Iain Pears - An Instance of the Fingerpost

I could have fallen into company, as many people were on the move, but I shunned all attempts to draw me into companionship, sleeping alone in woods at night wrapped in my blanket and buying such food as I wanted in the villages and small towns I passed through. That solitary mood passed only when I came to the outskirts of Tunbridge Wells itself, and noted the bustle of coaches and carriages, the neverending trails of wagons taking produce in to keep the courtiers supplied with their needs, the growing numbers of itinerant peddlers, musicians and servants, heading there in the hope of squeezing some money for themselves by selling their wares. In the last two days I did have a companion despite myself, as a young whore called Kitty attached herself to me, offering her services in exchange for protection. She was coming from London and had been attacked the day before, and did not want the experience repeated. She had been lucky that first time, as no visible damage was done beyond some bruises, but she was frightened. Had she lost her tooth, or broken a nose, her earnings would have suffered badly, and she had no other trade to fall back on.

I agreed to protect her because the creature had a strange fascination; for a country boy like myself, such a phantasm of city corruption had never come into view before. She was not what the lurid tales had led me to expect; indeed she was very much more correct than many fine ladies I met in later life and, I suspect, no less virtuous. She was about the same age as me, a soldier’s bastard abandoned by the mother for fear of chastisement. How she’d been brought up I do not know, but she was wiser and more cunning for it. She had no notion of honesty whatsoever, and all her morality lay in her obligations—help her and hers and she would owe. Hurt, and she would hurt back. That was her entire moral universe and what it lacked in Christianity, it more than made up in practicality. It was at least a code she could keep to, simple as it was.

I should say that I did not partake of what she had to offer the night before we arrived in Tunbridge Wells; fear of the clap and a heaviness of mind about what I was to do the next day took away my appetites; but we fed, talked and later fell asleep under the same blanket and, though she made fun of me, I think she was quite happy that it was so. We parted on good terms outside the town, with me hanging back for fear of being seen in her company.

Like my father, I have never been a man for courts or courtly ways; indeed, I have always avoided the taint of corruption that goes along with such association. Although I am no Puritan, there is a level of decency which a gentleman should maintain, and the court in those days had quickly abandoned any pretense at the sturdy values which make any country fit to live in. Tunbridge Wells shocked me beyond measure. I was quite prepared (for rumors were spreading thick and fast by then) to find the ladies of the court unmasked in public and even sporting wigs and perfume and makeup; I was appalled to discover that the Horseguards were wearing them as well.

But such things hardly concerned me; I was not there to cut a dash, to duel, to lacerate with razor-sharp wit or to worm my way into a position. Nor did I have the resources to do so. To gain a post worth £50 a year, a friend of mine had to lay out near £750 in bribes, all borrowed at interest, and consequently must defraud the government of more than £200 per year to live decently and pay his debts. I scarcely had enough to buy the post of His Majesty’s ratcatcher, let alone one worthy of my standing in society. And, given the fact that I was my father’s son, all the money in the world would not have won me even that lowly post.

I could not stay in town when I arrived as it was too expensive; the place knew its vogue would not last long and the court would soon turn its fickle attention elsewhere. It was an ugly little settlement with no attractions but the waters, which were a la mode that year. All the fops and fools were there, prattling on about how much better they felt for drinking the foul-tasting muck when all the time they jostled to be close to men of influence. Around them, the tradesmen gathered like flies trying to suck what money they could from their purses. I do not know which side was worse—both made me sick at the stomach. Prices were outrageous but, even so, all the rooms were let easily to courtiers willing to pay handsomely to be near His Majesty; many were even in tents on the common nearby. In my brief time there, I never even came within eyeshot of the king. I was too ashamed of my dress to go to a levee, and too concerned of an insult should my name become known. I had a task to accomplish, and did not want my life cut short by some fop’s sword. If publicly insulted, I would have to call and I was wise enough to know that I would almost certainly lose.

So, avoiding all the fashionable resorts and those who populated them, I confined myself to the lesser taverns on the outskirts of the town, where the footmen and lackeys would come once their duties were done, to gamble and drink and swap tales of the high and mighty. I saw my traveling companion the once, but she was too obliging to acknowledge me publicly, although she did give me an insolent wink as she passed on the arm of a grand gentleman, who was not ashamed to display his lechery in public.

From the servants I learned very quickly that I had wasted my trip as far as talking to my guardian Sir William Compton was concerned, for he was not there. His advancement had been utterly blasted by a dispute with Lord Chancellor Clarendon over hunting rights in Wychwood Forest, which they both claimed, and as long as Clarendon held the strings of government, Compton could whistle for preferment. He knew this well, it seemed, so had decided to save his money and stay on his estate, not even bothering to come to court.

Two others of the magic circle were indeed present, however—but I soon learned that although Edward Villiers and Sir John Russell had been staunch comrades in adversity, the blessings of success had divided them more than Thurloe’s schemes had ever managed. Villiers was in my Lord Clarendon’s party, into which he was drawn by Lord Mordaunt, while Sir John, a member of the Duke of Bedford’s great family, had attached himself to the opposition, whose only unity came from a detestation of Clarendon. Such is power, that good men, loyal, generous and courageous in the field, squabble like infants when they become courtiers.

Nonetheless, I had two people whom I could approach and I felt that the evening passed gathering gossip in the tavern had been well spent. I was tempted to approach Villiers, as he most clearly had the ear of men in power, but after some consideration I decided to start with easier meat and so set off the next morning to pay my respects to Sir John Russell. I wish I had not done so. I would prefer to pass over this incident in silence, as it reflects badly on one born a gentleman, but I am in the mood to tell everything, “warts and all,” as Cromwell said. Sir John refused to talk to me. Would that this were all; but he rebuffed me in a way calculated to humiliate, even though I had never done him or his any wrong. It was some months before I discovered why my name caused him to act in such a way.

What happened was this—I arrived at seven in the morning, and entered the lower part of Russell’s inn, asking the landlord to send his manservant so that I might request an audience. Not correct form, I know, but anyone who has ever waited on a court on the move knows that formality is at a discount. All around me were a few dozen or more people, some waiting on favors, some merely eating before going out to attend the audiences of others. The room was abuzz with lesser courtiers trying to take their first step on the long and slippery ladder to preferment and office. I was such a person myself, in a way, and so like them I sat patiently and waited. In this lonely position—for no one is more lonely than a supplicant in a roomful of supplicants—I sat for half an hour, waiting a response. Then an hour, then another half hour. At past ten, two men came down the stairs and advanced on me. The chatter in the room stopped—everyone assumed that I had successfully negotiated the first stage of my suit and wanted to watch the occasion from a mixture of curiosity and envy.