Conceit (38 page)

In the shadows a girl stood looking out at him. There was no modesty in her eyes, just an English brown. Her hair was beguilingly short and soft like flocking, and her nose was bred for wisdom, not for flattery. He knew this was Margaret Donne, one of the daughters the Dean was seeking husbands for, since he had seen her at her father’s sermon only a quarter-hour earlier.

Taking a pomegranate from her pocket, she placed it on the tomb, sawed through it with a straight-blade, then popped the seeds out of the leathery skin and scooped
them up with her teeth. Above her blood-red lips, deeper than madder, deeper than any red that he had ever known, her dark eyes mocked him, forthright in their wit.

The first time William had heard the Dean preach was when he had made enemies of the ladies at court by saying that painting the skin was prostitution and wearing silk an excuse for women to go naked in clothes. No wonder this daughter hid herself in drab woollens. Yet her hips swung charmingly as she walked away, proof to William’s eye that she put no store in layers of under-garments. Unveiled, she would be a slim, nude statue of the finest marble.

William had heard odd stories about the Dean and the children he had raised himself. And yet his own father thought a match with Margaret Donne desirable for William’s brother, writing to George,
You could do worse. Her bloodline is itself a dowry, fetching back to Sir Thomas More.

George was in Venice at the time, confined to a surgeon’s care.
The pain of the ulcers
, he wrote to William,
is like none I have ever known. A woman’s touch is excruciating-and in a city which numbers four prostitutes to every priest! In no case must you tell our father of my indiscretion.
William was to send money for the sweating cure and for silk, the only cloth George could tolerate against his skin.

Then the Dean died, and William was by his own good management betrothed to Pegge himself. After their wedding supper on Lucy’s eve, they retired to the bridal chamber, he climbing expectantly into her high bed, and she dismissing the old servant who had helped her into her garments-
Leave us, Bess, I shall unclothe myself.
Dipping a sponge into a bowl of water, she washed away her alabaster
face and turned towards him, her cheekbones blushing a delicate shell-rose. In a flash of anger, he saw that her skin was deeply scored with pocks. What he had thought were beauty marks were scars.

Years before, when his mother’s face had been disfigured by small-pox, his father had said that a woman whose face was filthy by nature must mend it
by
art, like Jezebel. William’s mother died and his father took a younger wife, saying privately to his sons,
You might well wonder why I put my neck into the halter a second time. Marriage is a bondage, a thraldom, a yoke, and yet a man needs such release as can only be found between a woman’s legs.

On his wedding night, William felt cheated, but only a little, and only until Pegge slipped under the bed linen to join him and her leg snaked over his calf, hooking his foot, her strong limbs locking tight with his. Her body held no disfigurement he could discern, the skin unblemished and undefiled, a pale creamy marble, though much warmer to the touch, her breasts as decorous as fledgling doves.

Afterwards, she fell asleep, her arms and legs outspread and her short chestnut hair sticking up in flocks, and he could not stop thinking of a silly rhyme about Queen Elizabeth that his mother had taught him as a child.

Her bosom, sleek as Paris plaster,
Held up two balls of alabaster.

Thank God Pegge had not died of small-pox. Over the years, the marks had faded to a dimpling on her cheeks, hollows to tempt midday shadows to bed down in.

It was dark outside William’s workroom and the pomegranate was warm in his hands. This was his east, his India of need. He placed the fruit on his drawings as a paperweight, putting away his draughting tools. He took a coach as far as he could, then walked past the empty shell of Paul’s towards one of the thirteen taverns that had survived the fire.

When William entered the Three Cranes, he saw a man sitting at the back showing something in a wooden case to a serving-maid.

“You must be Mr Pepys, for there is nobody else about. Lord Sandwich said I would find you here. I am William Bowles.” He slid onto the bench and sent the girl for some hot sack. “It is bitterly cold this night. What is that object, Mr Pepys?”

“My kidney-stone.”

Pepys handed it to William, who inspected it politely. A frightening specimen, it was as big as a tennis ball and a good deal heavier.

“It was cut from my groin eight years ago.” Pepys told the harrowing tale in a ringing voice, then restored the relic to the padded box.

The dark alehouse suited William, though he could have wished for a more discreet companion. No doubt Pepys had heard about the King’s disastrous new fashion, and William did not need his wounds rubbed with coarser salt. He knew Pepys had come up rapidly in the King’s
service and was now Clerk of the Navy, weathering even the recent sinking of a ship. Under a vast untidy wig which must have cost a full £4, Pepys was wearing one of the new masculine vests, but so plain and thin at the back that he seemed pinched with cold.

Pepys’s talk was peppered with vulgarities no better than an ordinary seaman’s, though he had a greater intimacy with foreign tongues. When the girl brought the hot sack, Pepys expressed a desire to tocar her mamelles and put her mano against his cosa, a seasick mélange that had barely crossed the Channel.
The man is as much a cheat as his waistcoat
, thought William, but at least Pepys did not seem inclined to discuss fashion, and for that William was grateful.

He unwrapped his parcel and pushed the battered folio in Pepys’s direction. “I have come to ask your opinion of this book.”

Pepys ran his hands over the binding and read the title,
LXXX Sermons preached by that learned and reverend Divine, John Donne, Dr in Divinity, late Dean of the Cathedral Church of St Paul’s, London, with The Life and Death of Dr Donne by Iz. Wa.
Then he examined a few pages. “With so many books burnt in St-Faith’s-under-Paul’s, this folio would fetch a ransom, yet it is hardly worth a penny in this condition.” He looked accusingly at William. “It is so defaced I can barely make out the print.”

William tried to curb his impatience. “It is not the value that concerns me, it is this strange annotation. Lord Sandwich said that you know code.”

“It is not in code.”

“Come, man, it cannot be read!”

Pepys tipped the book upside down, then opened it from the end. “It is written in the Chinese manner, from back to front.”

“Never mind the manner. What do the symbols mean?”

“It is tachygraphy, a system devised for taking down sermons, and written in a woman’s script.” Pepys plunged in, sounding out the words.
“I was enticed to London to dance the
-here is a foreign word, perhaps
coranto
—
at court, but found myself breathing the close air of the drawing room instead. It was worse than the
-and now she names a country dance she despises, I think the
branle
, or it may be the
pavane
, for the writing is very blotted.”

William’s teeth were aching from the sack and he was sure his head would pain him in the morning.

“If I am not mistaken,” Pepys said, leafing through a few more pages, “this was written by the woman who became John Donne’s wife. Look, their names are here—
Ann More, John Donne
—and afterwards she has written
Ann Donne
in the manner of a besotted girl.” Turning the book around, he tried to make out Izaak Walton’s biography beneath the handwriting. “Mrs Donne died many years before this book was printed. How could she have written in this volume? The dead cannot write.”

They can speak, though
, William thought, assailed by fear. He felt in great need of some strong drink, for the sack was far too sweet. “The dead think only of their own needs, they care not for the living.” He extracted the book from Pepys’s grasp, restored it to the wrapper and tied the string vigorously, knotting it several times for good measure.

“I would be glad to read some more,” Pepys protested.

“There is no need, Mr Pepys, no need. I have the gist.”

“Then later, sir. You may wish me to translate the rest.”

“I should not think of troubling you. If you will tell me where to find the key, I shall perform the task myself.” William shoved the parcel underneath the bench. “And now, I insist on buying you a supper.”

“I would rather read ten pages of that book you have spirited away,” Pepys said. “John Donne, Ann Donne, undone—do you know the story?” William must have shown his dismay, for Pepys hurried on. “Of course, everyone has heard it. But do you not think it odd that the woman is writing from her grave?”

“The lady who wrote this is not dead, although—” William stopped, wishing the words back in his mouth, and his mouth wrapped round a tankard. He took one straight out of the serving-maid’s hand as she went past.

“Then why is she playing such a masquerade? The woman believes she is someone else. This is no idle game. It would have taken months to write.”

“I have seen several volumes in the same condition,” William admitted, “but I do not dare confront her, for she is subject to fits and distractions. You know what is said about sleeping dogs.”

“Let them lie, let them lie,” Pepys said peaceably, rooting around in his wig with his finger.

“If she thought she had been found out, she might do some violence to herself. Discretion, Mr Pepys, discretion is best where women are concerned.”

“I understand you perfectly,” Pepys said, stroking his
nose. “I shall press you no further, but if I could do you service as translator …”

William downed a numbing draught. “What do you say to a cask of oysters?”

“I shall not say no to oysters,” Pepys replied, “for you know their reputation. Though, in truth, my wife allows me to lie with her but seldom. Of late, her spaniel has been sleeping on her bed and growls when I come near her.”

The more crowded the room became, the more it was needful to yell, and the more at ease William felt. “You are fortunate to have your wife in London, Mr Pepys,” he shouted. “Mine cannot tolerate it.”

When the serving-maid returned to ask how they did, Pepys sang out “Come aloft” and pulled her onto his lap. While he fumbled at her, saying picturesquely in his sailor’s polyglot that he wished to hazer his cosa in her eglisa, William consulted his pocket-clock.

“What an amazing instrument,” he announced when Pepys’s hands were back on his drink. “It will affect every aspect of our lives.” He showed Pepys the new minute-hand, then pointed out the engraving on the back.
Hubert. Rouen. 1666. “A
young man of that name has just been hanged at Tyburn. We live in a paupered kingdom, my friend, if we cannot trust the French. He died because of a fire he did not set.”

“So did my little shoemaker, though he never set foot out of Fleet street in his life. Today his shoes have taken me from my home in Seething lane to the King’s dressing chamber in Whitehall, from thence to the Navy Office, and then here to the Three Cranes.”

“I was once a Gentleman of the Bedchamber, but am now reduced to making tents as my grandfather began.”

“But surely you have sons,” Pepys countered. “My wife has given me none.”

“Mine has given birth to three.”

“So we each covet what the other has, and wish our own lot changed.”

“And so doth all humanity. Let us drink to that.” William thought of Duodecimus slouching along the backs at Clewer, keeping to the upwind side of the sty, his arms heaped with winter pippins for the swine. “My eldest son is a spendthrift and my youngest talks to pigs,” he said gloomily. “I can scarce see myself in the boy. There can be bitterness in sons, my friend.”

“Perhaps your wife came from a lesser family?” Pepys ventured.

“My wife had the education of a prince.”

Pepys selected a fat oyster and slid it down his throat. “In this new reign, most think a woman learned and wise if she can distinguish her husband’s bed from another man’s.”

“My sons could have no better pedigree. My wife’s bloodline descends from one of England’s Lord Chancellors. For that genius to die out is unthinkable, yet it is easier to breed good dogs. When I wish to improve a pointer, I choose a bitch and stud with good ancestry and, from the resulting litter, I pick the best bitch and breed her again with the same stud. Within a few generations, I have a superior dog. But with humans, it is impossible to breed true, for no one breeds uncle to niece, nor grandsire to granddaughter, though it might improve the race a hundredfold.”

Pepys rooted in his wig again, considering this point. “Well, sir, the worst I can see is that you have sired rich tailors, and I will always be the son of a poor one. Neither of us will starve, and neither will make baronet!” He toasted William with his tankard. “May I ask the name of your wigmaker, sir?”