Iain Pears - An Instance of the Fingerpost

“You want facts? Most people are content to make up their own. That’s what they did with Father. They said he was turbulent and wicked, and abused him for it. Their judgment does not satisfy you?”

“Maybe it will. Maybe it is even correct. But I ask myself questions, nonetheless. How did such a man come to be trusted by so many of his fellows? If he was so verminous, how was he also courageous? Can the noble (if I may use the term for such a person) coexist with the ignoble? And how did he”—here I made my first ever venture into gallantry—“how did he have such a beautiful daughter?”

If she was pleased by the comment, there was no sign of it, alas. No modest look, no pretty blush, just those black eyes staring intently at me, making me feel more ill at ease.

“I am determined,” I continued, covering over my little essay, “to discover what transpired. You ask whether I mean you ill or well, and I tell you I mean you neither.”

“Then you are immoral.”

“The truth is always moral, because it is the image of God’s Word,” I corrected her, feeling, yet again, that I was misspeaking myself and hiding behind solemnity. “I will give your father his say. He will not get it from anyone else, you know. He either speaks through me, or is forever mute.”

She finished off her tankard, and shook her head sadly. “Poor man, who talks so beautifully, to be reduced to speaking through you.”

I do believe she was entirely unconscious of the insult—but I had no desire at that moment to rebuff her by giving the reprimand she deserved. Instead, I looked at her attentively, thinking that this initial confidence might at least get her to speak well of me to her mother.

“I remember once,” she continued after a while, “hearing him addressing his platoon after a prayer meeting. I can’t have been more than nine, I suppose, so it would have been around the time of Worcester. They thought they would be fighting soon, and he was encouraging and calming them. It was like music; he had them swaying to and fro as he spoke, and some were in tears. Possibly they would die, or be captured, or end their lives in jail. That was the will of God and it was not for us to presume to guess what that was. He had given us only one lantern to discern His goodness, and that was our sense of justice, the voice of Right which spoke to all men in their souls if they would listen. Those who examined their hearts knew what the Right was, and knew that if they fought for it, they would be fighting for God. It was a battle to lay the foundation of making the earth a common treasury for all, so that everyone born in the land might be fed by the earth, all looking on others, even old, sick or female, as equals in creation. As they slept and ate, and fought and died, they should remember that.”

I didn’t know what to say. She had spoken softly and gently, her voice caressing me as she spoke the words of her father; so quiet, so kind and, I realized with a start, so profoundly evil. I began, very faintly, to understand how it was done and what the appeal of this Blundy was. If a mere girl could be so seductive, what must the man have been like? The right to eat—no good Christian could object. Until you realize that what this man desired was the overturning of the right of masters to command their employees, the theft of property from its owners, the hacking at the very roots of the harmony which binds each to all. Quietly and kindly, Blundy took these poor ignorants by the hand, and led them into the power of the devil himself. I shuddered. Sarah looked at me with a faint smile.

“The raving of a lunatic, you think, Mr. Wood?”

“How can anyone who is neither a fool nor a monster think otherwise? It is obviously so.”

“Coming from a family of lunatics, I see things a little differently,” she said. “I suppose you think my father used ordinary people for his own evil ends. Is that it?”

“Something like that,” I said stiffly. “That it was devilish was attested by the eating of babies and burning of prisoners.”

She laughed. “Eating babies? Burning prisoners? What liar said that?”

“I read it. And many people have said so.”

“And so you believed it. I am beginning to doubt you, Mr. Historian. If you read there are beasts in the sea that breathe fire and have a hundred heads, do you believe that too?”

“Not unless I have good reason to.”

“And what does a learned man like yourself account a good reason?”

“The proof of my own eyes, or the report of someone whose word can be trusted. But it depends on what you mean. I know that the sun exists, because I can see it; I believe that the earth goes around it because logical calculation concludes that, and it is not contradicted by what I can see. I know that unicorns exist because such a creature is possible in nature and reliable people have seen one, even though I have not myself; it is unlikely that fire-breathing dragons with a hundred heads exist because I cannot see how a natural creature can breathe fire without being consumed. So it all depends, you see.”

Such was my answer and I still think it was a good response, presenting complicated ideas in a simple way for her benefit, although I thought it unlikely she would understand. But, far from being grateful for my instruction, she continued to pursue me, leaning forward in her eagerness to dispute like a starving beggar who had been offered a crust.

“Jesus is our Lord. Do you believe that?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“Because His coming was in conformity to the predictions of the Bible, His miracles proved His divinity and His resurrection proved it still more.”

“Many people claim such miracles.”

“And in addition I have faith, and hold that to be better than all reason.”

“A more earthly question, then. The king is God’s anointed. Do you believe that?”

“If you mean, can I prove it, then no,” I replied, determined to keep my distance. “That is not a certain belief. But I do believe it, because kings have their position, and when they are thrown off the natural order is disturbed. God’s displeasure with England has surely been manifest in past years, in the suffering it has borne. And when the king was murdered, did not enormous floods demonstrate the disruption of nature that had taken place?”

She conceded this obvious point, but added—“But if I said these prodigies were because the king had acted traitorously to his subjects?”

“Then I would disagree with you.”

“And how would we decide who was correct?”

“It would depend on the weight of opinion of reasonable men of position and character who heard both propositions. I do not wish to belabor it or give undue reproof, but you cannot be called of position and character. Nor,” and here I made another attempt to switch the conversation to a more appropriate topic, “nor could someone so pretty ever be mistaken for a man.”

“Oh,” she said, dismissing my kindly warning to mind her own business with a toss of her head, “so whether the king is appointed by God, or justly a king at all, depends on the decisions of men? Is there a vote?”

“No,” I said, slightly flushed at finding myself apparently unable to halt this increasingly ridiculous encounter, “that’s not what I’m saying, you ignorant girl. God alone decides that; men merely decide whether to accept God’s will.”

“What’s the difference if we do not know what God’s will is?”

It was time to bring this to an end, so I stood up to give her a physical reminder, so to speak, of our respective positions.

“If you can ask questions like that,” I said sternly, “then you are a very foolish and wicked child. You must have had a very perverted upbringing indeed even to think of such things. I am beginning to see that your father is as evil as they say.”