by Rose Tremain
"I have no choice," she said, "I must hope or die. For to no other thing on earth do I give any value whatsoever. There if no other thing for me but this."
"Then with all my heart I shall pray that King Charles will send for you. But meanwhile – "
"Meanwhile, Merivel, accept my gratitude for this lodging. I shall spend much of my days alone, but I trust the times when we meet may be as cordial as this."
"Amen," I said.
"Merely, Merivel, do not expect me to be merry."
"I shall not."
"And I would ask you, now that Sophia and I are comfortable in the Rose Room, to let this be my private habitation. Never, if you will, come near it."
"Naturally, I would not…"
"Then we shall endure," she said, "until a better time arrives."
She stood up to leave then. Emboldened by her honesty and courtesy, I asked her whether she would sup with me that evening. She hesitated only momentarily before replying that she would.
So overjoyed by this was I, that I descended at once to the kitchen. To Cattlebury's creative hands, I consigned a menu of eel tart, pigeon breasts stewed with madeira and Spanish plums, roasted quail with a salad of fennel, followed by egg pudding and boiled apples. Farthingale, I commanded, was to be served her supper upstairs.
She came flying down to Bidnold in her coach and the snorting and whinnying of her horses was to be heard far and wide. She entered my house in all her most magnificent finery with her head held high and proud, my Lady Bathurst with a great anger and lust upon her!
She demanded to see me. She was told I was at supper with my wife. She pushed past the servants and swept into the Dining Room, where Celia and I were at work upon the eel tart. She stared at us. She wore on her head a most admirable velvet cap, from which protruded upright two pheasant tails, a most peculiar but arresting fashion. I gazed at her.
She did not have to speak for me to understand the crime of which I stood accused. Since the arrival of Pearce, I had not once been to visit her or sent word to her. By now, the news that my wife had come would have reached her and she would have wrongly supposed this to be the cause of my neglect.
I must now tell you that Violet Bathurst's language, learnt I suspect from Bathurst and the hunting field, can turn at times most deliciously vulgar and I saw, even as Violet opened her mouth, that this would be one such time. Anxious that Celia be spared accusations that would distress her, I stood up, bowed and apologised to my wife, caught Violet by her angry wrist and pulled her peremptorily from the room.
Letting her fury rain down upon my head, I led her quickly to my Withdrawing Room, where I slammed my door behind us, took the wild struggling creature in my arms and kissed her with considerable force. Her body was hot and trembling and her rage seemed to have perfumed her skin with a scent so magnificently irresistible that in a matter of moments I had torn the pheasant tails from her head, lain her down upon the carpet from Chengchow, unbuttoned my breeches and entered her with more passion and haste than I had felt for any woman since my lost afternoons of Rosie Pierpoint. With each push of my loins, Violet swore at me, thus further exciting both herself and me, so that shrieking and foul-mouthing each other, we arrived together at our little moment of ecstasy and clung to each other, swooning and gasping as it passed.
We stood up at last. Violet had ceased her shrieking. I kissed her shoulder, swearing on the life of my sweet mother that I was not, nor would ever be, in the habit of touching my wife and promised to visit her the following evening and spend the night in her bed. At which time, I told her, I would explain my absence, which had been caused only by a visit from my friend Pearce, with whom I had had such grave discourse that all thoughts of pleasure had been dislodged from my mind.
I fastened the pheasant tail hat to her lovely head. She placed a very tender kiss on my flat nose and obediently left. I waited until I heard her coach clatter off into the night, and then returned to the Dining Room. The eel tart had been removed and the pigeons served. Celia sat upright and still, sipping her wine.
"I must apologise," I said, "for the unforeseeable interruption. Pray do begin upon your pigeons."
"Thank you," said Celia. "Your cook, at least, is exceedingly good. Tell me, Merivel, do you have mistresses?"
"Naturally," I replied, "I am a man of my time."
"And is that woman one of them?"
"She is. Her name is Lady Bathurst."
"And do you love her?"
"Ah," I said, "that word that finds itself so frequently upon our lips!"
"Well?"
"No, Celia. I do not love her. Now pray tell me how you find Cattlebury's madeira sauce?"
Celia replied that it was excellent. My unexpected exertions with Violet had given me a ravening hunger and I set upon several pigeons with somewhat unseemly attack. I was wiping my mouth in preparation for the quail when I heard the unmistakable sound of a horse cantering swiftly up the drive. Moments later, just as the quail were being put before us, the Dining Room door was flung open once more and Will Gates came rushing in.
"A letter, Sir!" he said excitedly. "Come this very moment from London."
"Very well, Will. There's no need for such haste. Give it to me."
He put the letter into my hands. He looked at it and I looked at it. We both knew, by the unmistakable seal upon it, that what had arrived on this extraordinary night was a letter from the King.
It is in my possession still, this letter.
This is what it says:
Merivel,
To our dear Fool, we send greetings.
Pray be good enough to visit us in our Physic Garden at eight o'clock before noon tomorrow, Friday December the tenth in this the fourth year of our Reign, 1664.
This command comes from Your Only Sovereign and Loyal Servant of God,
Charles Rex
I rode through the night, taking Danseuse as far as Newmarket, changing horses there and again at Royston. Will Gates begged me to let him accompany me, fearful, I believe, that in my passion to reach London I would go flying into a ditch, there to die unmourned. But I refused. "The stars," I said, (succumbing, I know not why, to a fleeting attack of Pearceian romanticism), "will be my companions, and the very darkness itself!"
I had anticipated and indeed so it proved, that my spirit on this journey would be hurtling ahead of my body, causing me to shout at it in order to rein it in. It did not worry me if some poor cottar woke under his low eave to hear me singing or shrieking in the December night, but I preferred to undertake this noisy adventure alone, leaving Will to keep an eye on Farthingale lest, in my absence, she got intolerably above herself and began setting fire to my paintings, baiting my bird, playing my oboe, or I know not what.
As I set off, Celia was weeping. No doubt it pained her, nay, frightened her beyond measure that it was to me and not to her that the summons had come. She would, she said piteously, send some message with me, some plea, but knew not how to shape the words. And I could not linger for an instant, not even to finish my supper or powder my wig. "If I do not throw myself into the saddle at once," I told Celia, "I shall not reach London by morning, and you know as well as I that if I am not there at the hour appointed, His Majesty will not wait for me. As sternly as he commands loyalty from his subjects does he command punctuality. A betrayal of time he regards as a betrayal of faith. The first object that he ever showed me, Celia, was a clock."
And so I galloped away. Into my pockets I had thrust four or five quail to sustain me through the twelve hours of travel and at the moment of my departure, Will came running with a flask of Alicante, which I strapped to my saddle. "Farewell!" I shouted, but did not look behind. The road ahead mesmerised my being.
I entered London at seven o'clock. Over the river, unglimpsed by me for so long, rose the sluggish sun and mist streamed up off the water. I heard the swearing of the bargemen and the shouting of the lightermen, the cry of gulls and the ruffle of pigeons, and though my thighs ached and my
rump was sore, I knew that my spirit was still strong.
See me, then, arrive at last at Whitehall. I have stopped at an inn to relieve myself and to drink some water, suffering suddenly from a terrible thirst. I have had the serving girl brush my breeches and wash my boots. I have shaken the dust from my wig and soaped my face and hands. I feel extraordinarily hot as I enter the Physic Garden, I wonder if I am about to vaporise and disappear, leaving behind nothing more than a greasy puddle. Once again, as on that first most terrible visit, I feel that the near presence of the King has altered the air. "Lord God," I say, sending out one of my little bleeps of prayer, "help me to breathe."
I walk on between the neat hedges of box, smelling those herbs that outlast the winter, bay, rosemary, sage, lemon balm, thyme, and there, in the very middle of the garden, setting his watch by the sundial, I see him, the man who, if a hole were made in my breast such as the one I saw at Cambridge, I would beg to reach in and take hold of my heart.
I approach and remove my hat. I go down on my knees. I am choked and unable to speak. To my shame, I feel my eyes fill with tears. "Sir…" I manage to whisper.
"Ah. Merivel. Is it you?"
I raise my head. I do not want the King to see that I am crying, yet I know that in this instant he will see far more than this, that in my face he will be able to discern, with terrible precision, the degree of suffering which his neglect of me has caused.
"It is me. It is I, in fact, Sire…" I stammer.
He walks elegantly to where I'm kneeling, the harsh cinders of the path seeming to make wounds on my skin. He reaches out and touches my chin with his glove.
"And how is your game of tennis coming along?" he asks.
I feel, to my intense agony, a fat tear slide down my chin and moisten his glove.
"It would be coming along well, Sir, I'm sure," I say stupidly, "except that I do not have a tennis court at Bidnold."
"No tennis court? That is why you are getting fat, then, Merivel."
"No doubt it is. That and a greed of which I do not seem able to rid myself…"
It is at this moment that I realise that the pocket of my coat is terribly stained by the remnants of the quail, which I have forgotten to remove. I cover the pocket quickly with the plumes of my hat. The King laughs. To my intense delight. I feel his hand leave my chin and his long fingers travel upwards over my mouth, take hold of my flat nose and give it a vigorous tweak.
"Get up then," he says, "and come with us, Merivel. There is much to discuss."
He leads me, not to his State Rooms, but to his laboratory which, during my time at Whitehall, was a place that fascinated me and in which the King's restless mind was forever at work on new experiments, the most engrossing of which was the fixing of mercury. The smell in the place reminded me of the smell of Fabricius's own room at Padua where, on his night table, he was fond of dissecting lizards. It had about it something of the smell of the sewer or the tomb and yet my brain was invariably excited by it. I suppose that, before I turned away from anatomy, I recognised it was the odour that accompanied discovery.
As we enter the laboratory, the King casts off his coat and throws it down. His chemist is not at work yet so we are alone in the room. I gather up his coat and hold it in my arms while he strides along the tables looking and probing and sniffing. So engrossed does he seem for a moment with the experiments in progress, that I wonder if he has forgotten me. But after a few moments he stops and picks up a phial of ruby-coloured liquid and holds it to the light.
"Regard this," he says. "A purgative recently patented by me."
"Excellent, Your Majesty," I say.
"Excellent it is. But it is no mere tedious physic, Merivel. It has a property I did not foresee and which is both informative and amusing. We call it the King's Drops. Presently, I shall put some into a sip of wine for you. And we shall see what follows."
I say nothing. The King perches on a stool very near me and stares up into my face.
"Time has altered you, Merivel," he says. "Some vital part of you appears to be asleep."
I do not know what to say to this either.
"I see this same look in very many of my people, as if they merely prefer to be and no longer to think. Put down my coat, Merivel."
I lay the heavy brocaded coat aside, catching a fleeting whiff of the sweet perfume with which even the King's gloves and handkerchiefs are scented.
"Mercifully for England – perhaps mercifully for you, my dear Fool – something has arrived on our shores which may rouse us all from sleep."
"What may that be, Sir?"
"Plague, Merivel. Pestilence. At Deptford four people have died. And it will spread. Some of us will be spared and some will die. But all of us will awake."
"I heard no rumour of plague, Sir."
"No. But then you are at Bidnold. You are asleep in Norfolk. You are dreaming, Merivel!"
I am about to reply that indeed I have been dreaming of former times and wishing them with me again, when the King takes from his pocket a lace handkerchief and proceeds, with some tenderness, to wipe the moisture from my boiling face.
"Now," he says, having cleaned me up, "we must speak about Mistress Clemence, your wife. For this reason I have summoned you, Merivel. From my knowledge of your character – and I hope I am not mistaken in this – I believe you to be, like your father before you, a man who clearly understands and accepts the station to which chance and favour, no less than his own deserving, have brought him and does not diminish himself by lusting after what he cannot have. Much has been given to you, Merivel, has it not?"
"Yes, Your Majesty."
"And you do not, even indolent as I fear you have become, drive your brain to despair by wishing for more, n'est-ce pas?"
"No…"
"Or do you? Is it a Dukedom you want of me now?"
"No, no. On my honour."
"Good. Look at that toad, by the way, the thing in the bell jar. Will you help me to dissect it later?"
I look to where the King is pointing and I see an awesomely large bull toad, stiffened and bloated by death.
"If you wish me to, Sir," I say.
"Yes, I wish you to. Now, listen well, Robert. When I married Celia to you, it was to hide her, so to speak, from the very intelligent gaze of Lady Castlemaine, the better to find her again myself and sport with her unobserved."
"This I know, my Liege."
"Very well. You may imagine then my dismay, my fury nay, when I hear from the lips of your wife the command to end my liaison with Castlemaine, likewise to terminate my amours with certain actresses from the Playhouse, and keep her as my only woman, outside the bed of my good Queen. Naturally, I did not answer her one single word, for no subject on earth may command me thus. I merely gave instructions that she was to vacate her house at Kew and all her possessions save her dresses and jewellery and ride at once to you, where she must remain until the folly of her importunate conduct burns shame into her skull!"
The King gets up off his stool and begins once again to walk up and down, poking and prying at his chemical compounds. I see his cheek twitching, a tick of nature caused only and always by anger. I remain silent, only nodding. After a moment or two, the King picks up a large pestle and, using this for emphasis, continues thus:
"Yet, alas, Merivel, I miss her! Though I would whip the silly girl the grosser part of me is uncommonly sensible to her absence. What a plight! My reason tells me to abandon her for ever, but this, the Royal tool, is waving about in search of her. And life is brief, Merivel. We should go to pleasure, as to all things, with energy and will, a gift you once had even to excess, if I recall."
"And still would, Sir, if my mind – "
"Then go to this one task with a will for me. Impress upon Celia the folly of her demands. Remind her of my fondness for order and rank and my loathing for those who get above themselves. Teach her to be content with what she has, for what she has is much, and bid her never to hope for more. Tell her then to come to m
e in humility and she may have it all again, her house, her servants, her money and the King in her bed from time to time."
Disliking my role as messenger, I am about to say to the King that I have had very little in the way of conversation with Celia and fear that her dislike of me may hamper my attempts to pass on his wisdom, when the King grabs my hand and declares: "Enough of that. I leave it in your hands. Now come, Merivel, I shall now pour you a cup of wine and, into the wine, we shall put one or two of my Drops!"
His anger has vanished as swiftly as it came on. He chuckles as he pours and measures. I watch his hands, then his smile, which is so beloved to me. I have a sudden belief that whatever is in this cordial, the King intends me no harm.
I drink down the draught. The King is amused and delighted and slaps his thigh.
"Good!" he says. "Now we shall start work upon the toad."
It would be vain to remind King Charles, I decide, that very many months have passed since I held a scalpel or a cannula in my hands and that, by an act of will, I have consigned my dissecting skills to oblivion. I sense also, that he is eager to anatomise the toad himself, demonstrating to me the deftness of his long fingers, the neatness and care of his work. So I say nothing, as the toad is taken out of the bell jar and laid upon the tray and His Majesty rolls up his sleeves. I merely watch and, as I do so, I find myself unaccountably invaded by an intense happiness, such as I have not known since the far-off days of Rosie Pierpoint, of tennis lessons, of games of Rummy, of the gift of dinner napkins.
The King cuts, flays and pins the whitish skin of the toad's belly.
"The gut," he says as he makes his first incision in the flesh, "has a jewelled sheen to it, as we shall see…"
Careful as he is, the intestines spill out, so that their precise arrangement is lost to us. Across time, the voice of Fabricius snarls in my ear, "Do not tangle with the bowel, Merivel! You are not a Laocoon!"
"Ah!" says the King. "See the colour?"
I am staring at the toad's intestines and I am aware that the soft coils have a silvery patina. But I am a little distracted, for the word "colour" has reminded me suddenly of my attempts at painting and the frenzy of mind that seems to accompany them, and without really intending to, I begin to tell the King of my desire to paint, to capture the essence of people and nature, "before they dissolve or change, you see, Sir, for everything on earth, or so it seems to me, is in a state of perpetual motion, even inanimate objects, for the light upon them changes, or the eye with which we beheld them yesterday is today re-shaping what it sees…"