Merivel: A Man of His Time

by Rose Tremain

  The chick in the egg, needing air, by its chirping notifies the Mother that it is time to break the shell, its own beak being too soft for the purpose.

  ‘There is, however, sufficient Space and Air to permit the chick to chirp loud enough to be heard, as both Pliny and Aristotle bear witness. The chirping may have a pleading sound and to her (the Mother Hen), hearing it and understanding the need, or if you will, eager to behold her chick and most dear child, pecks open the shell.

  If a chicken can feel Maternal Love, as imputed to it by Fabricius, then surely he is admitting the possibility that the bird has a soul. People who appear incapable of love we call ‘heartless’ or ‘soul-less’. We say that we feel love in our hearts, but it is not the organ we are talking about (which, as Pearce and I discovered, is absolutely without feeling), it is the soul.

  We know not where in us this soul resides. Perusing a work entitled Observations sur l’esprit humain by a French writer, Jean Duquesne, I read that, in Denmark, earlier in this long century, it was believed that the Devil might steal the soul from the nostrils of unbaptised children.

  Superstitious people imagined Satan flying through the air and coming through the open window of a Nursery, and approaching the precious cradle, then reaching in with a curving finger, as narrow and flexible as the stalk of a spring onion, and taking the fledgling Soul, and supping upon it, as a Gourmet supping upon some rare strain of Asparagus. And later it would pass through Satan’s body and return to earth as foul faeces, to be trampled into the mire.

  Then, alas, the soul-less child would grow up with no Human Qualities within him, and be pitiless and enslaved to appetite all his life. And so, to prevent this catastrophe, the windows of Nurseries were kept closed and locked, and it came to pass that sometimes infants died for want of any fresh air.

  All this, though I saw that Duquesne’s book was full of fancy, disturbed me much. I sat long at the Library table, pondering it. And it came upon me that the reason why I had chosen this subject of the Souls of Animals was certainly to ascertain whether I, a man from whom Belief in God had long ago fled, and who could not bring himself to imagine any Resurrection, possessed a soul at all, or whether I was not merely an Amalgam of vain Longings and Appetites, no better than a morning cockerel strutting about his yard, waking all the world with his inharmonious voice.

  Each day the weather was becoming colder, and knowing that Christmas would be soon upon us, I began to buy gifts for Margaret – an ivory brooch in the form of an Edelweiss flower, a small leather Jewel Case and a card of fine Swiss lace. These I despatched to London with the message that I would come home to Bidnold for the winter if she was not happy at Whitehall and wished to return to Norfolk.

  I then wrote to Will Gates as follows:

  My dear Will,

  Your Employer, Sir R. Merivel, sends you good Cheer from Switzerland, where we, like you, are sliding towards Winter, with now and then some light falls of Snow.

  Though I cannot yet find it in my heart to quit this very beautiful Place at present, I am always and ever thinking about Bidnold and praying you shall not be walled up in Ice, as we were last season.

  Pray send me word of how you are, Will. I do not suppose the King has come to Bidnold lately? I feel very far from you all. But I can relate to you that I have not been idle, but have begun upon some Work, which I do think will please Miss Margaret.

  Awaiting your reply, I send you this Christmas Gift of a decorated Almanac, showing the outspread of days for the year 1685, that will shortly be upon us.

  From

  Your Affectionate Master and Friend,

  R. Merivel

  When I showed Louise the Almanac, which had been very nicely decorated with Astronomical signs and symbols, she said: ‘It is too beautiful to give to a Servant.’

  I took it from her hands and began to wrap it. ‘No,’ I said. ‘It is not.’

  27

  CHRISTMAS CAME AND went, and I received a fine letter from Margaret, saying how contented she still was with Fubbs and mentioning in very affectionate terms her Admirer, the Honourable Julius Royston.

  I have, she wrote, been instructing Julius in the Rules of Gin Rummy and now we two are quite addicted to the game. We like to play alone, without other slower or weaker players to annoy us, so we sneak away from the Duchess, and even sometimes from the King (who manifests a sweet fondness for Julius) to lay out our cards. I fear there may be no cure for our addiction …

  At this tender mention of Royston, I felt my fear on Margaret’s behalf abate a little. But I instructed myself to remain vigilant in my mind. Margaret is a clever young woman, who has long ago learned how easy it is to turn me round and round, like the Blind Catcher in a game of Buff.

  I had no reply from Will.

  I tried to imagine the slow Progress of my letter and my gift across France and across the sea, and then going no faster than a horse could trot along the roads of Suffolk and Norfolk. I knew that I should be patient.

  But in my dreams I saw my house catch fire and each and every person and each and every Thing within it burned, as my dear Parents had burned in 1662, and as London itself had burned four years later. And the voice of Pearce said to me: ‘There was always going to be a Third Fire, Merivel. Only you were too blind to see it coming.’

  Always, when these nightmares woke me, Louise tried to soothe me with caresses and kisses, and these, she ever hoped, would lead to some new immodest act between us at four or five in the morning. Yet sometimes they did not lead there, for what I felt come upon me a was great weariness with the Repetitions of the Human World, and I would get up and retire to my own bed, seeming not to care that Louise might feel abandoned, but only needing to be alone.

  Louise had told me, in a whispered conversation one night and quite unabashed, that she was at a point in her life, at the age of forty-six, where, having been denied any sexual pleasure by her husband and her lovers being few and what she termed ‘inadequate’, she had discovered in herself, through my ministrations, a great and perpetual Yearning for Jouissance.

  She admitted provocatively (hoping thus to excite me) that it troubled her so much, she frequently became distracted in her work and sometimes guiltily resorted to pleasuring herself – a thing she had seldom been wont to do before she met me. And a set of Songs she was composing upon the Harpsichord, each with a most beautiful Melody, she had chosen to entitle In Praise of Bliss. The words she was writing for these songs made me blush for her.

  ‘How will you sing these verses in front of your Father?’ I asked.

  ‘He will like them,’ she said airily. ‘He will be pleased that I have been brought to such a Heat before I grow old. He wants to me to be loved.’

  One cold January day, Louise came into the Library in mid-morning.

  I was scribbling some Notes upon the observable intelligence of Orang-utans, remarked upon by King Louis of France and of some potential Significance in my Argument. I was feeling that rare and pleasant thing, the sense of some onward progress in my Endeavour, and did not wish to be interrupted.

  But, without any apology, Louise pushed my books away, sat herself upon my knee and whispered her needs of the moment into my ear, then guided my hand under her skirt to bring her to a quick and violent Spasm, after which she almost fainted in my arms.

  Thus turned aside from my work, I felt suddenly oppressed by this obsession of hers and the demands it made upon me, and said to her unkindly: ‘Louise, shall you not try to calm your appetites a little, before they wear you out?’

  ‘I cannot,’ she said. ‘Why do you ask me such a thing? It is you who have awoken them in me, Merivel. I was chaste before I met you. It is your fault.’

  I kissed her gently, to atone for my unkindness, and I thought she would go from me then and let me return to my Orang-utans, but, roused by even my quiet and tender kisses, she began to embrace me with a terrible fervour.

  We tumbled off the Library chair onto the floor and I felt my breeks
being unbuttoned. I began to protest, but Louise’s embraces were such that they stifled my words, making them inaudible. She tugged down my breeks and knelt over me and sat astride me with her skirts pulled up (a position Violet Bathurst had often favoured and chose, sometimes, to spice with exquisite vulgarity and debauch by pissing upon my stomach) but I had no will nor hardness for the Act, and all I could feel was a sudden stab of mourning for Violet. I thus pushed Louise roughly from me and she toppled over onto the carpet.

  At this moment the Library door opened. Aghast that the Baron should find me thus, unbuttoned and throwing his daughter aside as though she were some mere Object, I staggered to my feet, tugging frenziedly at my Breeches. My wig had fallen off. My face burned with shame. I turned to begin to make my apologies and discovered myself face to face with Colonel Jacques-Adolphe de Flamanville.

  From his great and austere height, dressed still in his uniform of the Swiss Guards, complete with his sword, he regarded me. Behind him stood a Fellow Officer, also uniformed, and also staring in fear and disgust at me, as though I might have been some foul reptile in a cage.

  As I reached down clumsily for Louise and helped her to her feet, de Flamanville said: ‘I shall be obliged to kill you. You have no Honour, Sir, but to save mine we shall go through the ritual of a duel. We shall meet on Friday morning at first light.’

  No words would come to me. All that I could feel was the great stupidity of what had happened. Ten minutes ago, I had been quietly at work on my Treatise; now I had sealed my Death Warrant. Or rather, Louise had sealed it.

  To my great shame I could not feel any fear for what punishments might be meted out to her by de Flamanville, but only mourn the imminent end of my life with sudden and terrible intensity.

  I felt almost faint and held to the back of the chair on which I had lately been sitting. Perhaps it was seeing me so unmanned by the Colonel’s declaration that gave Louise the strength to say calmly to her husband: ‘With your ridiculous threat of duels, Jacques, you have forgotten to introduce me and Sir Robert to your companion. Is this your lover, Petrov?’

  ‘Louise,’ said de Flamanville, ‘I suggest you go to your room and arrange yourself. You stink like a Vixen.’

  ‘And you, my dear, stink of cruelty, as always,’ said Louise. ‘I shall certainly go to my room – my room in my Father’s house, where I shall behave as I please with whom I please. But before I go, I wish only to know whether you have brought your boy-lover under this sacred roof, or not.’

  De Flamanville opened his mouth to speak, but now his companion stepped forward, performed a little military clicking of his heels and said: ‘My name is Capitaine Beck, Madame. I am under your husband’s Command at Versailles. I am not Petrov.’

  ‘Ah,’ said Louise. ‘Well, Capitaine Beck, may I suggest you take my husband out of this house before my Father returns from his walk and throws you both out. He is Baron Guy de Saint Maurice de Neuchâtel. He will not countenance any duel fought on his land and I warrant he will protect Sir Robert Merivel with his life.’

  Beck appeared disconcerted by this, but the Giraffe drew himself up to his full six foot and four inches and said: ‘Louise, you have quite failed to understand the situation. No matter what your father does or says, your ridiculous Lover is going to die. My honour dictates it. Capitaine Beck will call upon Sir Robert to set out the formal arrangements. Let it be swords or pistols. It is all one to me, for he does not stand a chance with either.’

  He was right. I was no swordsman nor marksman. I could not have been certain of killing de Flamanville with a Blunderbuss at twenty paces. When the two men had left, I sank down upon the chair upon which I had yearned to sit quietly all morning and said: ‘Well, that is that, Louise. I have no choice but to play the coward and run away.’

  ‘No!’ said Louise. ‘For that is exactly what he will expect you to do. He will make the necessary preparations immediately. You will be waylaid and stabbed in the back.’

  ‘These are my only choices then – to die one way or the other?’

  ‘No,’ said Louise. ‘There is another way we may come at de Flamanville. By money. For he has very little – not enough for his needs in the Fraternité – for his father gambled away the de Flamanville family Fortune. All that we own – the house on the Faubourg Saint-Victor, everything – came to me from my father. The Baron will raise a large sum. Jacques-Adolphe will accept it and leave. And you and I shall go on just as we were.’

  ‘And what of your husband’s Honour?’

  ‘Ah, Merivel, did you not once admit to me that in your contract with King Charles you had traded Honour for Material Possessions? And does not everyone on earth understand how easy a trade that is? I know Jacques-Adolphe. He will find it very easy.’

  ‘Louise,’ said I, ‘I cannot ask your Father to buy my life.’

  ‘No,’ she said. ‘I will ask him.’

  I sit with the Baron by a dying fire, drinking Claret.

  It is late and cold, but we linger there. The Baron is too discreet to talk, yet, of de Flamanville, or of my imminent death, or of what the Baron might do to delay or forestall it. Instead, we discuss the things which hold us to the world.

  We turn to the subject of my Meditations Upon the Animal Soul, which work he much approves, and I confide to him my vain Vision of myself presenting it at the Royal Society, with all the Natural Philosophers listening attentively to me in that hushed chamber, and feeling at last that I had become a Person of Substance.

  ‘Ah,’ says the Baron. ‘How interesting it is that we find it so difficult to believe in our own Worth. To me, you are already a Person of Substance, as you call it. With your medical skills and your great compassion, I judge you a worthy man. As perhaps you judge me to be, too. But in recent years it has stolen upon me that, for all my great age, I have done nothing to change the world. I inherited much. I made more. And that is the sum of my life. And so I have set my heart upon a mad enterprise.’

  ‘A mad enterprise? What might it be, Baron?’

  The Baron takes up the small Notebook that he carries everywhere with him and shows me pages and pages of sketches of flying machines. ‘You see?’ he says, ‘I am quite deranged. I am nowhere near to solving the problem of Propulsion, or Forward Motion, but if only I could! Then I would feel that I had made some great contribution to the happiness of Mankind. For how wonderful this would be – to fly above the world, like angels. Is it not one of the things we crave in our dreams?’

  ‘And in our dreams we give ourselves that power. Then we thud down to earth upon waking.’

  ‘Precisely. But suppose we could fly above the lake, and then south, even, towards the mountains, or above the mountains …’

  ‘Not mere angels, but gods!’

  ‘Yes, gods! Ah, Merivel, I fear I shall never solve it. I have not enough time left. Sometimes I feel I have lived too long anyway. I have outlived five dogs. And you know, age does not confer wisdom, Merivel. Age confers Vanity, Foolish Prattle and a terrible concern with Riches. The idea that I could lose my fortune obsesses me not less than the flying machines.’

  ‘It is human to fear poverty. Human, too, to wish to pass what we have to our children.’

  ‘Yes, and this, I suppose, must bring bring us to the question of Louise. You know that she is in love with you? You are now what holds her to the world.’

  ‘I admit I find this surprising, Baron. Nobody has ever been in love with me before.’

  ‘I see in her eyes a desire to devour you! You are the first man to whom she has given herself in this way.’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘So. You must understand that I have never been able to refuse my daughter the things she asks of me. Why should I, when I am so proud of who she is and what she accomplishes?’

  ‘I understand completely, Sir.’

  ‘So here is what I have resolved. I will pay de Flamanville, but not merely to spare your life. I will pay him a fine fortune to have the marriage Annulled, prov
ided you will agree to marry Louise.’

  I get up and, on unsteady feet, walk towards the Claret decanter and pour all that remains of it into our two glasses. I am shivering as I say: ‘I am infinitely touched by your generosity, Baron, but I cannot accept. I cannot have my life bought for me, nor my future.’

  ‘I do not really see why not.’

  I want to say that this already happened to me long ago and that, ever since, I have sworn that no debt of this kind would ever be mine again. Indeed, to see such a terrible choice rise up before me again makes me feel faint. It is as though all the life I have lived and all that I have achieved by my own strivings, between the first contract with the King and this last one with the Baron, is about to be annihilated.

  I gulp the Claret and say: ‘The thing belittles me too much.’

  ‘I understand. But you do not need to see it in this way.’

  ‘In my position, Sir, would you accept it?’

  ‘That is a fair question. I think it would depend upon whether I was in love with Louise or not – but pray, do not answer that. Let me merely remind you that, as Louise’s husband, you would become Heir to the Château and its Estates. You would live in comfort for the rest of time. And do not underestimate that. When you reach my age you will understand the importance of great riches.’

  We fall silent. The ticking of a Long-case clock is the only sound to be heard in the room. Then Constanza whimpers in her dreams.

  I have hardly slept at all, or so it feels, when I am woken by a Servant, who informs me that there is a Capitaine Beck here to see me.

  ‘No!’ I cry. ‘The duel is on Friday!’

  ‘Duel, Monsieur? What duel? Do you wish to dress, Monsieur? Or shall I show him up here?’