Merivel A Man of His Time (11 page)

She handed me a vial, which contained all that she had made of
this
preparation, and I sniffed it carefully, as connoisseurs of wine sniff their beloved libations.

‘Is it right, d’you think?’ she enquired. ‘It needs to be strong, but not so strong that the lotion itself smells worse than the sweating and engrimed flesh. The Rocket seed will lessen Perspiration, that is proven, and the wine and Rose-water will cleanse, but …’

‘Lemon Grass,’ I said. ‘No more than a few leaves, boiled and added. And you would have a longer-lasting tincture.’

‘Ah,’ said Louise. ‘Lemon Grass. I had not thought of that. What a delight it is to have so able a Laboratory Assistant.’

Though cold, the December day had dawned very fine and when we left the Laboratory to walk into the
Jardin du Roi
, the sun gave to the neat walks and Knot Gardens an air of shining, wintry beauty.

Louise and I were almost alone in the gardens, they being prohibited to all but a few chosen people.

‘The Royal Chemists allow me to take a few leaves or sprigs from time to time, for my own little experiments,’ said Louise and when we came upon a bed of Lemon Grass, its freshness long past with the onset of the dark season, she leaned down and picked a few ragged stalks and handed them to me.

As she picked she said: ‘I understand very little of Newton, from the few papers of his circulating in France, but his Separation of light into a Spectrum by means of a Prism was explained to me and is, I think, quite wondrous. And I am attracted by his differentiation between Hypothesis, which he says is “pure speculation” and Theory, which has undergone proof. As soon as I took this in, I knew that I must follow his example and make no claim for any of my compounds until I know – for certain – that they are efficacious. Healing must be my only proof.’

‘Quite so,’ I agreed. ‘My friend, John Pearce, was very, very determined upon this question, following his hero, William Harvey, who based everything upon Dissection and Observation, rather than upon Ancient authority. Pearce once said that my tendency to hypothesise made him feel sick.’

‘Ah. Your “tendency to hypothesise”. Is this still with you?’

‘Less with me than at any time. My mind still boils, occasionally,
with
suppositions and wonderings, for without some of these no new thing will be tried. But I believe I am growing more and more like Harvey in every respect.’

‘Yes? What respects might these be?’

‘Well,’ I said, ‘to name one: Harvey loved the dark. He had caves made in the earth near his house in Surrey, where he delighted to sit and meditate. I have not gone as far as to dig caves, for I am not very enamoured of the creatures who live in them – Bats and Snakes and so forth. But when I am alone in my house in Norfolk, I like to endure the dusk, without lighting a lamp or Tallow. In the Almost-Darkness I can sometimes feel my mind becoming very still, so that I can see with clarity what was indistinct to me before.’

Louise pressed more Lemon Grass into my hand and regarded me closely. The winter sunlight glanced upon her cheek, which in spite of her forty-five years was very smooth and of a very pale olive colour, and I had to restrain myself from leaning forward and placing my lips upon it. Instead, I lifted my bunch of Grass stems to my nose and inhaled their lingering Perfume.

‘There is still a little Lemon freshness in it,’ I said.

‘Good. We will boil the stems and see what the Reduction will add to my tincture. Do you live alone in your Norfolk house, Sir Robert, when your daughter is staying with her Friends, or do you have a wife?’

I fell silent. So congenial did I find the companionship of Louise de Flamanville that I was tempted, there and then, in the cold light of the
Jardin du Roi
, to relate to her the whole story of my marriage to Celia and its Annulment some years later, after I had been restored to the King’s favour. But I also knew that this piece of my history served mainly to make me appear importunate and foolish, so I drew back.

‘I have no wife,’ I said. ‘She departed from this world long ago. From time to time the King arrives, with some of his retinue and very many dogs, and then I am whirled into fine company once more. But for much of each year I am alone.’

‘I see,’ said Louise quietly and we walked on. We crossed into an
allée
of Planes, whose great leaves had fallen, to reveal their branches decked with dangling seed-heads, like tarnished jewellery. And it was
at
this moment that we both became aware of a strange sound, a pitiful howling noise, which spoke to us of great distress. Following the
allée
to its end, we turned left into a grassy meadow and saw before us a very sorrowful sight.

In a square cage made from branches of elm a great Brown Bear was standing on its hind legs and clawing at the wood, and crying like a wolf. Its jaw was open, to show a tongue foaming and parched, and the sound that came from its throat was as desolate as any sound I have heard in my life.

We stopped and stared. Louise reached out and touched my arm, and I took her hand in mine.

‘I know where its end is to be,’ she said.

‘I, too. The Menagerie at Versailles.’

We stood very still, the misery of the animal choking our senses, so that all we could smell was its terror, and all we could breathe was its woe, and all we could feel in our throats was its thirst.

I could feel Louise’s hand trembling in mine. I held her more tightly to me and, to try to soothe her, began very quietly on a story about a neighbour of mine in Norfolk, one Squire Sands, who whipped the Shire horse that pulled his plough so relentlessly that it died of its wounds.

‘Squire Sands had no money,’ I continued, ‘with which to buy another nag. For a whole season his fields were left to the weeds. But when he saw that he was going to starve if he did not plant his corn and his vegetables, he had no choice but to yoke himself to the plough. And I saw him in his Condition of Horse, straining his heart and lungs to till his own soil. And for a moment I pitied him. But then I remembered what he had done to the Shire mare, and in an instant my heart emptied itself of pity.’

Louise was still and silent for a moment. Then she turned and faced me, and put her arms round me and kissed my mouth.

8

TWENTY-FOUR HOURS HAVE
passed: hours very choked with incident and strong feeling.

Eating oysters at lunchtime in an admirable Auberge, as Louise and I licked and wiped our fingers and cooled our salt throats with a delicate wine from the Loire Valley, she leaned near to me and said: ‘I want to tell you about my life, Sir Robert. Or shall you think this very forward?’

‘No,’ I replied. ‘I would be honoured to hear about your life …’

Louise sipped her wine, wiped her mouth and whispered: ‘I would like to explain to you – in the strictest confidence of course – that my marriage with Colonel Jacques-Adolphe de Flamanville, for all that he is a very courageous Soldier, and worthy of my respect, is as arid as an empty lake.’

‘Ah. I am sad to hear—’

‘We have no children. I would have liked to be a Mother, but de Flamanville always and ever said: “You cannot be a Mother, Madame, unless I consent to be a Father, and this I will not do.”’

I touched Louise’s hand. ‘I am sorry for this,’ I said. ‘For I know how precious a child can be …’

‘I think I would have been a loving mother, Sir Robert, but it is too late now. My Chemistry work, amateurish though it is, gives a little Meaning to my life, but I am growing tired of the way each passing year is arranged. Paris I like; Versailles I cannot abide. But I think I may soon leave both Paris and Versailles and return to Switzerland, to care for my father, who is old and lonely. I am his only living child and I am very fond of him, and I would not wish
him
to die alone. Jacques-Adolphe will protest, but I shall not be missed by him, except only as his Camouflage in Society.’

‘His Camouflage?’

‘He is very particular about this, though I scarcely see why. There is a Society at Versailles called the
Fraternit
é. You may guess what kind of Society this is. Its members love only men and de Flamanville is one of their number. Madame de Maintenon would have the King denounce them, but what can he do when his own brother, the Duc d’Orléans, is one of its founders?’

‘Ah. I understand.’

Louise drank more wine. Her hazel eyes were bright and her gaze intense.

‘Perhaps I should not be telling you these things, Sir Robert, except that in you, I seem to find a Spirit very kindred to mine. My life, you see, has been a somewhat solitary thing and I fear this makes me too bold. I have had lovers …’

‘Louise,’ I said, ‘for so shall I call you from now on – and you must call me Merivel, which is the name that I prefer – I rejoice that you have had lovers. I hope they were as rampageous as leopards and as tender as puppy-dogs.’

Louise smiled. ‘I can scarcely remember,’ she said, ‘it was so long ago.’

I took a sip of my wine, the taste of which had never seemed to me as marvellous as it did at this moment. ‘I would like you to say my name,’ I said. ‘Say “Merivel”.’

‘Merivel,’ she repeated quietly. And this saying of my name tugged at my heart.

I took hold of Louise’s hand. ‘Say “Merivel, will you be my lover?”’

I expected her response to come without hesitation. She was a daring woman who appeared shocked by nothing and who, by her recent revelations about her husband and her lovers, had seemed to be leading me closer to her bed. But, to my great Discomfort, she suddenly withdrew her hand and blushed and said she could not say what I had asked. And now I was the one to wonder if, remembering the passion with which I had kissed her in the
Jardin du Roi
, I had been too ardent and too calculating.

*

In the afternoon we visited a High-Class Tailor, Monsieur Durand, in the rue de l’Oiseau near the Porte Saint Antoine, to take in hand the alterations to my clothes, decreed by my sojourn at Versailles.

While I cast my eye upon Shoulder-Ribbons and tried on
canons
of different styles and colours, I reflected mournfully that if Louise had in no way decided to let me become her lover, I could not for long trespass upon her hospitality in Paris, and would soon enough have to return to Versailles and resume my Pauper’s life there.

Into my bitter remembrance came an image of my cot-bed and of the smell of Peas in Brine, and the sight of Hollers sitting on the pisspot.

‘Hey-ho!’ said I suddenly, ‘but assuredly life is all contrast and contradiction!’

I breathed out a long sigh. A pair of scarlet
canons
were pinching my legs infernally and I cast them off. I could feel rising in me a mood of immoderate frustration and anger, such as I suffered so frequently in my Former Life, and I knew that I had to force myself to contain it, or lose all possibility of obtaining the thing I wanted above all others.

‘Of what are you thinking?’ asked Louise sternly, as the Tailor picked up the
canons
I had petulantly flung across the room.

‘I was thinking of Hollers,’ I said. ‘While Time, here, goes by so swiftly, in such a pleasing way for me, for him it crawls, no doubt. And I know that such a Crawling of Time is very painful to endure.’

‘It is,’ said Louise. ‘But your friend must learn patience. Madame de Maintenon is correct: you cannot make up your mind about a clock until you see how it behaves over many days and nights.’

Nights.

I wished the night to come and I wished it not to come.

We sat at supper dutifully, watching Mademoiselle Corinne’s chin dripping with Leek Soup and her black silk gown becoming spattered with morsels of Duck. I attempted to talk to her about the myriad wares to be bought in the rue de l’Oiseau. But all she would say was: ‘Yes, yes, I know that street, but I do not go there now. For why should one go there? To buy brooms or birdcages or toys? Why ever would one want them? Why ever should one go anywhere?’

I had no reply to make to this. I looked helplessly towards Louise, but she would not catch my eye. We shared no laughter.

After supper, we all retired to the
Salon
and Mademoiselle amused herself by drawing profiles of faces upon black paper and laboriously cutting them out to make Silhouettes. For her sad sake I admired them, in the clearest French I could muster, but she did not thank me. She merely remarked that in the winter evenings there was nothing else to do but this, the cutting out of Silhouettes on black paper and that over the years she had completed more than five hundred.

‘You therefore comprehend, Monsieur,’ she said, ‘that I am not idle.’

‘I comprehend it absolutely, Mademoiselle,’ I said. ‘And, indeed, I would very much like to cast my eye upon the five hundred Silhouettes …’

‘You mean you doubt me?’

‘I do not doubt you.’

‘Then why pester me to see them? Making them is all that counts.’

Again, I looked over to Louise, but she was silent, working at some piece of complicated embroidery, and did not raise her head. Abandoning the conversation with Mademoiselle Corinne, I thus found myself the only one in the room with nothing to occupy me and this sudden Idleness I found irksome. I remembered what Pearce used to say when I went fishing with him – that I was always and ever ‘too restless’ – and I therefore tried to remain still in my chair and watch the fire in the grate, and put from my mind all thoughts of what the night might or might not bring.

I looked down at my legs. I had put on a set of taupe
canons
for which I had paid the Tailor of the rue de l’Oiseau a goodly sum. But now the appearance of my legs, which are somewhat thin and puny (in contrast to my stomach, which is still substantial, despite my diet of Oatmeal and Peas at Versailles) encircled with these ridiculous ruffs, such as Vultures have on their horrible, scaly shanks, struck me as sublimely ridiculous and I could not prevent a great wave of melancholy from overcoming me.

‘You are a foolish mortal, Merivel,’ I said to myself. ‘You have been seduced by something which has no future. And the next time you wear these
canons
will be in the
Galerie des Glaces
at Versailles, where your role as Supplicant will have no end, except an end in failure.’