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  I would return to Celia and inform her that the King appeared to have forgotten her, that it was rumoured some new mistress had taken up residence at Kew, that he had expressed very forcefully to me his displeasure about her importunate behaviour but had not given me to believe that he would ever summon her back. I would then counsel her – exactly as Pearce had counselled me – about the folly of hope. "If," I would say to her, "you permit yourself to hope, you will come to insanity, Celia, and then I cannot tell what will become of you. Perchance you may come to poor Ophelia's end, drowned in a stream." I would explain to her that I had at last understood of what element the King was fashioned: "He is mercury," I would say. "He is of that same metal he spends hour after hour in his laboratory trying to extract from his flasks of cinnabar, but which is ever elusive and restless and cannot be fixed and held. And how will it profit any man or woman to love mercury?"

  What I could not foresee was how I was to find any remedy for Celia's grief. I knew myself inadequate to the task. I was not Fabricius. I was not even Pearce. I had no wisdom.

  This ague of mine, got no doubt from the extremes of heat and cold through which not only my body but my mind had passed in the preceding night and day, forced me to remain in my truckle bed at the Old House for an entire week.

  When my fever worsened and I began to detect in my groin and in my neck some slight swelling, terror filled my heart. Plague was coming and where might it arrive more swiftly than to the malodorous Lambeth marshes? For more than fifty hours I imagined myself dying. I wept and cried out. I beseeched my poor burned mother to intercede with God for me, knowing my own prayers to be unheard. "Dear parents," I heard myself say in my delirium, "make God the gift of a hat. He is fond of plumes. Give Him a fine hat in exchange for my life!" I ranted and blubbed. My cowardice was as infinite as a well sunk from Norfolk to Chengchow.

  Then on the third day, my fever lessened and my swellings began to go down. To the poor serving woman who brought me broth, I declared that I had been resurrected, which statement she read as an out-and-out blasphemy and quickly made the sign of the cross upon her bosom.

  Still somewhat weak from my illness I took a stage coach to Newmarket, where I spent the night. At dawn the following morning, I was reunited with Danseuse and gratified by the little whinny of delight with which the mare greeted me. I am most fond of animals. I enjoy about them, in equal measure, that which is graceful and that which is gross. And they do not scheme. No man, woman or child exists in this boisterous Kingdom who is not full of plotting, yet the animals and the birds have not one good ploy between them. It is for this reason above all others, I suspect, that the King is so attached to his dogs.

  Danseuse galloped home like a chariot horse, her spirits far out-distancing mine on this return journey. Though I clung to the reins and pressed my knees ardently to her sides, she unseated me near Flixton and as I lay winded in a ditch I suddenly perceived, not far from me, an old wrinkled woman lifting her hessian skirts and pissing onto the brambles. It amused me and I would have bid her good-day, except that I had no breath within me.

  I struggled upright at last and remounted Danseuse, who was foraging for grass in the frosty lane. I tried to persuade her to trot sedately for a while, but she would not and we arrived at last at Bidnold in an unseemly sweat.

  My clothes being frankly filthy and full of stench, I was in no mind to talk to Celia until I had soaked for some hours in a hot bath and put on clean linen. I called at once for Will (who reminds me sometimes of a small, nimble animal in his unquestioning loyalty to me) and within a short time I lay at my ease in a tub, regarding the moths on my stomach, while Will poured more and more hot water round me and I told him of my stay at the Old House and how Death had come into the room and laid an icy hand on me and caused me to snivel like a baby.

  "If plague does come to Norfolk," I said to Will, "I shall try to show courage, but I am bitterly afraid it will be the false courage of a desperate man and not the true bravery of one whose mind and spirit are at peace."

  Will shook his head, about to flatter me, no doubt, with his erroneous belief that when the hour approached I would conduct myself like a Parfit Gentil Knight, but before he could speak we heard suddenly the most lovely sound of a viola da gamba, coming, it seemed, from beneath us in my Music Room.

  I sat up, causing a small tidal wave to splash over the rim of the tub. "Will," I said, "who is playing?"

  "Ah," said Will, "I was about to inform you, Sir Robert: your wife's father is come."

  "Sir Joshua?"

  "Yes, Sir."

  "Sir Joshua has come to Bidnold. But why, Will?"

  "I do not really know, Sir, except or unless it be to take your wife home."

  "Take her home?"

  "Yes."

  "You heard that mentioned?"

  "Yes, I did, Sir. That as soon as you were returned, they would leave."

  The music continued. I began vigorously to soap my body. I heard myself say to Will very tetchily that I would not permit Sir Joshua to take my wife away, that the King had commanded that she reside with me and that, besides, I had much to discuss with her.

  Will gaped at me, being surprised, I dare say, at my apparent strength of feeling upon a subject to which he believed me to be utterly indifferent.

  Chapter Eight. A Gift of Instruments

  Bathed and scented, with a clean wig concealing my hog's bristles and a blue silk coat upon my back, I descended my stairs. As I did so, the sound of the viola ceased and I became aware – as so often in the wake of pleasant music – of the degree to which my mind is lightened by it, as if it gave to the dark mass of my brain a momentary sheen such as I had perceived upon the viscera of the King's toad.

  A moment later, Sir Joshua recommenced his playing. This time, it was a song I had heard long ago at Cambridge, entitled I Lay Me Down in a Wood of Elm, a most sweet tune but with the scansion a little strained, there not being a great abundance of words that rhyme with "elm". I stood in my hallway and listened as an exquisitely high and beautiful voice began to sing. It was Celia's voice, which I had never until this moment heard, but which I now knew to be a soprano of astonishing purity. A cold shiver of delight ran through me. More than her white skin, more than her languid, silky hair, more than her small mouth or her firm breasts, it was surely this voice of hers which had so charmed and seduced the King. Compared to it, her person was nothing, pretty enough, womanly enough, but giving no hint that concealed within it lay a matchless sound. I sat down on a tapestry-covered stool and fell to considering the probability that every one of us conceals some secret talent, though what mine may be I was not yet able to determine. Pearce's, despite his harsh criticisms of the world and most things within it, was a talent for kindness. Violet's, I was tempted to suggest, was anger, for I knew of no other person in whom rage was more delicious or becoming. And the King's? Well, he was a person of a thousand talents, but whether there was yet one more that he kept secret from us all, only time will reveal.

  The song continued. "Celia, Celia," I wanted to ask, "why did no one tell me how exquisitely you sing?" And a vision of myself, suddenly skilled upon my oboe, playing enraptured while my wife sang, momentarily rilled my mind. How different, how ordered and knowable life would be, if it could be arranged around a simple duet! As it was, I knew that the moment I entered the Music Room Celia would stop singing. I could play no part whatsoever in her music and by tonight she would be gone to her parents' house and Bidnold would be utterly silent, except for the occasional trilling of my Indian Nightingale. I took out of my pocket an emerald-coloured handkerchief and blew my nose, still intermittently blocked with mucus. I felt myself once again excluded from something to which I desired to contribute – however negligible my contribution might be. There is, I said to myself, as I stowed away my handkerchief, a degree of sadness in this observation.

  I stood up. As soon as Celia knew of my return, she would press me for news of her situation and the moment was
approaching when I would have to say what I had planned, thus smothering in her heart the small ember of hope which Pearce had led me to recognise as so fearful a thing. But as I walked towards the Music Room, I knew that I had faltered: I could not utter the words I had decided upon. For I knew beyond question that if I said them Celia's indifference towards me would turn again to loathing. As Cleopatra whipped the bearers of bad tidings, so Celia would flay me with her scorn and hatred. I, who was nothing to her, would become less than nothing. She would leave my house for ever and the whole magnificent story that the King had set in train would have reached an ending, long before its proper course had been run. And besides… ah, dangerous consideration!… I did not want to relinquish Celia's voice. So there you have it. At whatever cost to Celia's sanity and mine, I had become determined to keep her with me under my roof, at least for the two months decreed by the King.

  So it was then that I entered the room and the music ceased abruptly, as I predicted it would, and Celia turned upon me a gaze full of astonishment and hope and Sir Joshua put down his instrument and held out his hand most cordially to me. I bowed to them both. "I am returned, as you can see," I said superfluously, and then began to compliment them upon their musical talents. Celia was not, of course, in the least interested in my opinion of her singing, but urged me to tell her at once what message I had brought from London. I remained calm in the face of her anxiety and impatience. I offered her my arm.

  "If," I said, "you would do me the honour of taking a turn with me in the garden, I will inform you of all that has passed."

  Celia cast a look of anguish at her father, but he nodded and so without more ado she laid her white hand on my sleeve and we walked to the hall, where I imperiously summoned Farthingale to go running for a cloak for her mistress.

  The day was cold and the sun already a little low in the sky. The shadows cast by Celia and me were long, thus elongating me a great deal, so that had you but glimpsed us on the flat stones, you would have mistaken us for a very elegant couple.

  After some moments, during which I rehearsed in my mind what I was about to say, I conveyed to Celia the following fiction, which I had invented on the spot, but by which I found myself to be agreeably impressed. "The King," I said, "would give no promise whatsoever with regard to you. He asks, simply, that you remain here – here at Bidnold and nowhere else – until what he termed 'an awareness of the changeful nature of all things' has grown upon you."

  Celia stared at me, utterly disbelieving. "'The changeful nature of all things'? And why would he have me learn that, pray?"

  "I cannot say, Celia," I replied. "All His Majesty would say was that he wished you to learn it, but believed it would take time, it being the case that the more youthful a person is, the harder it may be for such understanding to take root."

  "And yet," retorted Celia, "has he not, in his cruel repudiation of me, made certain that I have had such an awareness harshly thrust upon me?"

  "Indeed," I ventured, "but he is a great deal wiser than you or I, Celia, wise enough to know that, though there is always some learning in times of misfortune or loss, it is only through quiet reflection after the event has passed that we can put such learning to good use."

  "But how long is such 'quiet reflection' to last? Am I to grow old in 'quiet reflection' and see my beauty vanish and all that once pleased him come to decay?"

  "No. I'm sure he does not intend that."

  "Then will it be weeks, months…?"

  "He would not tell me, Celia."

  "Why? Why would he not tell you?"

  "Because he cannot say. He has put the matter into your hands and into mine."

  "Into yours?"

  "Yes. For I am to be the one to tell him – in his own words – When she has fitted her mind with wisdom and put from her all illusion."

  "So!" and at this moment Celia pulled her hand roughly from my arm, "You are to be Judge! The King sends his Fool to decide on a matter of learning! May he forgive me, Merivel, but this does not strike me as just."

  "No. Undoubtedly not. And yet I perceive a kind of justice in it. For I am not, as some other protector might be, enamoured of my role, in that I do not consider myself to be worthy of it. Thus, it is in my interest that you embark upon this journey of learning as quickly as possible, Celia, so that I may return to my life of foolishness, you to your house in Kew and the King to your bed."

  "But how am I to come by this wisdom? By what means am I to 'embark'?"

  "I do not know. Unless through your one peerless gift -through your singing."

  "Through my singing?"

  "Yes."

  "How so?"

  "I do not know. I can only guess that this must be your route. In my mediocre way, I am arriving at some misunderstanding of myself and the world through my efforts at painting and I venture to suggest that if you sing, say, of love or betrayal, or I know not what, you will learn not only something of these things, but also of the infinite ways by which men and women deceive themselves and the ruses they employ to make themselves master of another's destiny. And so your journey will already have begun…"

  Celia did not look at all cheered by my suggestion. She drew her cloak around her and shook her head and her eyes filled with tears.

  "If he had asked of me any practical thing, I would have done it," she said, "but how can I obey a command I do not fully understand? How will I ever obey it?"

  "I do not know," I said for the third or fourth time. "I am certain, however, that you shall find a way, through music. And I will do all I can to help you."

  That evening, Celia and Farthingale not deigning to stir from the Rose Room, I dined alone with Sir Joshua Clemence, a man who continues to treat me with great civility and for whom I have infinite respect. To my delight, he told me that the decorations at Bidnold amused him and that, though he did not find them restful, they indicated to him that I possessed "a most boisterous originality of mind and this in an age of slavish imitation and apishness."

  He then, over a most flavoursome carbonado of pig produced by Cattlebury, broached the subject of his daughter, informing me (as if I did not know it already) that, having given her heart to the King, it was impossible for her to care at all for anyone or anything else on earth. "Even her mother and myself," he said, "though she is loyal and kindly to us, if the King demanded of her that she sacrifice us to get his love, I do believe she would.do it."

  "Sir Joshua -" I began.

  "I do not exaggerate, Merivel," he said. "For this is the nature of obsession; it is like a fathomless well, into which even those persons or things previously held dear may one day be thrown."

  "So what is to become of Celia, if the King does not call her back?"

  "He must call her back! She has told me what has been said to you. And so the matter rests in your hands, Merivel. If I read the thing rightly, she has been too importunate with the King. You must help her to see the folly of this. Cynicism is the only form of armour in this age and even my sweet daughter must learn to put it on. She must learn that what she hopes for will never happen."

  "What does she hope for?"

  "I cannot say, Merivel. I am too ashamed to say."

  I did not pester Sir Joshua on this matter and we ate the carbonado in silence for some minutes, during which I was forced to spit out a piece of gristle Cattlebury had inadvertently left in the stew. At length Sir Joshua said:

  "You are quite right in believing that she may find some solace – and perchance wisdom – through her singing. While discarding much else, her love for song has remained with her, mainly because it seems it was her voice which first captured the King's heart."

  "I know…" I began, "or rather, I did not know… but can imagine…"

  "Yes. So by all means encourage her to sing. You play an instrument, I presume."

  "Well, the oboe, Sir Joshua, but – "

  "Good. She is most fond of the oboe."

  "But will you not remain here at Bidnold? Will you n
ot stay with us and accompany Celia on your viola?"

  "How courteous of you. But no, I cannot, for my wife is not well and has need of me. I would dearly have loved to take Celia home, but I understand the King wishes her to remain with you."

  "So he instructed me."

  "Then she must stay. We are now near to Christmas. Pray do all you can Merivel to get her back to Kew before the spring comes."

  That night, as I climbed into my soft bed, which I had not seen for more than a week, I expected to be punished for my lies in my dreams. But I was not. All I remember is a most agreeable dream of Meg Storey. I painted her portrait. In the picture, she was wearing a dress of hessian, such as I had seen upon the old woman pissing in the ditch, but her face above it appeared most beautiful and full of joy.

  Here I am then, in my crimson suit, as I described myself at the beginning of this tale. You have all too clear a picture of me now, have you not? And, as you see, I am hedged about with events. I am, precisely as I suggested, in the middle of a story, but who can say yet – not you, not I – how it will end? It is too soon, even, to say how one would wish it to end. The delight or disappointment lies in all the surprises yet to come.

  I am striving, since the arrival of Celia, to put some control upon my appetites, so that she may like me more, or at least despise me less. I have tempered my greed. I have made no visits to the Jovial Rushcutters. I have cut down on my consumption of wine and sack. I have restrained my farts. But tonight, alas, I am acting like a very fool and debauche. I am at the Bathursts and a great party is in progress in the hall. The Duke and Duchess of Winchelsea are here and assorted other witty aristocrats. We have drunk a great quantity of champagne, and now we are all screaming and braying with mirth, for old Bathurst, who disappeared suddenly half an hour ago, has just ridden into the hall on his vast stallion which, afrighted no doubt by the sight of us, has arched its tail and farted and then through a quivering black anus has let fall onto the parquet a most glistening quantity of shit. Winchelsea is laughing so hard, his face is puce and his eyes bulging, and when I glance up at Violet (who holds her liquor like a Wapping bargeman) I see that she, too, is convulsed behind her fan.