An Instance of the Fingerpost

by Iain Pears

  She shook her head. ‘That is kind, Jack. But you should not be seen with me. Neither of our reputations will be improved by it.’

  ‘What is your reputation? I know nothing of it. I see only a pretty woman with an empty stomach. But if it concerns you, we can go to a place I know where the clientèle make both of us seem like saints.’

  ‘And how do you know such places?’

  ‘I told you I was a sinner.’

  She smiled. ‘I cannot afford it.’

  I waved my hand. ‘We can discuss that at a later stage, once your stomach is filled.’

  Still she hesitated. I leant over the bowl of food she was carrying and sniffed deeply. ‘Ah, the smell of that gravy, running over the lumps of meat,’ I said longingly. ‘Can’t you just imagine a plate of it before you, with a fresh, crusty loaf and a tankard? A plate piled high, the steam rising into the air, the juices . . .’

  ‘Stop!’ she cried, laughing out loud. ‘All right. I’ll come, if only you’ll stop talking about food.’

  ‘Good,’ I said. ‘So deliver your meal, and come with me.’

  We went to a small place on the very outskirts of the town, past Magdalen College and over the river. No one from the university, not even students, ever ate there, it being too far away in distance, and too low in reputation. The food was execrable as well; Mother Roberts was as bad a cook as she was disgusting a person, and the food was like the woman: larded with fat and giving off a foul smell. Sarah looked uneasy in the little room where she served up the gruel, but ate with the appetite of one who rarely gets enough. The main virtue of Mother Roberts was that the ale she served was strong and cheap, and I regret the passing of those days. Now that men of business make beer and are trying to stop women selling the ale they brew, I believe the great days of this country are over.

  The best quality of the brew was that by the time Sarah had drunk a quart of it, she’d become talkative, and susceptible to my questions. As much as I remember it, I set the conversation down here. On my prompting, she told me that she not only worked for the Wood family, but had also found work with Dr Grove. She did little for him, except clean his room, prepare his fire and a bath once every quarter – for he was fastidiously clean about his person – and he paid generously. The only trouble, she said, was his desire to bring her within the Established Church.

  I said that this Grove must be something of a hypocrite to speak so, as he had something of a reputation for being a hidden papist. If I thought this would draw her out, I was wrong, for she frowned and shook her head fervently. If he was such, she said, she had never seen the slightest sign of it, neither in his room nor in his manner.

  ‘And he works you hard?’

  On the contrary, she insisted. He had treated her with the utmost kindness at all times, even though she had seen him be extremely unpleasant with others. Her main concern was that he would get a living out in the country soon. He had told her only a few days before it was a near certainty.

  This upset me mightily; I already knew Grove to be blameless in his adherence – in fact he was probably more in conformity with the Church than Thomas himself – and it seemed unlikely that my friend’s suspicions about his morals had any substance. Nor could the girl be persuaded to denounce him falsely for money. She had an honest air to her.

  ‘He surely can’t have much skill at running a parish,’ I said. ‘No doubt because he has been in the university for so long. Otherwise he would be wary of having a pretty young woman to clean his rooms. There is bound to be talk.’

  ‘There is nothing to talk about, so why should anyone trouble?’

  ‘I do not know, but lack of substance has never dissuaded a gossip yet, I think. Tell me about this reputation of yours that I should be so wary of,’ I said, thinking that if I could prove Grove was willingly taking a sectary to his bosom, this might do just as well. So she told me a little about her father’s career in the wars, and described what to my ears seemed as black a monster as ever lived, a mutineer, atheist and rabble-rouser. Even through her description I perceived that the only thing to be said in his favour was his evident courage. She did not even know where he was buried, as he was too foul even to be allowed a consecrated grave. We shared that misfortune, at least.

  She was already casting her spell over me, I think, for I found myself strangely drawn to her despite a freedom about her talk which should have been a warning. We had a curious amount in common; she worked for Grove, I had been in his charge. Both of our fathers had evil reputations, and although that of my own was unjustified, I knew what it was to be cursed in this fashion. And unlike many sectaries, she did not have the burning eyes and humourless demeanour of the fanatic. Nor was she ugly like most of them, their souls drawn to Jesus because no mortal man wants their bodies. She ate with surprising and natural delicacy, and when in drink she behaved well. I had talked little with women in my life, as they were either too protected or too low for proper conversation, and my experience with the whore outside Tunbridge Wells and the way she had laughed at me, had begun to rankle.

  I was beginning to want her as we left the table, and naturally thought that her willingness to dine alone with me in such a place, and her open conversation, meant she was equally inclined to me. I knew of people such as her, in any case, and had heard tales of their laxity. I was all the more keen because she was of no use: there was no truth in Thomas’s thoughts about Grove, and she would tell no tales. Fool that I was to think in such a fashion, for her trap was about to shut its jaws as it had done, no doubt, many times before. I thought I was being charming and seductive, favouring her with my condescension; instead she was exploiting my youth and trusting nature, leading me into that sin she fully intended to use for her own devilish ends.

  It was well past eight when we left, and already dark, so I told her we had best travel back across Christ Church meadow to avoid the patrols. ‘I was caught a few weeks back by the curfew,’ I said. ‘I cannot afford to be caught again. Come with me; you will be safer.’

  She accepted without demur, and we cut past the Botanical Gardens and into the meadow, at which point I slipped my arm around her waist. She stiffened slightly, but did not protest. When we were in the middle of the field, and I was certain there was no one close by, I stopped, took her in my arms, and tried to kiss her. Instantly she began struggling, so I squeezed her tightly to show that, while some resistance was to be expected, she should not overact her part. But she kept on struggling and averting her face, then started hitting me with the flat of her hands, pulling at my hair and making me lose patience. I tripped her up and pushed her to the ground. Still she struggled so, perfectly furious at her behaviour, I was forced to slap her.

  ‘How dare you?’ I exclaimed indignantly once the struggling had momentarily stopped. ‘A meal isn’t a high enough price for you? You expect something for nothing? What do you think you are? Do you plan to pay me back some other way?’

  She started struggling again, so I pinned her to the cold, damp ground, pulled up her thin skirt and prepared myself. I was hot in blood by now, as her refusal had both angered and excited me, and I gave no quarter. I may have hurt her, I do not know, but if I did it was her own fault. When I had finished I was content, and she was subdued. She rolled away from me and made no more protest, lying on the cold grass.

  ‘There,’ I told her. ‘So what was that noise about? It cannot have been a surprise to someone like you. Or did you think I wanted to feed you for your conversation? Come now, if I had wanted talk I would have gone out with one of my fellows, not a serving girl whose company has to be hidden.’

  I shook her playfully, in good humour again. ‘Don’t make such a fuss. Here’s an extra twopence. Don’t take it amiss. You’re not some virgin who has lost something of value.’

  Then the harpy rolled over and slapped me, full in the face, then scrabbled at my face with her claws and pulled at my hair so hard some of it even came out in her hand. I have never been treated in such a f
ashion in my life, and the shock took my breath away. She had to be taught a lesson, of course, and I did so, although with little pleasure. I have never liked beating people, not even servants, however deserving. It is one of my greatest weaknesses, and I fear it leads them to hold me in less respect than they ought.

  ‘There,’ I said when she was crouching on the grass, her head in her hands, ‘next time, I won’t want any of this nonsense.’ I had to bend down and talk into her ear to make sure she would hear me. I noticed she was not crying. ‘You will treat me with proper respect in future. Now, to show there are no hard feelings, take this money, and let’s forget all about it.’

  As she didn’t want to get up, I left her to show I wasn’t susceptible to such wheedling behaviour. The evening had not been as useful as I had imagined, in that the problem of Dr Grove was not yet solved, but it had had an agreeable ending. I even noticed, out of the corner of my eye, that she had a strange expression, almost a smile, I thought, on her face as I turned to go. That smile stuck in my mind for a long while afterwards.

  Chapter Nine

  * * *

  I WOULD HAVE left the matter there, had not a dream that very same night disturbed me greatly. I was climbing a staircase and there was a large oak door at the top, which was firmly closed. It frightened me but I summoned all my strength and pushed it open. It should have been the bedroom, but instead I found myself in a gloomy and humid cellar.

  The sight inside was a fearful one; my father was lying on a bed, as naked as Noah, and covered in blood. Sarah Blundy, dressed all in white and wearing that same smile, stood over him, knife in hand. As I entered, she turned placidly towards me. ‘Thus dies a man of honour,’ she said in a whisper.

  I shook my head, and pointed accusingly at her. ‘You have murdered him,’ I said.

  ‘Oh no.’ And she nodded at me. I looked down, and in my hand was the bloody dagger she had been holding herself only a moment before. I tried to let it go, but it would not leave my hand. ‘You see? You are for ever stained now,’ she said.

  That was the end of the dream, or, if there was more, I cannot recall it. I woke up frightened, and it took some effort to rid my spirit of the pall that it cast over me, which was strange considering that I had never before paid much attention to such phantasms and, indeed, had always laughed at those who placed such store by them.

  I asked Thomas what he thought when I encountered him and we went for a drink in a tavern. He, of course, treated the matter with gravity, as he did everything. Their meaning, he informed me, depended on my constitution. What was the dream exactly?

  Naturally, I left out the background to it; he was exceptionally condemnatory of fornication, and I did not wish to dispute with him over trifles.

  ‘Tell me, do you tend to a dominance of the choleric humour?’ he asked when I had done.

  ‘No,’ I said. ‘Melancholia, rather.’

  ‘I take it you don’t know much about dreams?’

  I admitted the fact.

  ‘You should study them,’ he said. ‘Personally, I find them superstitious nonsense, but there is no doubt that the vulgar believe all sorts of stuff can be read from them. One day, such foolishness may be condemned; certainly no reputable priest should pay any attention to such drivel. However, that age has not yet come, so we must beware.

  ‘You see,’ he said, warming to his theme and shifting his thin backside in his seat in the way he did when he was settling down for a long discourse, ‘dreams come from various sources all acting in conjunction. Generally there is a dominant source, and it is that which we must isolate to identify the true nature of the apparition. One source is vapours rising from the stomach to the brain, causing it to overheat; such an occurrence happens when you have over-indulged in food or drink. Did you do that before the dreams?’

  ‘Far from it,’ I told him, thinking back to my meal at Mother Roberts’.

  ‘The next is an imbalance of your humoral constitution, but as you tell me that melancholia is dominant in you, we must rule that out as well; this is obviously a dream in which the choleric exerts its influence, the choler tending to produce black dreams because of its colour.

  ‘So that leaves the spiritual influence; a vision, in other words, either inspired by angels as a warning, or by the devil as a torment and temptation. Either way, the dream does not look well; the girl is strongly associated with the death of a man, a father. A dream of murder is a terrible sign; it foretells hardship and imprisonment. Tell me again, what else was there?’

  ‘The knife, the girl, the bed, my father.’

  ‘Again, the knife bodes ill. Was it bright and sharp?’

  ‘Must have been.’

  ‘A knife indicates that many people of ill will are ranged against you.’

  ‘I know that already.’

  ‘It also foretells that if you have a lawsuit pending, you are likely to lose it.’

  ‘The bed?’ I asked, becoming more and more miserable at the prospect he was laying out before me.

  ‘Beds, of course, are about your marriage prospects. And for it to be occupied by the corpse of your father again does not signify well at all. As long as he is there, you will not marry; his body prevents it.’

  ‘Which means that no woman of quality would touch the son of a traitor like myself,’ I exclaimed. ‘Again, I hardly need a divine messenger to tell me that.’

  Thomas looked into his tankard. ‘And then there is the girl,’ he said, ‘whose presence puzzles me. Because the dream says plainly that she is your misfortune and your judge. And that cannot be. Why, you scarcely know her, and I can see no possibility that your current difficulties can be laid at her door. Can you explain this to me?’

  Even though I knew more than I could comfortably tell Thomas, I could not explain it. I can do so now, for I have pondered long and hard on the matter. It is clear to me that my initial visitation to Widow Blundy created an imbalance amongst the spirits, a dependency in which I was embroiled, and that by taking my pleasure with the daughter I allowed myself foolishly to fall into a trap. That I was prompted by the urgings of a devil and was seduced into her power is now equally obvious.

  The message of the dream was in fact simple, had I only the wit to understand. For it showed clearly that the girl’s entrapment was aimed at deflecting me from my quest, with the result that failing to clear my father’s name would be a form of murder. Once I understood that, I was fortified, and encouraged in my resolve.

  Of course, such insight did not come instantly, for I have never claimed to be a cunning thinker in such matters. I learned, as all men must, by experience and from the application of common sense, so that ultimately only one explanation is left which answers all. At that time, my only thought was that the girl might lay some piddling complaint against me to the proctors of the university, who took a poor view of students consorting with the town’s whores, and that the investigation might force me to remain in town. A defence was needed and attack is the best form of it.

  When I left Thomas and walked up Carfax, I came on an exceedingly ingenious solution; in brief, I tipped Mary Fullerton, a vegetable girl in the market and one of the most dishonest and scurrilous wretches I knew, to confirm the story by telling how she had gone one day to deliver some fruit to Dr Grove and been mistaken for Sarah. The moment she got in the room (I instructed her to say) Grove had come up behind her and started fondling her breasts. When she protested (here she claimed to be a virtuous girl, which certainly was not the case) Grove said, ‘What, girl? You do not want what you were so eager to have yesterday?’ Better still, I sought out Wood and told him a story about Dr Grove and his rutting ways with his servant. It was guaranteed that, within a day or so, the story would spread and soon get back to the Fellows of New College, such was Wood’s ability as a gossip.

  So let the slut complain if she will, I thought. No one will believe her and she will do nothing but bring scandal and shame on her own head. Looking back now, I am less sanguine. My cunn
ing did not deliver the living into Thomas’s hands and, though it might have fended off Sarah Blundy’s worldly revenge, it enraged her to ever greater heights of malice.

  I knew nothing of that when I left Oxford a few days later – a blessed release, for I always detested the town, and have not revisited it for more than ten years now – and believed rather that I had enjoyed the girl, protected myself and helped my friend at one and the same time. Such contentment did not last long after I crossed the border into Warwickshire and made my way to my mother, although again I ignored the first sign that anything was amiss. I spent money on a carriage to Warwick, planned to walk the last fifteen miles to save money, and set off in good heart, pausing after an hour or so for some water and a bite of bread. It was a lonely spot on the road and I sat down on a grassy verge to rest. After a while, I heard a rustling in the bushes and got up to investigate; I had scarcely walked four paces into the undergrowth than, with a hellish squalling, a polecat sprang up and scratched my hand, causing a deep gash which bled profusely.

  I started back in alarm and fright and tripped over a root, but the animal did not press home its advantage. It vanished immediately as though into thin air and, had it not been for the blood dripping from my hand, I would have sworn I’d imagined it. I told myself, of course, that it was my own fault, that I had probably got too near its brood and paid the price. Only later did it occur to me that, in my many years’ acquaintance with that part of the world, I had never heard anyone mention such creatures as living there.

  Later, of course, I knew better the origins of the beast but then I merely blamed myself, bound up my hand and got on with the journey, arriving after three days’ travel at my mother’s people. Our destitution had left her no choice but to throw herself on their charity and they had taken her back, but not as family ought. My mother had disobliged them mightily by marrying as she pleased, and they did not let her forget for an instant that, in their opinion, her sorrow was punishment for her disobedience.