
While I dreamed my own bright future, there in the wood, something unexpected happened, that I now believe may be of even greater importance than the invention of electric light. As I jot down these words, I see that my own notebooks will one day line the shelves of an illustrious study, and that this page might be the most treasured one of all amongst those eager to learn of the greatest discovery of our time. So, I will write this carefully, such that my rationality and love of exacting scientific method may fill your mind as you learn, Dear Reader.
Nullius in verba! you may cry. And while this may be the motto of the Royal Society itself, you will be obliged, for now, to take my word for it with regards to what follows, until I ascertain a method of capturing my discovery for display by other means.
Deep in thought, on my damp tree stump, my gaze roamed as my mind did, though since there is not much to see in a forest I did not attend to the images that passed across my vision. Not, that is, until I perceived a small shimmer of movement to my left, low amongst the fallen leaves and ground ivy. Light conditions, as I have before noted, were poor, the trees being thoughtless obstructors of both direct and diffuse sunlight. (Even I admire the acuity of my observations!)
