Sarum - Edward Rutherfurd [501]
Doctor Samuel Shockley looked his most magnificent today. On his head a huge, full-bottomed wig that reached below his shoulders. It was a rich brown colour and, his wife assured him, went well with his blue eyes; it gave him the dignified aspect proper to a respected physician. Under a cloak that hung open over the shoulders, he wore an elegant, grey-pink coat with fine lace ruffs made at nearby Downtown, silk stockings, grey buckskin shoes with raised heels and tied over the instep with pink ribbon. In his hand he carried a cane with a silver head. Though he walked quickly, he was careful to keep his shoes clean from the horse droppings and variegated refuse that filled the street.
Before the prince arrived, he had two duties to perform: one to see the bishop; and the second . . . he frowned. He was going to have to be very firm with the Forest boy.
He entered the close – a pleasant place now. On his left, close by the gate, was the long brick building of the College of Matrons, founded by the bishop five years before for the widows of clergymen. He liked the solid, quiet house with its little cupola in the centre and its gardens behind and had several elderly patients there. He came by the choristers’ green. Just here, he remembered with a smile, in August 1665, he had been presented to King Charles II, who had stayed two months in Salisbury with his court while the Great Plague was raging in London.
Of Salisbury, with its river and water courses down the streets that witty and cynical monarch had afterwards remarked:
“’Tis a good place for breeding ducks and drowning children.” But he had done the clothiers of Salisbury a good turn after his visit by often wearing their medley cloth, and for this royal patronage they were duly grateful.
When Samuel Shockley looked back he had much to be grateful for. There was the farm, the home from home, where his dear sister Margaret had lived alone but contented until just three years before. He had visited her every week except while he was away at Oxford. Sir Henry Forest had honoured his bargain and given him an excellent education. He had been happily married ever since the year of the Great Fire of London and he had three children he adored.
He was not without malice. At the Restoration of Charles II he had been frankly delighted when Obadiah, along with two thousand other Presbyterians, had lost his living; and he had not pretended to be sorry when the preacher had been killed a year afterwards in an Edinburgh street brawl.
He looked round the close with satisfaction. Thank God that ever since the days of Obadiah, it had returned to normal: bishop, dean, canons and choristers, were all back with their benefices restored; the cathedral cared for; the Book of Common Prayer and the ceremonies he loved – the morning and evening service, the marriage service – all in use again: Anglican normality. It meant the communion service, even if it was only three times a year in the smaller parishes – a sacred rite. It meant, once a year, the perambulation, led by the vicar with the village boys, of the parish boundaries. He and Margaret had always joined that.
It had also meant, in Sarum, some fine men as bishops: Henchman, who had helped Charles escape after Worcester, Hyde, of the numerous Wiltshire family; and now his own dear Seth Ward, getting old, but always a delight. How many hours had he spent with the great man, cheerfully discussing Hobbes’s philosophy, Donne’s poetry, or Mr Newton’s new telescope?
Only one thing annoyed him as his eye travelled round the close. This was the house of Doctor Tuberville.
Tuberville. It never ceased to anger him that, while his own sound medicine was respected, that cunning quack Tuberville, with his random blood-lettings, his potions – why, he had even told a short-sighted man to smoke – Tuberville, that necromancer, had made a fortune.
But he soon smiled again when he glanced up at the cathedral spire – another reason