An Instance of the Fingerpost

by Iain Pears

  To have had my father’s permission to leave instantly would have raised my spirits immeasurably, for the weather in London was enough to reduce the strongest man to the most wretched despair. The fog, the incessant, debilitating drizzle, and the dull bitter cold as the wind swept through my thin cloak reduced me to the lowest state of despondency. Only duty to my family forced me to continue rather than going to the docks and begging for a passage back home. Instead of taking this sensible course, however, I wrote to my father informing him of developments and promising to do what I could, but pointed out that until I was re-armed from his coffers there was little I might practically accomplish. I had, I realised, many weeks to fill in before he could respond. And about five pounds to survive on.

  The professor under whom I had studied in Leiden had most kindly given me letters to two gentlemen with whom he had corresponded, and, these being my only contacts with Englishmen, I decided that my best course would be to throw myself on their mercy. An additional attraction was that neither was in London, so I picked the man who lived in Oxford, that being the closest, and decided to leave as swiftly as possible.

  The English seem to have strong suspicion of people moving around, and go out of their way to make travel as difficult as possible. According to the piece of paper pasted up where I waited for the coach, the sixty-mile trip to Oxford would take eighteen hours – God Willing, as it added piously. The Almighty, alas, was not willing that day; rain had made much of the road disappear, so the coachman had to navigate his way through what seemed very like a ploughed field. A wheel came off a few hours later, tipping my chest on the ground and damaging the lid and, just outside a mean little town called Thame, one of the horses broke a leg and had to be dispatched. Add to that the frequent stops at almost every inn in southern England (the innkeepers bribe the drivers to halt) and the journey took a total of twenty-five hours, with myself ejected into the courtyard of an inn in the main street of the city of Oxford at seven o’clock in the morning.

  Chapter Two

  * * *

  FROM THE WAY the English talk (their reputation for boasting is hard earned) an inexperienced traveller would imagine that their land contains the finest buildings, the biggest towns, the richest, best-fed, happiest people in the world. My own impressions were very different. One used to the cities of Lombardy, Tuscany and the Veneto cannot but be astonished at the tiny proportions of all settlements in that country as well as their paucity, for the land is almost empty of inhàbitants and there are more sheep than people. Only London, epitome Britannia and a noble emporium, can compare with the great cities of the Continent; the rest are in mean estate, ruinous for the most part, poor and full of beggars by reason of the decay in trade caused by the late political turmoils. Though some of the buildings of the university are fine enough, Oxford has really only a few streets worth the notice, and you can scarcely walk for more than ten minutes in any direction without finding yourself outside the town and in open fields.

  I had the address of a small lodging in the north of the city, on a broad street hard by the town walls, which was occupied by a foreign merchant who at one time had traded with my father. It was a sad sort of house and immediately opposite a site being razed for a new university building. The English made something of a fuss of this edifice, designed by a young and rather arrogant man I later encountered, who went on to make a name for himself by rebuilding the Cathedral of London after the great fire. This Christopher Wren’s reputation is quite undeserved, as he has no sense of proportion, and little ability to construct a pleasing design. None the less, it was the first building in Oxford executed on modern principles, and aroused great excitement amongst those who knew no better.

  Mr van Leeman, the merchant, offered me a warm drink but said regretfully that he could not provide more, as he had no room for me. My heart sank still lower, but at least he talked to me awhile, sat me by the fire and permitted me to attend to my toilet so that I could present a less alarming appearance when I ventured back into the world. He also told me something of the country I had come to visit. I was woefully ignorant of the place, except for what I had been told by the English of my acquaintance in Leiden, and knew little more than that twenty years of civil war were at an end. Van Leeman disabused me of any notion that the country was now a haven of peace and tranquillity, however. The king was indeed back, he said, but had so swiftly established a reputation for debauchery he had disgusted all the world. Already the strife which had led his father to war and the executioner’s block was reappearing, and the outlook was gloomy indeed. Scarce a day passed without some rumour of insurrection, plot or rebellion being talked over in the taverns.

  Not, he told me reassuringly, that this should concern me. The innocent traveller such as myself would find much of interest in Oxford, which boasted some of the most notable people in the new philosophy in the world. He knew of the Honourable Robert Boyle, the man for whom I had an introduction, and told me that if I wished to make my way into his society then I should go to the coffee shop owned by Mr Tillyard in the High Street, where the Chemical Club had held its meetings for several years, and which, moreover, could be relied upon to provide some warming food. Whether it was a help or a hint, I prepared myself and, begging only permission to leave my bags in his care until I had suitable accommodation, walked in the direction he indicated.

  At this time, coffee in England was something of a craze, coming into the country with the return of the Jews. That bitter bean had little novelty for me, of course, for I drank it to cleanse my spleen and aid my digestion, but was not prepared to find it so much in fashion that it had produced special buildings where it could be consumed in extraordinary quantities and at the greatest expense. Mr Tillyard’s establishment, in particular, was a fine and comfortable place, although having to hand over a penny to enter took me aback. But I felt unable to play the pauper, my father having taught me that the poorer you appear, the poorer you become. I paid with a cheerful countenance, then selected to take my drink to the Library, for which I had to pay another two pennies.

  The clientèles of coffee houses choose themselves carefully, unlike taverns which cater to all sorts of low folk. In London, for example, there are Anglican houses and Presbyterian houses, houses where the scribblers of news or poetry gather to exchange lies, and houses where the general tone is set by men of knowledge who can read or pass an hour or so in conversation without being insulted by the ignorant or vomited on by the vulgar. Thus the theorem underlying my presence in this particular building. The partum practicum was rather different: the company of philosophers supposedly in residence did not leap up to welcome me, as I had hoped. In fact there were only four people in the room and, when I bowed at one of them – a weighty man with a red face, inflamed eye and lank, greying hair – he pretended not to have seen me. No one else paid much attention to my entrance either, apart from curious looks at one who was so obviously a man of some fashion.

  My first venture into English society seemed a failure, and I resolved not to waste too much time on it. The one thing which detained me was the newspaper, a journal printed in London and then distributed around the country, a most novel idea. It was surprisingly frank about affairs, containing reports not only of domestic matters but also detailed accounts of events in foreign places which interested me greatly. I was later informed, however, that they were milk and water productions in comparison to a few years previously, when the passion of faction had brought forth a whole host of such organs. For the king, against the king, for Parliament, for the army, for or against this or that. Cromwell, and then the returned King Charles, did their best to restore some form of order, rightly surmising that such stuff merely lulls people into thinking that they understand Matters of State. And a more foolish notion can scarcely be imagined, it being obvious that the reader is only informed of what the writer wishes him to know, and is thus seduced into believing almost anything. Such liberties do nothing but convert the grubby hacksters who p
roduce these tracts into men of influence, so that they strut around as though they were gentlemen of quality. Anyone who has ever met one of these English journalists (so called, I believe, because they are paid by the day, like any common ditch-digger) will know just how ridiculous that is.

  None the less I read for above half an hour, intrigued by a report on the war in Crete, until a patter of feet up the stairs and the opening of the door disturbed my concentration. A brief glance disclosed a woman of, I suppose, about nineteen or twenty years of age, of average height but unnaturally slim of build: none of the plumpness that endows true beauty. Indeed, my medical self half-wondered whether she might have a tendency to consumption and might benefit from a pipe of tobacco every evening. Her hair was dark and had only natural curls in it, her clothes were drab (though well cared for) and, while she was pretty enough in the face, there was nothing obviously exceptional about her. Nevertheless, she was one of those people whom you look at, turn away from, then somehow find yourself looking at once more. Partly it was her eyes, which were unnaturally big and dark. But it was more her deportment, because it was so unfitting, which made me take notice. For that underfed girl had the bearing of a queen, and moved with an elegance which my father had spent a small fortune on dancing masters trying to instil in my youngest sister.

  I watched her walk steadily up to the red-eyed gentleman on the other side of the room with little interest, and with only half an ear heard her address him as ‘Doctor’, then pause and stand there. He looked up at her with an air of alarm as she began to talk. I missed most of it – the distance, my English and her softness of voice all conspiring to snatch the meaning away – but I assumed from the few fragments I did hear that she was asking for his help as a physician. Unusual, of course, that someone of her servile state should think of coming to a physician, but I knew little of the country. Perhaps it was accepted practice here.

  The request met with no favour, and this displeased me. By all means put the girl in her proper place; this is natural. Any man of breeding might well feel obliged to do so if addressed in an inappropriate manner. However, there was something in the man’s expression – anger, disdain or something akin – which aroused my contempt. As Tully tells us, a gentleman should issue such a reproof with regret, not with a pleasure which demeans the speaker more than it corrects the offender.

  ‘What?’ he said, gazing around the room in a way which suggested he hoped no one would see. ‘Go away, girl, at once.’

  She again spoke in a low voice so that I did not catch her words.

  ‘There is nothing I can do for your mother. You know that. Now, please, leave me alone.’

  The girl raised her voice slightly. ‘But sir, you must help. Don’t think I am asking . . .’ Then, seeing he was adamant, the girl’s shoulders slumped with the weight of her failure, and she made for the door.

  Why I got up, followed her down the stairs and approached her on the street outside, I do not know. Perhaps, like Rinaldo or Tancred, I entertained some foolish notion of chivalry. Perhaps, because the world had been bearing so oppressively on me in the past few days, I had sympathy for the way it was treating her. Perhaps I was feeling cold and tired, and so sunk down by my troubles that even approaching such as she became acceptable. I do not know, but before she had gone too far, I approached her and coughed politely.

  She swung round, fury in her face. ‘Leave me alone,’ she snapped, very violently.

  I must have reacted as though she had slapped me; I know I bit my lower lip and said, ‘Oh!’ in surprise at her response. ‘I do beg your pardon, madam,’ I added in my best English.

  At home, I would have behaved differently: courteously, but with the familiarity that establishes who is the superior. In English, of course, such subtleties were beyond me; all I knew was how to address ladies of quality, and so that was the way I talked to her. Rather than appear a semi-educated fool (the English assume that the only reasons for not understanding their language are either stupidity or wilful stubbornness) I decided that I had best match my gestures to my language, as though I actually intended such politesse. Accordingly, I gave the appropriate bow as I spoke.

  It was not my intention, but it rather took the wind out of her sails, to use a nautical expression beloved of my dear father. Her anger faded on finding itself met with gentility rather than rebuke, and she looked at me curiously, a little wrinkle of confusion playing most attractively over the bridge of her nose.

  Having started in this vein, I resolved to continue. ‘You must forgive me for approaching you in this fashion, but I could not help overhearing that you have need of physick. Is that correct?’

  ‘You are a doctor?’

  I bowed. ‘Marco da Cola of Venice.’ It was a lie, of course, but I was sure I was at least as able as the sort of charlatan or quack she would normally have engaged. ‘And you?’

  ‘Sarah Blundy is my name. I suppose you are too grand to treat an old woman with a broken leg, for fear of lowering yourself in the eyes of your fellows?’

  She was, indeed, a difficult person to help. ‘A surgeon would be better and more appropriate,’ I agreed. ‘However, I have trained in the anatomical arts at the universities of Padua and Leiden, and I have no fellows here, so they are unlikely to think any the worse of me for playing the tradesman.’

  She looked at me, then shook her head. ‘I’m afraid that you must have overheard wrongly, although I thank you for your offer. I cannot pay you anything, as I have no money.’

  I waved my hand airily and – for the second time that day – indicated that money was of no concern to me. ‘I offer my services, none the less,’ I continued. ‘We can discuss that payment at a later stage, if you wish.’

  ‘No doubt,’ she said in a way which again left me perplexed. Then she looked at me in the open and frank way which the English can adopt, and shrugged.

  ‘Perhaps we could go and see the patient?’ I suggested. ‘And you could tell me what happened to her as we go?’

  I was as keen as young men are to engage the attention of a pretty girl, whatever her station, but I won little reward for my efforts. Although she was not nearly as well dressed as I, her limbs showing through the thin cloth of her dress, her head only as covered as decorum dictated, she seemed not at all cold, and scarcely appeared even to notice the wind, which cut through me like a knife. She walked fast as well, and even though she was a good two inches shorter than myself, I had to hurry to keep up. And her replies were brief and monosyllabic, which I put down to concern and preoccupation with her mother’s health.

  We walked back to Mr van Leeman’s to collect my instruments and I also hastily consulted Barbette on surgery, not wishing to have to refer to a book of instruction in mid-operation, as this does not reassure the patient. The girl’s mother had, it appeared, fallen heavily the previous evening and had lain alone all night. I asked why she had not called out to some neighbours or passers by, as I assumed that the poor woman would scarcely have been living in splendid seclusion, but this received no useful response.

  ‘Who was that man you were talking to?’ I asked.

  I got no answer to that either.

  So, adopting a coldness that I thought appropriate, I walked by her side down a mean street called Butcher’s Row, past the stinking carcasses of animals hung on hooks or laid out over rough tables outside so that the rain could wash the blood into the gutters, then continued into an even worse row of low dwellings that lay alongside one of the rivulets that run around and about the castle. It was utterly filthy down there, the streams clogged and unkempt, with all manner of refuse poking through the thick ice. In Venice, of course, we have the flow of the sea which every day purges the city’s waterways. The rivers in England are left to block themselves up, without anyone thinking that a little care might sweeten the waters.

  Of the miserable huts down in that part of the town, Sarah Blundy and her mother lived in one of the worst: small, with the casements boarded with planks of w
ood rather than paned with glass, the roof full of holes blocked with cloth, and the doorway thin and mean. Inside, however, everything was spotlessly clean, though damp; a sign that even in such reduced circumstances, some pride in life can continue to flicker. The little hearth and the floorboards were scrubbed, the two rickety stools were similarly looked after, and the bed, although rough, had been polished. Apart from that, the room had no furniture beyond those few pots and platters which even the lowest must have. One thing did astonish me: a shelf of at least half-a-dozen books made me realise that, at some stage at least, some man had inhabited these quarters.

  ‘Well,’ I said in the cheerful way my master in Padua had employed as a means of inspiring confidence, ‘where is the invalid, then?’

  She pointed to the bed, which I had thought empty. Huddled under the thin covering was a little broken bird of a woman, so small it was difficult to imagine she was anything but a child. I approached and gently pulled down the covers.

  ‘Good morning, madam,’ I said. ‘I’m told you’ve had an accident. Let us have a look at you.’

  Even I realised instantly that it was a serious injury. The end of the shattered bone had pushed through the parchment-like skin and protruded, broken and bloody, into the open air. And if that wasn’t bad enough, some bungling fool had evidently tried to force it back into place, tearing more flesh, then simply wrapped a piece of dirty cloth around the wound, so that the threads had stuck to the bone as the blood had congealed.

  ‘Holy Mary, Mother of God,’ I cried in exasperation, fortunately in Italian. ‘What idiot has done this?’