Pearce to Cambridge. Sometimes, in the melancholy moods that so frequently afflict him, Pearce would hold the ladle close to his body and let his long fingers caress its cold surface, in the manner of a lute player plucking a living tune from its dead, hollowed wood.
I was glad, I will admit, to see Pearce. When Will Gates informed me that a man with a long neck and dressed in black was coming up the drive on a mule, I knew it could be none other than my old friend and former fellow-student and I ran out to greet him.
It was drizzling slightly and both Pearce and the mule appeared wet and muddy.
"We have come from the Fens," he announced in his voice of doom.
"From the Fens, Pearce?" I said. "What were you doing there?"
"I am a Fenlander now, Merivel," he said. "My work and life are there."
"I notice that you put them in that order, Pearce: work first, life second."
"Naturally. Except that the two are inseparable."
"Well, I do not work at all, except a little painting."
"Painting? How peculiar."
"You've left the Royal College, then?"
"Yes. I work only with the insane. Take the mule, will you, and see she's fed? We're both very weak."
Pearce then dismounted, staggered a pace or two and fell to his knees. I shouted for Will Gates, who came running like a bullet, and together he and I helped Pearce into the house. I asked the groom to rescue the "burning coals" quickly, before the mule died and rolled over on the soup ladle.
We put Pearce to bed in the least colourful of my rooms, the Olive Room, a north-facing bedchamber, in which I had left intact some dark panelling and had curtained the bed in a sombre green, only enlivened by a little crimson fringe. Here, after drinking some venison broth and enquiring whether his books could be sent up to him, he fell into a sleep that lasted thirty-seven hours. During most of this time, I stayed at his bedside, checking his pulse now and then, listening to his breathing, dozing a little and sipping claret and staring at his elongated grey face, which I found at once so irritating and yet so inexpressibly dear to me.
When he woke up at last, I was anxious to tell him of the despair into which I had fallen and to see whether he could suggest any remedy. But he had, it turned out, made the arduous journey on the mule from the Fens for one reason only: to reveal to me that he had found, in his work with the mad people of what he called the New Bedlam, located somewhere between Waterbeach and Whittlesea, a deep and profound sense of peace, and to try to persuade me to leave my life of "vanity and show" to join him in his labours.
"I sense," he said, staring at my freckled, ruddy and be-wigged visage, "that you're not at ease, Merivel. The light has gone out of your eyes. Luxury is suffocating your vital flame."
I looked down. Though I had a terrible urge to confess to Pearce, amid childlike tears, that it was not luxury that had robbed me of my happiness, but the King's abandonment of me, and that I was indeed a desperate man, though not at all for the reasons he surmised, I refrained from doing so, knowing that it would only lead Pearce into more flowery discussion of how the insane are the innocent of the earth, and how, only by succouring them "like little children" can we be saved.
"Thank you, Pearce, for your concern," I said, "but you are completely wrong. If my eyes appear a little lacklustre, it's merely because I have watched at your bedside for a great quantity of time with hardly any sleep. As to my vital flame, it is burning very brightly."
"I know you, Merivel. When you stood in my room in Caius and put your hand on that man's heart, then it was burning!"
"Indeed! And if you had seen me in the park the other day with my oil paints – "
"You hope to find salvation in art?"
"I'm not speaking necessarily of salvation…"
"But I am, Merivel. For is not death the supreme moment of mortal existence, the hour in which we reap what we have sown?"
"You choose to see
I was glad, I will admit, to see Pearce. When Will Gates informed me that a man with a long neck and dressed in black was coming up the drive on a mule, I knew it could be none other than my old friend and former fellow-student and I ran out to greet him.
It was drizzling slightly and both Pearce and the mule appeared wet and muddy.
"We have come from the Fens," he announced in his voice of doom.
"From the Fens, Pearce?" I said. "What were you doing there?"
"I am a Fenlander now, Merivel," he said. "My work and life are there."
"I notice that you put them in that order, Pearce: work first, life second."
"Naturally. Except that the two are inseparable."
"Well, I do not work at all, except a little painting."
"Painting? How peculiar."
"You've left the Royal College, then?"
"Yes. I work only with the insane. Take the mule, will you, and see she's fed? We're both very weak."
Pearce then dismounted, staggered a pace or two and fell to his knees. I shouted for Will Gates, who came running like a bullet, and together he and I helped Pearce into the house. I asked the groom to rescue the "burning coals" quickly, before the mule died and rolled over on the soup ladle.
We put Pearce to bed in the least colourful of my rooms, the Olive Room, a north-facing bedchamber, in which I had left intact some dark panelling and had curtained the bed in a sombre green, only enlivened by a little crimson fringe. Here, after drinking some venison broth and enquiring whether his books could be sent up to him, he fell into a sleep that lasted thirty-seven hours. During most of this time, I stayed at his bedside, checking his pulse now and then, listening to his breathing, dozing a little and sipping claret and staring at his elongated grey face, which I found at once so irritating and yet so inexpressibly dear to me.
When he woke up at last, I was anxious to tell him of the despair into which I had fallen and to see whether he could suggest any remedy. But he had, it turned out, made the arduous journey on the mule from the Fens for one reason only: to reveal to me that he had found, in his work with the mad people of what he called the New Bedlam, located somewhere between Waterbeach and Whittlesea, a deep and profound sense of peace, and to try to persuade me to leave my life of "vanity and show" to join him in his labours.
"I sense," he said, staring at my freckled, ruddy and be-wigged visage, "that you're not at ease, Merivel. The light has gone out of your eyes. Luxury is suffocating your vital flame."
I looked down. Though I had a terrible urge to confess to Pearce, amid childlike tears, that it was not luxury that had robbed me of my happiness, but the King's abandonment of me, and that I was indeed a desperate man, though not at all for the reasons he surmised, I refrained from doing so, knowing that it would only lead Pearce into more flowery discussion of how the insane are the innocent of the earth, and how, only by succouring them "like little children" can we be saved.
"Thank you, Pearce, for your concern," I said, "but you are completely wrong. If my eyes appear a little lacklustre, it's merely because I have watched at your bedside for a great quantity of time with hardly any sleep. As to my vital flame, it is burning very brightly."
"I know you, Merivel. When you stood in my room in Caius and put your hand on that man's heart, then it was burning!"
"Indeed! And if you had seen me in the park the other day with my oil paints – "
"You hope to find salvation in art?"
"I'm not speaking necessarily of salvation…"
"But I am, Merivel. For is not death the supreme moment of mortal existence, the hour in which we reap what we have sown?"
"You choose to see
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