If Thomas Ken (as I suspect) had regularly been subjected to such treatment, then I could only admire his humility in bearing such constant assaults, all (no doubt) made unseen, and unknown to any of his fellows. For private torment is still more delicious to the tormentor, and more intense for the sufferer, who cannot describe his Calvary to others without seeming weak and foolish, and thus coming to suffer still more cruelty, only this time self-inflicted. I make myself seem ridiculous by recounting this, I know. But I have to retell, and can only hope I will be understood. All men have been shamed and tormented in some degree, and so all know the way in which it unbalances the judgment and fuddles the head, so that the sufferer feels like a beaten animal on a leash, desiring escape, but not knowing how to slip the rope that keeps him in place.

For my trial was not yet over; Grove saw all too well what easy quarry I was, and how simple it was to impose himself upon me, for I had none of those skills which enable others to shrug off attacks, or mount defenses against those who wish them ill.

“I cannot imagine,” he said, “that Dr. Wains will continue to welcome the presence of a man such as yourself in the archives in which you take such pleasure. It is often the case that men do more damage through their lusts than others can ever accomplish. Think of the condemnation your mother and whole family will be forced to endure when it becomes known that she was running a whorehouse for her son, and paying his slut out of her own money.”

“Why are you doing this?” I asked in desperation. “Why do you torment me?”

“I? Torment you? Why do you say this? In what way do I torment you? I am merely stating the facts, surely? ‘We cannot but speak the things which we have seen and heard.’ Acts 4:20. The words of St. Peter himself. Is it right for sin to go unpunished, and fornication undiscovered?”

He stopped talking, and his face darkened all of a sudden, as the air of humor vanished and was replaced by the blackest anger, like the sky in those moments before the heavens are torn by thunder. “I know you, Mr. Wood; I know it was you who sent that girl to me as my servant, so your friend Mr. Ken might calumnize me. I know it was you who spread stories around the town to blacken my name, and so deprive me of my rights. Mr. Prestcott told me all this, as honest a man as you are deceitful. And then you come here to ask me for money, like some grubby little beggar with his ink-stained hand out? No, sir. You deserve, and will receive, nothing but my hatred. You expect to conspire against me and receive no retribution from my hand? You pick a bad enemy, Mr. Wood, and you will soon discover that you have made the worst mistake of your life. I thank you for coming, for I now know how to respond; I have seen the guilt on your face for myself. And believe me, I will pay you back in full. Now get out, and leave me in peace. I hope you will excuse me for not seeing you to the door. My bowels will wait no longer.”

And with a monstrous fart, he levered himself up, and walked into the next room, where I heard him pull down his breeches and settle with a loud sigh onto his chamber pot. I could do nothing, and had failed most miserably to defend myself from his attacks on me. I had sat there, reddened in the face like an infant, and made no attempt to reply in any but the most feeble of fashions. And yet I was man enough to burn with rage at his words and contempt. But instead of reacting like a man, I behaved like a child; bereft of any noble reply made to his face, I instead played a foolish prank on him behind his back, then sneaked out like some school jester, fooling myself that I had at least done something in my own defense.

For I took the packet of powder on the table, and poured it entire into the bottle of brandy which stood next his chair.

“Drink that,” I thought as I left his room. “And may your entrails torment you.”

Then I left him, hoping he would be up all night with the most violent stomach aches. I swear to God and by all I hold true that I meant him no other harm. I wished him to suffer, and to be racked with agony, it is true, and hoped fervently that I had not put too little of the powder in, or that it would not prove too weak to serve. But I did not wish him dead, nor had I any intention of killing him.

6

It was long since dark when I left, and the night was cold with a north wind and the suggestion of rain in the air. A miserable night for any man to be out, and yet I could not bring myself to go home and had no craving for the company of my fellows. There was only one thing on my mind and I could not possibly talk of it; in such circumstances all other conversation would have seemed petty and pointless. Nor could I summon the calm necessary for music. There is, usually, something immeasurably restful about the unfolding of a piece and the perfectly sweet inevitability of a well-conceived conclusion. But any piece of music formed in that way repelled me that night, the turmoil of my mind was so far distant from any harmony.

I found myself instead wishing to see Sarah, and the desire grew on me despite all my attempts to quash it. But I did not want her company or consolation or yet her conversation; rather I found a resentment deep within me that sprang from unknown depths, as my mind became convinced that she, and she alone, was the source of the troubles which had been visited upon me. I revisited, once more, all those old suspicions and jealousies which I thought had been suppressed forever. Instead they burst up once again, like tinder in a dry summer forest that catches a spark, and turns into a conflagration at the gentlest of breezes. My fevered mind imagined that my apology had been farcical, my regret misplaced. All my suspicions (so I told myself) were true, for the girl was cursed, and anyone who befriended her would pay heavily for his affections. All this I told myself as I walked, wrapped up in my heavy winter cloak, my feet already damp from the mud only just beginning to freeze over in New College Lane. Even more did I assure myself of my ill fortune as I crossed the High Street into Merton Street, and then turned away from the door of my house, unwilling to see my mother, and disguise the hurt I might well cause her if Grove made good on his promises to turn my family into a laughingstock.

So I walked on, out into St. Aldate’s, thinking I might go into the countryside and walk along the river, for the sound of running water is another sure way of calming the soul, as is well attested by innumerable authorities. But I did not walk by the river that night, for I had barely passed Christ Church when I noticed a slight figure on the far side of the road, wrapped up in a shawl that was too thin to be of much use, with a bundle under her arm, walking purposefully along at a rapid pace. I knew instantly from the appearance and the bearing that it was Sarah, going off (so I thought in my delirium) to some secret assignation.

The opportunity finally to satisfy all my suspicions was there and I took it almost without thinking. I knew, of course, that she was in the habit of leaving Oxford either in the evening or for an entire day and night if she was free, and I had believed once that it was to go to find business for herself in those small towns where she would not be recognized; the penalties for whoredom were such that it was foolish for any woman to ply such a trade in her own town. I knew, also, that this was merest nonsense, but the more I told myself that she was a woman of rare goodness, the more the demons within laughed, so that I thought I would go as mad as Prest-cott through the contradictions which fought to possess my imagination. And so I decided to carry out my own exorcism, and discover the truth, since she would not tell me herself, and her refusal only stoked my curiosity.