An Instance of the Fingerpost (2 page)

I had to beg a mere servant for information, and this lad told me that my father’s agent had died suddenly some weeks previously. Even worse, Manston had moved swiftly to take all the fortune and business for his own, and refused to admit that any had belonged to my father. Before lawyers he had produced documents (forged, naturally) to prove this assertion. He had, in other words, entirely defrauded my family of our money – that part of it which was in England, at least.

This boy was, unfortunately, at a loss about how I should proceed. I could lay a complaint before a magistrate, but with no evidence except my own convictions this seemed fruitless. I could also consult a lawyer but, if England and Venice differ in many ways, they are alike in one,
which is that lawyers have an insatiable love of money, and that was a commodity I did not possess in sufficient quantity.

It also rapidly became clear that London was not a healthy place. I do not mean the famous plague, which had not yet afflicted the city; I mean that Manston, that very evening, sent round hired hands to demonstrate that my life would be more secure elsewhere. Fortunately, they did not kill me; indeed, I acquitted myself well in the brawl thanks to the fees my father had paid to my fencing master, and I believe at least one bravo left the field in a worse state than I. But I took the warning none the less and decided to stay out of the way until my course was clearer. I will mention little more of this matter except to say that eventually I abandoned the quest for recompense, and my father decided that the costs involved were not worth the money lost. The matter was reluctantly forgotten for two years, when we heard that one of Manston’s boats had put into Trieste to sit out a storm. My family moved to have it seized – Venetian justice being as favourable to Venetians as English law is to Englishmen – and the hull and cargo provided some compensation for our losses.

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.

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 produce 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.