An Instance of the Fingerpost

  Lower, as usual, had been busier and more effective than I. He had taken it upon himself to borrow Boyle’s coach – reasoning correctly that the vehicle of such a man would not be stopped or even examined by the watch, however late it was to be found on the road – and hired two horses to pull it. He proposed to take Sarah himself to Reading, sufficiently far from Oxford to be safe, especially as relations between the two towns were bad enough to ensure that there was, at present, little communication between them. There he would lodge Sarah with associates of his brother, a family of dissenters whom he could guarantee would guard her secret, or what little they were to be told of it. When his brother returned and passed through the town on his way back to Dorset, he would be informed of events and would certainly take the girl under his wing, putting her on the first ship available taking dissenters away from England. So it was agreed by all of us.

  I cannot bring myself to write of my final parting from her, my final look on her face, and will not do so.

  Sarah left ten days later in the company of his brother, made her way under his guidance to Plymouth and there took passage.

  It was the last anyone ever heard of her. She never arrived in America and it was assumed she had fallen overboard. But the boat was becalmed at the time and was in any case so crowded it was difficult to imagine anyone coming to grief without being noticed. Yet she simply disappeared one day in full sunlight and without any sound, as though she had been taken up bodily into the heavens.

  Chapter Twelve

  * * *

  THERE THE STORY, such as I know it, of Sarah Blundy comes to its end and I can say no more: those who wish to disbelieve me can do so.

  It remains now for me to recount the last portion of the story, and show what the Italian had as his business in England. I confess I do not find it important, for in comparison to what I had witnessed, the errors of men who squabble in such ignorance of the truth, cannot but excite the most complete disdain. Yet as it is both part of these events, and a cause of them, so I should set all down that I might complete my labours and rest.

  I travelled to London the day after Sarah left Oxford, still very much in a mood of most profound dismay and reverie; it was Lower’s idea to go, and he recommended it forcefully as a treatment for melancholy and brooding. A change of scenery, different company and a bit of entertainment, he insisted, would help shake off the sadness that had settled over me. I took his advice because my lassitude was such it was easier to do so than to resist. Lower packed my bag for me, walked me to Carfax and put me on the coach.

  ‘And enjoy yourself,’ he said. ‘You must admit everything has turned out better than you could possibly have expected. It is time to put it behind you.’

  Naturally, I could not do so quite so easily, but I tried to follow his advice as much as possible and spent time forcing myself to visit people with whom I had corresponded over the years, trying hard to be interested in what they said. I did not succeed very well, as my mind kept drifting off to more important matters, and I fear I may have aroused some resentment among my colleagues because of a distance which they surely took as disdain and arrogance. Matters which ordinarily would have produced the liveliest fascination could generate no interest at all; I was told of the discovery of huge bones, turned to stone in a quarry in Hertfordshire, proving that the Bible spoke true when it said that once giants walked the earth, and I was less than fascinated. I was given hospitality by John Aubrey, at that time my good friend, but could display no enthusiasm for his ingenuity in discovering the purpose and nature of Stonehenge and Avebury and other such sites; I was invited to attend a meeting of the Royal Society, but turned this great honour down with ease, and never cared that I was not invited again.

  And one evening, after I had been there but two days, I found myself walking past an inn in Cheapside called The Bells, and remembered I had seen the name in Cola’s chest, and felt the need to go in search of someone who had also known Sarah and seen something of what I had seen. And I had this great urge to know the answers to many questions, to understand the apparent chain of human events which had brought her end.

  He was easily found, even though the innkeeper – whom I later knew to be a papist – did not know the name; all I had to do was ask for the Italian gentleman, and I was immediately shown to the grand room, occupied by himself alone, where he had lodged himself since his arrival.

  His astonishment at seeing me was very great, but no more so than when I began to talk to him.

  ‘Good evening, Father,’ I said.

  He could not deny it, could not bluster or protest or insist, for priests cannot do so. Instead, he stared at me in terror, thinking that I was sent to trap him and that armed men would soon be pounding up the stairs to take him to his martyrdom. But there was no sound, no noise of boots or shouts of urgent command, just the silence in the room as he stood by the window in shock.

  ‘Why do you call me Father?’

  ‘Because that is what you are.’ I did not say, who else would go around with holy oil and holy water and a sacred relic hidden away in his belongings? Who else but a priest bound to celibacy would react in such horror when he realised the strengths of his carnal desires? Who else would secretly and in goodness give extreme unction to a woman he thought was dying, to intercede for her soul despite herself?

  Cola sat down cautiously on his cot, and looked at me carefully, and with much thought, almost as if he was still expecting me to launch some surprise assault on him.

  ‘Why have you come here?’

  ‘Not to do you harm.’

  ‘Then why?’

  ‘I wish to talk.’

  I felt sorry for putting him into such a dangerous situation, and did my best to assure him that I intended him no ill. I believe it was my face, rather than my words, which convinced him of my sincerity. Both can lie, but not in my case, for I have said already that the merest simpleton can see straight through me. Had I been lying, Cola would have known it, and yet he saw nothing of the sort on my face. So, after a long and very tense wait, he sighed and bowed to the inevitable, and asked me to sit.

  ‘Is your name really Marco da Cola? I feel I should know whom I am addressing. Is there any such person?’ I asked.

  He smiled gently. ‘There was,’ he said. ‘He was my brother. My name is Andrea.’

  ‘Was?’

  ‘He is dead. He died in my arms on his return from Crete. I grieve greatly for him still.’

  ‘Why are you here?’

  ‘Like you, I can say I wish no harm on any man. Not that many would believe me; hence my subterfuge. Your government does not greatly approve of foreign priests. Certainly not Jesuits.’ He said it deliberately, eyes on my face all the while to see my reaction to his admission.

  I nodded. ‘You have not answered my question.’

  ‘Mr Wood,’ he continued, ‘you are the only person to have divined who I am, and you are the only man of your faith I have encountered who does not react as if I was the devil himself. Why is this? Are you, perhaps, drawn to the true Church in your heart?’

  ‘“Let no man say that his is the best and only road, for they say so out of ignorance alone,”’ I said and the words were out of my mouth before ever I remembered where I had heard them.

  Cola looked disturbed at this: ‘A generous, though erroneous sentiment,’ he replied, and I hoped he would not query me too much on it, for I knew I could neither defend it nor even explain it. Either the bread turns to flesh, and the wine to blood, or it does not; it cannot do so in Rome, but not in Canterbury. Either Christ made Peter and his successors the foundation stone of faith, conferring on them all authority in matters spiritual, or he did not; Our Lord did not tell Peter he would have authority over all the world except for those parts of Europe which think differently.

  But Cola said no more on this subject, glad only that he had the fortune to have been discovered by perhaps the one person in the whole country who felt no need to betray him to the autho
rities. Nor was my mind in the spirit for theological debate, even had I a chance of winning it. Such discussions had always given me great delight, but I was overburdened with the knowledge I carried within me, and in no mood any more for what I could now only consider trivial.

  Instead he asked, with exquisite kindness, about the funeral of Anne Blundy, and I told him as much as was seemly. He seemed satisfied that his money was well spent, and expressed sorrow that Lower had behaved so ill.

  ‘You seem to have recovered from your distress at the girl’s death,’ he said, with a penetrating look in my direction. ‘I am glad of that. It is not easy, I know; it is hard to lose someone who is important in your life, as she was in yours and my brother was in mine.’

  And we talked of such matters, Father Andrea with such sense and kindness that, even though he knew little of what had occurred, he soothed my loss and did something to reconcile me to the loneliness I already knew would be my fate. He was a good man and a good priest, though a papist, and I was lucky to find him, for such people are rarely encountered. It is hard to be a physician of the body and even though many try, few have the skills or the sympathy for success. How much more difficult it is to give physick to the soul, to guide a man in sorrow to calmness and acceptance, yet Father Andrea was such a one. When we had finished, and I had no more to ask him and he had no more comfort to offer, I told him of my appreciation and decided to give him something in return by way of recompense.

  ‘I know why you came to Oxford,’ I said, and he span round quickly to stare me in the face.

  ‘You were in correspondence with Sir James Prestcott, and those letters were lost when he died. They would greatly damage the cause of your religion in this country and you wished to recover them so that they might not become generally known. That is why you searched the Blundys’ cottage.’

  His eyes narrowed. ‘You know of this? You know where they are?’

  ‘I know you need have no fear about them. I give you my word no one will ever see them and they will be destroyed.’

  He was in two minds about trusting me, I could see, but knew he had no choice, and that he was profoundly fortunate. After a while he nodded. ‘That is all I ask.’

  ‘And you will be given it. Now, I must go.’

  He descended the stairs with me, resuming his disguise with each step, and while he had blessed me as a priest upstairs, he bowed to me as a gentleman in the street, before we went our separate ways.

  ‘I suspect you will never come to Rome, Mr Wood,’ he said with a smile. ‘You are not a man for travelling. It is a pity, for you would find it the most extraordinary of places, and there are many fine historians and antiquarians there who would delight in your company as much as you would delight in theirs. But, should the urge to travel ever come upon you, then you must write to me, and I will ensure you the finest of welcomes.’

  I thanked him, we bowed to each other one last time, and I walked off, never to see him again.

  But I did hear of him; for I had gone no more than a few yards when I encountered my friend John Aubrey again, a man whose abilities as a gossip were as great as my reputation for such nonsense is undeserved.

  ‘Who is that man?’ he asked curiously, peering over my shoulder at Cola as he walked away. ‘Are you not going to introduce us?’

  ‘He is a physician,’ I said, ‘or at least, a gentleman interested in physick. Why do you ask? You talk as though you have seen him before.’

  ‘Indeed I have,’ he said, still peering, even though Cola by now had disappeared around the corner. ‘I saw him in Whitehall yesterday evening.’

  ‘A man may walk without arousing interest, I expect.’

  ‘In the palace itself? Not easily. And not when you are being accompanied by Sir Henry Bennet to the king’s bedchamber.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘You seem excessively surprised by this. Might I ask why?’

  ‘No reason,’ I replied hastily. ‘I did not know he had such illustrious connections in this country. I am afraid that in Oxford we have all been patronising him mightily as an impoverished foreigner, down on his luck. What is more, he never sought to enlighten us. We must have come across as very dismal people. But tell me exactly, when did you see him? And where?’

  ‘It was late, well after dusk, possibly as late as eight o’clock. I had the great boon of being invited to a supper – very private and informal – with My Lord Sandwich, and his lady, and a cousin of his who receives his patronage. A bumptious man who works in the Navy Office, forever discoursing on subjects he knows nothing about, but very enthusiastic, and quite likeable in his simplicity. His name, as I recall, is . . .’

  ‘I do not wish to know his name, Mr Aubrey. Or what you ate, or the details of My Lord Sandwich’s table. I wish to know about my acquaintance. You may tell me of your good fortune later, if you wish.’

  ‘I left his lodgings, you see, and walked back to my small abode, and when I was almost there I remembered I had forgotten a box of manuscripts that the Chancellor had said I could look at for my work. As I was not tired and had scarce drunk a quart of wine, I thought I would read them before sleeping. So I went back and, rather than walking across Whitehall to the office, I went via St Stephen’s Yard. There is a corridor there, and at the end it turns right and leads into offices that contains my papers, while a left turn leads to a back entrance to the king’s apartments. I will show you later on today, if you wish.’

  I nodded, impatient for him to continue. ‘I found the papers I wanted and tucked them under my cloak, then walked back. And coming towards me down the corridor was Sir Henry Bennet – did you know he is now Lord Arlington? – and this man, whom I had never seen before.’

  ‘You are sure it is the same man?’

  ‘Absolutely. He was dressed in exactly the same fashion. The thing which attracted my attention as I bowed to let them pass before me was that he was carrying what looked like a lovely book. I am sure I had seen something like it before, Venetian work, very old indeed, in gold on a calfskin base.’

  ‘How do you know it was the king he was seeing?’

  ‘Nearly everyone else is away. The Duke of York keeps separate apartments and in any case is at St James’s with the king’s mother. The queen is at Windsor with all her attendants. His Majesty is still there until he leaves in a few days. So unless Bennet was bringing this man, late at night, to visit a footman . . .’

  And that, tantalisingly, was all I ever discovered for certain of the last few days that this Venetian spent in London, before he took ship for the Continent once again. I cannot work it all out precisely, but it must have been a few days later that, again leaving by the same route, he was seen by Dr Wallis and arrested. And all the while Sir Henry Bennet was organising the search for him, and concealing the fact that he had himself taken da Cola to visit the king in the greatest secrecy.

  Clearly there were murky affairs of state involved, and I knew that the innocent never emerges with credit if he involves himself in such matters without good reason. The less I knew, the safer I would be, and although it was hard, for once, to rein in my curiosity, I none the less left London on the university coach that evening, and was glad to be away.

  I say ‘discovered for certain’, because I do know what happened with as near to certainty as is possible without having been present at that most secret of interviews. Now that I have read the manuscripts by Cola, Prestcott and Wallis as well, I take great pleasure in them, for the reasons behind Cola’s decision to write is plain and clear. ‘All the purpose lies in the intent to sow uncertainty, and the dispute with Lower – real though it was to him – is presented simply to deflect attention from those matters he wishes to remain in the dark.’

  The manuscript was produced to establish the continued existence of Marco da Cola, who has been dead now for so many years, and prove that he, a soldier and a layman, came to England and was seen in Whitehall that day. Because if Marco da Cola was in England, the Jesuit Andrea da Cola
was not. Therefore what I believe took place at Whitehall could not have occurred because it could only have happened if a priest, a Catholic priest, saw the king that day. And at a time when hatred of papists is greater than ever, and any man tainted with the merest hint of popery is at risk, that is of the utmost importance.

  Dr Wallis came very close to seeing the truth; indeed, he had it in his hands but threw it away as incidental. I refer you to his manuscript, ‘wherein he quotes his travelling picture dealer in Venice as suggesting that Marco da Cola had no particular reputation for learning at that time; yet the man I met was learned in medicine, with a fine knowledge of many of the best authors, and an ability to discourse interestingly on the philosophies of the ancients and the moderns. Add to this the account of the merchant Wallis interviewed, who described Marco da Cola as ‘gaunt and thin, gloomy of attitude’ and contrast that with the stout, cheerful man who came to Oxford. Add to it Cola’s refusal to discuss soldiering in Crete when at Sir William Compton’s, then tell me what soldier you have ever met who would not talk endlessly about his heroism and actions? Think of those articles I found in his chest and consider their meaning. Think again of his reaction when confronted with the power of his lust at Sarah Blundy’s that night and say how many soldiers you know who are so delicate. Truly the man was like one of those puzzles, so difficult to comprehend, yet so simple when the truth is finally known.

  I knew already that the book in my possession was one of the copies of Livy that Wallis and Cola both sought, and that it was the key to at least some of the letters that Jack Prestcott had handed over to me. Reading those scripts, however, was no simple matter; by recounting my ultimate success, I do not desire to undermine or in any way denigrate the achievements of Dr Wallis.

  At first I hesitated, and not only because I was certain that any knowledge thus won would do me no good; the events of those days still bore so heavily on my mind that I lost myself in lassitude for months. As is my habit, I consoled myself among my books and my papers, reading and annotating with a fury I could scarcely contain. The activities of the long-since dead became the greatest consolation, and I became almost a hermit, noting with only passing interest that my reputation for strangeness grew to the point that it became unshakeable. I am, I think, held to be a queer, unmannerly sort of fellow, ill-humoured, irascible and of a sour disposition, and I think this character grew in those days without my even noticing. And it is true, now: I am dead to the world, and delight to converse more with the dead than the living. Being so ill at ease with my own times, I seek refuge in the past, for only there can I show the affection I am unable to give to my contemporaries who do not know what I know, and could not see what I saw.