Merivel: A Man of His Time

by Rose Tremain

  Violet had begun to moan. Mrs McKinley spoke to her softly, telling her that the worst would soon be over.

  I began the cutting. My blade went deep, circling the Cancer. Mrs McKinley dabbed at the flowing blood with her muslin rags. Violet began crying out in agony and her body arched and moved, so that my hand was jolted and the blade stabbed deeper than I had intended. Violet screamed. The scream was so loud and distressing to my head, it was as if Sound suddenly got in the way of Vision and blurred it. I blinked. With one hand Mrs McKinley was trying to hold Violet still and with the other swabbing blood from the wound.

  ‘Try a prayer?’ I hissed to Mrs McKinley.

  ‘Oh, yes, a prayer. I will, Sir.’

  She began a very low mumbling to God, asking him to give us Quietness.

  I blinked again and turned the scalpel so that now I was cutting – or hoped I was – underneath the Cancer.

  ‘I am almost there, Violet,’ I said. ‘I almost have it out …’

  ‘No!’ Violet cried. ‘Let it alone! Close it up, Merivel. I can bear no more!’

  ‘My Lady,’ said Mrs McKinley. ‘Sir Rabbit must take it all out, or it might grow again.’

  ‘Let it grow!’ cried Violet. ‘I’m old and ugly now! Let it smother me and take me away with it!’

  Mrs McKinley acted to swiftly to pour more Laudanum into Violet’s mouth and this – more than the prayer, I shall admit – quietened her. I took up the muslin and swabbed and swabbed, to get the blood away. Then, probing with my finger, I felt the Cancer loosen from the flesh on one side. I cut again underneath and it loosened more. Blood ran over my hand.

  Two more cuts and the Thing was loose. With my Spathomele I prised it out and set it in a glass dish. Pressing a wad of Muslin hard on the wound, I stared at the Cancer and I thought how strange and terrible it was that the body, in its darkness and secrecy, produces Additions that can bring it to the grave.

  Violet was quiet now, her breathing shallow. Dearly I wished that I could sew up the wound and there would be an end to the Cutting, but I knew that my labours were not done. In the armpit lay two Satellites of the main Cancer and these could not be left in Violet’s body.

  I took up the Scalpel again. I had promised that the whole Cutting would take no more than five minutes, but my struggles with the elusive Satellites took more than thirty-five, for they, it seemed, were welling over with blood and I could not cut without pausing while Mrs McKinley swabbed and swabbed.

  By the time I came to sew up the skin, Violet was pale with deep Shock and was hiccuping violently, and both Mrs McKinley and I began to fear she would be seized by Convulsions, or that her heart would cease.

  Together we bandaged the wounds, then we cleaned our hands and arms with black Soap in hot water, and I called for Agatha to bring the warming pan and the blankets. We untied Violet’s wrists and laid her right arm by her side, but placed the left arm on the pillow, away from the wounds.

  Mrs McKinley, touching Violet’s forehead with her strong hands, whispered to me, ‘Lord, Sir, but she is terrible cold …’

  Agatha came in, and when she saw the bloody rags all around and her Mistress pale as a Ghost, and the Cancerous tumours in the dish, almost fainted clean away. I took the warming pan from her and wrapped a blanket round it, and told Agatha to bring more hot water and bowls of Chocolate for me and Mrs McKinley.

  Both the square of linen and the sheet underneath Violet were crimson and damp with blood, and Mrs McKinley and I knew that we had to get them away. But here was a difficult task, for the pain of movement would be very great for Violet. I put my arm under her right shoulder and neck, and lifted her forward, and Mrs McKinley peeled back the linen and the bloody sheet, then I laid her down again and raised her back and her buttocks, so that the sheet could come out. Then we spread out clean linen and pressed soft Pillows round the wound, and began to try to get her warm, setting the warming pan near her feet and covering her with the Woollen blankets.

  Into her mouth Mrs McKinley dribbled yet more Laudanum. The hiccups continued for another ten minutes. Then they stopped and Violet lay still and quiet before us. I lifted her wrist and felt for a pulse, and got it, faint, but ticking there, as the morning began slowly to pass.

  Mrs McKinley took off her white cap and wiped her brow with it. ‘Lord, Sir Rabbit,’ she said, ‘the Chocolate will be a lovely thing.’

  We sat out all the daylight hours in Violet’s room. The sun glanced on us, then hid itself behind cloud and the room darkened, as if promising rain.

  My mind kept wandering to Bidnold and what the King and Margaret might be doing there, but I tried to put these ugly thoughts away. I knew that I had to remain with Violet until the morrow.

  I watched her face, once almost beloved to me. She snored in her Laudanum sleep. I said in a low voice to Mrs McKinley, ‘It was not done as cleanly as I had hoped.’

  ‘Well,’ she said, ‘it was as difficult as any I’ve seen, including my own.’

  ‘You had a Cancer in your breast?’

  ‘I did. But it was cut out of me long ago, before I met you. And look at me, Sir Rabbit. Strong as a horse. I shall die ancient in my bed. You can lay a fat Wager on it.’

  18

  WE PASSED A most wretched night, with Violet starting to vomit up the Laudanum she had swallowed and then, because the quantity of Physick in her body had diminished, being afflicted with unbearable pain.

  We cleaned her and tried to soothe her and get her comfortable, but her body was still icy cold and her lips dry and cracked. We gave her water and Mrs McKinley fumigated the Bedchamber with Frankincense, and then went down to the kitchen to make what she called ‘a Potato Broth’, such as her family used to consume in Donegal, and always efficacious for ‘cure of poison’.

  I sat alone with Violet. I kept the fire brightly burning and tried to put more coverings on the bed, but Violet said they were too heavy on her wound and she could endure nothing touching it.

  To try to take her mind off present sufferings, I invited her to tell me more about her night with the King and I did see a frail smile appear on her wounded features.

  ‘Well, he is very talkative during the Act,’ she said. ‘And I do adore sexual discourse – as I remember that you do too, Merivel.’

  ‘Sometimes …’ I said.

  ‘But afterwards, when we had quite exhausted several Positions, he began to talk about the Queen, and how he has betrayed her with a hundred women, and how he has pacified her, through all the years, with Religious Gifts.’

  Violet then pointed over at her bureau near the fire. ‘See the little wooden box on it, Merivel. Bring it here and I will show you something.’

  I fetched the box, which was finely made in the shape of a Sea Chest and studded with small Brass nails. Violet told me to open it, which I did, and found inside, on a lining of blue velvet, a curl of white hair.

  ‘It belonged to Bathurst,’ said Violet. ‘He bought it in Rome for a large sum. As you recall, he was a mad and credulous man. He had been told that the hair in the box had been cut from the head of St Peter and he chose to believe it.’

  ‘Ah, it is hair, then, that has survived almost seventeen hundred years?’

  ‘Precisely so. How could anything Human not perish and turn to dust after all that time? I pointed this out to Bathurst, but he was unmoved. He used to mumble his prayers over it. He used to ask it to bring him luck at the Horse Races.’

  ‘And did it so?’

  ‘I cannot remember, Merivel. He was the worst of Gamblers, until he went mad and forgot about it. But I bethought myself, after the King left, that his Queen, in her Catholic piety, might believe it too. So I want you to give it to him to give to her – to atone for all that he did with me of a wild and filthy nature!’

  ‘I will,’ I said stroking Violet’s forehead. Then I said, in a hushed and choked voice: ‘Violet, tell me something else. Do you really believe that the King will try to seduce my daughter?’

  ‘He do
es not try to seduce anyone. He succeeds.’

  ‘Will he not think Margaret is too young?’

  ‘I have no idea, my friend. But what can it really matter? To lose your Virginity to the King of England …’

  ‘It matters greatly to me! When I remember the misery that it brought to Celia.’

  ‘Celia was a stupid girl, Merivel. I always marvelled that you had any feeling for that mousy and dull creature – especially when you had me to attend so ardently and efficaciously to the needs of your prick. But Margaret is not credulous and weak, as Celia was. She will not let herself suffer.’

  Mrs McKinley returned at this moment with the Potato Broth, so this conversation had to cease.

  We raised Violet up a little in the bed. I could see that Dawn was creeping towards us beyond the windows. I spooned the broth into Violet’s mouth, and prayed she might keep it in her and not vomit it up again. Then we laid her down again, and I touched her cheek and felt that the good Broth had warmed her a little. The scent of Frankincense in the room was heady and strong, and I felt myself yearning for sleep.

  At eight o’clock, before leaving Bathurst Hall, I went down into the vast Kitchen, where, in times past, meals for thirty or forty people were prepared and the ovens seemed to be roaring day and night, and the savour of roasted meat was so strong, it used to seem to me as though you might live only on this – on the fragrance alone.

  Now all was very silent, with every surface scrubbed and cold. Violet’s cook – ‘Chef Chinery’ as he likes to style himself – stood looking out of the window, wondering, it seemed, what to make of the breaking day and how to pass it.

  ‘Good day to you, Chinery,’ said I. ‘Are you well?’

  ‘As well as Time permits, Sir.’

  ‘Good enough. Now, permit me to give you some orders. Lady Bathurst’s Nurse, Mrs McKinley, will be staying until Her Ladyship recovers sufficiently to be nursed by Agatha. Nurse McKinley made a very efficacious Potato Broth for Lady Bathurst last night, which calmed her digestion, so please ensure there is a plentiful supply of potatoes.’

  ‘There are always potatoes. The earth of Norfolk heaves with them.’

  ‘Good. I would also request that you make sustaining meals for Mrs McKinley …’

  ‘Irish, be she?’

  ‘Yes, she is originally from County Donegal.’

  ‘Then all she will need is potatoes. That be what they live on there.’

  I stared at Chinery, a large, ageing, vexed-looking Norfolk man, who had had an unaccountable fondness for the old mad Earl and has not been happy in his work since Lord Bathurst’s death.

  ‘Pray do not assume,’ I said, ‘that Mrs McKinley will be happy to live on potatoes. Her nursing work will be arduous. She will need Meat and Bread and Fish and fruit and Ale. She must be kept strong.’

  Chinery returned to his gazing out upon the stable yard, quite as though he had not heard me.

  ‘Chinery!’ I said sharply. ‘Please pay attention. I am very tired. I would like to take some Coddled eggs and bread and Coffee before I leave the Hall. Please make sufficient for Mrs McKinley, too, and send them up forthwith.’

  I stayed just long enough to see Chinery turn and nod his assent. Then I strode out of the kitchen, attempting to hold my head high, and pleased I was not wearing a Sword, over which I might have tripped and fallen.

  On my arrival home, longing to sleep, I was immediately taken aside by the King, who told me he had a Matter of great Importance to discuss with me.

  At once my exhaustion fled and was replaced with a terrible agitation.

  We repaired to the Library, where the King began pacing about, till I was giddy with his coming and going.

  At last he halted and said: ‘I have decided, Merivel. I cannot stay at Bidnold any longer.’

  My lips were dry and my voice weak as I asked: ‘Has anything happened while I have been away, Sir?’

  ‘No. Nothing has happened, except my Conscience has been pricked.’

  ‘May I ask by what, Your Majesty?’

  ‘By all that I am neglecting. I cannot go on in this vein. The Duke of York is right: things will come to ruin if I do. I am the King. I must return and govern.’

  ‘This is very sudden, Sir …’

  ‘Not really. Ever since my brother’s letter I have not felt at my ease. There is so much in the Land that seems to be falling apart for want of money. I must set about trying to raise it, by some means.’

  ‘How will you raise it, Sir?’

  ‘By further Loans from King Louis, I suppose. Unless some alternative can be conjured from the Air, or you yourself have an inexhaustible supply of half-crowns. Oh, but listen, Merivel, let us talk no more of it. Shall we not have one more happy evening at dinner and Shuttlecock games with the excellent Prideaux family before I depart? Will you invite them on Thursday?’

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘And perhaps, this time, Margaret will be strong enough to join in the play?’

  ‘I am not sure, Sir.’

  ‘I think she will be. She can play on my team. Now, tell me, Merivel, how is Lady Bathurst?’

  We both sat down. I was yearning to see Margaret, but I was forced to remain with the King in the Library, to give an account of Violet’s operation.

  He listened gravely. He said that he considered Violet Bathurst ‘an exceptional woman, of wondrously furious desire’. He asked me if she would survive the Cutting of the Cancer.

  ‘She may survive this, Sir,’ I said. ‘But the Cancer may return. I have, for the moment, done everything I can.’

  It was then that I remembered the Box with the curl from St Peter’s head, and I fetched this and gave it to the King, and told him it was a gift from Violet for the Queen.

  He lifted out the curl and sniffed it. Then he wound it round his long index finger and examined it.

  ‘I am most interested in the role of Superstition and Delusion in a human life,’ he said. ‘These things are very easy to deride, but I do not set them aside lightly. I have seen how the Queen is comforted by the Relics she has amassed. She kisses them with such passion! In her mind they are the Loving God made Manifest. It matters not that they may be some old knuckle bones from a Poorhouse graveyard in Kent, or a scrap of linen from a Bazaar in Egypt. What matters is what they are to her.’

  ‘I agree with you, Sir. Montaigne says that the end of Delusion may be the end of Joy.’

  I was then moved to recount to the King how, long ago, the present of an Indian Nightingale in a gilded cage had been given to me, and how I was most moved and fascinated by this bird, and kept trying to get it to sing to me by playing my oboe to it.

  ‘But at length,’ I said, ‘comes my Friend John Pearce, the Quaker, and says to me, “Merivel you are a Dupe. That is not an Indian Nightingale. That is a common Blackbird with a few painted feathers!” And I saw that Pearce was right and that my beloved Indian Nightingale was no such thing – and nor, perhaps, does an Indian Nightingale exist at all on this Earth? But yet I had savoured my State of Delusion and the ending of it caused me much grief.’

  ‘Ah,’ said the King. ‘Of course. You had held Wonder in your hands and then you lost it.’

  We both, then, were sunk in a silent, contagious Gloom. After a while the King replaced the curl from St Peter’s head on its blue velvet bed and closed the box and said, ‘The Queen will like this. I shall tell her that a Priest in Norwich – to which city, long ago, St Peter travelled and made friends with a Barber-Surgeon – put it into my hands.’

  We laughed at this and then the King said: ‘All is in the story, Merivel. No artefact can come to its full significance without the telling of the tale.’

  On Thursday evening the 23rd of May, came the Prideaux family and we all dressed ourselves in our finest Finery, and one of my French-adjusted satin coats, with its cascade of Shoulder-Ribbons, was both mocked and admired.

  I had had a long talk with Cattlebury. He seemed somewhat chastened after his eating of the Che
rries and ready to put his heart into a fine Banquet for the King’s last evening. A quantity of Trout was ordered, and Capons and Hazel Nuts, and a Shoulder of Mutton and other delicacies to which I knew the King to be partial, and some fine wines were brought up from the cellar.

  The dinner was very successful and splendid. At my command a hundred candles had been lit, so that a veritable fire danced and flickered all around the room, and when I looked at all the faces lit by this fire, what I saw on them was happiness. Even on Will’s face, as he stood at his post behind the King’s chair, wearing Livery now far too big for his shrunken body, I noticed a foolish smile, which he was unable to suppress, except when he took up a plate from the Footman to set it before the King, and this he did with most morose Concentration.

  Margaret was wearing a turquoise gown, with turquoise ribbons in her auburn hair. She seemed to blush a great deal, as though at her own beauty, and I marvelled that I, with my flat nose and my Hog’s Bristles and my fat, speckled stomach, could be father to such a lovely girl.

  After Dinner, too weighed down by food and drink to play at Shuttlecock, we began on a game of Blind Man’s Buff in the Withdrawing Room and got great mirth from watching him or her who was the Blindfold Catcher staggering about on my carpet from Chengchow, while we ran and hid behind chairs and curtains, and called out taunts and provocations.

  When it was the King’s turn to be the Catcher, he declared that he could recognise each one of us by our Smell and, because we could not hide from our own Perfume, it did indeed come about that he caught and identified us more quickly than any other Catcher, and I thought how it seems to be his gift to know people by their scent, or their gait or by their breathing, and sometimes to ascertain, with strange precision, what is in their minds.

  When we were tired of the Buff, we made up two tables for Rummy, and a Mead was served with delicate Vanilla biscuits, crafted by Cattlebury, and it came about that Sir James Prideaux was revealed as a true Master of the game and outdid us all, and collected to himself a great pile of the ha’pennies for which we were playing.