by Rose Tremain
Chapter Ten. Finn in a Periwig
That same night, I had a dream of some consequence: I was standing on the leads of my house and staring at the winter stars, not through my telescope, which was nowhere to be seen, but with my own inadequate eyes. After some hours of astral contemplation (or so it seemed in the dream) I felt a most terrible hurt in my eyes and a wetness on my face, as of tears. With my coatsleeve, I brushed the tears away, but on glancing at my sleeve saw a red stain upon it and knew that my eyes were bleeding. I was about to descend, to put some sad bandage upon my face, when I saw the King, seated some distance from me upon a low chimney stack and regarding me most gravely.
"Though you bleed, Merivel," he said, "you have not understood the First Rule of the Cosmos."
I was about to enquire of him what this "first rule" might be when I woke and found that my cheeks were wet. Mercifully, they were wet with tears and not with blood, but I was nevertheless most vexed to discover myself blubbing in my sleep and lay for some time in a great perplexity, wondering whence the dream had come and what it signified. For whom, or for what was I crying? For the Indian Nightingale? For the Poor, whose sufferings were now to become visible to my mind? For my own ignorance? For my failure to intuit what the First Rule of the Cosmos might be?
I rose and washed my face, shivering somewhat but aware of a drip-dripping outside my window, suggesting to me that the snows were melting. I then returned to my bed and resumed my thinking.
Near morning, I had decided that, setting aside my hopeless lamentation for my days as the King's Fool, the thing which was causing me most hurt was my failure to play any role in Celia's music-making save that of listener. I longed – feverishly, I now saw – to be her accompanist, her consort, and yet so ashamed was I of the sounds I made upon my oboe that I had almost ceased my practice, lest Celia should hear me at it. How, then, was I to achieve the thing I hoped for? In my mind, I related my problem to the King and waited patiently for his response. I believe I dozed a little on this instant, for I saw very clearly the King take up from his lap a glove made by my late father and put it on, thus concealing several priceless diamond and emerald rings on his fingers. "Voilá!" he said. "You must learn in secret."
How this was to be done I was not able to tell and in the day that then dawned I was not at liberty to ponder, for no sooner had I finished my solitary breakfast than Will Gates informed me that Finn had arrived and awaited me in my Studio.
I had not sent for him. Since Celia's arrival, my new vocation as a painter had not been pursued as vigorously as before. My struggles with my oboe had all but replaced my experiments with colour and light. As I made my way to my Studio, however, it came into my mind that I would like to attempt a painting of my imaginary Russians in their snowbound wastes. Bits of snow still lay upon the park, so I should begin immediately upon the landscape (mostly white with a heavy sky of slate grey) and come later to a rendition of the people, using as my models Cattlebury and Will Gates, dressed in the fur tabards I still awaited from London. Thus, Finn's arrival was most timely. He would help me to plan the picture, showing me how the figures might be grouped and where, in the uniform white, to suggest light and shadow. To any pretentious request of his for a background of broken statuary I would peremptorily retort: There is no broken statuary in my vision of Russia; the frost has made it all crumble to shards.
I opened the Studio door. The light in the room seemed more than ever northerly and cold, but Finn within it was dressed not in his outlaw's ragged green but in a garb of lustrous crimsons and golds, with handsome buckled boots on his feet and – strangest of all, so that I scarcely recognised the face beneath it – a blond periwig on his head.
"My dear Finn!" I exclaimed.
The artist smiled and I noticed that a blush crept to his cheeks, which still appeared somewhat gaunt and underfed.
"Good morning to you, Sir Robert," he said. "Your eye has discerned an alteration in my appearance, I see."
"There is not an eye in Norfolk could fail to discern it, Finn," I replied. "And from it I deduce some measure of prosperity."
"Well," said Finn, "I have not yet got the place at Court on which my heart is set, but I believe I am almost there, for I have been given a commission by the King."
"Ah. So you have had an audience with His Majesty at last?"
"Yes. It was brief, I confess, but nevertheless an audience."
"Bravo, Finn!"
"After many days and nights of haunting the corridors of Whitehall and being advised at last that I should put on new clothes if I hoped to be summoned in to the presence."
"Hence this most excellent attire?"
"Yes. And it cost me all the money I had in the world, save the coach fare from London to Norfolk. So you see before you a Pauper. I have nothing in the world, Sir Robert, not one penny."
"I see. So you have come to resume your role as tutor, or am I to commit you to the workhouse?"
Finn, not knowing of my discourse with Justice Hogg, was of course unable to understand my little jest and thus did not smile, but continued with gravitas.
"One painting," he said, "one portrait lies between me and a position at Court."
"Ah," I said, "and what painting may that be?"
For answer, Finn put one of his thin hands into a braided pocket and took out a scrap of parchment much creased and thumbed, like a love letter kept day and night about a man's person. He handed it to me and bid me read. I saw at once the King's elegant hand, and this is what was written:
This paper sets forth and commands to be executed by one, Elias Finn, painter, the following commission: a noble and beautiful portrait of Celia Clemence, Lady Merivel, of Bidnold Manor in the County of Norfolk. This portrait to be delivered, complete and finished in every detail, no later than the twelfth day of February 1665. This portrait not to exceed twenty-five inches carrés, that it may comfortably be hung in our closet. This portrait, if found to be well-executed and pretty, to earn for the artist the sum of seven livres. This portrait, if found to be most excellent and true to nature, to earn for the artist promise of a small place at Court.
Signed, Charles R.
I looked up at Finn, who now had an insufferable grin upon his face. I handed him his paper, feeling myself invaded as I did so by a most unruly anger. Gone instantly was my little excitement for my painting of Russians. Now, I would be forced – in order not to displease the King – to give food and lodging to this impoverished artist while he spent hours in Celia's company, embellishing her with silly fans and draperies and daubing in some puffing cherub above her head, receiving for his pains both Celia's admiration and a position at Whitehall, while I struggled on alone with my oboe, exiled still from Court and possessing no power to make my wife regard me with anything but disdain, save only in moments of distress such as the night of my bird's unfortunate demise. Any sympathy I had once felt for Finn had now departed from me utterly. I both despised and envied him and knew only too well what a burden his presence in my house was going to be to me. It is fortunate, however, that at such moments of sudden anger (infrequent in my nature) I seem not to be without some cleverness and cunning. Adeptly concealing my rage, I shook my head gravely and said:
"Alas, Finn, you must not depend upon this for your future."
"Why so?" said Finn, staring anxiously at his paper.
"Why? Because such commissions are numerous. I wager the King puts out no less than two or three per diem. And already portraits of my wife have been done, but none have been paid for and the poor artists are, as far as I know, still wandering the land like the Idle Poor or decaying in their rags on the steps to the King's barge."
I was earnestly hoping that these words would cast Finn into the Nordic gloom that fits his features so well but, much to my irritation, he smiled condescendingly at me.
"This one will be paid for," he said, "because I will make a portrait too beautiful to be resisted. I have heard your wife is a pretty woman and I will improve,
even, on what nature has created."
"By surrounding her with flowers and harps and foolish garlands, I suppose? But these will not improve your chances."
"No. Not by embellishment, but by succeeding at what you attempted, Sir Robert, and failed to achieve: the capturing of her essence. I will capture it and the face will be a magnet, drawing all eyes and hearts towards it."
"I wish you luck," I said acidly. "But let me warn you: much of what the King commences he does not finish. The clamour about him is so noisy, so colossal, he cannot for long remain attentive to any one thing. So beware, Finn. You may arrive with your picture and he will not even set eyes upon it."
"But I have my paper…"
"Paper! Do you not know the First Rule of the Cosmos, Finn?"
"What 'First Rule'?"
"That all matter is born of fire and will one day again be consumed by it."
Having delivered myself of this piece of questionable wisdom and before Finn could deny its relevance to the piece of parchment in his hands, I quickly changed the subject.
"Concerning your lodging here," I said, "I suppose the King gave you money for this?"
"No, Sir Robert. As I told you, I have not one farthing…"
"I am to feed you and house you as a favour?"
"As a favour to His Majesty."
"For which I shall be rewarded how?"
"He did not say. But I am a person of modest appetite…"
"Not so, judging from your clothes."
"That is mere outward show…"
"As much as life proves to be. But God sees into your heart, Finn, and would He wish you to be a parasite?"
"I am no parasite. I work hard for the meagre living I make."
"And will do so here. In return for your board, you will concentrate such talent as you have upon my work. I wish to begin some new pictures. You will help me with questions of perspective and light."
"But what of the portrait?"
"My wife is most busy with her music and her attempts to comprehend the work of Dryden. She will not spare you more than an hour a day."
Finn began to protest and, seeing his dismay, I felt my anger abate somewhat. To Meg, when I next saw her, I would tell the story of a poor mendicant who is given a little plot of ground and sees an end to his poverty if he can but till the earth and sew some seed before the beginning of spring. He goes begging for tools – for a plough and a mule and a hoe. He returns with these, but he is too late. He did not see the spring come and yet, when he gets back, it is already there. He had forgotten with what stealth change occurs and time passes.
I found myself in the attic room at the Jovial Rushcutters sooner than I had intended: I lay there that very night.
The day of Finn's arrival passed most disagreeably and I was in such a lather of fury by suppertime that all I could think of was escaping from the house, so I shouted for my horse to be saddled and rode through the slush to the village. On my way, I chanced upon two poor people collecting sticks, of which I shall write more presently.
What so vexed me was Celia's treatment of Finn. Hearing from his thin lips that the King had commissioned him to paint her portrait, her eyes grew bright with joy. She summoned Farthingale and told her the merry tiding (the two of them reading into it excessive hopes for their imminent return to Kew) and they then began to fawn upon the artist, requesting to see his work and professing to find it most marvellous and brilliant and I know not what, and then bringing forth dresses and sashes and headdresses for him to choose from for the picture, the while utterly ignoring me and behaving as if I was of no account in the matter, which, alas, is true.
I observed Celia closely. Her beautiful smile, which I had seen so often given to the King, but scarcely ever to me, was almost constantly upon her lips, thus rendering her most infinitely pretty and sweet. Hers is the kind of sweetness which, once glimpsed, makes my heart tender – as if towards a child – and my manhood cruel – wanting to possess and abuse that very same childlike thing. I saw that Finn was utterly captivated by her. I saw also that Celia knew him to be captivated and did not mind, indeed allowed herself to flirt a little with him. And this last observation created in me a bitter yearning. Why – when she was my wife – could she not behave so charmingly to me?
I sat and watched her until I could endure it no longer, then went to the Music Room and played some foul blasts upon my oboe and kicked over my music stand, then threw the instrument down and went calling for my groom. On my way to the stables, I met Cattlebury who informed me that he had come by two dozen thrushes for supper. I told him curtly that I was not hungry but that he should serve up the wretched birds in a pie "for my wife and her new friend, Mr Finn". By the time they sat down to table (Celia's smile rendered all the more irresistible by the soft candlelight, no doubt) I had already consumed several flagons of ale and was conversing with a roofing man upon the abundance of rats to be found in thatch. "What if they are plague rats?" I asked. "Then death will come by the roof." And the old man nodded. "Widow Cartwright says the plague will come to Norfolk. Round and about springtime."
I went to Meg's bed very late and categorically drunk, after pissing in her fireplace and dousing what small warmth there was in the garrett. Once I held her in my arms, I went to sleep instantly, with my ugly head on her breasts.
When I woke, burdened as I knew I would be with an aching head and the smell of my own foul breath, I found myself alone, it being one of Meg's duties to rise early and sweep the floor of the tavern and air the place before the arrival of the first peasant for his cup of small beer. Ill as I knew myself to be, I rose immediately and went to the low window and looked out for, to my great chagrin, I now remembered that Danseuse had not been stabled the previous night and had spent it tied to a post under the cold stars. In what condition of cold and suffering I would find her, I did not know.
I could see almost nothing from the small window, except that a beastly drizzle was falling, dense like a mist. It is on such inhospitable mornings that the memory of midsummer causes my brain sudden suffering. My Merivel ancestors, haberdashers of Poitou, never endured an English winter. It is their blood, undoubtedly, that has made mine so susceptible to weather.
Meg found me kneeling at the window, and apparently thought I was at prayer, for she said, with a peevish coldness: "Prayer will not save you, Sir Robert."
"I am not praying, Meg," I said, "but scanning the environs in search of my horse."
"Your horse is in the stables," she said curtly, set down a pot of coffee and a dish of apple fritters on a table, and went out, each one of her words and gestures conveying intense displeasure. I remained kneeling, like a penitent. My life is a very muddled occurrence, I remarked to myself.
Finding no forgiveness or yielding in Meg that morning, I had no choice but to set off for home, a little restored by the coffee and fritters and mighty glad that my horse had not perished by my neglect, but my spirits at one with the weather. The thought of returning to be met by Finn in his ludicrous wig was so distasteful to me that I considered riding directly to Bathurst Hall, but found that the memory of Violet's party and the jokes about my ignominious role as cuckold still pained me. Furthermore, I felt no desire whatsoever for Violet, her demeanour and her coarse language now striking me as intolerably vulgar. I could do little, therefore, but return home, planning as I rode to soothe my body with soap and hot water and then to persuade Celia to sing for me alone, contriving some laborious task (such as the stretching of canvases) for Finn and banishing Farthingale to her room.
It was at this moment that I found myself at the place where I had seen the poor people grovelling for kindling. I reined in Danseuse and sat looking about me. There was no stirring anywhere, only the silent rain and the dripping of the trees.
I dismounted and tied the mare to a spindly ash. On the right of the lane was a small wood, to the left common land where the cottars of Bidnold grazed their sheep and goats. I had some vague notion of searching for the two
Paupers, not with the intention of asking anything from them or indeed endeavouring to place them with one of Justice Hogg's three categories, but merely of regarding them face to face and seeing what state of misery or despair I could determine in them. In the near darkness, one of them holding a small lantern on a pole, they had struck me as people in terrible need, their faces cadaverous, their eyes fearful. In their masses, I beheld, unmoved, such poor folk in London, yet the sight of these two, a man and his wife in rags, had troubled me sufficiently to send me wandering into the wood in search of the hovel in which I supposed them to live.
I found nothing. Indeed the air in the wood was so still, it was difficult to imagine it disturbed by any living breath. After tearing my stockings on some briars, I abandoned my search and returned to my horse. As I re-mounted, I told myself that, were I in a condition of wretchedness, I would not seek out the Overseers in their wigs and wanton finery, but rather be at pains to conceal myself from them by whatever means I could devise.
At Bidnold, just as I feared, I found Finn at work upon the infernal portrait.
Celia, in a dress of cream-coloured satin, had been seated upon an ottoman (removed without my permission from the Withdrawing Room and placed near the Studio window). She held a lute in her lap and by her side sat her trembling Spaniel, Isabelle.
"Finn," I said, "you have positioned my wife in a draught. See how the dog is shivering."
To my delight, the artist looked momentarily dismayed, but Celia, without moving one half inch from her pose, informed me brusquely that she was not in the least cold.
"Ah," I said, "but you will surely catch an ague if you sit long there. I suggest we adjourn to the Music Room, where a fire has been lit."
"What time is it?" said Celia.
"I beg your pardon?"