Iain Pears - An Instance of the Fingerpost

“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. ‘

“1 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 contain 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 got the papers I wanted, and tucked them under my cloak, then walked back. And coming toward 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, tantalizingly, 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 organizing the search for him, and concealing the fact that he had himself taken him 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 nonetheless 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 traveling picture dealer in Venice that Marco da Cola “had no reputation for learning or diligence in study 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 by then 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-humored, 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.

A few things only kept me from my books, and so careless was I of human society that I hardly noticed how my acquaintanceship was diminishing. Lower slowly transferred himself to London and was so successful that (favored by the patronage of Clarendon and the death of many serious rivals) he soon became the most successful physician in the country, was given a place at court and took to having not only a fine house but even a coach with his family crest on the door—for which he was criticized greatly by those who thought it a presumptuous display. It did him no harm, however, for the wealthy and well-born like to be treated by those they consider of proper background. On top of all this, he even paid his sisters’ dowries and reestablished his family in Dorset, for which he was greatly admired. But while he published his great work on the brain, he never did any serious investigation again. All that he considered truly noble, the pursuit of knowledge through experiment, he abandoned in search of worldly gain. I alone, I think, understood the sorrow of this, that what the world considered success was, in Lower’s mind, waste and a failure.