Another Restoration romp

Robert Merivel made his first appearance in 1989, in Restoration, Rose Tremain’s popular and acclaimed Carolingian novel. The passage of time has left the Everyman doctor sadder and theoretically wiser, but still in thrall to his master, Charles II, still priapic, still governed by ‘uncontainable appetites’. He sits in his chilly library at Bidnold, his Norfolk estate, contemplating life — will his own end through Loneliness, Poverty, Poisoning, Suicide or Meaninglessness?

His decrepit manservant, Will, brings him a manuscript found hidden beneath his mattress; it is Merivel’s own account of his earlier years. It looked, to the chambermaid, ‘a mere Wedge, to hold fast the corner of the bedstead’. Will Merivel allow the story of his life to remain ‘a mere Wedge’, or will he summon the energy to write his final chapter?

The desire to be once more ‘dazzled by Wonders’ possesses him, and he sets off to seek late-onset fortune at the court of Versailles. Here he finds a scrabbling mass of supplicants like himself, living vermin-like behind the scenes while the great ones parade their gorgeousness centre-stage. Merivel is mocked because he does not have the right kind of ribbons on his coat.  He is rescued by Louise, the kind, intelligent, lonely wife of a homosexual Parisian colonel. Louise, a prototype bluestocking, offers Merivel love, money and intellectual stimulation, but the jealous colonel wants to have his guts for garters, and Merivel, never a heroic hero, retreats to England, accompanied by a bear he has rescued from its captivity in the Jardin du Roi.

Back at Bidnold, Merivel finds his beloved only child Margaret dangerously ill. Enter King Charles, plus spaniels; is his concern for Margaret just a thin disguise for lecherous intent? Merivel adores his master; but is he man enough to protect Margaret from the all-conquering royal charisma? Racked by conflicting emotions, he is called upon, as a doctor, to cut the cancer from the breast of Violet Bathurst, an ageing beauty with whom he and the King both frolicked in less melancholy days.