An Instance of the Fingerpost (4 page)

Maintaining an outward show of imperturbability, I took my portable pestle and mortar and began to grind up the ingredients; some mastick for sticking, a grain of sal ammoniack, two of frankincense, a dram of white vitriol and two grains of nitre and verdigrice both. Once these were pounded into a smooth paste, I then added linseed oil, drop by drop, until the mixture had reached the right degree.

‘Where is the powder of worms?’ I asked, searching in the bag for the final ingredients. ‘Did they not have any?’

‘Yes,’ she said. ‘At least I imagine so. But it is no use, you know, so I decided not to buy it. It saved some money for you.’

This was too much. To be treated with insolence was one thing and quite common with daughters, but to be questioned and doubted in one’s area of skill was quite another.

‘I told you I needed it. It is a crucial ingredient. Are you a physician, girl? Have you trained at the best schools in medicine? Do physicians come to you asking for advice?’ I asked with a superior sneer in my voice.

‘Yes, they do,’ she replied calmly.

I snorted. ‘I don’t know whether it is worse to be dealing with a fool or a liar,’ I said angrily.

‘Nor do I. All I know is that I am neither. Putting worm powder on a wound is tantamount to making sure my mother loses her leg and dies.’

‘Are you Galen then? Paracelsus? Perhaps Hippocrates himself?’ I stormed. ‘How dare you question the authority of your betters? This is a salve that has been in use for centuries.’

‘Even though it is useless?’

While this was going on I had been applying the salve to her mother’s wound, then rebandaging it. I was doubtful about whether it would work, incomplete as it was, but would have to do until I could make it up properly. Once finished, I stood up to my full height, and, of course, bumped my head against the low ceiling. The girl suppressed a giggle, which made me the more angry.

‘Let me tell you one thing,’ I said with barely suppressed fury, ‘I have treated your mother to the best of my ability, even though I was not obliged to. I will come back later to give her a sleeping draught and to air the wound. This I do knowing that I will receive nothing in return but your contempt, although I cannot see that I have deserved it or that you have any right to speak to me in such a fashion.’

She curtseyed. ‘Thank you, kind sir. And as for payment, I’m sure you will be satisfied. You said we can deal with that later, and I have no doubt we will.’

With that I walked out of the house and back into the street, shaking my head and wondering what den of lunatics I had tumbled into so carelessly.

I HOPE THAT
this account explains the first two stages of my progress: my coming to England and then to Oxford, and my acquisition of the patient whose treatment was to cause me such grief. The girl herself – what can I say? She was touched by doom already; her end was written, and the devil was reaching out his hand to drag her down. The man of skill can see this, can read a face like an open book and discern what the future holds in store. Sarah Blundy’s face was deep scored already with the evil that had gripped her soul and would shortly destroy her. So I told myself after, and it may be true. But at that time I saw nothing more than a girl as insolent as she was pretty, and as careless of her obligations to her superiors as she was mindful of her duty to her family.

I need now to explain my further progress, which was just as accidental although ultimately more cruel in its effects: the more so because it seemed, for a while, as though fortune had begun to smile on me once more. I had been left with the task of paying off the debts she had so impertinently run up for me at the apothecary’s, and I knew that you annoy apothecaries at your peril if you are concerned with experimental knowledge. Omit to pay, and they are quite likely to refuse you in the future, and not only them but all their fellows for miles around, so closely do they stick together. In the circumstances, that would be the final straw. Even if it was my last penny I could not afford to enter the society of English philosophy as a man of bad credit.

So I asked the way to this Mr Crosse’s shop, and walked half-way along the High Street once more, opening the wooden door in the shop front and going into the warmth of the interior. It was a handsome place, nicely laid out as all English shops are, with fine cedarwood counters and beautiful brass balances of the most
up-to-date variety. Even the aromas of the herbs and spices and drugs welcomed me as I moved strategically across the polished oak floor until I stood with my back against the fine carved mantelpiece and the roaring fire in the grate.

The owner, a portly man in his fifties who looked decidedly at ease with life, was dealing with a customer who seemed in no hurry, leaning nonchalantly on the table, chattering quite idly. He was perhaps a year or two older than myself, with a lively, active face and bright, if cynical, eyes below heavy, arching brows. In dress he was in a sombre garb that steered between the extremes of puritanical drabness and the extravagance of fashion. It was, in other words, well cut but of a tedious brown.

For all that he had an easy manner, this customer seemed very self-conscious, and I discerned that Mr Crosse was amusing himself at the man’s expense.

‘Keep you warm in winter, as well,’ the apothecary was saying with a broad grin.

The customer wrinkled up his face in pain.

‘Course, when spring comes you’ll have to put netting over, in case the birds start nesting in it,’ he went on, clutching his sides in merriment.

‘Come now, Crosse, that’s enough,’ protested the man, then began laughing himself. ‘Twelve marks it cost . . .’

This sent Crosse into greater paroxysms of laughter, and soon both of them were leaning over, helpless and in virtual hysteria.

‘Twelve marks!’ wheezed the apothecary, before collapsing once more.

I even found myself beginning to giggle with amusement, even though I had not the slightest idea what they were talking about. I didn’t even know whether it was considered ill manners in England to interpose oneself into the merriment others, but the fact was that I didn’t care. The warmth of the shop and the open good humour of these two, as they clung to the counter to avoid slipping on to the floor in their helplessness, made me want to laugh with them, to celebrate the first normal human society I had experienced since my arrival. Instantly I felt restored by it for, as Gomesius says, merriment cures many passions of the mind.

My slight giggling attracted their attention, however, and Mr Crosse attempted to restore himself to the dignified posture that his trade required. His comrade did likewise and both turned to look at me; a sombre silence reigned for a few seconds, then the younger man pointed at me, and both of them lost control once more.

‘Twenty marks!’ cried the young man waving in my direction, then banging his fist on the counter. ‘At least twenty.’

I counted this as being the nearest thing to an introduction that I was likely to receive and, with some wariness, made a polite bow in their direction. I half-suspected some appalling joke at my expense. The English love making fun of foreigners, whose mere existence they regard as an enormous jest.

My bow to equals – perfectly executed, with just the right balance between the extended left leg, and the graciously elevated right arm – none the less set them off again, so I stood with the impassivity of a stoic as I waited for the storm to pass. And in due course, the gurglings faded, they wiped their eyes, blew their noses, and did their best to appear like civilised people.

‘I must beg your pardon, sir,’ said Mr Crosse, who was the first to regain both the power of speech and the grace to use it civilly. ‘But my friend here has just decided to become a man of fashion, and has taken to appearing in public with a thatched roof on his head. I was doing my best to assure him that he cuts a very fine figure indeed.’ He began heaving with mirth again, and his friend then tore off his wig and threw it on the ground.

‘Fresh air at last,’ he exclaimed thankfully as he ran his fingers through his thick, long hair. ‘Dear Lord, it was hot under there.’

At last I was beginning to make sense of it; the wig had arrived in Oxford – several years after it had established itself throughout most of the world as an essential part of elegant masculine dress. I was wearing one myself, having adopted it as a sign, so to speak, of my graduation into the adult world.

I could see, of course, why it caused such amusement, although the understanding was overborne by that sense of superiority felt by a man of parts when he encounters the provincial. When I began wearing my wig myself it took some considerable time to grow used to it; only pressure from my fellows persuaded me to continue. And,
of course, looking at it as a Turk or an Indian might were he suddenly transported to our shores, it did seem slightly odd that a man, graced by nature with a full head of hair, should shave much of it off in order to wear somebody else’s. But fashionable attire is not for comfort and, as it was profoundly uncomfortable, we may conclude that the wig was very fashionable.

‘I think’, I said, ‘that you might find it more comfortable if you shortened your own hair; then there would not be so much pressure under the mat.’

‘Shorten my own hair? Good heavens, is that how it’s done?’

‘I’m afraid so. We must sacrifice for beauty, you know.’

He kicked the wig roughly across the floor. ‘Then let me be ugly,’ he said, ‘for I will not be seen in public wearing this. If it produces convulsions in Crosse here, think what the students of this town will do to me. I’ll be lucky to escape with my life.’

‘They are the very height of fashion elsewhere,’ I commented. ‘Even the Dutch wear them. I think it is a question of timing. In a few months, or maybe a year, you may find that they hoot and throw stones at you if you do not wear one.’

‘Bah! Ridiculous,’ he said, but none the less scooped the wig up off the floor and placed it more safely on the counter.

‘I’m sure this gentleman has not come here to discuss fashion,’ Crosse said. ‘Perhaps he even wishes to buy something? It has been known.’

I bowed. ‘No. I have come to pay for something. I believe you extended credit to a young girl not so long ago.’

‘Oh, the Blundy girl. You are the man she mentioned?’

I nodded. ‘It seems that she spent my money a little freely. I have come to settle her – or rather my – debt.’

Crosse grunted. ‘You won’t be paid, you know, not in money.’

‘So it appears. But it is too late for that now. Besides, I set her mother’s leg, and it was interesting to see whether I could do so; I’d learnt a great deal about it in Leiden, but never tried it on a living patient.’

‘Leiden?’ said the young man with sudden interest. ‘Do you know Sylvius?’

‘Indeed,’ I said. ‘I studied anatomy with him; and I have a letter
from him with me for a gentleman called Mr Boyle.’

‘Why didn’t you say so?’ he asked, and walked to the door at the back of the shop and opened it. I could see a flight of stairs in the corridor beyond.

‘Boyle?’ he yelled. ‘Are you up there?’

‘No need to shout, you know,’ Crosse said. ‘I can tell you. He isn’t. He went to the coffee house.’

‘Oh. No matter. We can go and find him. What’s your name, by the way?’

I introduced myself. He bowed in return, and said: ‘Richard Lower, at your service. A physician. Almost.’

We bowed once more and, that done with, he clapped me on the shoulders. ‘Come along. Boyle will like to meet you. We’ve been feeling a little cut off up here recently.’

As we walked the short distance back to Tillyard’s, he explained that the ferment of intellectual life in the town had ceased to bubble as it had in the past, due to the return of the king.

‘But I heard His Majesty is a lover of learning,’ I said.

‘So he is, when he can tear his attention away from his mistresses. That’s the trouble. Under Cromwell, we eked out our existence here, while all the lucrative places in the state went to butchers and fish sellers. Now the king is back and naturally, all those well placed enough to take advantage of his generosity have gone to London, leaving a rump of us up here. I’m afraid I shall have to try to make a name for myself there as well, sooner or later.’

‘Hence the wig?’

He grimaced. ‘Yes, I suppose so. One must cut a dash in London to be noticed at all. Wren was back here a few weeks ago – he’s a friend of mine, a fine fellow – decked out like a peacock. He’s planning a trip to France soon and we’ll probably have to shade our eyes just to look at him when he gets back.’

‘And Mr Boyle?’ I asked, my heart sinking a little. ‘He has – ah, decided – to stay in Oxford?’

‘Yes, for the time being. But he’s lucky. He’s got so much money he doesn’t have to fish for positions like the rest of us.’

‘Oh,’ I said, greatly relieved.

Lower gave me a look which indicated that he understood perfectly
what had been going through my mind. ‘His father was one of the richest men in the kingdom and a fervent supporter of the Old King, bless his memory, as I suppose we should. Naturally, a lot of it was dispersed, but there’s enough left for Boyle not to have the concerns of ordinary mortals.’

‘Ah.’

‘A fine person to know, if you are inclined to philosophical knowledge, which is his main interest. If you’re not, of course, he won’t pay much attention to you.’

‘I have done my best’, I said modestly, ‘with some experimentation. But I’m afraid that I am only a novice. What I do not know or understand greatly outweighs what I do.’

The answer seemed to please him mightily. ‘In that case you will be in good company,’ he said with a grin. ‘Add us all together and our ignorance is almost complete. Still, we scratch at the surface. Here we are,’ he went on, as he led the way back into the very same coffee house. Mrs Tillyard again approached, wanting another copper off me, but Lower waved her away. ‘Fiddlesticks, madam,’ he said cheerfully. ‘You will not charge a friend of mine for entry into this bawdy house.’

Loudly demanding that coffee be brought to us instantly, Lower bounded up the stairs to the room I had previously selected. It was then that I had the horrible thought: what if this Boyle were the unpleasant gentleman who had turned away the girl?