Sacred Hunger

by Barry Unsworth

  And so, in the course of that morning, the Liverpool Merchant was turned loose into the Irish Sea. With her mainsails set and a fair wind from the south-east, released from tethering rope and umbilical cable, she was for the first time in her life unfettered, free— save for her own groaning tensions—between wind and current.

  PART THREE

  15.

  Erasmus Kemp stood by the lakeside. The scene he looked forward to and dreaded was almost upon him.

  Recently, between his public and private performances as Ferdinand, a yawning gap had developed. He had his lines by heart and could recite them perfectly when alone; but once in her presence his tongue stumbled, his throat dried. It was not timidity; he was not by nature timid and would have welcomed the opportunity to speak his love in his own voice.

  What disconcerted him so terribly was having to pretend, as the price of being with her, that both of them were other people.

  Nevertheless, he went on trying. Practising before the mirror in his bedroom he had achieved fluid and graceful motions of the hands and body and even dazzled smiles as at blinding beauty; but when it came to the rehearsals he moved like an automaton about the shores of the lake. He nursed the hope comand into it went all the passionate tenacity of his nature— that by endurance the gap would be closed and the accomplishments of his solitude win the day.

  Of this there was small sign as yet. Meanwhile, though he was too locked in his travail fully to notice it, he was having a subtly demoralizing effect on the others. Miranda’s performance had lost sparkle, partly through the infection of his awkwardness, partly out of awe at the intensity of his regard, and this central uneasiness between the lovers was exacerbating the strains and divisions already existing among the cast.

  Prospero’s headlong, domineering style was continuing to cause resentment; Miss Edwards sang beautifully but was felt to be too sardonic for Ariel, especially when addressing Prospero, whom she disliked; and doubts concerning the curate’s interpretation of Caliban were felt by just about everyone.

  Now they were nearing the end of Act Three.

  Hippolito, who was played by a friend of Charles, had reached the final lines of the soliloquy in which he declares his intention of having as many women as he can, now that he has discovered that the creatures exist. He was doing rather well in the part, combining a certain foppishness of style with the erotic innocence of one who, kept in solitary confinement by Prospero on the Enchanted Isle, had never till now seen a specimen of womankind. Erasmus, who could not remember envying anyone anything before, found himself envying Hippolito’s assurance as he moved across to exit with the final words of the soliloquy: I now perceive that Prospero was cunning; For when he frighted me from womankind Those precious beings he for himself designed…

  Erasmus knew that he must go directly, before the entry of Prospero and Miranda, and conceal himself in his cell. But he hesitated some moments longer, looking towards the parkland on the other side the lake, at the yellow of the new oak leaves, the stiff white cones of flower on the chestnuts, more vivid still for the lustreless surface of the leaves. Beyond was the gate in the wall, the ground sloping upward, a hawk wheeling high above…

  “Time you were creeping, Kemp.” One of the several things about Bulstrode that others found irksome was his habit of trying to direct the play and the way he sought to disguise this under a cloak of facetiousness. “Into your den,” he added now with a false smile.

  Erasmus gave him a glance of disdainful surprise before moving forward and ducking into the low structure of canvas and lath they had put up some yards back from the water. Sitting a little way inside it, he was invisible to Prospero and Miranda, who had now appeared by the lakeside. He heard Prospero utter the opening words of his speech with the gusty grandiloquence the tutor brought to the role: Your suit has pity in’t, and has prevailed.

  Within this cave he lies, and you may see him…

  Erasmus waited for this to come to an end, then counted to twelve, took a breath and began: “To be a prisoner where I dearly love is but a double-tie …”

  The first lines did not tax him much, as they were addressed to himself and uttered within the solitude of his cave; he even achieved a certain declamatory force in their delivery. They were the truest of all his lines, the most truly expressive of his condition: Ferdinand’s captivity exactly coincided at this point with his own. He was a prisoner of the play itself; these rehearsals, so chafing to the natural haughtiness of his spirit, his subjection to the condescension of Parker and Bulstrode, these were labours he suffered for his jealous love. No one must replace him, no one else get a chance to play Miranda’s lover.

  Now her voice came, asking his whereabouts. From within the crumbling security of his cave he called to her: “Is it your voice, my love, or do I dream?”’

  On learning that it was indeed her voice he was obliged to come scrambling out. She was wearing a peach-coloured camlet gown this afternoon, opening over a stiffened petticoat of the same colour. A lace fichu covered her shoulders but allowed the skin to glow through. Her hair was drawn back softly over her ears and tied in a knot behind. “O Heavenly creature! Ten times more gentle than your father’s cruel…” He had now somehow to cover the space between them, take her hand and gaze into her eyes: “While I stand gazing thus, and thus have leave to touch your hand, I do not envy freedom…”

  It was a scene that left him feeling strangely weak. Of its effect on her he was not sure, but these days he read an expression of trouble in her eyes.

  There was a momentousness in these exchanges, conducted always before spectators, that was beyond anything in his experience, a curious tension between avowing and dissembling, in which real feelings chased pretended ones and the studied movements about the stage cast all in doubt until the naked exchange of looks brought a kind of certainty back. Eyes locked together, hands clasped and breaths intermingling, Ferdinand and Miranda played their allotted roles while Erasmus Kemp and Sarah Wolpert had thoughts for which they had as yet developed no dialogue.

  It was a lack that came mainly from want of occasion. So far he had not succeeded in being completely alone with her for more than a few minutes at a time. By contrast, he had seen more of Charles Wolpert in these few weeks than during the previous ten years. He was not particularly drawn to Charles, but he was her brother after all, the same parents had engendered them both, the same blood ran in their veins—something of her might be shed on him, though it seemed unlikely, Charles taking after his father, with the same dark eyes and prominent nose.

  However, it was the nearest he could get. So he went riding with Charles, accepted a spaniel bitch that he didn’t really want from Charles, dined out with Charles and other young men of Charles’s acquaintance.

  On the few occasions when by accident or contrivance he had found himself alone with Sarah, he had floundered rather, the time had been too short, he had failed to find words that without startling her would do justice to his feelings.

  In this she had not given him a great deal of help.

  That she knew what his feelings were he had no doubt whatever; it was the nature of hers he was not sure of: off-stage, in her real person, she was considerably less frank about them than Miranda. He garnered what crumbs he could get, smiles or words that were for him alone, glances they had exchanged one evening when he had dined there and she had played on the clavichord and sung for them, while old Wolpert sat heavy-lidded and the mother stitched at some eternal embroidery. So far, this had been all.

  Today, midway through the rehearsal, refreshments were brought down from the house in an operation that involved the ancient footman, Andrew, two kitchen maids with trays and the stable-boy with a card-table. Tea and wine and sweet cakes were laid out on this. Erasmus was making towards Sarah, who was for the moment alone, when he found Parker in his way. The curate’s face had the pale, ardent look it always wore when he was about to offer advice. He was dressed in his best clerical garb today, black si
lk stockings, a suit of black broadcloth and an immaculate white neckband. He had come from a baptism comthe vicar had been away from the parish for some weeks now and Parker had much to do.

  “I hope you won’t be put out by this, Kemp,” he said, “but I think—and I am not alone in this, in fact I have been delegated to speak to you—that you emerge from your cave in too soldierly a style, almost as if you were answering the call of the bugle rather than the voice of one whom, er, your soul cherishes.

  Try relaxing the shoulders.” Here, as if in illustration, Parker moved his own narrow shoulders up and down in a series of shrugs. “I know you will take this in good part,” he said. “To assist me with Caliban I am constantly practising the sinuous movements of the savage.”

  Erasmus hated advice of any kind as an unwarranted and impertinent comment on his activities. It was particularly displeasing just at present, as it had cost him his chance of a few moments alone with Sarah, who he saw had now seated herself on a bench and had Trinculo on one side of her and Hippolito on the other. “You may be right,” he said coldly. “Can I by the same token bring to your attention what is generally considered an imperfection in your portrayal of Caliban? I am referring to that part in the second Act when Trinculo plies you with wine and you take him for a god. It is not felt that you are totally convincing as a drunken monster. You do it more as if you were taking the Sacrament, if I may say so.”

  A flush had risen to Parker’s face. His excitable hair was glinting round his head like an aureole. “But you have totally failed to understand that scene,” he said. “Caliban is not drunk, he is exalted. He says it himself, it is celestial liquor that he is given to drink. It brings out all the poetry of his nature. His new master offers him freedom and enlargement, a new world is opened up before his eyes, all he has to do is lay down his burden and -“

  He was interrupted here by the tutor, Bulstrode, who always assumed he would receive immediate attention.

  “What do you think, Parker?”’ he said, advancing on them, glass of wine in hand, some remnants of cake in his mouth still not fully masticated. “As the speech stands it is quite out of character for Prospero, at least as I conceive him. As I conceive him, he cannot err, he is infallible. I am talking about the scene we have just done, where he sends Miranda to talk to Ferdinand. It is a most egregious blunder for Prospero to tell her to speak for Hippolito, as this only arouses Ferdinand’s jealousy and brings about the duel, the very thing that Prospero -“

  Erasmus saw Sarah get up from the bench and settle her skirts in a way that suggested she was not going to sit down again. Perhaps he could intercept her somehow, contrive a tete-a-tete, however brief.

  “I think we have difficulties enough, without starting to rewrite the play,” he said to Bulstrode. She was coming towards them with the apparent intention of joining her brother and Miss Edwards, who were standing together further along the lakeside. He excused himself and moved away, timing the manoeuvre so that he and Sarah came face to face as she was passing between the water and the edge of the trees.

  Both stopped. There was no one else within the space of several yards. Erasmus was awkwardly silent for some moments—he had not thought of what he would say. Absurdly, he found himself tempted to echo Ferdinand. “While I stand gazing thus…” But she did not, as Miranda did, sustain his gaze for long. “How did our scene go, do you think?”’ he said. “Any better?”’

  “Yes. I think it was better this time.”

  Erasmus hesitated. She was looking away from him still. Some grace bade him tell the truth.

  “It was no better,” he said. “And it is all my fault. I cannot act—I cannot stop thinking of Erasmus Kemp for long enough.”

  She had smiled at this. “And Mr Bulstrode, for example, does he not think about himself?”’

  “Aye, but he thinks of himself and his part together. I cannot think I could have the luck to be Ferdinand.”

  “Luck?”’

  “Yes. His Miranda loves him… She returns his love. He can speak to her when there is no one else nearby.” He paused again, confused by the rush of feeling his own words had brought. He said precipitately and almost violently. “That would be a welcome prison to me too, in the like case.”

  He saw her bring a pale hand up to her neck to touch the small locket there, in a gesture that seemed like one of self-protection or alarm. But her eyes rested on him steadily. “May I come to visit, to the house?”’ he said, and felt the blood leave his face with the question.

  As he whitened she had blushed. “My brothers,” she said, “will always -“

  “No, it is to see you.”

  She surprised him now with a smile in which there seemed genuine amusement. “To practise our scenes?”’

  “If you like.” He had little humour and certainly saw nothing at all humorous in the present situation. That she could do so, that she could have this difference of sensibility, came as a shadow on his sense of her perfection. Other girls he had known took their tone from the man. And he was to remember later how, even at such a moment, the play was uppermost in her mind. There was a firmness of self-possession about her which he felt fully now for the first time. She was fair-skinned and the motions of her blood betrayed her, but whatever agitation she felt was mastered quickly.

  Her face as she regarded him now had returned to its flawless and delicate composure, her blue eyes were fixed on him with a candidness he found difficult to match. She was seeing him, he felt suddenly; and something within him quivered at being seen.

  “Will you allow me?”’ he said.

  “I shall have to speak to my parents.” There was a quality in this almost childish, as if it concerned permission for some treat.

  “All, yes,” he said, “of course, speak to them.”

  He found he had some trouble in controlling his breathing.

  He did not know what her sentiments were, his own agitation obscured what indications she had given him. “Butyou? he said, and hesitated, and everything waited with him, the sky, the pale gleam of the lake, all the marks of the season around them, the candled domes of the chestnut trees, the meadowsweet along the edges of the wood, half choked in the long, flowering grass, all the musky secretions of May enfolded his question, endorsed with the promise of summer her continuing silence, which he read now as consent, or complaisance at least. He might have demanded more from her, but at this moment Charles Wolpert, who without his noticing had moved to a central position among them, began to make a speech.

  It was some time before Erasmus could collect himself sufficiently to take in the words, though he understood the matter was grave, as all matters touched on by Charles seemed to be. At twenty-one he had acquired already his father’s habit of weighty pauses. This natural solemnity made him effective in the role of Stephano, endowing the drunken mariner with a comic sort of ducal dignity.

  There was general dissatisfaction, he was saying now, at the way these rehearsals were progressing. It was felt—he had felt it himself—that there had been a loss of direction. Apart from anything else, there were too many conflicting opinions, he would not say squabbles, about the way things should be done. He had began to fear—and he was not alone in this—that at this rate they would never arrive at the point of an actual performance. He felt responsible for the business because it had been his and Sarah’s idea in the first place as an entertainment for their father on his sixtieth birthday, and they were acting as hosts to the rest. In view of all this he had taken it upon himself to invite an acquaintance of one of his London cousins to come up and spend a few days as his guest and give the company the benefit of his advice. He trusted this would meet with general assent. It was a bid to save the enterprise, which otherwise was in danger either of breaking down in disorder or petering out altogether.

  ‘He is a London man,” Charles said with utmost gravity. “He comes highly recommended.

  I understand from my cousin that he is a man of the theatre to his fingertips,
a playwright and critic. He is a man fully qualified to oversee our efforts and give us the benefit of his counsel. Naturally a man of that calibre has demands upon him, but he has made the time for us. He has said that he can come; I expect him within the week.”

  In short, they were to have a director.

  16.

  When the Liverpool Merchant was three days out and rounding to clear the island of Anglesey, the weather thickened and squalls began to build up from the south-east. Through the night they grew in strength and by mid-morning of the next day it was blowing so hard that the trysail and topsails and later the foresail had to be handled and the boats lashed to the scuppers. The ship plunged under mainsail alone in a high, irregular sea.

  These were dark hours for Paris. Feeling the disquiet of approaching seasickness, he took some powdered ginger-root as a preventive and afterwards went up for air. But the shriek of the wind in the rigging, the tilting deck, the unaccustomed difficulty of the footing and the rapid movements of the men as they worked to take in the topsails bewildered him. Despite the ginger, his anguish grew on him with dire speed.

  Clutching at the gunwale he vomited wildly to leeward in the dark and when the spasm was over went below. Here, on his narrow bunk, in the close confines of his cabin, he rolled and groaned with the shrieking ship, prey in the darkness to shuddering waves of nausea the like of which he had never known and which excluded all other sensations save a sort of feeble astonishment at his capacity for suffering. Long after all contents of the stomach had been voided, the miserable body kept up its writhing and retching until the thin bitter stuff he dribbled out seemed like the curds of his own rotted substance, the very taste of dissolution. Above him, at intervals that seemed as arbitrary as the bouts of sickness or the spurts of dreams that visited him from time to time, he heard the sound of the ship’s bells; and there were moments, either in his dream time or the real life of the ship, periods of lull, almost of silence, when he would hear a swift patter of rain on the deck, creaking of blocks, shouted orders and the hoarse, peculiar singing of the sailors at their ropes. Then all was swallowed in the loud impact of the heavy head sea on the ship’s bows and the rippling detonations of the sails as they filled out and backed. All-pervading, adding inexpressibly to his nausea, was the stench of the bilge-water shaken up in the depths of the hold below him like some excretion of the labouring ship. For a maiden, her breath was atrocious.