An Instance of the Fingerpost (39 page)

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.

Accordingly, they made her live little better than a servant. True, she was allowed to eat at the main table – they maintained the old custom, now almost forgotten, of eating with the entire household – but they always made sure she sat at the end and subjected her to almost daily insult. They were the very model of what have since come to be known as Trimmers – they would have got on well with Dr Wallis, had they ever met. Under Cromwell, the family sang their psalms and praised the Lord. Under Charles they bought the family curate his vestments and read the Book of Common Prayer every evening. The only thing beneath them, I think, was popery, for they were fervent haters of Rome and constantly on the lookout for the malign touch of priestcraft.

I always loved the house, but I believe it has been remodelled, reconstructed along modern lines by one of Sir Christopher’s innumerable imitators. Now the rooms are regular and well proportioned and the light no doubt floods in through the modern sashes, the chimneys draw properly and the draughts are kept to a minimum. For my part I regret this enthusiastic conformity to whatever men of fashion in Europe tell us is elegant. There is something false about all that symmetry. It used to be that a gentleman’s house was the history of his family, and you could see in its lines when they had
been in funds and expansive, or when times were hard. Those curling chimney stacks, and corridors and eaves stacked one next to the other, provided the comfort of a sweet disorder. One would have thought, after Cromwell’s attempts to impose uniformity on us all through his armies, that no more was needed. But I am out of harmony with the times, as usual. The old houses are being destroyed one by one, and replaced by gimcrack structures which will probably last no longer than the grasping, arrogant new families who construct them. Built so fast, they can be swept away as quickly, along with all the people they contain.

‘How do you stand for such humiliation, madam?’ I asked my mother when I visited her in her room one evening. I had been there for some weeks and could stand the mean piety, the arrogant self-importance of these people no more. ‘To have to endure their superiority every day would try the patience of a saint. Not to mention their insufferable reproaches, and pained kindnesses.’

She shrugged as she looked up from her embroidery. It was her habit to pass time in this way in the evening, making cloths which, she would tell me, would be mine once I had found a wife and an income. ‘You should not be unfair to them,’ she said. ‘They are more than generous to me. They were under no obligation, after all.’

‘Your own brother?’ I cried. ‘Of course he is under an obligation. As your husband would have been had the positions been reversed.’

She did not answer for a while, and concentrated on her labour while I stared once more into the big log fire. ‘You are wrong, Jack,’ she said eventually. ‘Your father behaved very badly towards my brother.’

‘I am sure it was all my uncle’s fault,’ I said.

‘No. You know how I revered your father, but he could be hot tempered and rash. This was one of those occasions. He was entirely at fault, but refused either to admit it or make amends.’

‘I cannot credit it,’ I said.

‘You do not know what I am talking about,’ she said, still patient. ‘I will give you a small example. During the war, before your father left to fight abroad, the king sent round collectors to levy an impost on all the great families. The demands on my brother were harsh and unfair. Naturally, he wrote to my husband, asking him to intercede
and get the amount reduced. He wrote back a very offensive letter, saying that with so many people giving their lives, he did not intend to help my brother avoid giving his silver. It would have been a small enough service to do for his family. And when Parliament in turn made its levy, your uncle had to sell a large parcel of land, he was now so impoverished. He never forgave your father.’

‘I would have arrived with a troop of horse to take the money myself,’ I said. The needs of the king’s cause outweighed all others. Had more people seen that, Parliament would have been defeated.’

‘The king was fighting to preserve the law, not merely to keep himself on the throne. What point was there in success if everything he was battling for was destroyed thereby? Without the families of the realm, the king was nothing; preserving our fortune and our influence did as much for his cause as fighting for him.’

‘How convenient,’ I scoffed.

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘And when this king returned, your uncle was there to take up his position as magistrate and re-establish order. Without my brother, who would have controlled this part of the world, made sure our people welcomed the king back? Your father was penniless and without influence.’

‘I would rather have a penniless hero for a father than a rich coward,’ I said.

‘Unfortunately you now claim descent from a penniless traitor, and live on the kindness of the rich coward.’

‘He was no traitor. You, of all people, cannot believe that.’

‘All I know is that he brought ruin on his family, and made his wife a beggar.’

‘The king gave him life and honour. What else could he do?’

‘Spare me your childishness,’ she snapped. ‘War is not a tale of chivalry. The king took more than he gave. He was a fool and your father was a greater fool for sustaining him. For years I had to juggle with creditors, bribe soldiers and sell our lands, just so he could be the man of honour. I watched our funds dwindle to nothing so he could cut a figure as an equal with noblemen on ten times the income. I watched him reject a settlement with Parliament because the man sent to negotiate with him was a London chandler, not a gentleman. That particular show of honour cost us dear, believe me.
And when we were reduced to penury, I had to come with nothing but the clothes on my back to throw myself on my brother’s mercy. He took me in, fed me and housed me while your father dissipated what remained of our fortune. He pays for your education so you can live, and he has promised to set you up in London when you are ready. In return, he gets nothing from you but contempt and childish remarks. You compare his honour with your father’s. Tell me, Jack, where is the honour in a pauper’s grave?’

I sat back, stunned by her vehemence and grievously disappointed. My poor father, betrayed even by the one person who owed him all obedience. My uncle had even managed to subvert her. I did not blame her; how could a woman resist such pressures when they were constantly applied? It was my uncle I blamed, using my father’s absence to blacken him to the person who should have defended his name to the last.

‘You talk as though you are going to say he was a traitor after all,’ I said eventually, when my head had stopped spinning. ‘I cannot believe that.’

‘I do not know,’ she said. ‘And so I try to believe the best. In the year or so before he fled I hardly saw him; I do not know what he was doing.’

‘You do not care who betrayed him? It does not disturb you that John Thurloe is free though guilty, while your own husband lies dead through betrayal? You do not want revenge for this?’

‘No, I do not; it is done and cannot be changed.’

‘You must tell me what you know, however little it is. When did you last see him?’

She stared long at the fire that was fading in the grate and letting the cold wrap itself around our bodies; it was always an icy house, and even in the summer you needed a heavy topcoat if you went out of the main rooms. Now winter was in, the leaves fallen and the winds beginning to blow, the chill was taking over the house once more.

It took some urging before she answered my questions about papers and letters and documents which might show what took place, for Wallis’s request was still in my mind and I wished to oblige him if I could. Several times she refused, changing the subject and trying to divert me into other matters, but each time I insisted. Eventually
she gave way, realising it would be easier than to resist. But her unwillingness was obvious and I never entirely forgave her for it. I told her that I had above all to know everything possible about what had happened around January of 1660, just before my father fled, and when the plot against him was reaching its climax. Where was he? What had he done or said? Had she even seen him in that period?

She said she had; indeed, it was the last time she had ever seen him. ‘I received a message through a trusted friend that your father needed me,’ she began. ‘Then he came here unannounced and at night. He had no dealings with your uncle and spent only one night here, then left again.’

‘How was he?’

‘Very grave, and preoccupied, but in good spirits.’

‘And he had a troop with him?’

She shook her head. ‘Just one man.’

‘Which man?’

She waved my questions aside. ‘He stayed the night as I say, but didn’t sleep; just fed himself and his comrade, then came to talk to me. He was very secretive, making sure that no one heard, and making me promise not to reveal a word to my brother. And, before you ask, I have not done so.’

I knew at the bottom of my heart that I was on the verge of receiving a message of unparalleled importance, that my father had meant me to hear this, otherwise he would have sworn my mother to complete silence. ‘Go on,’ I said.

‘He talked to me very intently. He said he had discovered the worst treason imaginable, which had shocked him so greatly he had initially refused to believe the evidence of his own eyes. But now he was convinced, and he was going to act.’

I all but cried out in frustration at this. ‘What treason? What act? What discoveries?’

My mother shook her head. ‘He said it was too much to confide in a woman. You must understand that he never told me any secrets, or gave me any confidences at all. You should be surprised he said so much, not that he said so little.’

‘And that was all?’

‘He said he would uncover and destroy men of the greatest evil; it was dangerous, but he was confident of success. Then he
pointed to the man who had been sitting in the corner all the while.’

‘His name, Madam? What was his name?’ At least, I thought, I might have something. But again she shook her head. She did not know.

‘He may have been called Ned; I do not know. I think I had met him before, before the war. Your father told me that, ultimately, only your own people were to be trusted, and that this man was such a person. If anything should not take place as planned, then this man would come and give me a packet, which contained everything he knew. I was to guard it well, and use it only when I was sure it was safe to do so.’

‘And what else?’

‘Nothing,’ she said simply. ‘Shortly after they left, and I never saw him again. I received a message from Deal a few weeks later saying he was having to leave the country for a short while, but would be back. He never did come back, as you know.’

‘And this man? This Ned?’

She shook her head. ‘He never came, and I never received any package.’

However disappointing it was that my mother had nothing to help Dr Wallis, the information she gave me was an unexpected bonus. I had not expected her to have such knowledge, and had applied to her only as an afterthought. Sad though it is for a son to acknowledge, I found it increasingly hard to maintain my civility with her, so much was she being drawn back to her own family, who had only ever approved of my father while he possessed a good estate.