An Instance of the Fingerpost (35 page)

What happened was this: I arrived at seven in the morning, and entered the lower part of his inn, asking the landlord to send his manservant so that I might request an audience. Not correct form, I know, but anyone who has ever waited on a court on the move knows that formality is at a discount. All around me were a few dozen or more people, some waiting on favours, some merely eating before going out to attend the audiences of others. The room was abuzz with lesser courtiers trying to take their first step on the long and slippery ladder to preferment and office. I was such a person myself, in a way, and so like them I sat patiently and waited. In this lonely position – for no
one is more lonely than a supplicant in a roomful of supplicants – I sat for half an hour, waiting a response. Then an hour, then another half-hour. At past ten, two men came down the stairs and advanced on me. The chatter in the room stopped: everyone assumed that I had successfully negotiated the first stage of my suit and wanted to watch the occasion from a mixture of curiosity and envy.

The room was perfectly quiet, so everyone heard the message delivered: indeed, the servant spoke in a sufficiently loud voice to make sure of this.

‘You are Jack Prestcott?’

I nodded, and began to rise.

‘The son of James Prestcott, the murderer and traitor?’

I could feel my stomach contracting as I sat down again, winded by the shock, and knowing that there was more to come with nothing I could do to avoid the blow.

‘Sir John Russell presents his compliments and asks me to tell you that the son of a dog is a dog. He has instructed me to ask you respectfully to take your traitorous presence away from this building, and never have the insolence to approach him again. If you do so, he will have you thrashed. Leave this place, or be thrown into the gutter, as your foul father should have been.’

There was total silence. I could feel thirty pairs of eyes boring through me as I gripped my hat and stumbled for the door, aware of nothing at all, just some fleeting impressions. A sorrowful, almost sympathetic look on the face of the first servant, and the hardness of the other, who rejoiced in humbling me. The look of malicious triumph in some supplicants, the eager interest of others as they thought how they would tell and retell this tale over the next few weeks. And the blood, pounding in my head as the rage and hatred poured into my soul; and feeling as though the force within my skull would split it open. I was sensible of nothing else by the time I reached the door, and do not even recall how I got back to the anonymous misery of my cot above the stables in the tavern.

How long I lay there I am not sure, but it must have been some considerable time: I assume (I was sharing the place with half a dozen others) that there must have been some coming and going, to which I was entirely insensible. All I know is that when I recovered my senses,
my beard had grown to a stubble, my limbs were weak and I had to shave before I could show my face to the world once more. The water from the well was freezing cold, but I presented a reasonably civilised appearance when I went down to the inn across the courtyard. I had half-forgotten what had transpired, but it came back to me in a flash when I walked through the door. Dead silence, followed by a snicker. I walked up to ask for some beer, and the man beside me turned his back, in the cruel way that comes so naturally to the coarse – although considering the example they had been set by their betters, perhaps it was not so surprising.

It is hard to relive such humiliations, and even now I find my hand shakes as I dip my pen in the ink and write these words down. So many years have passed, with such grace and goodness in them, yet that moment still cuts deep and the anger returns. I have been told that the heart of a gentleman is the more open to such wounds than those of ordinary people because his honour is the greater, and it may be so. I would have continued had it been likely to serve any purpose, but I knew that the incident had ruined my expedition; there was no way now that I could approach Edward Villiers with any hope of a polite reception, and I would not expose myself to another rebuff. There was no alternative but to leave as swiftly as possible, although I was determined that, before I did so, I would gaze on the face of Sir John Russell, to see whether it matched the vision I had seen in Mrs Blundy’s bowl of water. Mordaunt’s visage had not, of which I was heartily glad, and I already knew that of Villiers was also different. I confess I hoped that Sir John, who had already done enough to earn my lifelong enmity, would compound his sin and make my quest more simple.

Alas, it was not to be; I spent many hours lurking outside the inn, and (as quietly as possible, so as not to be recognised) outside the fashionable gatherings, listening with gloom to the sounds of revelry within, getting myself soaked to the skin by the first rains of autumn as I stood, doggedly and patiently. Eventually I was rewarded, after a fashion. I had tipped a stall-keeper to point out Sir John when he
emerged, and as I was almost giving up hope, he nudged me in my ribs and hissed in my ear: ‘’Ere he is, in all his finery.’

I looked, half-expecting to see an almost familiar face coming down the steps. ‘Where?’ I said.

‘There. That’s him,’ said the trader, pointing out a roly-poly, fat man with a pink face and a straggly, old-fashioned moustache. I watched with the greatest disappointment as this creature (who looked neither deceitful nor familiar) got into a waiting coach. He was not the man that the Blundy woman had shown me.

‘Go on then,’ said the man, ‘go and present your letter.’

‘My what?’ I said, having forgotten entirely that this was my supposed reason for wanting to know who he was. ‘Oh, that. Later, maybe.’

‘Nervous, eh? I know. But let me tell you, young sir, you’ll not get anywhere with this bunch unless you go ahead with your plans.’

I decided to take this unsought, but probably good, advice by packing my bags and leaving the town. It did not contain what I was looking for.

IT IS MID-AFTERNOON
and I am told (you note how it is these days – I am told) that we are setting off for my country seat in the morning; I have little time to continue my narrative. I have already had my head shaved for that damn fool wig, the tailor has been to see me, all is busy with activity. So many things there are to prepare and to get ready, and I care nothing for any of them. These tedious little details are hardly germane to my story, but I notice this tendency in me; it comes more frequently now. My dotage, I suppose it is; I find that I can remember what happened all those years ago more easily than I recall what I was doing the day before yesterday.

To return to my story, I arrived back in Oxford with a deep resentment in my heart and an ever greater determination to defeat my hidden enemies. I had been away more than two weeks, and in that time the town had filled with students and was no longer the quiet, rustic place it is much of the year. Fortunately, this also meant that all those whose help I needed were now in residence. One was Thomas, of course, whose logic-chopping skills, honed in the theological and logical arts which he taught with surprising skill to students, were vital: he could whip through a pile and tease out a meaning faster than anyone I knew. The other was an odd little fellow he brought to see me one day. His name was Anthony Wood.

‘Here’, Thomas said presenting Wood to me in his room, ‘is the answer to all of your problems. Mr Wood is a great scholar and keen to help you in your search.’

Cola describes him briefly and it is one of the few occasions when I can find only small fault with his penmanship; I have never met a more ridiculous creature than Anthony Wood. He was a deal older than myself, perhaps thirty or thereabouts, but already had the bowed back and sunken cheeks of the bookworm. His clothes were monstrous – so
old and patched it was hard to see how out of fashion they were – his stockings were darned, and he had the habit of throwing his head back and whinnying like a horse when he was amused. An unpleasant, grating sound which made all in his company suddenly grave, lest they say something witty and be rewarded with his laughter. This, combined with the general inelegance of his movements – all jerks and twitches, so that he could barely sit still for more than a few seconds – began to irritate me the moment I set eyes on him, and it was hard indeed for me to keep my patience.

But Thomas said he would be useful, so I forbore to make fun of him. Unfortunately, the connection, once begun, proved hard to break. Like all scholars, Wood is poor and constantly in search of patronage: they all seem to think that others should pay for their diversion. He has never had any from me, but has never despaired either. He still comes to pay court, in the hope that a coin might slip from my pocket into his ink-stained hands, and never ceases to remind me of the services he rendered all those years ago. He was here a few days back, in fact, which is why he is so fresh in my memory, but said nothing of consequence. He is writing a book, but what is there in that? He has been writing the same one since ever I knew him, and it seems no nearer its conclusion. And he is one of those wiry little men who never seem to age at all, beyond stooping a little more, and acquiring a few more lines on his face. When he comes into a room, it is as though half my life has not happened, and is only a dream. It is only my own aches that remind me.

‘Mr Wood is a great friend of mine,’ Thomas explained when he saw the look of disgust on my face as I regarded the fellow. ‘We play music together every week. He is a monstrous student of history and over the last few years has accumulated a great deal of information about the wars.’

‘Fascinating,’ I said dryly. ‘But I fail to see how he can help.’

Wood now spoke, in that high-pitched, fluting voice of his: such precise, mincing enunciation, as neat as a notebook, and scarcely more interesting.

‘I have had the honour of encountering many people’, he said, ‘distinguished in war and in public affairs. I have a substantial
knowledge of this country’s tragic course, which I would be happy to place at your disposal to establish what became of your father.’

I swear he talked like that all the while, all his sentences as perfectly formed as he was grotesque himself. I was not sure what to make of this offer but Thomas told me I must certainly accept, as Mr Wood was already known for the niceness of his judgement and the voluminous nature of his knowledge. If I needed to know anything about any event or any personality, then I must certainly ask Wood first of all: it would save me a great deal of time.

‘Very well,’ I said. ‘But I wish to make it clear that you will tell no one of my search. There are many people who would be my enemies if they knew what I am doing. I wish to take them by stealth.’

Wood agreed reluctantly, and I told him that I would lay all the facts and information before him in due course, so that he might supplement my findings with information of his own. Then Thomas considerately bundled him out of the room, and I gave my friend a wry and reproachful look.

‘Thomas, I know I am in need of all the help I can get . . .’

‘You are wrong, my friend. Mr Wood’s knowledge may be crucial to you one day. Do not dismiss him because of his appearance. I have also thought of another useful person for you.’

I groaned. ‘Who might this be, then?’

‘Dr John Wallis.’

‘Who?’

‘He is the Savilian Professor of Geometry, and was deep in the confidence of the Commonwealth by virtue of his skill with codes. Many a secret letter of the king’s did he reveal to Thurloe’s office, so they say.’

‘Should have been hanged, then . . .’

‘And now he performs the same service for His Majesty’s government, it is rumoured. Lord Mordaunt told you the documents incriminating your father used a cipher: if so, then Dr Wallis might know something of the matter. If you can persuade him to help . . .’

I nodded. Perhaps for once one of Thomas’s ideas was going to be useful.

Before either Mr Wood or Dr Wallis could do much to help me, I had an opportunity to repay some of my debt to Thomas by rescuing him from one of the most absurd pieces of ill judgement. The circumstances were highly amusing, if a little worrying. Everyone knew that Old Tidmarsh the Quaker held some grotesque conventicle in his little house down by the river. Illegal, of course, and considering the trouble such lunatics had already caused, they should have been crushed mercilessly. But no; every now and then a few were locked up, then they were let out again, free to resume their loathsome ways. In fact, they seemed to take pride in it, and blasphemously likened their own sufferings to those of Our Lord Himself. Some (I heard) even claimed to be the Lord in their arrogance, and ran around, shaking their heads and pretending to cure people. The world was full of such madmen in those days. Imprisonment is not the way to deal with such people; half measures merely feed their pride. Leave ’em alone or hang ’em, in my opinion. Or better still, pack them off to the Americas, and let them starve.