I heaved a sigh. “I do not congratulate myself. There is a group of God-fearing people I would like to associate with, but they wouldn’t even consider accepting me. And I cannot say that I blame them.”

“And who is that?”

“I had best not say,” I said.

“At least you could risk telling me why you are so unwelcome.”

“Someone like me?” I said. “Who would have such a person, so steeped in every monstrosity? I know it, I sincerely repent it, but I cannot erase what I have been.”

“I always thought that many groups of people welcomed sinners. There hardly seems much point in only welcoming the pure. They are already saved.”

“That’s the idea they put about, of course,” I said with a great show of bitterness. “In truth they turn from the people who really need them.”

“They told you this?”

“They didn’t need to. I certainly would not accept someone like myself. And if they did I have no doubt they would constantly fear I would disrupt them.”

“Has your life been so wicked? It is difficult to imagine, as you can be little older than myself.”

“You were no doubt brought up in a righteous and pious family, though,” I pointed out. “I, unfortunately, did not have such good fortune.”

“It is true I was blessed in my parents,” she said. “But you can be certain that any group which would turn you away would not be worth belonging to. Come, sir. Tell me whom you have in mind. I might be able to find out something for you. Ask whether you would be welcome, if you are too timid to approach them yourself.”

I looked at her with gratitude and delight. “Would you? I hardly dare ask. It is a man called Tidmarsh. I have heard he is a saintly preacher, and that he has gathered around him the few people left in Oxford who are not corrupted.”

She stopped and stared at me. “But he is a Quaker,” she said quietly. “Are you aware of what you are doing?”

“What do you mean?”

“God’s people they may be, but He is giving them sore trials. If you become associated with them, you will lose whatever protection your birth gives you. You will be jailed, and beaten, and spat on in the street. You may even have to give your life. Even if you are spared, your friends and family will shun you and you will be held in contempt by the world.”

“You will not help me.”

“You must be certain you know what you are doing.”

“Are you one?”

A momentary suspicion passed across her face, then she shook her head. “No,” she said. “I am not. I was not brought up to invite troubles. I think that as prideful as gaudy dress.”

I shook my head at the remark. “I do not pretend to understand you. But I am sorely in need of help.”

“Find it elsewhere,” she said. “If God commands it, you must obey. But make sure you know what He wants first. You are a young gentleman, with all the advantages that brings. Don’t throw them away on a whim. Think and pray hard first. Theirs is not the only route to salvation.”

We had been walking awhile down St. Aldates, then along Merton Street, and had paused outside the door of her mistress’s house while she delivered this last injunction. I imagine she was merely trying to shield herself, but even so, her advice struck me as wise. If I had been some impetuous youth on the brink of making a grave mistake, she would have given me pause for thought.

I walked away slightly discomfited, which now I understand. I was deceiving her, and she gave kindness in return. It made me very confused, until I later learned how much greater her trickery was than mine.

8

Itwas not difficult to contrive several chance meetings with her in the few weeks that followed, and I slowly won her friendship. I told her that I had decided to take her advice but my soul was still tormented. All the sermons in the world could not reconcile me to the established church. I had learned that her father had been an extremist of the worst sort, so busy advocating the murder of property owners and the establishment of a republic that he had no time for Christ. Accordingly, I had to modify my approach.

“When I think of the hopes that existed in the world only a few years ago,” I said, “it makes me grieve. What were common aspirations are now cast out and despised, and the world is given over to greed and selfishness.”

She stared at me solemnly as though I had uttered a profound truth and nodded. We were walking down St. Giles, I having managed to meet her as she was coming back from a cookshop with the Woods’ dinner that evening. It smelled delicious, hot and tasty, and the odors made the juices turn in my stomach. I could see that she also was hungry.

“What do you do after you have delivered this?”

“Then I am finished for the day,” she said. It was already dark, and cold in the air.

“Come with me. Let us eat together. I can see you are as hungry as I am, and you would do me a favor to keep me company.”

She shook her head. “That is kind, Jack. But you should not be seen with me. Neither of our reputations will be improved by it.”

“What is your reputation? I know nothing of it. I see only a pretty woman with an empty stomach. But if it concerns you, we can go to a place I know where the clientele make both of us seem like saints.”

“And how do you know such places?”

“I told you I was a sinner.”

She smiled. “I cannot afford it.”

I waved my hand. “We can discuss that at a later stage, once your stomach is filled.”

Still she hesitated. I leaned over the bowl of food she was carrying and sniffed deeply. “Ah, the smell of that gravy, running over the lumps of meat,” I said longingly. “Can’t you just imagine a plate of it before you, with a fresh, crusty loaf and a tankard? A plate piled high, the steam rising into the air, the juices…”

“Stop!” she cried, laughing out loud. “All right. I’ll come, if only you’ll stop talking about food.”

“Good,” I said. “So deliver your meal, and come with me.”

We went to a small place on the very outskirts of the town, past Magdalen College and over the river. No one from the university, not even students, ever ate there, it being too far away in distance, and too low in reputation. The food was execrable as well; Mother Roberts was as bad a cook as she was disgusting a person, and the food was like the woman—larded with fat and giving off a foul smell. Sarah looked uneasy in the little room where she served up the gruel, but ate with the appetite of one who rarely gets enough. The main virtue of Mother Roberts was that the ale she served was strong and cheap, and I regret the passing of those days. Now that men of business make beer and are trying to stop women selling the ale they brew, I believe the great days of this country are over.

The best quality of the brew was that by the time Sarah had drunk a quart of it, she’d become talkative, and susceptible to my questions. As much as I remember it, I set the conversation down here. On my prompting, she told me that she not only worked for the Wood family, but had also found work with Dr. Grove. She did little for him, except clean his room, prepare his fire and a bath once every quarter—for he was fastidiously clean about his person—and he paid generously. The only trouble, she said, was his desire to bring her within the Established Church.

I said that this Grove must be something of a hypocrite to speak so, as he had a reputation for being a hidden papist. If I thought this would draw her out, I was wrong, for she frowned and shook her head fervently. If he was such, she said, she had never seen the slightest sign of it, neither in his room nor in his manner.

“And he works you hard?”

On the contrary, she insisted. He had treated her with the utmost kindness at all times, even though she had seen him be extremely unpleasant with others. Her main concern was that he would get a living out in the country soon. He had told her only a few days before it was a near certainty.