“No,” he said, “I was there deliberately. But for a good reason.”

“No reason is good enough for that.”

“I went to talk to someone. Win their confidence.”

“Why?”

“Because I fear I may not get my parish after all.”

“You certainly won’t if you behave like this.”

“Will you listen to me?” he pleaded. “Grove is pressing his case and is winning over several members of the fellowship whom I assumed were on my side. And now he is talking to the warden.”

“What can he say?”

“Simple. That he is old and a bachelor, while I will undoubtedly marry and have a family. His needs, in contrast, are simple, and he will hand over a third of the annual revenue from the living to the college.”

“Can he do that?”

“If he gets it, he can do whatever he wants; it’s his money. He is calculating that it is better to have two thirds of eighty pounds a year than none of it. And Woodward is very mindful of college funds.”

“And you can’t match the offer?”

“Of course I can’t,” he said with bitterness. “I wish to marry. The girl’s father is only just willing to support the match if I have the full amount. What would your reaction be if I went along and said I’d given a third away?”

“Find another wife,” I suggested.

“Jack, I like her. She is a good match, and that living is mine.”

“I see your problem. But not what it has to do with climbing out of windows.”

“Grove is unsuitable to be in charge of a flock. He will bring scandal onto the church, and drag its good name in the dirt. I know this well, but as long as he was kept away from a living it was not my affair.”

“I’m still not following you.”

“He is a lecher. I’m sure of it. He engages in illicit concourse with that servant of his, to the shame of the college and the church. It is a disgrace. If his perfidy is proven, then the college will not risk its reputation by giving him a parish. I was trying to discover the truth.”

“At a meeting of Quakers?” I said incredulously. The story was getting worse and worse.

“This servant attends sometimes, and is said to be important to them, in fact,” he said. “She has a great reputation amongst them for reasons I do not understand. I thought if I attended, I could win her confidence…”

I’m afraid that here I burst out laughing. “Oh, Thomas, my dear friend. Only you could try and seduce a girl on your knees.”

He blushed scarlet. “I was not trying to do anything of the sort.”

“No, of course not. Who is this creature, anyway?”

“A girl called Blundy. Sarah Blundy.”

“I know her,” I said. “I thought she was quite a good girl.”

“That merely demonstrates the limits of your observation. The father was shot for mutiny or something, the mother is a witch, and the girl lived in a hellish society, giving herself freely to anyone who wanted her from the age of ten. I’ve heard of these people and the sort of things they got up to. I tell you, I shudder even at the thought of talking to her.”

“I’m sure having you chant psalms and pray for deliverance would do wonders in winning her over,” I said. “Are you sure of this? I have met the girl, and the mother. For a witch’s daughter she is very pretty, and for a devilish slut unusually civil.”

“I make no mistake.”

“Did you talk to her?”

“I had no chance. They are very peculiar, these meetings. We all sat around in a circle, with this Blundy girl in the center.”

“And?”

“And nothing. It seemed as though all were waiting for her to say something, but she just sat there. This went on for about an hour. Then we heard shouting from outside, and everyone ran in panic.”

“I see. Even if this belief of yours is true, you are hardly going to get her to tell you,” I said. “Why should she? It obviously doesn’t bother her and she must need the money. Why should she risk her position to do you a favor?”

“I believe she must secretly despise him. I thought that if I gave her a promise that there would be no consequences, she would see her duty.”

“I think a few coins might sway her better. Thomas, are you sure this is not a mistake? Dr. Grove was my tutor, you remember, and I detected no sign of lustfulness about him in all of four years.”

I am persuaded that Thomas was convinced of the selflessness of his actions. He genuinely wished the parishioners of Easton Parva to have the very best minister possible and was certain that he was that person. Naturally, he wanted the stipend, and the wife and dowry that went with it, but that merely to make him a better servant of his flock. He was motivated by righteousness, not greed. That was why matters fell out so badly in the end. Simple selfishness causes less harm than desperate virtue.

For my part, I freely confess the selfishness of my own actions. I needed a supply of money, and for that I needed Thomas to have some. Besides, he was my only friend at the time, and I felt beholden to him. For my sake as much as his, I decided that he needed the sort of assistance only I could provide.

“Listen, my friend, go back to your studies, and abandon this meddling because you are not at all suited to it. I will deal with the Blundy girl for you and will soon have her singing like a canary.”

“And how will you do that?”

“I will not tell you. But if you pray for the forgiveness of my sins, then you will be working hard in the next few weeks.”

As usual, he looked shocked at my irreverence, which was just as I hoped. It was so easy to upset him in that way. Laughing happily, I left him to sleep, went back to my college, climbed over the wall undetected and crept softly into the room of my snoring tutor.

7

I went to see John Wallis, mathematician and man of God, as Thomas had urged; at this stage I knew little of that grand divine except that he was not well liked, although this I put down to the fact that he had been foisted on Oxford by Cromwell. Much of his unpopularity was due to the fact that, at the general purge of Puritans when the king came back, Wallis had not only kept his position but had even received signs of official favor. Many of those who had suffered for the king and had not been so rewarded resented this bitterly.

Rather presumptuously, I visited him at his home, for he was a rich man and kept rooms in his college, a substantial house in Merton Street and also, I gathered, a place in London. His manservant assumed I was a student wanting instruction and it was only with some difficulty that I gained an audience.

Wallis saw me immediately, for which favor I was impressed; lesser lights in the university had, in the past, kept me waiting for hours for no reason. Consequently, I went into his presence with some rising hope in my heart.

I suppose everybody has in their mind now an idea of what these people look like. The cleric, rosy-cheeked from too much high living; the natural philosopher, absent-minded, a little unkempt with the buttons of his tunic done up in the wrong order and his wig all askew. If there are such people, then the Reverend Dr. John Wallis was not one of them, for he was a man who, I believe, never missed or forgot anything in his entire life. He was one of the coldest, most frightening people I ever encountered. He sat perfectly still and watched me as I came in, indicating only by a slight nod of the head that I should sit down. Now I think more about it, there is something about quietude which is very eloquent. Thurloe, for example, sat very still as well, but the contrast could not have been greater. It may sound strange for me of all people to say it, but Thurloe’s stillness had a humility about it. Wallis had the immobility of a serpent as it eyes its prey.

“Well, sir?’’ he said in an icily soft voice after a while. I noticed that he had a slight lisp, which made the impression of the serpent even stronger. “You want to see me, not the other way around.”