The Silver Swan Read online

  The story was told that Joseph had bought him for a guinea when he had been only twelve years old and the Negro little older. The black bundle of skin and bone had been allowed to sleep by the fire in the kitchen, where he had been fed by Joseph with the leavings from the Gage family table. The black child grew and grew to well over six feet — and would have killed for the master who saved him from dying in the streets of London. Joseph referred to him as Sootface and treated him with the thoughtless affection usually reserved for dogs.

  Elizabeth’s older brother, Thomas, also came and went during those years, as unlike his sister and Joseph as it was possible to be. A thin self-seeker with the face of a fox and the eyes of a serpent, his smile was as warm as winter, his lips tight and disapproving.

  But even worse was the guardian of the Gage brothers and their sister — appointed as their natural parents had died young. With a beady brown eye that roved constantly over the younger and prettier female servants, he spoke nothing but damnation. There had never been so sinful a place as the Court according to his unceasing sermon. All the world went a-whoring, gambling and drinking. Meanwhile his wife would watch her husband with the fevered gaze of a fanatic. There was something unhealthy about them and Joseph said, quite roundly, that he would never be surprised to hear that they had murdered one another.

  The rest of the social life of Sutton Place was conducted amongst the various Catholic families who lived round and about and who together formed a close and exclusive community. There was the Berkshire set — as John called them; the Englefields, the Blounts, the Racketts and widowed Mrs Nelson.

  The prettiest of the women — other than Elizabeth — were the Blount sisters, one dark and saucy, the other blonde and amiable; the ugliest was Mrs Rackett who, beneath an overlarge and heavily plumed wig, had thick lips, a broad nose and a hooting laugh. She made a great to-do of having a famous half-brother — the young and celebrated poet Alexander Pope — but secretly Melior Mary thought she did not altogether like him. For on more than one occasion Mrs Rackett had been heard to exclaim, ‘To be plain with you my brother has a maddish way with him’. Then she would lower her voice and express her opinion that it was Alexander’s deformity that was behind his eccentricities. She always had the air of one who was slightly revolted as she spoke of his minute stature and would purse her lips as if he had been born so small on purpose.

  Yet it was for him, for the man that Wycherley the dramatist had described as having a ‘little crazy carcass’, that Elizabeth Weston was leaving Sutton Place and her husband. For it was he — the tiny poet with the handsome face and the readiest wit in England — who had given her love at long last. Or so she believed.

  ‘Oh Melior Mary,’ she said now, in a sudden agony lest her child’s life be ruined. ‘Will you miss your father terribly? Do you like Mr Pope? Oh dear, oh dear.’

  Her daughter regarded her seriously. Already, though she was still but seven years old, there was stirring in her the storm rider that all her life would never leave her in peace. The combination of the inn-keeper’s blood and that of generations of the proud and fated Westons was powerful indeed. She knew, even now, that she would never love any mortal thing as much as she did the great house itself.

  And yet she had a tenderness for her father. She remembered how he would swing her up onto his powerful shoulders when she was very small, the better that she might see the stained glass in the Great Hall.

  ‘Look at those windows,’ he used to say. ‘One day they will be yours. Unless fate decrees that you have a brother.’

  His voice always held an indifferent tone, as if he cared neither one way nor the other if her mother should have another child. But secretly Melior Mary had always known that he would have loved a son to inherit Sutton Place, to carry on the great name of Weston which — by a series of strange and remorseless deaths — had now whittled down to John alone.

  Upon his shoulders like that Melior Mary could see him spread out beneath her like a countryside, every rise and fall of his face parts of a landscape. The clipped dark hair — cut thus to enable him to wear his various wigs — was a forest; the brilliant eyes, fringed by his dark curling lashes, mysterious lakes; the nape of his neck — which seemed so boyish and vulnerable — the curve of a mountain.

  And when she was thus held close to him she could smell the freshness on his clothes and skin, where he had recently come in from riding, and feel the thud of his heart beneath his velvet coat. A wave of love for her father would come over her at these times. She would put her arms round his neck and wish that she could grow quickly, so that her normal view of him would not always be confined to a pair of riding boots or shoes and stockings.

  ‘Well?’

  Her mother was looking at her with eyes a-brim. The gates of Sutton Place were almost fully open.

  ‘I shall miss him, you know I will. But I must stay with you, Mother. You and Mr Pope seem so little.’

  ‘Then you like Mr Pope, you funny child?’

  ‘Of course I do.’

  Melior Mary thought back to her first sight of the man that some called freak and some called god, that some pitied and others envied, yet who, it was decreed by fate, would be recognized and lionized as a genius within his lifetime.

  Despite his being half-brother to Mrs Rackett he had never been to Sutton Place but the previous Christmas — the year of 1710 — he had finally accepted an invitation. Melior Mary had been hidden in one of the musicians’ galleries in the Great Hall, the better to see the large company arriving for the annual rout. The master of Sutton Place had thrown open his mansion to the cream of three counties and below her glided a living rainbow of colour as the ladies went past each other like bejewelled ships; the decks their enormously hooped petticoats, the sails their hair — woven à la commode into frames of wire — some two or three storeys high and covered with silk and brilliants.

  Directly beneath her had stood Elizabeth in a hugely hooped dress of blue and silver, round her neck and at her ears the Weston diamonds, while her fair hair was curled, powdered and woven with fresh flowers. Standing beside her, just out of vision, had been John, only the tips of his shoes being visible from where his daughter peeped.

  The small orchestra — located in the gallery opposite the one in which Melior Mary was hidden — had just struck up a reel when Mr and Mrs Charles Rackett and Mr Alexander Pope were announced. Because he was celebrated — and no doubt because tales of his strangely small stature had reached ridiculous proportions — a lot of heads turned and Melior Mary stood on tip-toe in her hiding place. At first she thought there had been a mistake and Mrs Rackett had brought a child with her and then she saw that it was, in fact, a diminutive man.

  But his face, as if in compensation, was handsome and striking. A finely shaped nose, a mouth that spoke of sweetness and passion, deep and large blue eyes and — from what she could hear — a delightful and charming voice. But though he was dressed fashionably with a long, curling wig and a velvet coat of cinnamon, satin lined and embroidered with silver, one side of him was contracted and his shoulders round.

  Despite all this Melior Mary saw that her mother, curtseying before the ill-shapen young man, had grown quite pink in the cheeks. And he was bending that clever head to kiss her hand. Their voices floated up to her above the sound of the music.

  ‘I never dance, Mrs Weston, but if you are not ashamed to be a butterfly weaving with a spider then nothing would give me greater pleasure than to step out.’

  She heard her mother murmur acceptance and saw John shift from buckled shoe to buckled shoe. And then as the music changed to the measured sound of a minuet and her father turned away to his brandy punch, Alexander Pope had stretched out his hand and Elizabeth Weston had laid hers in it.

  Melior Mary never forgot that first union of their hands. His so perfect — the long fingers and shapely nails belying the rest of his body; hers so small and childlike. And there was something in the way their fingers lay quietly toge
ther for a second or two before they moved into the formal dance. If Melior Mary had been asked to choose a word to describe the way those hands first touched each other it would have been peacefully.

  A noise behind her had made her turn round. Her uncle, Joseph, the drapery that curtained off the gallery looped over his arm, stood in the entrance. He was dazzlingly dressed in a black velvet coat and breeches, very richly laced with gold; his waistcoat brilliant with many coloured gemstones, his stockings black silk, his buckles winking diamonds. On his head he wore a white full-bottomed wig. Yet despite all the snuff-puffing hauteur of the great rakehell, empty of thought and conscious of naught but his appearance, his eyes were narrowed as he looked out over Melior Mary’s head to where his sister danced with Mr Pope.

  ‘Is he a dwarf?’ asked his niece.

  ‘No. No, he’s not.’

  ‘Then why is he like that? What’s wrong with him?’

  Joseph had dropped the curtain and stepped inside the gallery so that he stood side-by-side with Melior Mary looking down at the Great Hall; the hall that had been built in the reign of Henry VIII by the courtier Sir Richard Weston.

  ‘Some childhood illness I believe,’ he said, his voice faraway. ‘But nature has given him genius instead. Do you believe that, Melior Mary? Do you believe that there is a law of compensation in the universe?’

  ‘Do you mean God, Uncle?’

  He looked at her.

  ‘I’m not sure. If that is what you like to term it. But anyway Mr Pope was born to receive greatness.’

  ‘I think I would rather be unclever but properly formed.’

  ‘Oh so would he! Make no mistake of that, Melior Mary. He would sacrifice every poem in his soul in order to walk as straight and as tall as your father. Particularly now.’

  His gaze was fixed on the dancers once more and Melior Mary looked curiously at the little poet.

  ‘Why now?’

  Joseph’s eyes had been as green and as soft as a sleepy cat’s.

  ‘Because something is stirring in his heart which attacks all mankind, irrespective of whether they be tall or short, beautiful or ugly.’

  After the night of the Christmas ball Mr Pope had begun to visit Sutton Place quite frequently. At first he came with his half-sister and her husband, or with the Englefields, but then he took to calling alone, walking with Elizabeth in the gardens or exploring what was left of the Long Gallery. So that nobody could endanger themselves, John had sealed off the end leading to the ruined Gate House Wing but Pope and Melior Mary, hand in hand, and looking like playing children, would clamber through the partition to examine the place where the ravaging fire had broken out just after Queen Elizabeth had stayed with Henry Weston.

  ‘What was it like before?’ Pope had asked.

  ‘I believe there was a spiral staircase that led into the Gate House from the gallery, which was the longest in England. The servants say it is haunted.’

  Pope’s deep blue eyes — almost on a level with hers — had stared as he said, ‘Tell me of this ghost. Have you seen it?’

  Melior Mary shook her head.

  ‘No — it is only a sound. They say it is Sir Richard Weston’s Fool.’

  ‘Sir Richard Weston?’

  ‘He built Sutton Place and was my ancestor.’

  ‘So it is his initials that decorate the outside walls?’

  ‘Aye, a grand conceit is it not?’

  Resisting a desire to smile, Alexander had nodded and said, ‘Grand.’

  And that evening sitting in the upstairs saloon, with Melior Mary safely gone to bed, he recounted the story again and said, ‘She is so possessed of adult wit that it is hard not to laugh at her.’

  Elizabeth smiled but John looked at him blankly and said, ‘Why is that?’

  ‘Because she is a dwarf of an adult, with all the humour that invokes.’

  It was only after he had spoken the words that Pope realized he could have been describing himself and paused wretchedly. There was an uncomfortable silence during which John kicked at the log fire with his riding boot, Elizabeth bent even more industriously over her embroidery and Alexander had gulped his glass of port. Finally John had said, ‘I don’t care for that description of my daughter, sir’ and had got up and left the room. Horrified Pope stared after him.

  ‘He thought I was likening her to my own deformed carcass,’ he said — and before Elizabeth could stop him he had hurried out, limping rather badly because of his distress.

  He had found John staring into the fire in the Great Hall, his large square shoulders hunched with unmistakable anger at his lot. If Pope had been anyone else he would have felt a moment’s pity for this somewhat forlorn figure but as it was he simply muttered, ‘Tyrant!’ beneath his breath and aloud said, ‘Mr Weston, a moment if you please sir.’

  John turned and ostentatiously lowered his head so that he could stare down his long straight nose at the young man who stood like an imp of paradise — chin up and blue flashing eyes — before him.

  ‘Yes, sir?’ he said.

  ‘I apologize, sir, if you took aught amiss at my description of Melior Mary. I meant no offence.’

  John hardened his mouth.

  ‘Save your pretty talk for my wife, sir. Flowing phrases and sweet speeches have no effect on me.’

  Pope had gone a little pale but stood his ground.

  ‘Do you accept my apology?’

  ‘No, Mr Pope, I do not. I think you trespass on my hospitality.’

  Alexander looked askance and said, ‘But Mr Weston I only have the greatest admiration for you and your family.’

  ‘With regard to my wife I can believe it.’

  ‘And what do you mean by that, pray?’

  ‘I mean, Mr Pope, that poor excuse for a man you might be but obviously the stir of lechery still abounds in your little soul.’

  Alexander’s pleasant voice was shaking just a fraction as he said, ‘I would that I stood level with you, Mr Weston, that I might have the pleasure of striking you in the face.’

  In reply John pulled the bell rope three times.

  ‘You will leave now, sir. And if I hear aught of this from your good sister and her friends I shall not be afraid to tell the truth.’

  ‘What truth? That Elizabeth is cast before you like a pearl before swine? That you have as much insight into her fine mind as a savage into pretty manners? Tell your truth, Mr Weston — and be advised that I most certainly shall tell mine.’

  ‘I hear not your squeaks, mouse.’

  ‘Nor I your croaks.’

  If it had not been so preposterous, the situation would have been pathetic — the minute exquisite, the unimaginative squire, at odds with each other for the love of a woman whose own passions lay totally unawakened.

  But the argument triggered off an ill-fated series of secret meetings which began accidentally outside a bookshop in Guildford. Elizabeth was leaving her carriage to go in when, as if he had been waiting there all day, the poet was suddenly beside her and looking at her so passionately that she was taken aback.

  ‘Why, Mr Pope!’ she said, pulling her fur-lined cloak against the February wind that held the crisp tang of snow. ‘Where have you been?’

  It was his turn to look startled.

  ‘Been?’

  ‘Yes. You have not visited Sutton Place for a fortnight.’

  ‘But surely you know that I have been barred by your husband?’

  ‘Barred? By John? Why?’

  ‘For offending his sense of possession.’

  She stood staring at him as the first snowflakes began to fall, her eyes — the blue of flowers — full of some emotion that she battled to conceal. It seemed to Pope that she was looking at him — really looking at him — for the very first time, and he shrank into himself. For all his fine face and melodious voice he had nothing to offer a woman in the way of physical attraction. He must charm by use of wit and words and these were of no avail to him now in the cold winter morning, where the hard w
hite light showed no mercy.

  Finally she spoke and said surprisingly, ‘Why do you love me?’

  ‘Because you are the sun, John Weston is the eternal shade, and I am the ape carried by a beauty to enhance her own splendour. Elizabeth...’

  But his voice died away. He was trying too hard to be clever and her clear eyes held in them a certain pity.

  ‘Don’t look at me so. I realize that I am nothing but little Alexander for all my wordiness.’

  And in that moment Elizabeth’s longing for love and adoration consumed her, and she formed a passion for the man who worshipped her, his mask of accomplished and fashionable genius stripped away.

  The snow was descending heavily, resting on the hood of her cloak, as she said, ‘What must I do?’

  His ready wit was at his lips.

  ‘Take shelter for the immediate. There is a coffee house but two paces up the road. I will be there in four.’

  Elizabeth laughed and Pope found himself suddenly unable to speak, the physical weakness which was constantly at war with his burning talent, proving too much to bear. He raised her hand to his lips and allowed himself the indulgence of tears.

  After this their love, nurtured in the hothouse of secrecy, grew apace and weekly meetings turned into daily. Many times Melior Mary had accompanied Elizabeth on these bitter sweet escapades, sipping cups of chocolate and watching her pretty mother and the young man who gazed at her so intently.

  It was Mrs Nelson — one of the Berkshire set — who finally brought it all to its inevitable outcome. A widow, a woman with literary pretensions, an avid collector of souls, she considered Pope part of her personal treasury and, as a neighbour and a member of the Catholic clique, she subjected him to a non-stop barrage of amorous innuendo, meagrely disguised as pity.