Jem (and Sam)
Page 30
I am sorry for –
Sorry? I should think so. I have a mind to tell my husband of your indecent conduct. No, don’t look so frighted, Jem. I’m mad, he won’t believe me.
Madam, I would rather you –
Rather I did not tell my husband? Then I shall not. I shall be generous, for I have a generous nature. That is why people say I am mad.
Yet she was not generous even before she was mad. She was sly and suspicious and miserly also. At night she would roam the kitchens and store-rooms, fancying she heard some poor wretch stealing bread or cheese. As to her own person, she was extravagant, and seldom wore a gown more than once, claiming that it was so old and dirty that people would think her a scarecrow.
Dr Barwick who was a good enough man but ponderous was much concerned that she might do herself an injury if she was not watched. I was more concerned about the injury she might do me.
The Duke for his part wished to see her as little as possible and would use the Cockpit as one might use a lodging house to sleep and change his clothes. She became fretful in his company, would say what was most likely to displease him even when she intended to please, but she knew that the only way she could please him greatly was to bear him an heir, and that was beyond her. Dr Barwick filled her with pills and infusions which he esteemed infallible remedies for non-conception, but they did not work.
She had conceived a son soon after they were first married and bore him, but he barely survived his first breath and I think his coming into the world was more painful to both of them than if he had not been born.
They did not speak of it to one another, at least not when I was by, but you could hear the grief hover unspoken in the air like a ghost that will not leave off its haunting. There was a cat in the alley behind the tennis court that would cry at night very like a child in pain and the Duchess put her hands to her ears and told me to go down and chase it away.
It was a hellish place, for the Duchess continually bemoaned the loss of Albemarle House and their state of poverty and the new measures that must be taken to stave off the creditors. I escaped to the nearest tavern whenever I could and stayed as late as I dared, though I found few of the old companions to beguile me, for even Will Symons was gone off to Norfolk, and all the world seemed to have grown stale.
I was returning from the Leg late one night (midnight had already struck) and coming along the passage past the same linen store-room where Nan and I had embraced so long ago, and I heard a scuffling as of several rats. Looking in to chase them away, I saw the pale shining figure of the Duchess bending over the sheets in their wooden racks.
Ah there you are, Jem, she said turning to greet me as though she had sent for me.
I thought I heard a noise . . . Rats . . .
Rats indeed, Jem, look, there were two dozen best sheets when I last counted and now there are but eighteen. I will inspect La Farwell’s chamber, for I told her she could not have my sheets.
She raised her hand to put back the sheets she had counted and her hand touched my cheek.
You’re warm, Jem, yet it’s a cold night.
I’ve been sitting by a fire.
In a tavern, Jem, I’m sure it was a tavern, you drink too much, don’t you?
And her hand stayed upon my cheek and began to stroke it.
Oh it is a pretty warm cheek.
Then to my horror – you must believe it was to my horror – her other hand, her right, began to fiddle with the strings of my breeches, and, oh she was quick, she had undone me and was stroking me with her other hand. It did not take much to get me ready, for I was not too drunk. She was as quick to hoist her own skirts, so quick that I had no time to consider what I thought before she was pushing against me so hard I could scarcely keep my feet. The business was finished as soon as is the coupling of chaffinches. Indeed, she gave a distracted cheep such as a bird might make. She clung to me for a minute afterward, then thrust me away from her.
You must be gone or Farwell will see you. She follows me everywhere.
I found that hard to credit, for I had heard her snores many a night. But I could see that Eliza – as I must now think of her – wished to see the back of me. So I left her, wondering equally at her strange fancy and her haste.
As I passed the door to the great chamber, which was open, I had a fright, for there was Kit sitting in a chair by the fire with a glass of wine in his hand, half-asleep and three-quarters drunk and I wondered that she should have engaged in such proceedings with me, for the linen store was directly beneath.
The next night, after supper, Eliza and I were alone in the great room, for Kit was waiting on the King and Farwell had gone to visit friends.
Will you come with me to the linen store, Jem? I must complete the inventory.
I followed her downstairs, not displeased. When we came into the dark room, I made to embrace her, but she put her hand on my chest and kept me distant from her.
Not so, Jem, not so, she murmured.
Then she began to stroke my cheek as before, and then to fiddle with my strings again as before. In fact, all went on as before, except that my pleasure was the fiercer because I was not so drunk. Again the chaffinch cheep and the clinging afterwards. But this time she said:
We shall remember this night, we shall remember where we were.
I shall never forget it, I said.
No, you mistake me, we shall remember because it was the night the King was dying, not for the other thing.
Dying? I knew he was sick.
Yes, dying. I warned you, didn’t I? You must always believe me, Jem, for I can tell the future.
And she laughed as though she were mocking herself or me or both of us.
The King died the next morning, between eleven and twelve.
They said at the last he had been reconciled to the Church of Rome. Every man’s heart was full of foreboding, for if we had steered so uncertain a course through treacherous shallows with such a cunning captain, how would we fare with his brother who lacked the politic arts? And the worst of his brother – which showed his lack of judgement – was that he was partial to one I thought we had seen the back of, viz. S. Pepys who had been living quietly in disgrace, though at liberty. I heard he had been sent to Tangier on the King’s business, where he might have been taken by pirates or died of a fever. But no, he returns in triumph, gets back his old place at the Admiralty, indeed a greater place, there being now no Board to oppose him.
King Charles’s funeral was a pitiful shabby affair, not one tenth as magnificent as General Monck’s, for it was not thought fitting to prepare a great English ceremony for one who had died a Roman Catholic. Kit was much concerned with the management of these shrunken obsequies. Even Eliza roused herself to have made a new gown trimmed with jet and a sable collar that showed off her white skin and made me ache for – I cannot say her embrace, but for her body. In fact, when I saw her come down the stair, from her bedchamber in her mourning gown to go to the funeral, it was the first time I consciously desired her.
Do you like the gown? she said playing the coquette to me for the first time.
It’s beautiful.
And the owner of it?
Oh beautiful too, but I’d rather tell her that in the linen store.
You may not say such things, Jem, it is not the right time.
Well, so it was not and I thought no more of it until I renewed my approaches a few days after the King’s funeral. Kit had gone to New Hall, La Farwell had not yet returned from her friends, and we had the house to ourselves once more.
Madam, I fancy the linen needs counting again.
She looked at me not unkindly and shook her head.
No, Jem, it is not the time.
I assumed that she had those, but her manner deterred questioning. I could not help but compare her to Nan, to whom I could say anything, but that was no doubt accounted for by the difference in birth between a blacksmith’s daughter and a duke’s. So again I thought little of it.
Then nothing. I made a few hesitant approaches but received a firm rebuff, though not unkindly, as a mother will rebuff a child who has begged for something that he should not have but is too young to know why he may not have it.
By now the spring was coming, the trees were in bud in the courtyard and my spirits began to revive, for although I could not make head or tail of this strange amour, yet I was not one to spurn its pleasures, and hoped that, though I could not plumb her mind, I was conferring pleasure on her in her peculiar fashion.
But then one morning – it must have been at the beginning of May – I found her sitting on the bench at the oriel and weeping as though her heart would break.
Oh Jem, it isn’t working.
Not working – how not?
It was a foolish fancy. Well, we must try once more.
Eliza, I don’t understand.
It’s not your part to understand, she said, but not unkindly, as though her mind had wandered to some other theme. Indeed, she often spoke in this manner which, I must confess, we who were in her household had come to prefer above her other mien, which was querulous and distrustful, finding conspiracy in the smallest thing: if there was no butter on the table, the butler must be selling it to the taverns in Palace Yard; if some great lady failed to take notice of her, there must be a conspiracy to exclude her from Court. What was ironical was that, at this season, the whole nation was in a ferment of rumour about plots and counter-plots – devised by the Papists, devised by the Protestants, for the Court against the Country, for the Country against the Court, plots in Newmarket, plots in the City, plots in Scotland, plots in Holland. Yet Eliza paid not the slightest heed to any of these public matters. Her thoughts were all turned in upon her own plight.
It was a dry spring, we had had no rain since March, and the oak trees had died and caterpillars devoured the fruit-trees. The Cockpit had become too dusty and the smoke from the chimneys provoked Elizabeth’s asthma, so we had removed to her father’s house in Clerkenwell.
Kit had the gold fever again. Governor Molesworth of Jamaica had passed to their lordships a report of a sunken treasure ship wrecked upon a reef off Hispaniola. A sailor, one John Smith, claimed to have seen several ingots of silver and one of gold, but the wind had freshened and they could make no further search. Their lordships yawned, except for Kit who made King James promise that this ship should be his, which the King did quite readily thinking he might as well promise Kit an estate of 10,000 acres on the moon. But Kit was greatly pleased and would spend hours in foolish discourse on the matter. Eliza seemed happier in her father’s house. And it was there that she summoned me to the little room where they kept the linen that had come with us from the Cockpit. Everything was the same, as regular as in the prayer-book: the stroking at arm’s length, then the fiddling with the strings and the quick thrusting and the brief clinging when the business was done.
And the same the next night, though I almost failed her, for I thought I heard Kit’s tread on the floor above us, and I wondered why she always chose the nights when he was at home or nearby. I had heard that some women found greater pleasure in the danger of being discovered. Certainly she was distracted enough for her mind to run in such a fashion. Yet she never spoke of Kit to me, nor uttered any private opinion that might prove her desire to provoke him or defy him.
What I thought was Kit’s tread must have been the creaking of the floorboard, for we were safely upstairs again and I was reading to her from the Gazette when in came Kit glowing like a comet.
Have you heard the news? Monmouth has taken ship from Holland.
So? He has come from Holland before.
But this time he is to declare himself King and join with the Scots and the Cheshire Whigs.
You are too hot, my lord, said Eliza, reaching for a sugar-plum which was her principal diet. It will all come to nothing. He will prance through the West Country, silly girls will throw flowers at him, he will touch a few scrofulous old women for the Evil and then he will go racing and we shall all forget him again.
No, no, this time he has brought trained bands with him, a thousand Orangemen, it is said, and some Scotch exiles, hardy, bitter men.
If you believe that, my lord . . . all he will have with him is his groom and that pretty whore what’s-her-name and a few idle prattlers.
I will hear no more of this. The King has ordered me to Exeter to raise the militia. I am to leave tomorrow.
Well then, you had best go to bed, for you’ll need sleep, but I fear the expedition will be a wild-goose chase. Come now.
And she took his arm firmly and led him off to bed, before I had time to inquire what I should do, whether go with him, or stay with her. For myself, I did not know which I would rather, for I had taken a fancy to our brief couplings, the denial of any prolonged embrace serving rather to heighten the pleasure of them. Yet if there was a rebellion to be snuffed out, there was glory to be won and the prospect of an independent place and an end to my life as a household servant. I was advanced in years to be a soldier, and my leg was sure to trouble me in the damp air of the West, but an old wound had never kept my former General from the Fight, and had not Mr St Michel at the same age as I had now attained purposed to go fight in the Turkish wars? (But had he gone?) Thus I lay in my bed on the upper storey pondering what role in this great play might best become me when I heard from below those sounds which I knew all too well, that old part-song between the bedstead and the bedfellows. On and on went the chorus. If I had been lying in a tavern, I would have beaten upon the floor and told them to be quiet, but in my position I was condemned to listen to the ducal groans until they came to their appointed end and issued, not in a chaffinch squeak, but in the full-throated gurgle of some greater bird.
Anger, humiliation but most of all puzzlement overcame me. Was this pale wretched creature the greatest whore of them all?
The next day, it was decided. I was to go with Kit as his aide-de-camp, for though my limp might debar me from active part in battle, my experience would serve him well in gathering intelligence and estimating the size and disposition of forces, matters likely to be of the highest import in the slippery campaign which might lie ahead.
I expected no tearful farewells from Eliza and got none. As I left Clerkenwell, she stroked my cheek none the less, and said, Jem, take care of yourself, as one strokes a horse that is being let out into the field.
Kit had already set off with his principal train. I trotted off on my own the next day. It being a dry and dusty morning, I stopped at the Leg before my long ride to the West. There I found none other than my old friend Will Symons, the Norfolk squire.
I meant to rally him on his bucolic costume, ignorance of the Metropole, etc., but we had barely greeted one another before he, seeing my travelling garb and the leather bag I carried containing certain valuables and papers, launched the first assault:
Off to beat Monmouth then?
Oh, I said, where did you hear that?
It’s all over London. Your master is to hold the West Country and some other fellow is to beat off the Scots.
I doubt if it will come to that.
It will, if you don’t make haste. They’ll flock to him, if you let him have half a chance. You must strike instantly before he bewitches ’em. Have you seen the look in men’s eyes as he rides through? A Monmouth! A Monmouth! A Protestant Duke!
Keep your voice down, Will. This is no time for foolery. The people know he can be no legitimate king.
Ah, but Jem, remember that pamphlet of Junius Brutus? He who has the worst title always makes the best king. William the Conqueror was a bastard. Besides, every An
abaptist and Quaker and disappointed Nonconformist is looking for a hero, and they will not much mind whether his parents were married or not.
You sound as if you might go over yourself.
Oh me, I take no part in public affairs, I grow my corn and feed my pigs. By the by, I intend to marry again, did you know that? A widow, very handsome, with a farm in the next parish, but I fear she may be a little cold.
Ah, I said. On that very subject, a friend of mine is in some perplexity. A lady of his acquaintance, I mean a proper lady, one whom he had no reason to think loose, the very opposite . . . she thrusts herself upon him one night without warning as though she were a drab in Fleet Alley. Well, he did not resist, for plums that drop into our laps are all too rare, and he fancied that perhaps he might have proved irresistible to her, even though he had given no sign of attraction on his part.
Such things do happen, though not alas often enough, Will sighed.
Just so. But wait. Our friend then learns that after leaving him she goes straight to her husband and lets him take his pleasure of her also and willingly so.
How does your friend know this?
Well, we won’t go into that. But he knows. And, what is stranger still, when her husband is absent, she won’t let my friend approach her but keeps her distance as though they were barely acquainted. What can be the explanation of this weird behaviour? Does she require the services of my friend to heighten her pleasure with her husband? Or is it vice versa? Or what?
Hum, said Will, frowning over his spectacles like a learned doctor, tell me, has your friend told you whether she lets him spend in her?
Well, I said, yes. I mean, he says yes she does.
Your friend is very confiding.
It’s most capricious behaviour, is it not?
On the contrary, your friend’s friend is merely following medical practice. I have heard of half a dozen cases similar.
How peculiar, I can scarcely believe it.
The explanation is simple, Jem. There are men whose seed will furnish a regiment of women with sons. One coupling and nine months later a child is born. But there are others who are poor breeders. This is no aspersion upon their vigour, they may be mighty men, but their seed is too weak to reach the ovaries of the woman. Thus they need reinforcements. Many doctors therefore advise an admixture of some other man’s seed at a certain time of the month to increase the probability of conceiving. I have heard of many cases in which this remedy has cured barrenness when all hope of a child had been abandoned.