Music & Silence

by Rose Tremain

  She decides it may be the courage to go to her father and ask him if some position might be found for her—as nurse or as companion or gentlewoman—in some household. All the while she is saying this, she keeps her eyes lowered, so that she cannot see the person to whom she’s addressing her words, in case the hatred she has begun to feel comes into the room and lodges there, taking up all the available air and making it impossible to breathe.

  “Look at me,” says Johann.

  But she can’t. She will not. The knowledge that she despises her father is difficult to bear.

  “Look at me, Emilia.”

  She feels her face becoming hot and red. She holds on to the locket on its velvet ribbon. Show courage, Emilia.

  She raises her eyes and sees her father standing still and looking at her sadly. She tells herself that he is not a wicked man, that Magdalena has put a spell on him, that if it were not for Magdalena he would not be lewd and forgetful nor walk into the lake with his sex pointing to the far horizon.

  “Now,” he says kindly. “Tell me why it is that you wish me to find you such a position. I had always assumed you would stay here until you were married.”

  “I will never be married,” she says. “I will never love anybody. I don’t want to love anybody.”

  “Why do you say that?”

  “Because it’s true. I don’t want a husband. I don’t want anybody to touch me. I would like to take care of children or be a companion to a lonely person in some household far away, that is all.”

  A fine clock ticks in the room. Outside the window, snow is falling. is the sky made of I do not know.

  After a long moment of the ticking clock and the silent snowfall, and fragments of songs coming and going in Emilia’s mind, Johann says: “I do not wish to be unreasonable. We will endeavour to find the kind of position you have in mind for yourself and we will place you there, but only for a brief time, and after that I shall order you to return. And when you do we shall give thought to your marriage. You must be married, Emilia, and that is that.”

  Emilia wants to say: Marriage is the angry mouths of babies suckling; marriage is dying on a February morning with no one to save you; marriage is Magdalena and her skirts like blood and her spells that can never be broken . . .

  “I think that is a fair bargain,” says Johann.

  Emilia doesn’t reply. She knows there are always ways to forestall the future. Some part of her believes in a heavenly place where Karen can be found, patiently waiting for her to arrive.

  “Meanwhile,” says Johann, “you will kindly show more affection towards your stepmother. She is generous to you and good-hearted, and you are unnecessarily cold and distant. You will be kinder to her for my sake.”

  Emilia looks out at the snow. She thinks it is considerate of nature always to be moving and changing so that, when the mind is in pain, it is unfailingly provided with some kind of new entertainment.

  FROM COUNTESS O'FINGAL’S NOTEBOOK, LA DOLOROSA

  I must now mention my four children. At the time when our great tragedy began, the eldest, Mary (Maria), was nine, my two sons, Vincent (Vincenzo) and Luke (Luca), were eight and six, and my youngest babe, Juliet (Giulietta), was but four years old. Though I recognise that mothers very often seek to embellish the virtues of their children and even to endow them with gifts and attributes they do not really possess, I must ask any reader of this journal to believe me when I report that these children, brought up very kindly at Cloyne and with many learned, skilful and patient tutors and instructors employed to teach them philosophy and Latin, Italian and French, dancing, fencing, riding, poetry and embroidery, were growing into the most beguiling and beautiful souls that could be imagined.

  When, with Johnnie and me, they embarked upon any tour of the estates, all the men—whether shepherd or pig-man, charcoal burner, mussel gatherer or poultry man—and their wives and families swarmed out to our carriages with gifts for the children. They would gaze upon them with great delight, and stroke Giulietta’s hair and let her pick wild posies from their fields and gardens.

  This love of the people for his children gratified and moved their father very greatly and he would often say to me that he believed that if a child is loved rightly by its parents and never hurt nor tormented by them, then that child will invite love wheresoever it goes and so will be at ease with love all its days—just as a man may be at ease in clothes that are comfortable and warm—and never competing for affection that it does not need nor striving for the worship of the whole world.

  This opinion I shared and do share it still and, since the bad times came to us, I have tried to augment my love for Maria, Vincenzo, Luca and Giulietta in measure as Johnnie’s tender care of them has diminished, so that notwithstanding all that has happened these beautiful children may still, in their future lives, be at ease with love and never ailing nor spiteful for want of it. But this task is hard. They loved their father and they saw him slowly, in the space of four years, sicken in madness and despair—in which state he could not love any living thing but on the contrary cast about him all the while for some breathing creature to wound, so that others might suffer as he did and know what he felt.

  More times than I can bear to report it was upon the children that his anger turned, and he would scream at them and curse them and even raise his hand to strike them or snatch up some petty instrument of punishment such as a riding whip or a walking stick and attempt to beat them with this.

  Time and time again they came to me and asked, “Mama, what is happening to Papa? What have we done to enrage him so?” and I would try to explain that it was not with them that he had begun to despair, but with himself.

  If only he had not had that dream of sweet music . . .

  I have often thought that this can by no means have been an ordinary dream because the life span of an ordinary dream is shorter than an instant of time or, if it should linger a while, may do so only for a single day and at that day’s end will vanish with the dark. But the dream of Johnnie O’Fingal never left him. Yet if it was not an ordinary dream, then what was it?

  When more than a week of sleepless days and nights had passed, I made him lie down with me in my bed, and I held him in my arms and said to him: “Johnnie, you know that this striving for your lost music must cease. You are tormenting yourself to no purpose. Look how pale and wan you seem. Remark how our children move so quietly in the house for fear of you, as if you had become a ghost. Hear me when I tell you, you must put this dream from your mind. You must forget it, my dear. For it has left you and will never return.”

  He looked at me with his exhausted eyes. “You do not understand, Francesca,” he said. “If you had heard the song—the absolute rapture of it—then you would be with me, seeking day and night to recapture it. You must believe me that it was like no piece of music that I have ever in my life heard played. I know that the whole world would marvel at it, weep at it, feel it fill its whole being with joy just as it filled mine in the dream. And something as significant as that cannot be lost! Do not tell me that it is, for I refuse to believe it. I must be patient, that is all. We must all be patient, for I recognise that this search of mine has taken me away from you and the children, and from my duties on the lands. But I will soon return to you. The moment the song is rediscovered I will be my former self again and all will be mended and all will be well.”

  So adamant was his conviction that his reverie could in time become a concrete thing that I decided I should not chivvy and berate him, as I was sorely tempted to do, but stay silent and only try to care for him in his struggles, keep the children from him and undertake myself some of the tasks he should have been performing with regard to the buying of livestock and seed for springtime, the supervision of chimney stacks and roofs after the great gales and other matters needing his care.

  I also instructed the servants to move the virginals out of the hall (where Johnnie’s desperate playing could be heard all round the house) and into the libra
ry, where at least he could be alone with the door closed upon his terrible work. Privately to myself I pledged that I would let one month pass and then insist that Johnnie accompany me and the children to Bologna, where, in the altered environment of my father’s house, his maddening dream might gradually float away and cease to torment him.

  This month, marked only by vexation and unhappiness, was almost at an end and plans were already far advanced for our voyage to Bologna, when I was sitting by the fire one evening, reading aloud to Luca and Giulietta some of my favourite lines from Shakespeare’s sonnets.

  O never say that I was false of heart,

  Though absence seem’d my flame to qualify.

  As easy might I from myself depart

  As from my soul, which in thy breast doth lie . . .

  Suddenly Johnnie interrupted my recitation with the words: “Francesca, it is almost found!”

  I laid down my book. “Almost?” I inquired.

  “It is near! That’s what I mean. I feel it coming. It’s so near that I almost hear it ...”

  He then insisted that I and the children should go with him to the library. He made us sit in a line upon some chairs. Casting my eyes down our line, I saw that all the children, even my brave Vincenzo, looked dazed with fright.

  A little playing followed: some chords in the key of D major. Then Johnnie began, one by one and slowly, to repeat the chords and in between each chord to babble some almost meaningless words that I cannot remember precisely but which ran something like this: “. . . and then it goes and soars and returns, a trill, a tender one-note trill, and then the valley or what should I call it but a place of echoes returning the melody to this ...” and then another heavy chord and then more words: “and so it must be, must be in this key, the innermost echoing chamber, like the heart, like the human heart or like a crying on the hills or like this, this chord, like the sea . . .” and then another chord and another and so on, and then a sudden silence in which we all sat still and petrified upon our chairs, and Johnnie laid his head upon the virginals and seemed in an instant to fall asleep.

  I rose and ordered the children to go to bed. Together I and the servants carried Johnnie to our room and laid him down and covered him. I sent for the groom and told him to ride to Cloyne to fetch Doctor McLafferty and, while I waited for him to arrive, sat watching by my husband, who was indeed sleeping, yet in his sleep crying out still, as though his searching was continuing and giving his mind no respite.

  Doctor McLafferty, being told by the servants of Earl O’Fingal’s strange condition, had brought with him a potion made of cloves, honey and cinnabar, which he told me would “soothe the brain of its trouble,” and this he gently rubbed into the skin of Johnnie’s forehead, but even as he administered it I saw some red patches as of a psora appearing on the skin and ordered him to stop. “No, Lady O’Fingal,” he said, “begging Your Ladyship’s pardon, but these welts are the very proof of the efficacy of my ointment. These lovely welts are the Earl’s great anguish coming out of him, do you not see? Please have patience. Let his whole face be covered in lesions if need be; let them erupt and spew like volcanoes with foul matter and in a matter of days his mind will be as calm as a pond.” The doctor went away and I kept watch over Johnnie as he slept. To keep myself awake I read a little from the great tragedy of King Lear and prayed that the soothing sleep which, in this play, cures the old King of his madness would cure my poor husband of his. But he was not cured by any ointment of cinnabar. He was not cured by any tender sleep. On the instant of waking, he ran down to the library and began again on his demented search. “Recommence, recommence!” I heard him cry out.

  The children and I travelled to Bologna. Though I entreated him on my knees and with tears and sobbing to come with us, Johnnie had refused. Once again, he had told me that he was “near, so very near” to achieving his desire and had come to believe that, in the silence following our departure, in the lonely state our absence would produce, it would at last be found.

  I wrote many letters from Bologna, telling mostly of trivial things such as the purchase of fine Italian silk for some new dresses for the girls and the great delight my father took in spoiling his grandchildren, but received not one reply. Though sorely tempted to continue to reside with my father, where the children had returned to something like their former gaiety and sweetness, I knew that I had to go back to Cloyne. What I did not know was what I would find when I came there again.

  What I found was a terrible quiet.

  The virginals had been closed and locked with a padlock, and a tapestry cloth hid them from sight.

  Johnnie O’Fingal, his face still infected with the psora caused by the ointment of cinnabar, yet with a deathly pallor spreading to his temples and affecting every part of his emaciated body, sat in an armchair, holding himself perfectly still and unmoving.

  I ran to his side and put my arms round him and laid my cheek against his. “My dear,” I said, “tell me what has happened that you are so thin and silent. Did my letters arrive? Oh, tell me what has occurred at Cloyne in our absence.”

  Johnnie did not speak, nor did his arms hold me to him. The children stood by, watching us, and Giulietta began to chatter in Italian, telling her father of the great adventures she had had on the ship that brought us home, but he paid her no heed and did not seem to hear her. “Oh, my husband and lord,” I said again, feeling tears begin to start in my eyes, “it is your wife Francesca, and the children are here. See, they are by you. And we have missed you so. Will you not speak to us?”

  He stirred in the chair. I felt his arm come up and I thought it was to draw me nearer to him. But it was not to draw me nearer. His hand crept upwards to my neck and encircled it, and I felt his fingers start to dig into my flesh and all the breath in my body begin to be squeezed out of me. I cried out and the two boys ran to my side and they prised the hand away from my neck and wrenched me from their father’s grip. I stumbled and fell to my knees and the children clustered round me, terrified for their lives.

  Johnnie O’Fingal sat silent and unmoving in the chair. He did not look at us, but seemed to rest his gaze on some far-away scene of his own imagining.

  To recount these things is to make them live again. I see that my writing has become wild and very sloping on the page.

  I note something more. Today is Giulietta’s birthday. She is eight years old.

  THE BOY WHO COULD NOT WRITE HIS NAME

  They rose at dawn. They said prayers together in the lofty school hall as the windows slowly filled with light. King Christian still remembers that the old Koldinghus smelled of wood, as though one part of it were being sawn up to make planks with which to build another part. In summer, this wood smell became almost intolerably sweet. His friend Bror Brorson said one day: “To live at the Koldinghus is akin to living in a cask.”

  The boy Christian’s travels with his parents King Frederik and Queen Sofie were over; the days of his drawings of Nils the cat and the golden fish in the lily pond at Frederiksborg were over; his nocturnal conversations with the boy trumpeters were over. He had known for some time that the day would come when these things would all be over and he would reside at the Koldinghus school, under the eye of his corrector Hans Mikkelson. But he did not like it. He told Bror Brorson: “The past is already filling up too quickly.”

  His companions, like Bror Brorson, were the sons of the nobility. Only high-born children were sent to the Koldinghus school. They were taught Latin, German, French, Italian, English, theology, physics, history and geography in the mornings. During lunch they debated in Latin and in one other foreign tongue. In the afternoons they fenced and rode and played ball games. They spent the evenings at prayer and they had no leisure. The days were too long and the nights too short. It was not unusual for a boy to fall asleep in the middle of an English lesson.

  The time of day Christian preferred to any other was that moment when the activities of the afternoon were over and the boys would return to th
eir dormitories to change their clothes before supper. It was not that he liked the dormitory or enjoyed changing his clothes before the unappetising supper that awaited him; what he savoured was the extraordinary feeling of physical strength—of mastery of himself—that he experienced in the wake of the fencing and outdoor games. It did not last more than half an hour, but while it was there it gave him profound satisfaction. And he decided, after some weeks at the Koldinghus, to put it to some use. For how often does a boy feel himself to be master of all that he sees and feels? To be a boy is to be very often most strangely amazed at the conjunction of every thing with every other thing or, to put it plainly, in a state of puzzlement with the world. But here, in the too slow progression of days, were moments when this future King felt at one with his role on earth, when he felt that he could be King or that he was already King within himself.

  And so he contrived what he termed his “half-hour of absolute majesty.”

  He would take up a finely sharpened quill and a piece of vellum and, knowing his hand to be in perfect control of every stroke or loop of the pen and feeling the energy within him travel through him and emerge in its altered condition onto the parchment, he would write his name time after time in calligraphy of exceptional sophistication and beauty:

  His Majesty, King Christian IV of Denmark

  His Majesty, King Christian IV of Denmark

  His Majesty, King Christian IV of Denmark

  He would then embellish these repetitions of his name and title with renderings of the Latin motto he had already chosen for his future reign: Regna Firmat Pietas (Through Piety the Kingdom is Strengthened).

  Regna Firmat Pietas

  REGNA FIRMT PIETAS

  As the bell sounded to call him to supper, he would sign the page with a hasty but still perfect CIV or sometimes C4 with the “4” resting inside the capital “C,” like a child kneeling on the lap of its parent. He chose to see his own marvellous writing as a calligraphic expression of his innermost being and there was nothing flawed in it. There was no shoddiness about it. It was fine and complete.