Rose Tremain - Restoration

This command comes from Your Only Sovereign and Loyal Servant of God,

Charles Rex

I rode through the night, taking Danseuse as far as Newmarket, changing horses there and again at Royston. Will Gates begged me to let him accompany me, fearful, I believe, that in my passion to reach London I would go flying into a ditch, there to die unmourned. But I refused. "The stars," I said, (succumbing, I know not why, to a fleeting attack of Pearceian romanticism), "will be my companions, and the very darkness itself!"

I had anticipated and indeed so it proved, that my spirit on this journey would be hurtling ahead of my body, causing me to shout at it in order to rein it in. It did not worry me if some poor cottar woke under his low eave to hear me singing or shrieking in the December night, but I preferred to undertake this noisy adventure alone, leaving Will to keep an eye on Farthingale lest, in my absence, she got intolerably above herself and began setting fire to my paintings, baiting my bird, playing my oboe, or I know not what.

As I set off, Celia was weeping. No doubt it pained her, nay, frightened her beyond measure that it was to me and not to her that the summons had come. She would, she said piteously, send some message with me, some plea, but knew not how to shape the words. And I could not linger for an instant, not even to finish my supper or powder my wig. "If I do not throw myself into the saddle at once," I told Celia, "I shall not reach London by morning, and you know as well as I that if I am not there at the hour appointed, His Majesty will not wait for me. As sternly as he commands loyalty from his subjects does he command punctuality. A betrayal of time he regards as a betrayal of faith. The first object that he ever showed me, Celia, was a clock."

And so I galloped away. Into my pockets I had thrust four or five quail to sustain me through the twelve hours of travel and at the moment of my departure, Will came running with a flask of Alicante, which I strapped to my saddle. "Farewell!" I shouted, but did not look behind. The road ahead mesmerised my being.

I entered London at seven o'clock. Over the river, unglimpsed by me for so long, rose the sluggish sun and mist streamed up off the water. I heard the swearing of the bargemen and the shouting of the lightermen, the cry of gulls and the ruffle of pigeons, and though my thighs ached and my rump was sore, I knew that my spirit was still strong.

See me, then, arrive at last at Whitehall. I have stopped at an inn to relieve myself and to drink some water, suffering suddenly from a terrible thirst. I have had the serving girl brush my breeches and wash my boots. I have shaken the dust from my wig and soaped my face and hands. I feel extraordinarily hot as I enter the Physic Garden, I wonder if I am about to vaporise and disappear, leaving behind nothing more than a greasy puddle. Once again, as on that first most terrible visit, I feel that the near presence of the King has altered the air. "Lord God," I say, sending out one of my little bleeps of prayer, "help me to breathe."

I walk on between the neat hedges of box, smelling those herbs that outlast the winter, bay, rosemary, sage, lemon balm, thyme, and there, in the very middle of the garden, setting his watch by the sundial, I see him, the man who, if a hole were made in my breast such as the one I saw at Cambridge, I would beg to reach in and take hold of my heart.

I approach and remove my hat. I go down on my knees. I am choked and unable to speak. To my shame, I feel my eyes fill with tears. "Sir…" I manage to whisper.

"Ah. Merivel. Is it you?"

I raise my head. I do not want the King to see that I am crying, yet I know that in this instant he will see far more than this, that in my face he will be able to discern, with terrible precision, the degree of suffering which his neglect of me has caused.

"It is me. It is I, in fact, Sire…" I stammer.

He walks elegantly to where I'm kneeling, the harsh cinders of the path seeming to make wounds on my skin. He reaches out and touches my chin with his glove.

"And how is your game of tennis coming along?" he asks.

I feel, to my intense agony, a fat tear slide down my chin and moisten his glove.

"It would be coming along well, Sir, I'm sure," I say stupidly, "except that I do not have a tennis court at Bidnold."

"No tennis court? That is why you are getting fat, then, Merivel."

"No doubt it is. That and a greed of which I do not seem able to rid myself…"

It is at this moment that I realise that the pocket of my coat is terribly stained by the remnants of the quail, which I have forgotten to remove. I cover the pocket quickly with the plumes of my hat. The King laughs. To my intense delight. I feel his hand leave my chin and his long fingers travel upwards over my mouth, take hold of my flat nose and give it a vigorous tweak.

"Get up then," he says, "and come with us, Merivel. There is much to discuss."

He leads me, not to his State Rooms, but to his laboratory which, during my time at Whitehall, was a place that fascinated me and in which the King's restless mind was forever at work on new experiments, the most engrossing of which was the fixing of mercury. The smell in the place reminded me of the smell of Fabricius's own room at Padua where, on his night table, he was fond of dissecting lizards. It had about it something of the smell of the sewer or the tomb and yet my brain was invariably excited by it. I suppose that, before I turned away from anatomy, I recognised it was the odour that accompanied discovery.

As we enter the laboratory, the King casts off his coat and throws it down. His chemist is not at work yet so we are alone in the room. I gather up his coat and hold it in my arms while he strides along the tables looking and probing and sniffing. So engrossed does he seem for a moment with the experiments in progress, that I wonder if he has forgotten me. But after a few moments he stops and picks up a phial of ruby-coloured liquid and holds it to the light.

"Regard this," he says. "A purgative recently patented by me."

"Excellent, Your Majesty," I say.

"Excellent it is. But it is no mere tedious physic, Merivel. It has a property I did not foresee and which is both informative and amusing. We call it the King's Drops. Presently, I shall put some into a sip of wine for you. And we shall see what follows."

I say nothing. The King perches on a stool very near me and stares up into my face.

"Time has altered you, Merivel," he says. "Some vital part of you appears to be asleep."

I do not know what to say to this either.

"I see this same look in very many of my people, as if they merely prefer to be and no longer to think. Put down my coat, Merivel."

I lay the heavy brocaded coat aside, catching a fleeting whiff of the sweet perfume with which even the King's gloves and handkerchiefs are scented.

"Mercifully for England – perhaps mercifully for you, my dear Fool – something has arrived on our shores which may rouse us all from sleep."

"What may that be, Sir?"

"Plague, Merivel. Pestilence. At Deptford four people have died. And it will spread. Some of us will be spared and some will die. But all of us will awake."

"I heard no rumour of plague, Sir."

"No. But then you are at Bidnold. You are asleep in Norfolk. You are dreaming, Merivel!"

I am about to reply that indeed I have been dreaming of former times and wishing them with me again, when the King takes from his pocket a lace handkerchief and proceeds, with some tenderness, to wipe the moisture from my boiling face.

"Now," he says, having cleaned me up, "we must speak about Mistress Clemence, your wife. For this reason I have summoned you, Merivel. From my knowledge of your character – and I hope I am not mistaken in this – I believe you to be, like your father before you, a man who clearly understands and accepts the station to which chance and favour, no less than his own deserving, have brought him and does not diminish himself by lusting after what he cannot have. Much has been given to you, Merivel, has it not?"