Iain Pears - An Instance of the Fingerpost

Instead of being sobered by my reproof, she leaned back on her stool and let out a peal of laughter. Very angry now at being answered back in such a way, I left her, feeling a little shaken, and took refuge in my books and notes for the rest of the morning. It was merely the first of many occasions when she reduced me to such a display of foolishness. Do I have to say again that I was young? Does that excuse the way her eyes fuddled my thoughts, and the fall of her hair tripped my tongue?

I intend to break my own rule about propriety, and talk much of Sarah Blundy—it is necessary. I do not intend to cause distress by libertine discourse on matters of the heart, a subject which, as all but courtiers know, does not belong on the public page. But there is no other way of explaining my interest in the family, my concern over her fate, and my knowledge of her end. I must be regarded as a competent witness where my personal recollection is important, and therefore must provide proof of my knowledge. Words without fact are suspect—so I must provide the facts. They are simply stated.

At that time the Wood family was still in funds, and I lived in a house on Merton Street with my mother and sister, in which I kept the top floor for myself and my books. We needed a servant, as sluttishness had forced my dear mother to discharge the one we had, and I (having discerned the Blundys were in sore straits) suggested Sarah. My mother was far from happy about the idea, knowing something of the family’s reputation, but I persuaded her that she would be cheap, having resolved that I would make up her wages myself out of my small competence. Besides, I asked, what was so terrible about her? To this she had no specific answer.

Eventually, the thought of saving a ha’ penny a week brought my mother around; she consented to interview the girl and (reluctantly) conceded that she did indeed seem properly modest and obedient. But she let it be known that she intended to watch the girl like a hawk, and at the first sniff of blasphemy or sedition or immorality she would be out the door.

And so she and I were brought into close proximity, hindered, naturally, by the necessary distance that must exist between master and servant. Though she was no ordinary servant—indeed, she soon achieved an ascendancy in the house which was all the more remarkable for being largely uncontested. Only once was battle joined, when my mother decided (there being no man in the house except me, and my mother always regarding herself as the head of the household) to give the girl a beating, expecting that the child would submit placidly to her chastisement, as she ought. I do not know what the offense was, probably very little, and my mother’s irritability was more likely due to the pain she received from a swollen ankle that had afflicted her for several years.

Sarah did not think this was a good enough reason. Hands on hips, blazing with defiance, she refused to bend. When my mother advanced on her, broom in hand, she made it clear that if my mother so much as laid a finger on her, she would thrash her back. Thrown out the house instantly, you might think? Not a bit of it. I wasn’t there at the time, otherwise the incident might never have occurred, but my sister said that within half an hour, Sarah and my mother were both sitting in front of the fire talking, with my mother almost apologizing to the child, a sight never witnessed before or since. Thereafter, my mother said not a word against her and, when Sarah’s time of trouble came, it was she who cooked food for her and took it to the prison.

What had happened? What did Sarah say or do which made my mother so charitable and generous for once? I did not know. When I asked, Sarah just smiled, and said that my mother was a good and kind woman who was not as fierce as she seemed. More than that she would not tell, and my mother said nothing either. She always grew secretive when caught out in a kindness, and it may be that it was simply that, shortly after, her ankle stopped giving her pain—it is often the case that simple things like this can bring remarkable changes in demeanor. I often wonder if Dr. Wallis would have been less cruel had he been less afraid of the blindness that began to creep up on him in this time. I myself have been unreasonably offensive to my fellows when blighted by toothache, and it is well known that the mistaken decisions that ultimately led to the fall of Lord Clarendon were taken when that nobleman was wracked with the agonizing pain of the gout.

I mentioned that I occupied two rooms on the top floor, from which other members of my family were excluded. I had books and papers everywhere, and was constantly afraid that someone, in a misguided act of kindness, would tidy them up and set my work back by months. Sarah was the only person I allowed in and even she tidied up only under my supervision. I came to dream of those visits to my scholarly aerie and, more and more, I passed time in conversation with her. My room got dirtier and dirtier, it is true, but I found myself waiting eagerly for the tread of her footsteps on the rickety stair that led to my attic. Initially, I would talk about her mother; but that soon became a pretense to prolong her presence. Even more so, perhaps, because I knew little of the world and less of women.

Perhaps any female would have interested me, but Sarah quickly had me entranced. Slowly the pleasure turned to pain, and the joy to anguish. The devil came to visit me at all hours; at night, while I was at my desk working, in the library, turning my mind from my work and leading me on to foul and lubricious thoughts. My sleep suffered, my work also and, although I prayed mightily for help, there was no answer. I begged the Lord to spare me this temptation, but in His wisdom He would not, but allowed instead ever more demons to come and taunt me with my weakness and hypocrisy. I woke in the morning thinking of Sarah, spent the day thinking of Sarah, and tossed myself to sleep at night, thinking of Sarah. And even when I slept there was no respite, for I dreamed of her eyes and her mouth and the way she laughed.

It was intolerable, of course—no respectable connection was possible, so great was the distance between us. But I thought I knew enough of her to believe she would never consent to be my harlot; she was too virtuous, no matter what her origins. I had never been in love, nor even shown half as much interest in a woman as in the least of the books in the Bodleian library, and I confess that I cursed God in my heart that, when I did fall (and the similarity with the fate of Adam I never felt so strongly), it was with an impossibility, a girl of no fortune or family, scorned even in taverns, and with a villain for a father.

And so I remained tongue-tied and miserable—anguished when she was there, worse when she was not. Would that I had been a robust, thoughtless man like Prestcott, who never bothered with the complexities of affection, or even like Wal-lis, with a heart so cold that no human being could warm it for long. Sarah, I believe, was not without affection for me either—although always respectful in my presence, I still felt something in her—a warmth, the way she looked and leaned forward as I showed her a book or a manuscript which indicated some regard. I think she liked talking to me; she was used to masculine conversation because of her father, who had instructed her, and she was hard put to confine her mind to topics suitable for women. As I was always ready to talk about my work, and was easily distracted into discussing anything else, she seemed to regard her visits to clean my quarters with as much eagerness as I did myself. I think I was the only man then who spoke to her for some reason other than to give her orders or make lewd remarks; I can find no other explanation. Her childhood, her upbringing and her father, however, remained something of a blank to me; she rarely spoke of them except on those occasions when a chance remark slipped from her lips; when I asked directly she generally changed the subject. I hoarded these occasional comments like a miser hoards his gold, remembering each chance phrase, and turning them over in my mind, adding each to each, like coin in a casket, until I had a good supply.