An Instance of the Fingerpost Page 42

  ‘Well?’ I asked eagerly when at last I was summoned on Thurloe’s return. ‘Will Wallis help?’

  Thurloe smiled. ‘Perhaps if there is an exchange of information. You mentioned an Italian gentleman at Sir William Compton’s.’

  ‘Da Cola, yes. A most civil man, for a foreigner.’

  ‘Yes. Cola. Dr Wallis is most interested in your opinion of him.’

  ‘I know that. He has asked me before, although I have no idea why he was so fascinated.’

  ‘That need not concern you in the slightest. Will you say on oath what you know of this man? And answer any other questions he might pose, freely and frankly?’

  ‘If he will help me, then of course I will. It is harmless enough. What do I get in return?’

  ‘Dr Wallis is able, I understand, to give you crucial information about the package your father had intended to send to your mother. That package contained everything he knew of Mordaunt and his activities. Whom he saw, what he said, and all the consequences. With that in your possession, your case will be easily won.’

  ‘He knew this all along? And did not say so?’

  ‘He does not have it himself, and he is a dark and deep man. He never gives something for nothing. Fortunately you now have something to offer. But he can tell you whom you must approach to obtain it. Now, do you agree to this bargain?’

  ‘Yes,’ I said enthusiastically. ‘Of course. With all my heart. Particularly if he only wants information in return. For a prize like that he could have my life, and willingly too.’

  ‘Good,’ Thurloe said, smiling with pleasure. ‘That is settled. Now we have to remove the threat of the law, and renew your freedom of movement. I mentioned your concern about this woman Sarah Blundy and of the ring that you have from Dr Grove’s body. The woman has now been placed under arrest for his murder.’

  ‘I am glad to hear it,’ I said, more exultation gripping my heart. ‘I have told you how I know she killed him.’

  ‘You will testify against her, your sense of justice will be noted and the charges against you dropped. Do you give me your word that this girl actually killed Grove?’

  ‘I do.’ It was a lie, I know, and even as I spoke I resented bitterly the need to speak it.

  ‘In that case all will be well. But only, I repeat, if you answer all questions Dr Wallis poses.’

  My heart was close to bursting with delight as I contemplated how I was triumphing in every single sphere. Truly, I thought, I was blessed, that so much should be given to me so swiftly. I was all enthusiasm for a moment, but then my spirit deflated. ‘It is a trap,’ I said. ‘Wallis will not help me. It is just a lure to get me to go back to Oxford. I will be thrown back into gaol and hanged.’

  ‘That is a risk, but Wallis is after bigger game than yourself, I think.’

  I snorted. It was easy, I thought, to be calm and detached at the thought of someone’s else’s neck being stretched. I would have liked to see how he contemplated a march to the hanging tree himself.

  The next move came a few days later. I had reluctantly come to accept that I would have to take the risk and place myself in Wallis’s hands, but my courage had failed me, and I was in this state of indecision when Thurloe came softly into the room where I was spending my time, and announced that I had a visitor.

  ‘A Signor Marco da Cola,’ he said with a faint smile. ‘It is strange how that man shows up in the most unexpected places.’

  ‘He is here?’ I said standing up with astonishment. ‘Why?’

  ‘Because I invited him. He is staying nearby and when I was told, I thought I really must meet the gentleman. He is most charming.’

  I insisted on seeing Cola, for I wanted to hear everything. It was Thurloe who suggested that he might prove ideal as the intermediary for approaching the magistrate in Oxford, for I think even he did not trust Wallis as much as he said.

  I do not need to justify, I hope, what I told him. I have given enough evidence to show how I had to escape the curse upon me and how limited my resources were. I had begged for release from Sarah Blundy’s curse, but had been rebuffed. She had tricked me into attacking my own guardian; the efforts of magicians, priests and wise men to repulse her had all failed, and – though I have not mentioned it in my story as much as I could have done – almost daily I was assaulted by strange happenings, and my nights were a torment of fervid visitations, so that I had no peaceful sleep. She attacked me mercilessly, perhaps with the hope that I would be sent insane. I now had the possibility of striking back, once and for all. I could not possibly afford to let that chance slip through my fingers. And I also had my loyalty to Thomas.

  So I told Cola that I had visited her cottage on my escape, and had seen her as she came in, wild and excited. I told him that I had found Grove’s ring in her dress, and how I had instantly recognised it and taken it from her. How she had turned pale when I demanded how she had come by it. And how I would testify to all of this at her trial. I almost believed it myself by the time I had finished.

  Cola agreed to relay this to the magistrate, and even reassured me by saying he was sure that my willingness to come forward in the name of justice, even though I was placing myself at risk, would stand me in good stead for the future.

  I thanked him and, indeed, felt so warmly towards him that I could not forbear from giving him some information of my own.

  ‘Tell me,’ I said, ‘why is it that Dr Wallis concerns himself with you? Are you friends?’

  ‘No, indeed,’ he said. ‘I have only met him once and he was very uncivil.’

  ‘He wishes to talk to me about you. I do not know why.’

  Cola repeated he had no understanding of it, then brushed the matter aside and asked me when I proposed to come to Oxford.

  ‘I think it would be best to wait until just before the trial. I hope the magistrate will grant me bail, but I am in a mood not to be overtrusting.’

  ‘So you will see Dr Wallis then?’

  ‘Almost certainly.’

  ‘Good. I would like to offer you hospitality afterwards, to celebrate your good fortune.’

  And he went. I mention it only to demonstrate that there was much which Cola does not include even when he gives an account of conversations. Much of the rest of what he says is more or less correct, however. The magistrate arrived in high dudgeon and was all for arresting both Thurloe and myself until he heard of my evidence against Blundy; then he was all sweetness and accommodation – although I suspect Dr Wallis may have already intervened and told him of the probability that Sir William would withdraw his suit, as indeed he did a few days later. Then I waited until word came that the trial was to begin and journeyed back into Oxford.

  I did not have to give evidence, as it turned out, as the woman confessed to the crime – a surprising thing for, as I say, on this she was innocent. But the evidence against her was strong, and perhaps she realised that it was all over. I did not care; I was merely glad that she was to die and that I did not have to perjure myself.

  She hanged the next day and instantly I felt her malign presence lifting from my spirit, like the first breath of cool, clear wind after a thunderstorm has removed the oppression from the air. It was only then that I realised how much she had tormented me, and how constant had been the drain on my soul.

  In effect, there ends my story as well, for the rest is outside the scope of Cola’s account, and much of my own triumph is already well enough known. I never saw Cola again, for he left Oxford shortly afterwards, but Wallis was highly satisfied with what I told him and gave me all the information I required. Within a month my name was restored and, although it was considered impolitic to proceed directly against Mordaunt, his rise was for ever blocked. The man who, at one stage, was going to be the most powerful politician in the country, ended his days in grubby obscurity, shunned by his old friends, enough of whom knew the truth about him. The favour of many men in high places, in contrast, won me the rewards my birth and position merited, and I exploited my
good fortune so successfully I was soon able to begin rebuilding my estates. And, in the fullness of time I built my mansion just outside London, where my detested uncle comes to pay court to me, in the futile hope that I will pass some goodness on to him. Needless to say, he goes away empty-handed.

  I have done much in my life which I regret and, if I had the opportunity, there is much I would now do differently. But my task was all important, and I feel reassured that I am acquitted of any serious offence. The Lord has been good, and though no man deserves it, my salvation has been no injustice. I would not have so much, and such a tranquillity of mind, had I not been blessed by His Merciful Providence. In Him I place all my trust, and have endeavoured only to serve as best I can. My vindication is my assurance of His favour.

  The Character

  of Compliance

  The Idols of the Theatre have got into the human Mind from the different Tenets of Philosophers and the perverted Laws of Demonstration. All Philosophies hitherto have been so many Stage Plays, having shewn nothing but fictitious and theatrical Worlds.

  Francis Bacon, Novum Organum Scientarum,

  Section II, Aphorism VII

  Chapter One

  * * *

  HAVING BEEN SENT the collected notes of the papist Marco da Cola, I feel it necessary to comment, lest others also come across his outrageous scribblings and believe what he says. So let me state it plainly that this Cola is a pernicious, deceitful and arrogant liar. The wide-eyed naïveté, the youthful enthusiasm, the openness he presents in his narration are nothing but the most monstrous of frauds. Satan is a master of deception, who has taught his servants his tricks. ‘Ye are of your father the devil . . . for he is a liar, and the father of it’ (John 8:44). I intend to expose the full extent of the duplicity he reveals in this memoir of his, this true account (as he has it) of a voyage to England. This Cola was the worst of men, the most savage of murderers, and the greatest of deceivers. It was only by the grace of Providence that I escaped that night when he tried to poison me, and it was the greatest misfortune that Grove took the bottle for himself and died in my place. I had half-expected some attempt once he arrived in Oxford, but had thought more in terms of a knife in the back: I never conceived of such a cowardly assault, and was not prepared for it. As for the girl, Sarah Blundy, I would have spared her had that been possible, but could not do so. An innocent died, one more of Cola’s many victims, but many more would have done so had I not kept my counsel. It was a hard decision to take, but still I try to acquit myself of wrong. The danger was great, and my own sufferings were hardly less.

  I say this calmly and with consideration, but it has cost me much to do so, for the arrival of the manuscript came as the greatest shock. Lower, indeed, had not intended to send it to me; it was only when I heard of its existence that I demanded to see it and made it clear I would brook no refusal. My intention was to expose the manuscript as a piece of imposture as I could not believe it genuine, but now I have read it I know my initial assumption was wrong. Contrary to my belief, and the assurances of those I had reason to trust, it is clear that Marco da Cola really is still alive.

  I do not know how this can be and I most certainly wish it were not so, since I did my best to ensure his death and was certain I had succeeded; I was told that he had been taken to the edge of the boat and there pushed into the North Sea, that his deeds might be punished and his lips for ever sealed. The captain himself told me the boat had hove to for many minutes until the man sank beneath the waves. The knowledge had given me some solace over the years and it is cruel to have that consolation so rudely ripped away, for that manuscript shows plain that those I trusted lied to me and my triumph ended in fraud. I do not know why, but it is now too late to discover the truth. Too many of those who might know the answer have died and I now serve new masters.

  I feel I should explain myself; I do not say, you note, justify myself, as I believe that throughout my career I have been consistent. I know that my enemies do not accept this and I suppose that the reasonableness of my actions in the course of my public career (if such you can call it) has not been absolutely clear to uninformed minds. How is it, they say, that a man can be Anglican, Presbyterian, loyal to the martyr Charles, then become chief cryptographer to Oliver Cromwell, deciphering the most secret letters of the king to aid the Parliamentary cause, then return to the Established Church and, finally, use his skills to defend the monarchy once more when it was restored? Is that not hypocrisy? Is that not self-serving? So say the ignorant.

  To which I reply, no. It is not, and anyone who may sneer at my actions knows very little about the difficulties of rebalancing the humours of a polity once it has become subject to disease. Some say that I changed sides from day to day, and always for my own advantage. But do you really believe that I needed to settle merely for the professorship of geometry at the university of Oxford? Had I been truly ambitious, I would have aimed at a bishopric at the very least. And do not imagine I could not have had it: it was not my aim. I have not been governed by selfish ambition and have studied more to be serviceable than great. I endeavoured at all times to act by moderate principles in compliance with the powers then in being. Since my earliest days, when I discovered the secret patterns of mathematics and dedicated myself to their exploration, I have had a passion for order, for in order lies the fulfilment of God’s plan for us all. The joy of a mathematical problem solved with elegance and the pain of seeing the natural harmony of man disrupted are two sides of the same coin; in both cases I believe I allied myself to the cause of righteousness.

  Nor did I desire fame and reputation for myself as a reward; indeed, I shunned these as vanity and was content for others to take the great positions of Church and state, knowing rather that my secret influence was of far greater weight than theirs. Let others talk; it was my task to act and I did so to the best of my ability; I served Cromwell because his iron fist could bring order to the land and stop the bickering of faction when no one else could, and I served the king when that God-ordained role passed to him on Cromwell’s death. And I served each well; not for their sake certainly, but because by doing so I served my God, as I have tried to do in all things.

  My desire for myself was merely to be left in peace to approach the divine through the mysteries of mathematics. But, as I am a servant of God and of the realm as I am also of philosophy, I have frequently been constrained to put such selfishness aside. Now there is another who will surpass me, as David surpassed Saul, or as Alexander surpassed Philip, I can do so easily: then it was a real hardship. Mr Newton says he sees so far because he stands on the shoulders of giants. I hope it will not seem vainglorious if I say that my shoulders are among the strongest to support his glory, and I am ever-mindful (though too modest to repeat in public) of that saying of Didacus Stella: a dwarf standing on the shoulders of a giant may see further than the giant himself. More than this, I could have seen further myself, and taken some of his great fame, had my duty not called me to other things so insistently.

  Now that it is so many years ago, many people assume that the Restoration of the kingdom was a simple matter. Cromwell died and in due course the king returned. Would that it had been that straightforward: the secret history of that momentous event is known only to a few. At the beginning I thought that, at best, the king might last six months, a year if he was lucky, before the passion of faction erupted once more. It seemed to me that he would have to fight for his inheritance sooner or later. The country had been in turmoil for near twenty years; there had been war and strife, property had been trampled on, the rightful rulers of the country killed and expelled, all stations of men upturned. ‘I have seen the wicked in great power, and spreading himself like a green bay tree’ (Psalms 37:35). Were people who had become used to authority and riches simply going to renounce these baubles? Was it really to be expected that the army, unpaid and discarded, would quietly accept the king’s return and the defeat of everything they had striven to establish? And could it
be hoped that the king’s supporters would remain united, when the opportunities for dissent presented to them were so great? Only men without power do not desire it; those who have felt its touch crave ever more of its embrace.

  England was a country on the edge, surrounded by enemies within and without: the least spark could have rekindled the flames. And in this powder keg the most powerful men in the kingdom were engaged in a struggle for the king’s favour, which only one person could win. Clarendon, Bristol, Bennet; the Duke of Buckingham, Lords Cavendish, Coventry, Ormonde, Southampton: there was not room for all in His Majesty’s favour and only one person could run his government for him, for none would tolerate partners. The battle was fought in the dark, but its consequences sucked many men in; I was one, and took upon myself the task of damping the flames before all was consumed. I flatter myself that I succeeded well, despite the efforts of Marco da Cola. He says at the start of his manuscript that he will leave out much, but nothing of significance. That is his first great lie. He puts in nothing which is of significance; I will have to do that to expose his perfidy.

  My involvement in the matter which this Cola tries to hide began near two years before he arrived on these shores, when I travelled to London to attend a meeting of like-minded natural philosophers at Gresham College. This organisation, which later became our Royal Society, is not now what it was, despite the presence of luminaries like Mr Newton. Then it was a ferment of knowledge, and only someone who attended could know what a buzz of excitement and endeavour attended those early meetings. That spirit has gone now, and I fear it will never return. Who now can match that band – Wren, Hooke, Boyle, Ward, Wilkins, Petty, Goddard and so many more names which will live for ever? Now its members are like a bunch of ants, forever collecting their tawdry rocks and bugs, always accumulating, never thinking, and turning away from God. No wonder they come to be despised.