And la belle Stuart, is she yet well? For I have a huge fancy to her, said little Llewelyn, rolling his eyes like a lovesick chicken (how did he come to be so soused so early in the day?).
I advise you to button up your fancy in your breeches if you don’t wish to end in the Tower, for that maid of honour – now there’s irony for you – is now Mistress in Chief and lies in her chamber in wait for him every night. Her chamber being below the Queen’s, any noble who wishes to know where the King is must ask the sentries ‘Is the King above or below?’ meaning with the Queen or Mrs Stuart, but sometimes he dallies with La Stuart upstairs in the Queen’s dressing-room, so that the Queen must stop and knock before she goes in, lest she surprise her husband bare-breeched with his mistress. I knew La Stuart’s father, that was physician to the old Queen, a smooth man but not well versed in women’s complaints and used to ask me for receipts for the flux.
Mr Pierce, there are ladies present. I beg you to take a glass of wine and turn to more fitting topics.
The royal surgeon refilled his glass and paused with a pleasant smile upon his face, as one will pause for the noise of a carriage passing in the street outside.
But little Peter Llewelyn came to our rescue: We came to play cards, did we not, and I perceive Mrs Pepys has a pretty walnut ombre table with three sides that is à la mode (I was astonished that he could perceive so much in his state of intoxication). Who will play?
I fear I have no time for such diversions, said his host, but we have a matter to discuss, don’t we, Mr Llewellyn?
A matter? Llewelyn once more seemed incapable, quite dazed by all he had drunk since coming to Mr Pepys’s, not to speak of all he had drunk before.
A matter of business.
Business?
Don’t parrot me, sir. You know what I mean – and here Sam made a gesture as of counting money, then passing it to another.
Oh, you mean the fifty pounds, why didn’t you say so?
Hush, hush, we needn’t spell out such matters in company.
We’re all friends here, are we not? Mr Pierce is a friend, Jem here is a friend, an old friend, he lodged in my lodgings, did you know that, I mean his old lodgings, well they were my old lodgings too, my old, old lodgings, so he is an old, old friend.
Now then, Peter, let us retire.
Let us retire to bed, that is what old friends are for, to . . .
No, not to bed, come next door and we can despatch our business without troubling the rest of the company.
We will despatch and you will play cards; one two three, knave, queen, king, no knave, queen, knave . . . for I see two knaves but no . . .
Come on, come on – and Pepys pushed him into the next room.
After they had gone, Mr Pierce fell silent, for he was one of those men who chatters like a jay when he is drinking and becomes taciturn when he is drunk. Now he dealt out the cards as solemnly as if he were dealing out prayer-books in church.
Three-two-three. There is your hand. I trust the deck had been well shuffled, for I forgot to do it myself. And we haven’t fixed the colour, therefore it must be clubs.
I am content with clubs, I said, for all suits were the same to me, so long as I could look into Elizabeth’s eyes.
Jeremiah, I may call you so, may I not, for I’m too drunk to stand on ceremony, Jeremiah, you mustn’t peep at Mrs Pepys’s hand, peep at Pepys, ha, that’s good, but it’s strange you don’t pronounce it Peppis, the syllable would lend it dignity.
I was not peeping at her hand, but only at Mrs Pepys herself who must draw all eyes. This peeping is but natural, and I shall not apologise for it.
No more you should, a cat may look at a king and a . . . but here his speech dribbled into silence, for he was sorting his hand.
I’m the eldest hand and I ask, I said, for I sat on the surgeon’s left.
Is it in colour? Mrs Pepys inquired.
Yes, I said.
Is it a solo? she inquired.
I’d rather it were a duo, I said.
You must not say so, the surgeon said. You must say either Yes or Pass.
Mrs Pepys knows what I mean, I said, for she was blushing.
I know what you mean too, the surgeon said, but we are playing at cards, not the other thing. I shall dub that a pass, and I am passing too and Mrs Pepys is to play solo in clubs.
Being eldest hand, I led my ace of hearts, with the king to follow, but my ace was trumped by Mrs Pepys’s seven of clubs. She turned to diamonds and her little white hand played off the cards so fast that I put on the king of hearts when I intended the king of diamonds and put out my hand to take the trick.
Diamonds, sir, I played a diamond. Mrs Pepys spoke in a severe manner I had not heard from her before.
I pulled out my errant king, but she thrust it back into my hand.
You have revoked, Jem, you must pay all.
I made another attempt with my queen of clubs.
No, no, Jem, the game is over. A revoke finishes it.
Women are the devil at cards, are they not? Their fingers are so nimble. Seamstresses are the worst, never play cards with a seamstress. You must pay my loss too, I believe, the surgeon said, leaning back in his chair with a silly drunken smile on his face.
That is all we women are good for, I dare say, Mr Pierce, sewing and cards. Is that your mind?
Madam, I could add other purposes to the list, but modesty forbids.
I was speaking of intellectuals. I expect you think women have no place there.
On the contrary, madam, women are an adornment to the arts; I love to hear a woman sing.
Oh I love to sing, she said, but my husband says I sing out of tune. Music is the thing that he loves most in the world and he can play any instrument, you know, the lute, the viol, the spinet, the flageolet, and all by ear, for he does not know the scale of music. In the garden sometimes in summer he lets me sing while he plays, and the girl sings too and she has a pretty voice, although she is not taught.
While she spoke of music, her cheeks took on the flush of the Damask rose and my heart was filled with rage and envy at Mr Pepys. How dare he reproach his wife’s singing? Her speaking voice was so sweet and low I was sure her singing voice must be just as fine. What would I have given to be of those summer night parties? With those dulcet voices chiming with Mr Pepys’s lute and rising above the smoke of the City? And I drew in my mind the comparison with my own dark chamber in Whitehall, waiting to serve either at table or at bed a capricious mistress who was old enough to be Mrs Pepys’s mother. How little I had made of my life, how the years had flown away.
When I was at sea, Mr Pierce was saying, I sang with several of the Court, sea songs for the greater part and some of Dowland’s airs. You know this one?
And Mr Pierce began to sing, very low and with a sweet, baritone voice:
Sleep is a reconciling,
A rest that peace begets.
Doth not the sun rise smiling
When fair at even he sets.
It’s a sort of lullaby, the surgeon said, and better fitted to a tenor, my voice is too far down the gamut.
It is very fine, I said, and in truth the tears were almost starting to my eyes I was so full of pity for my dismal lot.
But at that moment Mr Pepys came in with little Peter and he had a contented look upon his face as though to say the business is done while you are idling by the fire.
You have been at cards, I perceive, he said in a triumphal fashion as though he had discovered their presence by some necromancy.
We were playing at ombre, my dear, his wife said.
I thought I heard singing.
There was a little singing. Mr Pierce sang an air.
Cards and singing. What a pleasant afternoon for some. Well, I must away to the office. The Navy waits for no man. But please stay and entertain my wife. She is so fond of cards. I wish I had the time to learn.
You remember Mrs Mountagu tried to teach you gleek, my dear, and you could not get the
rules of it.
Yes, yes, it is a fiddling sort of game. Well, I must take my leave of you, Master Pierce.
He scarcely spoke a word to me but nodded and left the room.
We can’t play ombre now there are four of us.
O I’m too tired for cards, little Peter said.
So am I, the surgeon said. We’ll talk and Jem shall play with Mrs Pepys.
Which pleased me greatly and proved that the wine had not addled his senses.
Let us play piquet, my beloved said, it is the best of all games for two.
And while she dealt the deck, she kept the tip of her little pink tongue between her white teeth as children do when they are studying.
There now, you are the major hand because I have dealt.
As I put out my hand to take up my cards, she was still putting them in a neat heap, and so my hand rested upon hers and I kept it there. But she took her hand from under mine with a hasty motion.
You must not, she said.
Must not what?
You know.
Friends may touch hands, may they not?
Only touch, she said.
They say that touch is the sweetest of the senses.
Do they? Why?
I could not answer at once because the maxim had only just come into my head. My first thought was to pretend some grand theory, but then it occurred to me that honesty might be the better policy, that she might be won by a show of humility and candour.
I don’t know.
Do you often say things you don’t know the reason for? she inquired with a smile.
Very often, but that is because I don’t know a great deal.
My husband never says that he doesn’t know the reason for what he has said.
That is doubtless because he knows so much.
Yes, she said musingly, he does know a great deal though not so much as he fancies. He thinks I am very ignorant.
There he is grievously in error.
No, he is in the right. I have not been well schooled, my parents were too poor, and when my father lost his place it was no time to think of such things. I would love to know Spanish and mathematics. I know a little French from my father, but that is all.
Couldn’t your husband teach you?
He is so busy, and then he thinks I am so slow that he cannot bear to repeat the lesson when I make a mistake.
If only there were something I might have the honour to teach you, I should be very patient.
O there is, I am sure there is – and in her excitement she took my hand and squeezed it, but gently so.
I will teach you history, I said.
Oh would you? I should love to know the history of France and of those religionary wars which have cost my family so dear.
This was a stiff examination, for I knew little more of the history of France than of the history of China, although I could have given a fair account of myself on the Wars of the Roses.
I will see what I can do, I said.
She looked at me with her green eyes and I saw gratitude in them and felt humble that I had inspired such feelings in so noble a nature.
At that moment of moments, a loud snore came to our ears and we saw that Peter Llewelyn had fallen asleep in the surgeon’s lap. Mr Pierce was not quite sleeping, his eyes being but half-closed and his lips emitting a low musical hum, though I could not catch the tune.
Oh, said Mrs Pepys with a start, I must go to my parents. I am reminded because my father hums thus when he is tired. But what shall I –
I will pack them off, I said.
You are a gentle man, she said.
But it is dark, Elizabeth, I may call you so, may I not? May I escort you to Covent Garden?
I mustn’t trespass upon your kindness, Jem.
So I shook the two old soakers awake and they came to their senses with so many belches, groans and farts that I was glad Mrs Pepys had gone to her room for her hat.
Jem, you are a good fellow, Mr Pierce yawned, what time is it? I must wait upon His Grace, his piles are as big as apricots and he wants to have them cut, but I tell him to let nature heal them.
Peter Llewelyn said nothing, being too far gone, but scratched the chicken fluff on his scalp as though it were the lice that had intoxicated him and he would be sober again if he were rid of them.
I shuffled them off somehow and stepped out with Mrs Pepys in her neat beaver in search of a hackney. The coachman said the fare would be 5s.
You’re an extortioner, I said. One of your fellows took me to Whitehall for half a crown.
It is Christmas, sir, you must pay the holiday charge.
It was Christmas four days ago.
The holiday charge runs between Christmas and Epiphany, he said.
Oh can we not get in? Elizabeth said. It’s a wet night.
And because I did not wish to seem parsimonious I compounded with the fellow for 4s and we got into the hackney which smelled of leather and pickled onions.
But how blessed was that darkness with the rain coming down hard upon the roof and the rough motion of the hackney upon the cobbles, for the conveyance had old straps for springs. It was an antique hackney that had no glass windows but to me it was as glorious as Phaethon’s chariot, for I felt her thigh next to my thigh and her heart beating close to mine.
We might be tossing about at sea in a storm, I said.
I would love to go to sea, she said. I wanted to go with my husband when he was bringing the King in but there was no room. I dream of sailing with my father back to his home in Anjou and seeing him restored to his estates there.
Estates? I said, diverted from amorous thoughts by this unexpected intelligence.
Yes, oh they had such a fine estate there, and my father was the heir, but he went to fight in the German wars and was converted to the Religion and so lost his inheritance. A cruel world, isn’t it, to lose your birthright for your faith?
Very fine, I said, thinking: very foolish.
We were in Paris when I was little, my brother Balthazar and my mother and I, and they tried to make us into Catholics, but she said we must stay loyal to Papa – that’s what we call my father. Was that not right?
Entirely right, I said.
Otherwise Balty might have had the property at my father’s expense. But now we are proud to be Protestants even if we are doomed to a life of poverty.
I was so moved by her brave speech that I pressed her hand in a fatherly fashion and eschewed the grosser overtures for which the darkness and the bumping of the hackney were so convenient. Afterwards I cursed myself for this delicacy, but one cannot always overcome one’s nobler impulses.
In all too short a time (the journey was never five shillings’ worth) we came to a dismal, dripping, filthy street where the houses served as the cheaper sort of lodging, not old but so badly built they were already tumbling.
She led me up the stairs and as I saw her dainty feet in white stockings tread the dusty boards, I was put in mind of the low houses where I had followed other women up the stairs for shameful purposes.
Her father heard her step upon the stairs and came out to meet us. He was a tall man of choleric aspect with a mane of white hair like a mangy lion. And he had the roar of it too, for we were scarcely in the mean chamber before he was telling his entire curriculum vitae: viz., how he had been a gentleman-carver to the old Queen, how the said Queen had praised his work which might yet be seen in the Great Saloon at Hampton Court, to wit a garland of fruit and partridges that the nobility now mistook for Mr Gibbons’s work, though Gibbons had not yet the finesse of the French carvers such as he had learnt from, and how now he purposed to fight in the Turkish wars for, though he might seem old, an old soldier knew tricks and could outlast the young blades, but before he went he was seeking to arrange a conference with Prince Rupert who might assist him to a patent for his Machine which he was loath to manufacture without, for there were pirates everywhere.
And to all this I listened with a nod and a smi
le, and out of the corner of my eye I perceived Elizabeth nodding and smiling that I was so attentive. And soon there were two nodders of the company, for Mrs St Michel came in to join us and began nodding and smiling too. She was very like her daughter, but brown and withered, an old russet beside a fresh Kentish apple.
Some people think I’m French also because I am so brown, she said as though she could read my thoughts, but my father, Sir Francis Kingsmill, was from Devonshire and my mother was of the line of Clifford of Chudleigh who, as you may know, are foremost among the families of Devon, so I am as much of that country as was Sir Francis Drake. Will you take coffee?
She placed a coffee pot and China-ware cups amid the clutter that was on the table, and although the pot was dirty I could see that it was of silver which much surprised me, for it was not then the custom to take coffee at home, coffee beans costing 1s a pound and upwards, even the worst. Nor had I yet drunk coffee from a fine cup. Thus I perceived that although their situation was decayed their manners continued elegant.
We had better rooms, she said, in Charing Cross. But they were too dear.
Mr Pepys will not visit us here, said her husband, it would discredit him to be seen in our neighbourhood.
O Alexander, you must not reproach him. He is very busy and the Navy Office is some way distant. He is good to us notwithstanding. Last week Elizabeth brought us five shillings from him, though we had not asked it. And she brought up neat’s tongue and brain as well.
We are grateful, very grateful, the father said, so grateful that we return him the compliment of not visiting his house, for he breathes more freely in our absence.
O Papa, he thinks often of you both.
Only when you speak to him of us, my dear. He has many other matters to concern him at the Office and at the Court. He has a hundred ships to think of, you cannot expect that he should think of your mother and me.
Jem (and Sam) Page 15