Merivel A Man of His Time (33 page)

While understanding that the road leading to my Treatise (which I tentatively entitled
Meditations Upon the Animal Soul by Sir R. Merivel
) would be very long, I permitted myself to scribble down some first Notes upon it, and this feeling of a true Beginning gladdened my heart so intensely that I could not refrain from taking up my pen again and writing to Margaret, to tell her how precious to me her
advice
had proved and that I was now embarked on a new field of study, ‘which does indeed quiet my mind and has shaken me from all Melancholy’.

I did not tell my daughter that my other ‘field of study’ was teaching myself how to be a very marvellous Lover to Louise. But these
études
did indeed occupy much of each and every night, and she, being a woman of independent spirit, did not hesitate to instruct me and place parts of my body exactly where she wished them to be, and liked to keep up an erotic commentary upon our every Exertion.

These nights, while bringing me repeated sexual satisfaction, exhausted me somewhat, but Louise appeared to thrive. What I detected in her, as the autumn passed, was a blazing out of good health, despite so much loss of sleep, so that she appeared to look younger than when I had first met her at Versailles.

We did not speak of love. I did not feel able to pronounce the word. Yet I knew that this was what Louise longed to hear from me – that I loved her. And it is true that, in some measure, I
did
love her. But what I loved more was that new Sense of Myself, as a man of seriousness embarking upon a Great Work. For I saw that, for the first time in my life, I was attempting something that would find favour with the two men I had striven so long to please: Pearce and the King.

I pictured Pearce reading my
Meditations
, holding the Treatise close to his face, hour after hour, then laying it down at last and saying: ‘Admirably far-reaching, Merivel. You have given me much to reflect upon. For once you have concentrated upon a subject
worthy of your time
.’

And as for King Charles, I saw him bursting out into affectionate laughter and slapping his thigh and saying: ‘Animal souls! What a marvellous idea. Upon my word, my dear Fool, I see from this masterful Work that you have joined the ranks of the Wise and must be elected Fellow of the Royal Society forthwith! Let us have a jug of Mead.’

These imaginary scenes brought me unimaginable joy.

*

If the afternoons were fine, Louise and I would walk down through the winding paths of the estate to the Lake, and watch the sailboats skimming over it, and the waterbirds wading at its edge or bobbing in the water. And this panorama of the Lake, with the soft hills behind it sloping to a rim of firs, and neat houses of wood dotted here and there, with blue plumes of smoke issuing from their chimneys, soon became as pleasing to me as any landscape I had beheld, so graceful was it in its quietness and calm.

Only once, when Louise and I were alone there, on an afternoon that had started fine but had now shadowed to grey, was this calm disturbed.

We were standing, hand in hand, near the water’s edge, and a large boat came towards us and tied up at the nearby jetty. From the boat emerged a group of Soldiers – more than eight or ten of them, all in their uniforms and buckling on their swords as they disembarked. I had no idea which Regiment they belonged to, but the dark blue of their coats put me in mind of the Swiss Guards.

At any moment, thought I, Colonel Jacques-Adolphe will appear among them, and he will come storming to me and attempt to gouge out my eyes with a Billiard spoon, and all will be at an end.

The soldiers went past us and no tall Giraffe came into view. But I had begun to shiver in the sudden afternoon chill and I said to Louise: ‘We are living as though your husband is dead and will not come to take you back to Paris. But he will come one day.’

Louise was quiet. She touched my cheek, which no doubt had gone pale. ‘For as long as his infatuation with Petrov endures, he will not come.’

‘And when that is over?’

‘He believes that it will never be over.’

‘Will he not come at Christmastide?’

‘No. That season is inimical to him. He cannot abide to imagine any nativity.’

In the evenings, after an always excellent dinner cooked by one of the Baron’s two chefs (both neat-mannered men, unlike my poor Cattlebury), we would often repair to the
grand salon
and listen to Louise performing for us on the Harpsichord.

She played very finely and could sing well. And, listening to her voice, I could not but be put in mind of those evenings at Bidnold, long ago, when Celia sang for me and the delusion that I was in love with her stole so catastrophically upon me.

And I asked myself, between the sound of one woman’s voice and another’s, sixteen years later, what had I truly achieved in the world? And all that I could answer was that
I had persevered
. This perseverance had brought me here, to a fine château in Switzerland and to the bed of a clever woman. And this seemed to me to be fortune enough.

Louise not only played the Harpsichord, she also composed music. Her arrowy spirit flew straight to the mathematical heart of composition, without appearing to encounter difficulty. Her musical notations were deft and flowing. What melodies she heard in her mind, she could quickly underscore with moving harmonies. Certain bass Chords of hers – in their brilliance and surprise – brought even the most inattentive listeners back into the fold of Wonder.

Some of these listeners were men and women with far more musical knowledge than I possessed. The Baron liked to entertain at a Friday evening soirée, and so it was that I came to meet some of the Society of Neuchâtel, which included in their number Artists and Singers.

To this last category of people I found myself irresistibly drawn. Their great Largeness, whether of chest or bosom, together with the echoey timbre of their voices I experienced as a strange, sexual provocation. That the men, no less than the women, were in the habit of embracing each other created in me a longing to be so embraced. And a Swiss Baritone, by the name of Marc-André Broussel, as though reading my mind, did, at our second encounter, hold me against his massive girth for a full ten seconds, then pressed a sensual kiss on my lips.

This singer spoke five languages and knew London, and had sung for the Duke of York. Upon learning that I was a Confidant of the King, he wished to hear every detail of my life. And, liking his attention and the musky scent of him, I recounted to him the story of how the King had rewarded me with lands and titles in return for becoming a Professional Cuckold, and how I had broken my pact with him. ‘Alas,’ I told Broussel, ‘I did the one thing forbidden to
me.
I attempted to make love to my wife. And so I was cast into the wilderness.’

‘What wilderness? Where?’ said Broussel, clutching at my sleeve.

‘Well,’ I said, ‘only the Quakers, in England, believe themselves to live beyond the Great Shadow cast by Whitehall. So I went to them, to work in a Quaker Bedlam with my only friend in the world, John Pearce. But John Pearce was a dying man …’

‘
Mon dieu, mon dieu, mon cher homme
,’ said Broussel, encircling me in his arms, ‘how I love this story! Ah, I would like to compose an opera around it. Will you not write it down for me? I am always searching for stories and finding none as good as this.’

So susceptible am I to the kind of flattery that puts me at the
centre
of a thing, and so seduced was I by this Marc-André Broussel, with his Largeness and his wild black hair and his scent of cloves and rose oil, that I heard myself agree, with alacrity, to do this.

He then cried out, for all to hear: ‘Listen every one of you! Sir Robert Merivel is going to write down a story for me – his own story! – and I am going to write an opera about him. I shall
play him
! I shall embody him in music!’

The company’s attention was greatly attracted by this and, soon enough, all pressed me to tell ‘my story’. But I quickly saw that it was one thing to tell it in confidence to the great Singer and quite another to relate it to the Baron’s assembled guests. There is, I know, some pathos in the tale, yet it also risks to make me appear lecherous and foolish, and although I have never been averse to ridicule, I did not want to court it here – not least because I did not want to embarrass Louise.

Seeing me hesitate, Broussel stood up and with a dramatic flourish of his arm said: ‘I shall tell it, if Sir Robert will not. It is the story of a man who is given Paradise. Paradise, you see – like Adam. But again, like Adam, he breaks the one rule that he must not break. And so loses again all that had been so recently granted to him. But as to detail, you will have to wait until I have written my opera!’

There was a great Outcry at this and somebody called out: ‘How does the story end?’

At which Louise said quickly: ‘We do not know. None of us knows how our stories are to end.’

Work upon my
Meditations
proceeded slowly. I had at last opened Fabricius’s
De brutorum loquela
and found there a very tender passage about mother hens and the hatching of their chicks, which, if my Latin translation was accurate, indicated to me the Master’s acknowledgement that
love
might be present in the hearts of birds, as indeed I had presumed from watching the Sparrow on the lawn, mourning the loss of its mate. I copied out Fabricius, thus:

The chick in the egg, needing air, by its chirping notifies the Mother that it is time to break the shell, its own beak being too soft for the purpose
.

‘
There is, however, sufficient Space and Air to permit the chick to chirp loud enough to be heard, as both Pliny and Aristotle bear witness. The chirping may have a pleading sound and to her (the Mother Hen), hearing it and understanding the need, or if you will, eager to behold her chick and most dear child, pecks open the shell
.

If a chicken can feel Maternal Love, as imputed to it by Fabricius, then surely he is admitting the possibility that the bird has a soul. People who appear incapable of love we call ‘heartless’ or ‘soul-less’. We say that we feel love in our hearts, but it is not the organ we are talking about (which, as Pearce and I discovered, is absolutely without feeling), it is the soul.

We know not where in us this soul resides. Perusing a work entitled
Observations sur l’esprit humain
by a French writer, Jean Duquesne, I read that, in Denmark, earlier in this long century, it was believed that the Devil might steal the soul from the nostrils of unbaptised children.

Superstitious people imagined Satan flying through the air and coming through the open window of a Nursery, and approaching the precious cradle, then reaching in with a curving finger, as narrow and flexible as the stalk of a spring onion, and taking the fledgling Soul, and supping upon it, as a Gourmet supping upon
some
rare strain of Asparagus. And later it would pass through Satan’s body and return to earth as foul faeces, to be trampled into the mire.

Then, alas, the soul-less child would grow up with no Human Qualities within him, and be pitiless and enslaved to appetite all his life. And so, to prevent this catastrophe, the windows of Nurseries were kept closed and locked, and it came to pass that sometimes infants died for want of any fresh air.

All this, though I saw that Duquesne’s book was full of fancy, disturbed me much. I sat long at the Library table, pondering it. And it came upon me that the reason why I had chosen this subject of the Souls of Animals was certainly to ascertain whether I, a man from whom Belief in God had long ago fled, and who could not bring himself to imagine any Resurrection, possessed a soul
at all
, or whether I was not merely an Amalgam of vain Longings and Appetites, no better than a morning cockerel strutting about his yard, waking all the world with his inharmonious voice.

Each day the weather was becoming colder, and knowing that Christmas would be soon upon us, I began to buy gifts for Margaret – an ivory brooch in the form of an Edelweiss flower, a small leather Jewel Case and a card of fine Swiss lace. These I despatched to London with the message that I would come home to Bidnold for the winter if she was not happy at Whitehall and wished to return to Norfolk.

I then wrote to Will Gates as follows:

My dear Will
,

Your Employer, Sir R. Merivel, sends you good Cheer from Switzerland, where we, like you, are sliding towards Winter, with now and then some light falls of Snow
.

Though I cannot yet find it in my heart to quit this very beautiful Place at present, I am always and ever thinking about Bidnold and praying you shall not be walled up in Ice, as we were last season
.

Pray send me word of how you are, Will. I do not suppose the King has come to Bidnold lately? I feel very far from you all. But I can relate to you that I have not been idle, but have begun upon some Work, which I do think will please Miss Margaret
.

Awaiting your reply, I send you this Christmas Gift of a decorated Almanac, showing the outspread of days for the year 1685, that will shortly be upon us
.

From

Your Affectionate Master and Friend
,

R. Merivel

When I showed Louise the Almanac, which had been very nicely decorated with Astronomical signs and symbols, she said: ‘It is too beautiful to give to a Servant.’

I took it from her hands and began to wrap it. ‘No,’ I said. ‘It is not.’

27

CHRISTMAS CAME AND
went, and I received a fine letter from Margaret, saying how contented she still was with Fubbs and mentioning in very affectionate terms her Admirer, the Honourable Julius Royston.

I have
, she wrote,
been instructing Julius in the Rules of Gin Rummy and now we two are quite addicted to the game. We like to play alone, without other slower or weaker players to annoy us, so we sneak away from the Duchess, and even sometimes from the King (who manifests a sweet fondness for Julius) to lay out our cards. I fear there may be no cure for our addiction
…