An Instance of the Fingerpost (92 page)

I nursed my guilt to myself for the next few days, and kept to my room in miserable solitude, refusing food and conversation even
with Sarah, whom I dared not look in the face. I had told her I had been to see Grove, but dared not tell her what I had done as I could not abide her disgust, nor could I burden her with information she would be obliged to share. I spent much of my time in prayer, and even more staring blankly at empty pieces of paper on my desk as I failed to get my mind to concentrate on even the dullest and most mechanical of tasks.

And in those few days I missed much of importance in my tale, for it was in those days that Lower discovered the bottle of brandy and took it to Stahl; dissected Dr Grove to see if his corpse accused Cola through bleeding; and performed the experiment of transfusion on Anne Blundy. It was also in these days, it seemed, that the finger of suspicion first began to point at Sarah, but I swear I was totally unaware of this. I was aware only of Lower’s growing discomfort with the Italian and his fear that Cola was out to steal his glory.

My own opinion of the dispute between the two is a complicated one, yet I think it will serve. Both, I think, tell the truth even though their conclusions be opposite. Nor do I think that this is necessarily a contradiction. I do accept, of course, that there is one truth, but except on rare occasions we are not given to know it. Horace says,
Nec scire fas est omnia
, it is not God’s will we should know all, a sentence taken (I believe) from Euripides. To know all is to see all and omniscience is God’s alone. I state the obvious, I suppose, for if God exists, so does truth and if there was no God (a thing not to be imagined in seriousness, but as a philosophic jest alone) then truth would disappear from the world, and the opinion of one would be no better than that of another. I might also reverse the theorem and say that, if men come to think all is merely opinion, then they must come to atheism as well. What is truth?’ said jesting Pilate, and would not stay for an answer. I do believe that the fact we know in our hearts there is truth without having to reason about it is the prettiest proof of God’s existence there can be, and as long as we strive to discover it, so we also strive to know God.

But, with Lower and Cola, we have no assistance from the divine
and must reason it out as best we can. Cola has put his account on paper for all to see; Lower told me (and many others) his version, although he disdained to enter the lists by publishing any sort of justification for his claims. He had published his account in the
Transactions
, he told me, because he was assured by Dr Wallis that Cola had drowned in an accident when leaving the country. And even had he been assured of the man’s health, he would have done so in any case. In his recollection, Cola’s notions were only of the vaguest sort; he spoke of rejuvenating blood by some magical means, but said not a word about transfusion. It was only when Lower described his own experimentation with injections that Cola hit on the idea of transferring new blood and accomplishing the desired aim in that fashion. Lower had had this possibility in the back of his mind for months by then and it was only a matter of time before it took place. He points out that, even by Cola’s own account, it was he who performed most of the technical labours. Consequently, the credit should be his.

When I received this account and compared both versions I was, frankly, astonished that the dispute could arise at all, for it seems to me that it was the meeting of the two men which produced the result and that both were responsible in equal part for the idea. When I wrote this to Lower, he ridiculed the idea with some asperity and made it clear that (he put it as kindly as he could, but his irritation showed through) only an historian, who has no ideas, could imagine such an absurdity. He repeated this assertion a week or so ago, when he made one of his now very rare visits to Oxford, and called on me to pay his respects.

The transfusion of blood, he said, was a discovery. Did I agree?

I did.

And the essence of an invention or discovery lay in the idea, not in the execution.

Agreed.

And it was whole and entire, not consisting of parts. An idea was like one of Mr Boyle’s corpuscles, or Lucretius’s atoms and could not be reduced further. It is the essence of the conception that it is entire and perfect in itself.

It was an Aristotelian concept that sounded strange on his lips, but I agreed.

One cannot have half an idea?

If it cannot be divided, then obviously not.

Therefore they all must have a single point of origin, as you cannot have one thing in two places at the same time.

I agreed.

Therefore it was reasonable to assume that it could arise in the mind of only one man?

I agreed again, and he nodded with satisfaction, convinced he had disproved my attempt to restore amiable agreement between the two men. His logic was impeccable, but I must say I still do not accept it, although I am incapable of saying why. None the less he proceeded to his next theorem that, if one of the pair had conceived the idea of transfusion first, then the other must be lying when he claims its authorship.

Given his starting point, I agreed this was again an inevitable conclusion, and Lower rested content with the notion that, in a choice between himself and Cola, then he had the higher claim, for who would take the word of an Italian dilettante above that of an English gentleman? Not that it was unknown for the latter to lie, or miscomprehend the truth, but because the chances of it were very much smaller. This is well known and accepted. I did not enquire whether it was equally accepted in Italy.

ALTHOUGH I SCARCELY
ventured out during those days, on the few occasions I left either my house or the library, I encountered the Italian; the first time our meeting was deliberate, for I sought him out in Mother Jean’s cookhouse, the second time it was by accident, after the play. On the first occasion, in particular, the conversation threw my mind into the utmost confusion.

He has recounted this talk between us in his memoir, and it was clear at the time that he believed he had deceived me. I found him to be sober and courteous, with an intelligent air and of moderate conversation. He was clearly gifted in tongues, for although the conversation tended to be in Latin, it seemed to me that he missed very little when we lapsed into English. Despite his skill, however, he gave himself away badly to anyone with the sense to listen; for what doctor (or soldier, for that matter) could talk so knowledgeably about heresies long dead, could refer so learnedly to the works of Hippolitus and Tertullian, or had even heard of Elchesai, Zosimus or Montanus? Papists, I grant, are more interested in such obscurities than Protestants, who have learned to read the Bible for themselves and thus need less knowledge of the opinions of others, but few even of the most devoted Romanists would have such matter readily to hand for use in dispute.

Cola did not act like a physician when he searched the Blundys’ cottage; now he did not talk like one either; I found my curiosity about him getting ever greater.

Even so, this was a minor matter in comparison to the substance of the conversation, and the direction he gave me so unknowingly. I have often thought about this phenomenon which occurs so frequently in the lives of all men that we almost fail to notice it any more. How often have I had a question on my mind, and picked a book at
random off the shelf, often one I have never heard of before, yet found the answer I seek within its covers? It is well known that men feel impelled to go to that place where they are to encounter, for the first time, that woman who is to be their wife. Similarly, even peasants know that letting the Bible fall open where it will, and putting a finger randomly on the page thus revealed will, more often than not, give the most sound advice that any man could wish to hear.

The thoughtless call this coincidence, and I note amongst philosophers a growing tendency to talk of chance and probability, as though this were some explanation rather than a scholarly disguise for their own ignorance. Simpler people know exactly what it is, for nothing can happen by chance when God sees and knows all; even to suggest anything different is absurd. These coincidences are the visible signs of His manifest Providence, from which we can learn well if we will only see His hand, and contemplate the meaning of His actions.

So it was that I was driven against my will to Sarah’s house the night Cola searched it, came across her on the Abingdon road and followed her, and so it was also in my conversation with Cola. All those things which the scoffers call chance and accident and coincidence show the direction God takes in men’s affairs. Cola could have taken any example at all to illustrate his point, any one of which would have done as well or better than a tale of a long-extinct and forgotten heresy. So through what inspiration did he mention that most obscure branch of the Montanist heresy? What angel whispered in his ear and directed his mind so that, by the time I left the cookhouse, my limbs were trembling and my body sweating? ‘In each generation the Messiah would be reborn, would be betrayed, would die, and be resurrected, until mankind turns away from evil, and sins no more.’ These were his words, and they frightened me greatly, for Sarah had said precisely the same only a few days previously.

For the next few days, this became my greatest obsession, and all thought of Dr Grove passed from my mind. I read what little I had at home first of all, then went to New College to ransack the small library of Thomas Ken, and scarcely noticed that poor tortured man’s look of grief and anxiety. I wish I had, for had I attended more he might have spoken, and Sarah perhaps would have been spared. But I ignored his misery and later it was not possible to make him shift:
he had gone to Grove to beg his forgiveness for the calumny he had spread, but found only that he was trapped in his falsehood, as he discovered Prestcott but did nothing to alert the magistrate or the watch. He could not retract his lie about seeing Sarah going into Grove’s room without risking also being forced to confess that he had aided a felon in his escape. Between facing the wrath of God after death, or the vengeance of Dr Wallis in this life, he preferred the former, and has paid dearly for it ever since. For he stood by while an innocent was hanged that he might enjoy
£
80 a year. I cannot condemn too harshly; my own sin was scarcely the less, for when I did speak it was too late.

He lent me such books as I wanted, and when I had done with them, I went to the Bodleian, where I searched for the tale that Cola had told me. Fragments in Tertullian, and in Hippolytus, were all as he said; I found references in Eusebius and Irenaeus and Epiphanius as well. And the more I read the more my reason revolted against what I saw; for how was it possible that Sarah, unlettered as she was, could have quoted, almost word for word, a whole series of prophecies made more than a thousand years ago? There was no doubt about it; time and again the words were the same, almost as though it was the same person talking, this long-dead woman, prophesying on a hill-top in Asia Minor and the girl who talked so strangely in Abingdon of her death.

It was an effort, but I put it all aside; it was a mad time, and the air was still filled with lunacies of all sorts, even after two decades which had all but exhausted men’s appetites for enthusiasm in religion. I told myself that she was deluded, caught up in the corruption of the age and that in due course, when she was less concerned with her mother and her own future, then she would cast off these foolish notions and endanger herself no more. It is often the case that men succeed in persuading themselves through the exercise of reason that what they know to be true is not so, merely because they cannot understand it.

To recover from this melancholy I forced myself back into society, and in particular agreed willingly to Lower’s suggestion that I accompany him and Cola to the play. I had not seen one for near four years, and much as I love my town, I admit it has few
diversions to occupy a brooding mind when it needs distraction. I had a splendid day, I recall, for despite Mr Cola’s criticisms I found the story of Lear and his daughters both entertaining and moving, as well as most excellently acted. And I also enjoyed passing the rest of the evening in good company and again had my interest in the Italian aroused. I spent a considerable time talking to him, and used the opportunity to probe him as much as I dared. Whatever there was to be discovered, however, remained elusive to my intelligence; Cola parried my questions about himself with ease, and forever returned to matters in which his own beliefs and opinions played no part. Indeed, he seemed more than aware of my curiosity, and amused himself in avoiding any answer of substance.

I could not, of course, ask him directly about my interests. Much as I would have liked to know why he had searched Sarah Blundy’s cottage, it was impossible to put the question in any fashion which would have produced a useful reply. But by the time he left he was aware of my suspicions about him and he looked at me more warily, and with greater respect, than before.