Restoration (18 page)

I confess I was relieved to bid adieu to him and his odious pipe, yet after he had gone found myself to be in a state of some perturbation with regard to my new responsibility, having no clear picture of what I was supposed to
do
as an Overseer of the Poor. Was it to be expected that I should ride about the villages on Danseuse trawling for the Idle and sending them packing to the looms, succouring the Impotent with sixpences and chicken legs? I was not in the habit of going very frequently to Bidnold village, except to visit Meg at the Rushcutters and thus could not assess what quantity of destitute people might now be turning to me for succour. Had the snow not been falling, I would have mounted my horse there and then and carried out a quick reconnaissance, but, like Justice Hogg, I did not wish to be lost in the white wastes and so decided instead to note down all that I knew about the Poor which, alas, did not seem a great deal. I took up a quill and wrote as follows:

1. They are numerous.

2. They appear more numerous in the capital, where they throng the wharves and lie down to sleep on the steps of alehouses.

3. They are much prone to sickness, as witnessed by me during my brief time at St Thomas 's hospital.

4. Madness appears present in the eyes of many of them and I suspect that Pearce's Bedlam is choking with them.

5. They are regarded by the likes of the Winchelseas as a race apart, a quite other species of man. It is, however, from the bodies of Paupers that anatomists draw their knowledge and it is nowhere suggested that the liver, say, of a Peer will be any different in its shape, function, composition or texture than that of a Hovel-dweller (unless the organ of the Peer be enlarged by the quantity of claret that has passed through it).

6. Jesus was most fond of them.

7. There is an interesting dichotomy between His belief in their nobility and the Nobility's belief in their inherent wickedness. (And this in a supposedly pious country.)

8. I have not, in all my thirty-seven years, given a great deal of thought to them – until this day, the thirteenth of January 1665.

9. How does the King regard them? In his credo that all should be content with their lot and not get above themselves, what does he say of the Pauper?

10. I have heard that in Bidnold there is a tongueless man, sound of limb but speechless, who begs alms from all who pass him. Is this man Impotent or Idle? Has he a Licence? If he has no Licence, what am I to do with him?

I paused. I could now see from my albeit puny notes that the whole question of the Poor was a mighty complex one – one to which I had never expected to address myself. I put down my pen with a sigh. To whom should I look for guidance on a subject about which I seemed to know so very little and upon which my thinking was most horribly muddled? The answer was, of course, Pearce. So it was with another sigh that I took up my quill once more and prepared to write to Pearce, thereby to solicit a return letter full of criticism and scorn. The task wearied me even before I had begun it – but a sweet sound interrupted me: Celia was singing. I left my Study at once and went to the Music Room, where I sat in silence on a small, spindly chair and let my wife's voice drive from my mind all contemplation of the homeless and the needy.

That same night, I had a dream of some consequence: I was standing on the leads of my house and staring at the winter stars, not through my telescope, which was nowhere to be seen, but with my own inadequate eyes. After some hours of astral contemplation (or so it seemed in the dream) I felt a most terrible hurt in my eyes and a wetness on my face, as of tears. With my coatsleeve, I brushed the tears away, but on glancing at my sleeve saw a red stain upon it and knew that my eyes were bleeding. I was about to descend, to put some sad bandage upon my face, when I saw the King, seated some distance from me upon a low chimney stack and regarding me most gravely.

"Though you bleed, Merivel," he said, "you have not understood the First Rule of the Cosmos."

I was about to enquire of him what this "first rule" might be when I woke and found that my cheeks were wet. Mercifully, they were wet with tears and not with blood, but I was nevertheless most vexed to discover myself blubbing in my sleep and lay for some time in a great perplexity, wondering whence the dream had come and what it signified. For whom, or for what was I crying? For the Indian Nightingale? For the Poor, whose sufferings were now to become visible to my mind? For my own ignorance? For my failure to intuit what the First Rule of the Cosmos might be?

I rose and washed my face, shivering somewhat but aware of a drip-dripping outside my window, suggesting to me that the snows were melting. I then returned to my bed and resumed my thinking.

Near morning, I had decided that, setting aside my hopeless lamentation for my days as the King's Fool, the thing which was causing me most hurt was my failure to play any role in Celia's music-making save that of listener. I longed – feverishly, I now saw – to be her accompanist, her consort, and yet so ashamed was I of the sounds I made upon my oboe that I had almost ceased my practice, lest Celia should hear me at it. How, then, was I to achieve the thing I hoped for? In my mind, I related my problem to the King and waited patiently for his response. I believe I dozed a little on this instant, for I saw very clearly the King take up from his lap a glove made by my late father and put it on, thus concealing several priceless diamond and emerald rings on his fingers. "
Voilá
!" he said. "You must learn in secret."

How this was to be done I was not able to tell and in the day that then dawned I was not at liberty to ponder, for no sooner had I finished my solitary breakfast than Will Gates informed me that Finn had arrived and awaited me in my Studio.

I had not sent for him. Since Celia's arrival, my new vocation as a painter had not been pursued as vigorously as before. My struggles with my oboe had all but replaced my experiments with colour and light. As I made my way to my Studio, however, it came into my mind that I would like to attempt a painting of my imaginary Russians in their snowbound wastes. Bits of snow still lay upon the park, so I should begin immediately upon the landscape (mostly white with a heavy sky of slate grey) and come later to a rendition of the people, using as my models Cattlebury and Will Gates, dressed in the fur tabards I still awaited from London. Thus, Finn's arrival was most timely. He would help me to plan the picture, showing me how the figures might be grouped and where, in the uniform white, to suggest light and shadow. To any pretentious request of his for a background of broken statuary I would peremptorily retort: There
is
no broken statuary in my vision of Russia; the frost has made it all crumble to shards.

I opened the Studio door. The light in the room seemed more than ever northerly and cold, but Finn within it was dressed not in his outlaw's ragged green but in a garb of lustrous crimsons and golds, with handsome buckled boots on his feet and – strangest of all, so that I scarcely recognised the face beneath it – a blond periwig on his head.

"My dear Finn!" I exclaimed.

The artist smiled and I noticed that a blush crept to his cheeks, which still appeared somewhat gaunt and underfed.

"Good morning to you, Sir Robert," he said. "Your eye has discerned an alteration in my appearance, I see."

"There is not an eye in Norfolk could fail to discern it, Finn," I replied. "And from it I deduce some measure of prosperity."

"Well," said Finn, "I have not yet got the place at Court on which my heart is set, but I believe I am almost there, for I have been given a commission by the King."

"Ah. So you have had an audience with His Majesty at last?"

"Yes. It was brief, I confess, but nevertheless an audience."

"Bravo, Finn!"

"After many days and nights of haunting the corridors of Whitehall and being advised at last that I should put on new clothes if I hoped to be summoned in to the presence."

"Hence this most excellent attire?"

"Yes. And it cost me all the money I had in the world, save the coach fare from London to Norfolk. So you see before you a Pauper. I have nothing in the world, Sir Robert, not one penny."

"I see. So you have come to resume your role as tutor, or am I to commit you to the workhouse?"

Finn, not knowing of my discourse with Justice Hogg, was of course unable to understand my little jest and thus did not smile, but continued with gravitas.

"One painting," he said, "one portrait lies between me and a position at Court."

"Ah," I said, "and what painting may that be?"

For answer, Finn put one of his thin hands into a braided pocket and took out a scrap of parchment much creased and thumbed, like a love letter kept day and night about a man's person. He handed it to me and bid me read. I saw at once the King's elegant hand, and this is what was written:

This paper sets forth and commands to be executed by one, Elias Finn, painter, the following commission: a noble and beautiful portrait of Celia Clemence, Lady Merivel, of Bidnold Manor in the County of Norfolk. This portrait to be delivered, complete and finished in every detail, no later than the twelfth day of February 1665. This portrait not to exceed twenty-five inches carrés, that it may comfortably be hung in our closet. This portrait, if found to be well-executed and pretty, to earn for the artist the sum of seven livres. This portrait, if found to be most excellent and true to nature, to earn for the artist promise of a small place at Court
.

I looked up at Finn, who now had an insufferable grin upon his face. I handed him his paper, feeling myself invaded as I did so by a most unruly anger. Gone instantly was my little excitement for my painting of Russians. Now, I would be forced – in order not to displease the King – to give food and lodging to this impoverished artist while he spent hours in Celia's company, embellishing her with silly fans and draperies and daubing in some puffing cherub above her head, receiving for his pains both Celia's admiration and a position at Whitehall, while I struggled on alone with my oboe, exiled still from Court and possessing no power to make my wife regard me with anything but disdain, save only in moments of distress such as the night of my bird's unfortunate demise. Any sympathy I had once felt for Finn had now departed from me utterly. I both despised and envied him and knew only too well what a burden his presence in my house was going to be to me. It is fortunate, however, that at such moments of sudden anger (infrequent in my nature) I seem not to be without some cleverness and cunning. Adeptly concealing my rage, I shook my head gravely and said:

"Alas, Finn, you must not depend upon this for your future."

"Why so?" said Finn, staring anxiously at his paper.

"Why? Because such commissions are numerous. I wager the King puts out no less than two or three
per diem
. And already portraits of my wife have been done, but none have been paid for and the poor artists are, as far as I know, still wandering the land like the Idle Poor or decaying in their rags on the steps to the King's barge."

I was earnestly hoping that these words would cast Finn into the Nordic gloom that fits his features so well but, much to my irritation, he smiled condescendingly at me.

"This one will be paid for," he said, "because I will make a portrait too beautiful to be resisted. I have heard your wife is a pretty woman and I will improve, even, on what nature has created."

"By surrounding her with flowers and harps and foolish garlands, I suppose? But these will not improve your chances."

"No. Not by embellishment, but by succeeding at what you attempted, Sir Robert, and failed to achieve: the capturing of her
essence
. I will capture it and the face will be a magnet, drawing all eyes and hearts towards it."

"I wish you luck," I said acidly. "But let me warn you: much of what the King commences he does not finish. The clamour about him is so noisy, so colossal, he cannot for long remain attentive to any one thing. So beware, Finn. You may arrive with your picture and he will not even set eyes upon it."

"But I have my paper…"

"Paper! Do you not know the First Rule of the Cosmos, Finn?"

"What 'First Rule'?"

"That all matter is born of fire and will one day again be consumed by it."

Having delivered myself of this piece of questionable wisdom and before Finn could deny its relevance to the piece of parchment in his hands, I quickly changed the subject.

"Concerning your lodging here," I said, "I suppose the King gave you money for this?"

"No, Sir Robert. As I told you, I have not one farthing…"

"I am to feed you and house you as a favour?"

"As a favour to His Majesty."

"For which I shall be rewarded how?"

"He did not say. But I am a person of modest appetite…"

"Not so, judging from your clothes."

"That is mere outward show…"

"As much as life proves to be. But God sees into your heart, Finn, and would He wish you to be a parasite?"

"I am no parasite. I work hard for the meagre living I make."

"And will do so here. In return for your board, you will concentrate such talent as you have upon
my
work. I wish to begin some new pictures. You will help me with questions of perspective and light."

"But what of the portrait?"

"My wife is most busy with her music and her attempts to comprehend the work of Dryden. She will not spare you more than an hour a day."

Finn began to protest and, seeing his dismay, I felt my anger abate somewhat. To Meg, when I next saw her, I would tell the story of a poor mendicant who is given a little plot of ground and sees an end to his poverty if he can but till the earth and sew some seed before the beginning of spring. He goes begging for tools – for a plough and a mule and a hoe. He returns with these, but he is too late. He did not
see
the spring come and yet, when he gets back, it is already there. He had forgotten with what stealth change occurs and time passes.