Viper Wine Read Online Free PDF Page B

them. If you will, my lady?’
    Venetia had neither given consent nor protested before Begg Gurley and Lady Lily Trickle tied a piece of cloth around her eyes, and she was put to lie back in the wicker chair.
    ‘One to summon the lords!’ Begg said, and a tiny tinkle-bell rang.
    ‘Two to call the ladies!
    ‘Three to bid them dance!’
    Venetia felt feathery tickle-steps dancing across her cheeks, and the asthmatic wheeze of Begg Gurley, whose breath smelled of hazelnuts. Venetia felt a laugh rising in her chest, like a fart that will out, and she had to try hard not to explode with laughter. She thought of crows and cold water.
    ‘My Lady Diggy smiles to feel the little lords and ladies gavotte upon her cheek,’ said Begg.
    ‘Aaaaye,’ squeaked Lady Trickle. There was the small sound of skin on skin, and Venetia intuited that Lady Trickle had been reprimanded with a slap for interrupting.
    ‘Now they lay their habilements upon your forehead, their gowns and ruffs,’ said Begg in a syrupy-sweet voice, as if Venetia was a child at bedtime. She felt a light pitter-pat upon her face, as if fresh rose petals with a hint of mildew to them were being dropped upon her forehead from above. ‘La, la, la,’ sighed Begg, as the petals dropped.
    ‘And now the little folks’ chariots made of vegetables await.’
    Venetia could not resist. ‘Are they drawn by mice?’
    ‘Oh no,’ said Begg indulgently. ‘My dizzy lady! You don’t know much about the fairy ways. ’Tis a fine conker coach set with turnip wheels. Mr Harry Long Legs draws this carriage, and he is bound with a bridle one hair thick. Now the fairies bow and leave you for the other world. They go to drink from a dew drop, one between eight of them. And so, farewell, addy-oo!’ The tiny bell chimed again. ‘Addy-oo.’
    Blinking, breathing in the fresh air, Venetia returned to her waiting carriage. She had an armful of Begg’s mulberry leaves, gathered as a decoy for her journey. She did not begrudge the ladies the piece of gold for their show, as long as it bought their silence too. She did not feel compelled to visit Begg Gurley again. Her invention was too crude, too much of countryside. She could not believe in it.
    Venetia had sceptical Percy blood in her. Her grandfather was Henry Percy, Earl of Northumberland, whom they called the Wizard Earl because his doors were open to mathematicians and astronomers, and in his castle study he had drawn a new empyrean with compasses and formulae and reams of parchment. She remembered sitting on his lap as he told her a trinity is three, and a quaternity is four, and so forth. She was told never to say silly things or speak of fairies to him, for he would be angered by such talk. But her intuition told her that she could never make him angry, for they were good friends, and she would sit on his shoulder combing his hair, while he read aloud to her. He had a soft tongue, cut when he was a boy, which could not pronounce all the words correctly, but it made her love to listen to his voice the more.
    She felt ashamed to have visited Begg Gurley. Venetia was not one of those refined London ladies who found the old village ways enchanting, a ‘natural’ alternative to pills and modern Physick. And she was certainly not a villager who took it on trust. She did not desire to feel better – she desired to look better. She needed Physick. This visit had helped her decide that, at least. As she left the Dingles, Begg tied around her wrist a bracelet of valerian, a green root silvered with tiny hairs, which was to remind her, when it fell off her wrist by rotting, that it was time to visit Begg Gurley again.
    Venetia cut it off directly using her sewing scissors. But she also checked in her looking glass, against her graver judgement, to see if her skin was any better.

S IR K ENELM H OLDS A P RESS C ONFERENCE
‘Sir Kenelm Digby was such a goodly handsome person, gigantique and great voic’d, and he had so gracefull