Iain Pears - An Instance of the Fingerpost

Initially I thought her reticence due to shame at the degradation to which she had descended; now I think it merely caution, lest it be misunderstood. She was ashamed of little and regretted less, but accepted that the days when people like her might hope of a new world were over—they had tried and failed miserably. I will give one important example of how I garnered my evidence. Shortly after the Restoration of His Majesty was proclaimed in the town, I came back from viewing the preparations for the festivities. Celebrations erupted all over the land that day, both from Parliament towns which felt the need to demonstrate their new loyalty, and from towns like Oxford which were able to rejoice with more genuine feeling. We were promised (by whom I cannot recall) that the fountains and gutters themselves would run with joyous wine that night, as in the days of ancient Rome. I found Sarah, sitting on my stool and weeping her heart out.

“Whatever is the matter, that you sob so on a glorious day like this?” I cried. It was some time before I got an answer.

“Oh, Anthony, it is not glorious for me,” she said. (This being our secret intimacy, that I permitted her to address me so in my room). Initially, I had thought that she had one of those mysterious womanly complaints, but quickly realized that grander matters were on her mind. She was never immodest or gross in her talk.

“But what is there to be so sorrowful about? It is a fine morning, we can drink and feed at the university’s expense, and the king is coming back to his own.”

“And everything has been in vain,” she said. “Does so much waste not make you want to weep, even as you celebrate? Near twenty years of fighting trying to build God’s kingdom here, and it is all swept away by the will of a few greedy grandees.”

Now, to refer thus to those great men whose wise intervention had been crucial to the recall of the king (so we were told and I believed until I read Wallis’s manuscript) should have alerted me, but I was in too good a mood.

“God works in mysterious ways,” I said cheerfully, “and sometimes chooses strange instruments to work His will.”

“God has spat in the face of His servants who worked for Him,” she said, her voice falling into a hiss of despair and rage.

“How can it be God’s will? How can God will that some men be subject to others? That some live in palaces while others die in the street? That some rule and others obey? How can God will that?”

I shrugged, not knowing what to say or how to begin saying it, just wanting her to stop. I had never seen her like this, clutching at herself and rocking to and fro as she spoke with a passion that was as disgusting as it was fascinating. She frightened me, but I could not walk away from her. “He obviously does,” I said eventually.

“In that case He is no God of mine,” she said, with a sneer of contempt. “I hate Him, as He must hate me and all of His creation.”

I stood up. “I think this has gone far enough,” I said, appalled at what she was saying and alarmed that someone downstairs might overhear. “I will not have this sort of talk in my house. Remember who you are, girl.”

Thus earning from her a scornful look of contempt, the first time I had so totally and instantly lost her affections. I felt it deeply, being distressed at her blasphemy but even then more pained by my loss.

“Oh, Mr. Wood, I am just beginning to guess,” she said and walked straight out, not even doing me the honor of slamming the door. I, my good humor gone and strangely unable to recover my concentration, spent the rest of the afternoon on my knees, praying desperately for relief.

The loyal celebration that evening was everything that good Royalists could have hoped for—town and university vied with each other to be the more zealously loyal. Starting with my habitual friends (I had by that time made the acquaintance of Lower and his circle), we drank our fill of wine at the fountain in Carfax, ate beef at Christ Church, then proceeded to more wine and delicacies at Mer-ton. It was a delightful occasion, or should have been; but Sarah’s mood had affected me, and taken away my joy. There was dancing, which I merely watched; singing, where I was without song; speech-making and toast-giving, where I kept my silence. Food for all, and myself without appetite. How could anyone not be happy on a day like this? Above all someone like me, who had hoped for His Majesty’s return for so long? I did not understand myself, was desolate, and not good company.

“What is it, old friend?” asked Lower, pounding me merrily on the back as he came back breathless from a dance, already slightly the worse for drink. I pointed at a thin-faced man, dead drunk in the gutter, saliva dripping down his chin.

“See,” I said. “Do you remember? For fifteen years one of the elect, persecuting loyalty and applauding fanaticism. And now look. One of the king’s most devoted subjects.”

“And soon to be thrown out of his places as he deserves. Allow him a bit of oblivion for his troubles.”

“You think? I don’t. Some people always survive. He is one.”

“Oh, you are an old misery, Wood,” Lower said with a great grin. “This is the greatest day in history, and you are all sour-faced and glum. Come, have another drink and forget about it. Or someone might think you a secret Anabaptist.”

And so I did, and another, and another. Eventually Lower and the others wandered off, and I couldn’t be bothered chasing after them; their simple (to my mind) good humor and careless pleasure made me melancholy to tears. I wandered back to Carfax, which was a fateful thing to do. For as I got there, and helped myself all alone to another cup of wine, I heard a cackle of laughter from a side street; normal enough that evening, except this time there was that slight but unmistakable edge of menace which is difficult to describe and impossible to miss. Made curious by the sound, I peered down the alley and saw a group of young oafs gathered in a semicircle against a wall. They were laughing and shouting, and I half expected to find in the center of the crowd some charlatan or raree man whose wares and tricks had failed to please. But instead it was Sarah, her hair astray, her eyes wild, her back against the wall, and they were taunting her mercilessly. Harlot, they said. Traitor’s bastard. Witch’s daughter.

Bit by bit they were working themselves up, taking a little step further each time, edging toward the point when words ceased and assault began. She saw me, and our eyes met, but there was no entreaty in them; rather she bore it all herself, almost not seeming to notice the foul words hurled at her. Almost as though she wasn’t listening, and did not care. She might not want help, but I knew she needed it, and knew no one but myself would lift a finger for her. I worked my way through the crowd, put my arm around her and pulled her out and back toward the main street, so quickly the mob hardly had time to react.

Fortunately it was not far; they did not like the theft of their entertainment and my status as scholar and historian would have served me little had the spot been any more isolated. But there were people drunk, but still civilized, only a few yards away, and I managed to get us close enough to safety before the insults erupted into actual violence. Then I pulled her through the cheerful, good-humored celebrations until, seeing their prey lost, the mob dissolved and went in search of other sport. I was breathing hard, and the fright and the drink made me slow to recover my wits. I’m afraid that physical danger is not something to which I am used; I emerged more shaken than Sarah.

She did not thank me, but just looked at me, with what seemed like resignation, or perhaps sadness. Then she shrugged and walked away. I followed; she walked faster, and so did I. I thought she was walking home, but at the end of Butcher’s Row she turned and cut across the fields behind the castle, walking ever faster with myself now maddened by my beating heart, swirling head and confusion.