Merivel A Man of His Time (2 page)

I wanted to remark that, in recent years, the Sight of Will causes me
nothing but trouble
, but I did not. For to say anything wounding to Will appears to be quite beyond my powers. And when I think of what I should rightly do, which is to dismiss him from my service, I feel in my heart a terrible Ache. For the truth is that I feel for Will a most profound affection, as though he might be a sort of Father to me, a Father who, in his goodness, has chosen to overlook my many imperfections and to see me as an Honourable Man.

What am I do, then?

If I take from Will his seniority in the Servants’ Hierarchy at Bidnold Manor and assign to him lighter duties, such as those a mere Footman might easily perform, I know that he will feel the pain of this demotion through to his heart’s core. He will deduce that I no longer value him. The sweetness of his nature will turn sour towards those who would now be above him in rank.

If I call him to me and tell him that I wish him to Take his Ease henceforth and do no more work, but live in honourable Retirement
here
in my house, with all his pecuniary needs accommodated by me, it is possible that – such being the intensity of the bodily pain he suffers – he might fall at my feet and bless me and shed tears of gratitude and tell me that no kinder being than I, Sir Robert Merivel, lives and breathes in the world.

But though I admit I do like to imagine this scene, with my poor old Servant prostrate at my feet as though I were the King Himself, with all his inestimable power, I do also foresee, alas, great perturbation coming from another source, namely the rest of my Household, including Cattlebury, who is not far behind Will in age and Mental Confusion, and who has alarmed me with his occasional bouts of violent, seditious Agitation, during which he is fond of blaspheming against the Monarch and the Stuart dynasty and all their works.

Indeed, I dread that I might find myself the butt of a jealous Mutiny, upbraided for my unfairness and for my lack of consideration towards Cattlebury, but also towards the housemaids, footmen, washerwomen, woodcutters, grooms, and kitchen maids et cetera et cetera. And then I see in my mind a terrible Cavalcade of all my servants (without whose presence this household would soon enough fall into chaos) disappearing down the drive, and I left alone but for Will, to whom, in time, I would become a Nurse … thus performing a neat but vexing turn upon the Wheel of Fortune.

Better, say I to myself, to harden my heart and let Will perform his solitary Exit, with the destination ‘Workhouse’ writ upon his retreating back. But a Trap closes even upon this notion. For I have seen the Workhouses. Indeed I have. Not only are they cold and inhospitable places, and full of vermin and noise and stench, they must also, by law, live up to their name and so demand of their inhabitants that they
work
. Thus we return by a dread circle to the one thing of which Will Gates is well-nigh incapable: labour.

I ask again, what am I to do?

I cannot put Will out, to beg in the lanes and fields of Norfolk. He has no Family anywhere (nor ever has had, as far as I can ascertain) to take him in.

And so I conclude that – as with very many vexing things in this
life
– the only course is to
do nothing
, in the vain hope that the Question of Will may somehow be resolved by Nature.

But no sooner has it entered my head that Will might soon
die
, than a feeling of the utmost Panic seizes upon me and I ask for Will to be sent to me in the Library straight away, so that I may verify that he is
not dead yet
.

Some time lapses between my command and Will’s arrival at my door. As it lengthens – by virtue of the Slowness with which Will moves – I find myself drawn again to the sight of the Book lying on my escritoire and remembering that within its pages are numerous accounts of Will’s kindnesses to me, as when I was commanded to ride in haste to London for an Audience with the King, without my supper, and Will thrust two Roasted Quail into the pocket of my riding coat and tied a flask of Alicante to the saddle of my mare, Danseuse, without which repast I might have fallen down in a faint when at last summoned into The Presence.

It has been, indeed, as though, for almost twenty years, Will’s mind had kept a vigil upon mine, anticipating its many vacancies and shortcomings, and attempting to remedy these before I had become aware of them. And this realisation moves me to sudden tears, so that when at last Will enters the Library, he finds me blubbing by the fire. Though his sight is poor, he can tell at once that I am crying and says: ‘Oh, not again, Sir Robert! Upon my soul, I think you will wear out all your handkerchiefs before the year is gone.’

‘Luckily,’ I say, ‘it is November, Will. So there is not much more of the year in which to wear them out.’

‘True, Sir,’ he says, ‘but I do not know, and nor does any of us here at Bidnold know why you must always be weeping.’

‘No,’ say I, blowing my nose on a silk foulard once given to me by my former Amour, Lady Bathurst, and now worn to a gossamer thinness. ‘I do not know either. Now, Will, I have sent for you to ask you about this Book. It is the same Book, written by me in the years 1664 to 1667, which I gave into your possession when this House was restored to me in 1668. Was it then that you placed it under my mattress?’

Will’s eyes go wandering about the space before him, as though it might be some dark cave where no light entered. His gaze falls at last upon the package containing the Book.

‘1668?’ he says. ‘That was long ago, Sir Robert.’

‘I know it was. It was fifteen years ago to be precise. Was it then that you laid the parcel under my mattress?’

‘Must have been, Sir.’

‘But you cannot be certain?’

‘Of what thing in the world can a man be certain, Sir Robert?’

‘Well. There is such a thing as Memory. Do you have any recollection of placing this object in my bed?’

‘Yes, Sir.’

‘You do?’

‘Yes. I took it and laid it under your mattress, where you would not see it.’

I leave the fireside and begin to pace about the room, stuffing away my foulard and, in a general way, trying to assert in my person some semblance of Dignity and mastery of the moment. Then I turn and stare accusingly at Will.

‘Do you mean to say, therefore,’ I say, ‘that my mattress has not been turned in
sixteen years
?’

Will does not move, but stands by the escritoire, holding fast to its edge, as though he might be about to fall. At length he says: ‘It is not my job to turn mattresses, Sir Robert.’

‘I know. But all the same, Will. Sixteen years! Do you not think that you, as head of the staff at Bidnold, should take some responsibility? Could not fleas and bedbugs have clustered there and done me harm?’

‘Done you harm?’

‘Yes.’

‘I would never do you harm, Sir Robert.’

‘I know, Will. All I am asking—’

‘But there is another thing.’

‘Yes?’

‘A person does not always see a thing when it is there.’

‘What d’you mean?’

‘I mean … this Book of yours, it is so faded and snowed with dust and time, it might have looked – to the chambermaid – as a mere Wedge, to hold fast the corners of the bedstead.’

A Wedge to hold fast the corners of the bedstead
.

I will freely admit, this last utterance of Will’s does make me smile. My smile turns quickly to laughter, at which Will looks mightily relieved. I suppose it is not very agreeable to work for a Master who is so frequently overcome by Melancholy and childish tears, and I know that I must devise some way to become more buoyant in my existence. For the moment, however, I am at a loss to know how to go about this task.

I send Will away. I once again open the Book (which I shall henceforth refer to as
The Wedge
) and begin to read.

I read so long that the November Darkness begins to fall. No servant appears in the Library to light a lamp, so that the room becomes very blue with shadows.

And one darker shadow creeps out of the Story and seems to stand in silence beside me. I fancy I can smell the fustian of his clothes and see his white hands folded round an object I know to be a blue-and-white china soup ladle. His name is John Pearce.

2

I CANNOT THINK
about John Pearce without a feeling, almost, of Suffocation coming into me. For this reason I endeavour not to think about him at all. But I am not always successful.

He was once my friend and fellow student of medicine at Cambridge. All his life he held to the Quaker religion, about which I used to tease him very frequently, hoping to engrave on the sombre map of his features the small indentation of a Smile, or even to hear his laughter, which was a singular croaking sound, like the mutterings of a bullfrog.

Though Pearce showed me much kindness, I know now that the Person I am, with all my uncontainable appetites, my mockery of the World and my failure to overcome my abiding Melancholy, was never truly loved by him.

When he visited me here at Bidnold, he looked about him at all my scarlet and gold Furnishings, at my gilded mirrors, my tapestries and marble statuettes and collections of pewter, and told me that Luxury was ‘snuffing out my Vital Flame’. And when – after his being struck down with fever – Will and I kept Vigil at Pearce’s bedside for thirty-seven hours, he gave neither of us any thanks whatsoever.

It was to Pearce that I went, however, when the King saw fit to cast me out of the Paradise into which he had put me.

I strove to be of use in the Quaker Bedlam at Whittlesea where Pearce and his Friends offered care to some of those who had collapsed into madness beneath the burden of the world. But the follies I committed there were very great and, as if in sorrow at all
that
I was capable of by way of Debauchery and Stupidity, Pearce’s frail body brewed up a very violent Consumption, from which he died.

We laid branches of pear blossom in his coffin. Into his hands I placed the blue-and-white china soup ladle, to which he had been passionately attached, for it was the only Thing he possessed from his Mother. The dark Fenland earth was heaped upon him.

From time to time I return to Pearce’s grave. When she was nine or ten years old, I took my beloved daughter, Margaret, with me, so that I might present her to the Quaker Friends who had been so kind to me. (She is and always was a very beautiful child, with soft white skin and an abundance of fiery curls, and a dimpled smile of great sweetness.) I am immoderately proud of her.

When we came to the causeway known as Earls Bride, leading to the place where the Bedlam Hospital once stood, I saw at once that the buildings were deserted and the land about them overgrown, and that not one soul remained there. As we dismounted from the coach, a freezing wind howled round about us. I took Margaret’s hand and led her forward into the first of the Houses, where, still, some straw sleeping pallets lay, and I saw her eyes very wide with wonder and confusion, and she said to me: ‘Oh, Papa, where are all the people? Are they drowned?’

‘Margaret,’ said I, ‘I do not know. But it seems certain that they are gone.’

And then I found myself in a Quandary. I had planned to leave Margaret in the care of the Quaker Keepers for a little moment, in order to walk out and stand beside Pearce’s grave. I did not wish her to look upon his sad mound, (for so far Death had not made any imprint upon her innocent mind) and yet, having made this long journey, I was reluctant to drive away without standing for a moment under the sky, to commune with my dead friend.

Margaret and I stumbled together about the place, where weeds grew tall and rank, and I showed her the gnarled and twisted oak tree in the courtyard, where once I played my oboe and my young friend Daniel played his fiddle and we – the Keepers and the mad people
all
together – danced a Tarantella – but I did not tell her that her Mother was one among the mad.

‘What is a Tarantella?’ said Margaret.

‘Oh,’ said I, ‘it is a wild whirling jig, like this …’ And I held her, two hands and began to prance about with her and she hopped and skipped with joy, and her laughter was like a cluster of bells, shaken under the vast, vaulting sky. And then I lifted her up and carried her to the coach and said to her: ‘Rest here a moment, while I make one last tour of the houses, to be certain no one has been left behind, and I shall be back in a trice.’

I had brought with us a bag of dried currants and I gave her a handful of these, and she began to eat them obediently as I told the Coachman to wait for me, and I strode away towards the place where Pearce lies.

The grave, marked by a plain wooden cross (for that everything, with the Quakers, has to be Plain) was very choked with Elder and rough Briars, and I could not help myself from trying to get these away. And so, tearing the skin of my hands in my haste, I heard in my mind Pearce’s disdain for what I was doing, saying to me: ‘Merivel, tell me what purpose your actions serve. For, in all truth, I see none.’

‘No,’ I said. ‘None at all. Except that these things Offend me.’ And then I burst out with a cry, saying: ‘Where has everybody gone, Pearce? Tell me where they have gone!’

But of course there was no answer from beneath the neglected mound. I cleared all the weeds away and bound my hand with a handkerchief, and touched the black clay with my fingers.

‘John Pearce,’ I said, ‘you are with me always.’

Margaret has now reached the age of seventeen. She has lived here with me at Bidnold all her life and I have striven to be both Father and Mother to her, and, to my joy and relief, I observe – without any boasting or paternal Blindness – that she is a most beautiful, chaste and affectionate young girl, with a trusting nature not unlike my own, but miraculously devoid of her father’s Silliness.

She loves me, I know, as much as any father could ask of a child, but as she has grown up, she has become more and more fond of
spending
time in the House of my near Neighbour in Norfolk, Sir James Prideaux, Baronet, who is a man most venerated and learned in the Law and who presides at the Sessions House in Norwich three times a week.