An Instance of the Fingerpost (100 page)

‘About four pounds,’ I said. ‘Much of which is the money due to you and Cola for her mother’s treatment.’

He waved that aside. ‘Another patient defaults. Not the first, and not the last, I’ll be bound. For my part I have two pounds, and in a
fortnight I am due my annuity from my family. Out of that, I can afford another two.’

‘If you make it up to four, I will repay you the difference when my own quarterly comes in.’

He nodded. ‘Ten pounds then. Not a lot, even for a girl of her condition. I wonder . . .’

‘Hmm?’

‘You know my younger brother is a Quaker?’

He said it quite naturally, and without evident shame, although I knew it was a topic he touched on with only the greatest reluctance. Indeed, there were many who knew him well who were entirely unaware that Lower even had a brother, so greatly did he fear being damaged by the association. I met this man once and did not dislike him. Just as his face was like Lower’s without the same expression, so his character was like that of his brother without the merriment and easy laughter, for laughter, I am told, is forbidden among them as a sin.

I nodded.

‘He is in business with a group of like-minded people who wish to go to places where they will not come under attack; the countries of Massachusetts and suchlike. I could write to him, and ask him to get Sarah Blundy sent there. She could leave as a servant, or as someone’s relative, and would then have to make her own way when she arrives.’

‘It is a harsh punishment for one who has done no wrong.’

‘Few who go there of their own volition have done anything wrong. Yet they go none the less. She will be in good company, and will find more people there of her like than she will ever do here.’

After all that had happened, the thought of her leaving, of never seeing her again, tore at my heart and I know that I argued against the plan for selfish reasons. But Lower was right; if she stayed in England, then sooner or later she would be discovered. Someone – an old comrade of her father, or a travelling man from Oxford, or an old student – would see her and recognise her. Her life would be in the balance every day and so would ours be. I had no idea what, technically, the law said about what we had done, but I knew that few judges looked kindly on anyone who presumed to interfere with
their prerogatives. She had been condemned to death, and was alive. All Locke’s cleverness in argument would have a hard time explaining that one away.

And so we agreed; or at least, we agreed that it should be put to Sarah, as the scheme was impossible if she would not give her consent. Lower undertook to suggest the scheme, as it was his idea and he would have to do all the arranging with the dissidents. I took myself back to St Thomas’s to ensure that the preparations for the funeral were going well and fully expected that I would be the only person there at the service itself.

But Sarah was not content with the plan because she did not wish to leave her mother, and it was only Lower informing her that the woman was dead which brought her to sense. All her own trials she had borne with fortitude; the loss of this woman brought out all her weakness. I will say no more, except that Lower was not the best of people to deliver comfort. He was kind and desired the best for all; but he did have a tendency to become gruff and unsympathetic when confronted with a misery he could do nothing to alleviate. I have little doubt that his tone – matter of fact to the point of being brutal – only made matters worse.

Sarah insisted on coming to the funeral, even though Lower remonstrated with her forcefully about the foolishness of such a desire, but she insisted and was quite impossible to divert. The fact that my mother backed her up, and said she would bring the girl to the church whatever Dr Richard Lower said, decided the matter.

I was distressed when all three of them arrived, Lower looking anxious, my mother grim and Sarah blank, as though some vitality had left her body, never to return. They had done their best to disguise her appearance and had dressed her as a boy, covering her head with a cap pulled down low in front of her eyes, but I was terrified that at any moment the priest would look up from his book, and stare goggle-eyed before rushing off to call the watch. But he did nothing of the sort; merely droned through the service faster than was seemly, refusing to make the slightest effort for the soul of a woman who was not a lady, not a rich parishioner, nor indeed anyone who should attract the condescension of someone as grand as he. I felt, I
must say, like slapping him and telling him to do his job properly, so ashamed I was. With priests like that, no wonder so many people turn elsewhere. When he was over, he snapped the book shut, nodded at us, held out his hand for his fee, then stalked off. He would not, he said, finish the rest of the ceremony at the graveside as the woman was all but a heathen. He had done his legal requirement, and he would do no more.

Lower, I think, was even more furious than I at this callousness, although I like to believe the man would have been more considerate had he known that a member of the woman’s family was present. But he did not, so made no effort, and the result was one of the most painful events I have ever witnessed. And for Sarah it must have been many times more anguishing. I did my best to comfort her.

‘She will be sent on her way by her daughter, who loved her, and her friends, who tried to help her,’ I said. ‘That is far better, and more appropriate. She would not have liked to be intoned over at the graveside by a man like that in any case.’

So Lower and I picked up the bier ourselves and carried it out of the church, stumbling across the yard in the dark with only one taper to guide us. A more different occasion than the one which attended the burial of Dr Grove could not be imagined, but we were, at least, all at one now the minister was gone.

It fell to me to make the speech, for Lower did not know her well, and Sarah seemed unable to speak. I had no idea what was appropriate, but simply spoke the first thoughts that came into my head. I said that I had known her only in the last few years, that we were not of the same faith, she and I, and could not be further apart in matters of politics. Yet I honoured her as a good woman, and a courageous one, who did right as she saw it, and was also a seeker after the truths she wished to know. I would not say she was the most obedient of wives, for she would have scorned to be described in such a way. Yet she was the greatest support for her husband, and both loved and helped him in all the ways he wanted and expected. She fought herself for what he also believed and brought up a daughter who was courageous, true, gentle and good, better than anyone could conceive. In this best of fashions she honoured her creator and was blessed for it. I believed she had no faith in the afterlife, for she distrusted anything
that came from the mouths of priests. Yet I knew she was wrong, and that she would be welcomed into God’s embrace.

It was an inarticulate mish-mash, that speech of mine, delivered rather much to give such comfort as I could to Sarah than to paint a true portrait of the dead woman. Yet I believed it all then and believe it still. I know it is inconceivable that a woman like her, of her religion and her opinions, of her status and her deeds, could ever be accounted worthy or noble or virtuous in any form. But she was all of these and I do not trouble any more about reconciling my beliefs with those of other men.

When I had done, there was an awkward pause before my mother led Sarah up to the body and pulled back the cloth so that the face was exposed. It was raining heavily and inexpressibly miserable as little spots of mud were thrown up by the rain, spattering on the dead woman as she lay there on the damp, cold ground. Sarah knelt down, and we all stood back while she muttered a prayer of her own; she finished by leaning over and kissing her mother’s forehead, then gently tidied away a wisp of hair that had come loose from the old woman’s best bonnet.

She stood up once more. Lower tugged me by the arm and together we lowered the corpse into the ground as gently and decorously as we could manage before Sarah performed her final duty as a daughter and scattered the earth over the grave opening. We all followed suit, and finally Lower and I wielded the shovels ourselves, filling up that hole as swiftly as we could. When it was all completed, and we were all thoroughly drenched and muddy and cold, we simply turned and walked away. There was nothing else to be done, except attend once more to the living.

Lower, as usual, had been busier and more effective than I. He had taken it upon himself to borrow Boyle’s coach – reasoning correctly that the vehicle of such a man would not be stopped or even examined by the watch, however late it was to be found on the road – and hired two horses to pull it. He proposed to take Sarah himself to Reading, sufficiently far from Oxford to be safe, especially as relations between the two towns were bad enough to ensure that there was, at present, little communication between them. There he would lodge Sarah with associates of his brother, a family of dissenters whom he could
guarantee would guard her secret, or what little they were to be told of it. When his brother returned and passed through the town on his way back to Dorset, he would be informed of events and would certainly take the girl under his wing, putting her on the first ship available taking dissenters away from England. So it was agreed by all of us.

I cannot bring myself to write of my final parting from her, my final look on her face, and will not do so.

Sarah left ten days later in the company of his brother, made her way under his guidance to Plymouth and there took passage.

It was the last anyone ever heard of her. She never arrived in America and it was assumed she had fallen overboard. But the boat was becalmed at the time and was in any case so crowded it was difficult to imagine anyone coming to grief without being noticed. Yet she simply disappeared one day in full sunlight and without any sound, as though she had been taken up bodily into the heavens.

THERE THE STORY,
such as I know it, of Sarah Blundy comes to its end and I can say no more: those who wish to disbelieve me can do so.

It remains now for me to recount the last portion of the story, and show what the Italian had as his business in England. I confess I do not find it important, for in comparison to what I had witnessed, the errors of men who squabble in such ignorance of the truth, cannot but excite the most complete disdain. Yet as it is both part of these events, and a cause of them, so I should set all down that I might complete my labours and rest.

I travelled to London the day after Sarah left Oxford, still very much in a mood of most profound dismay and reverie; it was Lower’s idea to go, and he recommended it forcefully as a treatment for melancholy and brooding. A change of scenery, different company and a bit of entertainment, he insisted, would help shake off the sadness that had settled over me. I took his advice because my lassitude was such it was easier to do so than to resist. Lower packed my bag for me, walked me to Carfax and put me on the coach.

‘And enjoy yourself,’ he said. ‘You must admit everything has turned out better than you could possibly have expected. It is time to put it behind you.’

Naturally, I could not do so quite so easily, but I tried to follow his advice as much as possible and spent time forcing myself to visit people with whom I had corresponded over the years, trying hard to be interested in what they said. I did not succeed very well, as my mind kept drifting off to more important matters, and I fear I may have aroused some resentment among my colleagues because of a distance which they surely took as disdain and arrogance. Matters which ordinarily would have produced the liveliest fascination could
generate no interest at all; I was told of the discovery of huge bones, turned to stone in a quarry in Hertfordshire, proving that the Bible spoke true when it said that once giants walked the earth, and I was less than fascinated. I was given hospitality by John Aubrey, at that time my good friend, but could display no enthusiasm for his ingenuity in discovering the purpose and nature of Stonehenge and Avebury and other such sites; I was invited to attend a meeting of the Royal Society, but turned this great honour down with ease, and never cared that I was not invited again.

And one evening, after I had been there but two days, I found myself walking past an inn in Cheapside called The Bells, and remembered I had seen the name in Cola’s chest, and felt the need to go in search of someone who had also known Sarah and seen something of what I had seen. And I had this great urge to know the answers to many questions, to understand the apparent chain of human events which had brought her end.

He was easily found, even though the innkeeper – whom I later knew to be a papist – did not know the name; all I had to do was ask for the Italian gentleman, and I was immediately shown to the grand room, occupied by himself alone, where he had lodged himself since his arrival.

His astonishment at seeing me was very great, but no more so than when I began to talk to him.

‘Good evening, Father,’ I said.

He could not deny it, could not bluster or protest or insist, for priests cannot do so. Instead, he stared at me in terror, thinking that I was sent to trap him and that armed men would soon be pounding up the stairs to take him to his martyrdom. But there was no sound, no noise of boots or shouts of urgent command, just the silence in the room as he stood by the window in shock.

‘Why do you call me Father?’

‘Because that is what you are.’ I did not say, who else would go around with holy oil and holy water and a sacred relic hidden away in his belongings? Who else but a priest bound to celibacy would react in such horror when he realised the strengths of his carnal desires? Who else would secretly and in goodness give extreme unction to a woman he thought was dying, to intercede for her soul despite herself?

Cola sat down cautiously on his cot, and looked at me carefully, and with much thought, almost as if he was still expecting me to launch some surprise assault on him.