An Instance of the Fingerpost (79 page)

But several of Prestcott’s statements are true. I know it and admit it, even though I have no cause to love him. He went mad, Lower tells me, when he was confronted with proof that his own malice had frustrated all his hopes and efforts and that the warnings he had received from that Irishman were true after all. Perhaps so; my point is that, up to then, he was more or less sane and so perhaps his recollections are as well, even if the meaning he drags from them are entirely false. It requires intelligence, after all, to present a case as he does: had he kept his wits he might have been a fine advocate. Every single person he talked to told him that his father was guilty, and he was. With the greatest of skill he points to evidence of innocence and skilfully ignores all that which suggests the true depths of his father’s turpitude. At the end, I almost believed him, even though I knew better than most that it was a tissue of nonsense.

But is the poor soul’s account any less trustworthy than the others, which are also twisted and distorted, albeit by different passions? Prestcott may be mad, but Cola is a liar. Perhaps there is but one lie of commission, in contrast to all the omissions and evasions which might otherwise be discounted. He lies none the less, for as Ammian says,
Veritas vel silentio consumpitur vel mendacio
; truth is violated by silence and by falsehood. The falsity is contained in such an innocuous sentence it is not surprising that even Wallis overlooked it. But it distorts every other thing in the manuscript and makes truthful words false because, like a schoolman’s argument, it draws conclusions with impeccable logic from a false premise. ‘Marco da Cola, gentleman of Venice, respectfully presents his greetings.’ So he begins, and from there on every word must be considered carefully. Even the manuscript’s existence must be considered, for why did he write it at all after so many years? On the other hand, to say he is mendacious does not mean that the motives and deeds attributed to him by Wallis are correct. The Venetian was not at all what he seemed, nor what he claims now to be, but he certainly never had designs on the safety of the kingdom or the life of Lord Clarendon. And Wallis himself was so used to living in the dark and sinister world of his own devising that he could no longer tell truth from invention, or honesty from falsehood.

But how can I tell which assertion to believe, and which to reject? I
cannot repeat the same events time and again with subtle variations as Stahl did with his chemicals to demonstrate how Dr Grove had died. Even if I could, the infallible philosophical method seems inadequate when it comes to problems in which motion derives from people rather than dead matter. I once attended a class on chemistry given by Mr Stahl and must say I emerged none the wiser. Lower’s own experiments on blood transfusion first produced the belief that this was the greatest cure for all ills, and later (when many people in France had died) the
savants
decided that no, on the contrary, this was a fatal and inadmissible procedure. It cannot be both, gentlemen of philosophy. If you are right now, how were you so wrong before? How is it that when a man of God shifts his opinion it proves the weakness of his views and when a man of science does so it demonstrates the value of his method? How is a mere chronicler such as myself to transmute the lead of inaccuracy in these papers into the gold of truth?

My main qualification for commenting on these bundles is the disinterested state which is (we are told) the
primum mobile
of a balanced understanding: little of this has anything to do with me. Second, I think I can with justice claim a certain knowledge: I have lived my entire life in Oxford and know the city (as even my detractors admit) better than anyone else has ever done. Finally, of course, I knew all the actors in this drama; Lower was then my constant companion, as we ate together at least once a week at Mother Jean’s; through him I met all the men of philosophy, including Signor Cola. I worked with Dr Wallis for many years when he was the keeper of the university archives and I was their most assiduous frequenter. I even had the honour of discoursing with Mr Boyle and once attended a levée in the presence of My Lord Arlington although, I regret to say, I did not have the opportunity of making my addresses to him.

More than this, I knew Sarah Blundy before her misfortune and (not being a man given to puzzles and conundrums) I will reveal my secret immediately. For I knew her after it as well, hanged, dissected and burnt though she was. More, I think I am the only person who
can give a proper accounting of those days, and show all the goodness which prompted such cruelty, and the providential grace that brought out such malice. On certain matters, I can appeal to Lower, for we share many secrets; but the crucial knowledge is mine alone, and I must convince on my own authority and by the dexterity of my words. Curiously, the less I am believed, the more certain I will be that I am correct. Mr Milton set out in his great poem to justify the ways of God to men, as he says. He has not considered one question, however: perhaps God has forbidden men to know His ways, for if they did know the full extent of His goodness, and the magnitude of our rejection of it, they would be so disheartened they would abandon all hope of redemption, and die of grief.

I am an historian, and to this title I adhere despite critics who make out that I am what they term an antiquarian. I believe truth can come only from a solid foundation of fact and I set myself from an early age to begin the task of building such a basis. I intend no grandiose schemes for the history of the world, mind; you cannot build a palace before you have levelled the ground. Rather, just as Mr Plot has written (very finely) the natural history of our county, so I am engaged in its civil history. And what a deal there is! I thought it would take a few years of my life; now I see I will die an old man and the task will still be unfinished. I began (once an early intention of the priesthood had left me) by wishing to write about our late troubles during the siege, when the Parliament men first took the town, then cleansed the university of those less than perfectly in agreement with them. But I rapidly perceived that there was a nobler task awaiting me, and that the entire history of the university might vanish for ever were it not safeguarded. So I abandoned my original work and began the greater one, even though I had amassed considerable material by that stage and publication would, undoubtedly, have gained me both the fame in the world and the patronage of the mighty which have forever eluded my grasp. However, I care not for this:
animus hominis dives, non arca appellari solet
; and if it be considered one of Tully’s paradoxes to say that it is a man’s mind, not his coffers which confers
richness, then that shows that the age of Rome was just as blind and corrupt as our own.

It was because of this earlier work that I met both Sarah Blundy and her mother, who will figure so much in my account. I had heard of Ned, the old woman’s husband, several times in my travels through the documents and, although not a major figure in my tale of the siege, the passions he aroused excited my curiosity. A black-hearted villain, the devil’s child, worse than a murderer, a man one shuddered to behold. A latter-day saint, one of the manifest elect, kind, soft-spoken and generous. Two extremes of opinion, and not much in between; they could not both be correct and I wished to resolve the contradiction. I knew that he took part in the mutiny of 1647, left the town when it was put down and, as far as I was concerned, left my story as well: I did not know then whether he was alive or dead. But he had taken a role in a matter which made something of a stir, and it seemed a pity to miss the opportunity of an eye-witness account (even that of a woman if I could not find the man himself) when I discovered, in the summer of 1659, that his family lived near by.

I was apprehensive of the encounter: Anne Blundy had a reputation for being a wise woman (from those who did not dislike her) or a witch (from those less favourably inclined). Her daughter, Sarah, was known to be wild and strange but had not yet gained that reputation for skill in healing which led Mr Boyle to wonder if any of her receipts could be used for the poor. I must say, however, that neither the pathetic description offered by Cola, nor the cruel one of Prestcott, do the old woman any justice. Even though she was near fifty, the fire in her eyes (communicated to her daughter as well) spoke of a lively soul. Wise she was perhaps, although not in the way normally meant: no muttering or shambling or obscure incantations. Shrewd, rather, I would say, with an air of amusement which mingled strangely with a deep (although heterodox) piety. Nothing I saw ever gave an indication of the murderous harpy of Wallis’s tale, and yet I do believe that on this he speaks the truth. More than most, he has himself shown that we are all capable of the most monstrous evil when convinced we are right, and it was an age when the madness of conviction held all tightly in its grasp.

Gaining her confidence was no easy matter, and I am not convinced
I ever won it entirely. Certainly, had I made my approach to her later, when her husband was dead and the king was back on his throne, she would inevitably have assumed I was sent to trap her, especially as I knew Dr Wallis by then. Such a connection would have made her suspicious, as she had no cause to love the new government, and especial reason to fear Wallis. Understandably so: I learned soon enough to fear him myself.

Then, however, I had not yet had my introduction to the man. Richard Cromwell was still holding on to power by his fingertips and the king was in the Spanish Netherlands, eager for his inheritance but not daring to grasp it. The country was stirring and it seemed that the armies would soon be on the march once more. My own house was searched for arms that spring, as was that of everyone I knew. We had only sporadic news of the world in Oxford and the more I have talked to people over the years, the more I realise that in fact virtually no one knew what was going on. Except for John Thurloe, of course, who knew and saw everything. But even he fell from power, swept away by forces which, for once, he could not control. Take that as proof of how distempered the country was in those days.

There was little point in approaching Anne Blundy politely. I could not, for example, write her a letter introducing myself as I had no reason to assume that she might be able to read. I had little choice but to walk to her lodgings and knock on the door, which was opened by a girl of perhaps seventeen who was, I believe, the prettiest thing I had ever seen in my life: a fine figure (if a little thin), a full set of teeth and a complexion unblemished by illness. Her hair was dark, which was a disadvantage, and although she wore it loose and largely uncovered she still dressed modestly and I do think that, had she been attired in sackcloth, it would have seemed a wonderfully becoming garment in my eyes. Above all, it was her eyes which fascinated, for they were the deepest black, like raven’s wings, and it is known that of all colours, black is the most amiable in a woman. ‘Black eyes as if from Venus,’ says Hesiod of his Alcmena, while Homer calls Juno ox-eyed, because of her round, black eyes, and Baptista Porta (in his
physiognomia
), sneers at the grey-eyed English, and joins with Morison in lauding the deep glances of languorous Neapolitan ladies.

I stared awhile, quite forgetting my reason for calling, until she
politely but not with servility, distant but not with impudence, asked me my business. ‘Please come in, sir,’ she said, when I told her. ‘My mother is out at the market; but she should be back any moment. You are welcome to wait, if you wish.’

I leave it to others to decide whether I should have taken that as a warning about her character. Had I been with someone better stationed I would naturally have gone away, not wishing to presume on her reputation by being alone with her. But at that moment, the chance of talking to this creature seemed to me the best possible way of passing the time until the mother returned. I am sure I half-wished that the woman might be greatly delayed. I sat myself (I fear with something of a swagger, as a man of parts might do when associating with inferiors, God forgive me) on the little stool by the fireplace, which unfortunately was empty, despite the cold.