The clienteles of coffee houses choose themselves carefully, unlike taverns which cater to all sorts of low folk. In London, for example, there are Anglican houses, and Presbyterian houses, houses where the scribblers of news or poetry gather to exchange lies, and houses where the general tone is set by men of knowledge who can read or pass an hour or so in conversation without being insulted by the ignorant or vomited on by the vulgar. Thus the theorem underlying my presence in this particular building. The partum practicum was rather different—the company of philosophers supposedly in residence did not leap up to welcome me, as I had hoped. In fact there were only four people in the room and, when I bowed at one of them—a weighty man with a red face, inflamed eye and lank, graying hair—he pretended not to have seen me. No one else paid much attention to my entrance either, apart from curious looks at one who was so obviously a man of some fashion.

My first venture into English society seemed a failure, and I resolved not to waste too much time on it. The one thing which detained me was the newspaper, a journal printed in London and then distributed around the country, a most novel idea. It was surprisingly frank about affairs, containing reports not only of domestic matters but also detailed accounts of events in foreign places which interested me greatly. I was later informed, however, that they were milk and water productions in comparison to a few years previously, when the passion of faction brought forth a whole host of such organs. For the king, against the king, for Parliament, for the army, for or against this or that. Cromwell, and then the returned King Charles, did their best to restore some form of order, rightly surmising that such stuff merely lulls people into thinking that they understand matters of state. And a more foolish notion can scarcely be imagined, it being obvious that the reader is only informed of what the writer wishes him to know, and is thus seduced into believing almost anything. Such liberties do nothing but convert the grubby hacksters who produce these tracts into men of influence, so that they strut around as though they were gentlemen of quality. Anyone who has ever met one of these English journalists (so called, I believe, because they are paid by the day, like any common ditch-digger) will know just how ridiculous that is.

Nonetheless I read for above half an hour, intrigued by a report on the war in Crete, until a patter of feet up the stairs and the opening of the door disturbed my concentration. A brief glance disclosed a woman of, I suppose, about nineteen or twenty years of age, of average height but unnaturally slim of build—none of the plumpness that endows true Beauty. Indeed, my medical self half-wondered whether she might have a tendency to consumption and might benefit from a pipe of tobacco every evening. Her hair was dark and had only natural curls in it, her clothes were drab (though well cared for) and, while she was pretty enough in the face, there was nothing obviously exceptional about her. Even so, she was one of those people whom you look at, turn away from, then somehow find yourself looking at once more. Partly it was her eyes, which were unnaturally big and dark. But it was more her deportment, because it was so unfitting, which made me take notice. For that underfed girl had the bearing of a queen, and moved with an elegance which my father had spent a small fortune on dancing masters trying to instill in my youngest sister.

I watched with little interest as she walked steadily up to the red-eyed gentleman on the other side of the room, and with only half an ear heard her address him as “doctor,” then pause and stand there. He looked up at her with an air of alarm as she began to talk. I missed most of it—the distance, my English and her softness of voice all conspiring to snatch the meaning away—but I assumed from the few fragments I did hear that she was asking for his help as a physician. Unusual, of course, that someone of her servile state should think of coming to a physician, but I knew little of the country. Perhaps it was accepted practice here.

The request met with no favor, and this displeased me. By all means put the girl in her proper place; this is natural. Any man of breeding might well feel obliged to do so if addressed in an inappropriate manner. However, there was something in the man’s expression—anger, disdain or something akin—which aroused my contempt. As Tully tells us, a gentleman should issue such a reproof with regret, not with a pleasure which demeans the speaker more than it corrects the offender.

“What?” he said, gazing around the room in a way which suggested he hoped no one would see. “Go away, girl, at once.”

She again spoke in a low voice so that I did not catch her words.

“There is nothing I can do for your mother. You know that. Now, please. Leave me alone.”

The girl raised her voice slightly. “But sir, you must help. Don’t think I am asking…” Then, seeing he was adamant, the girl’s shoulders slumped with the weight of her failure, and she made for the door.

Why I got up, followed her down the stairs and approached her on the street outside, I do not know. Perhaps, like Rinaldo or Tancred, I entertained some foolish notion of chivalry. Perhaps, because the world had been bearing so oppressively on me in the past few days, I had sympathy for the way it was treating her. Perhaps I was feeling cold and tired, and so sunk down by my troubles that even approaching such as she became acceptable. I do not know; but before she had gone too far, I approached her and coughed politely.

She swung round, fury in her face. “Leave me alone,” she snapped, very violently.

I must have reacted as though she had slapped me; I know I bit my lower lip and said, “Oh!” in surprise at her response. “I do beg your pardon, madam,” I added in my best English.

At home, I would have behaved differently—courteously, but with the familiarity that establishes who is the superior. In English, of course, such subtleties were beyond me; all I knew was how to address ladies of quality, and so that was the way J talked to her. Rather than appear a semi-educated fool (the English assume that the only reasons for not understanding their language are either stupidity or willful stubbornness) I decided that I had best match my gestures to my language, as though I actually intended such politesse. Accordingly, I gave the appropriate bow as I spoke.

It was not my intention, but it rather took the wind out of her sails, to use a nautical expression beloved of my dear father. Her anger faded on finding itself met with gentility rather than rebuke, and she looked at me curiously instead, a little wrinkle of confusion playing most attractively over the bridge of her nose.

Having started in this vein, I resolved to continue. “You must forgive me for approaching you in this fashion, but I could not help overhearing that you have need of physick. Is that correct?”

“You are a doctor?”

I bowed. “Marco da Cola of Venice.” It was a lie, of course, but I was sure I was at least as able as the sort of charlatan or quack she would normally have engaged. “And you?”

“Sarah Blundy is my name. I suppose you are too grand to treat an old woman with a broken leg, for fear of lowering yourself in the eyes of your fellows?”

She was, indeed, a difficult person to help. “A surgeon would be better and more appropriate,” I agreed. “However, I have trained in the anatomical arts at the universities of Padua and Leiden, and I have no fellows here, so they are unlikely to think any the worse of me for playing the tradesman.”

She looked at me, then shook her head. “I’m afraid that you must have overheard wrongly, although I thank you for your offer. I cannot pay you anything, as I have no money.”

I waved my hand airily and—for the second time that day—indicated that money was of no concern to me.’ ‘I offer my services, nonetheless,” I continued. “We can discuss that payment at a later stage, if you wish.”