A Maggot - John Fowles (17 page)

Q. Where met you first?

A. It was decided Jones and I should proceed alone by
coach to Hounslow the day previous, and lodge at the Bull there.

Q. This is the 25th of April?

A. Yes. And there we should find horses waiting for
us, and then set out at first sunrise that next morning, upon the
Staines road, where we should meet him and his man, and the maid. And
so it passed. We came upon them a mile before Staines.

Q. Where had they come from?

A. I don't know, sir. 'Twas not said. Unless they had
lodged at Staines, and rid back. Yet we passed that place without
stopping when we came to it.

Q. Nothing passed at this meeting?

A. No, sir. I confess we set out not without some
spirit of expectation, as upon a happy venture of sorts.

Q. Was payment made to you before you started?

A. An advance upon my agreed fee, and likewise that
of Jones, though the latter was paid to me. I had some outlay to make
on necessaries.

Q. How much?

A. Ten guineas to me, one to Jones. In gold.

Q. And the remainder?

A. Was given me when we parted, that last morning,
upon a bill. I have encashed it.

Q. Drawn upon whom?

A. Mr Barrow of Lombard Street.

Q. The Russia merchant?

A. Yes.

Q. Let us set off. Spare me the petty circumstance. I
wish all that pertains to your discovery that Mr Bartholomew was
other than he claimed.

A. Suspicion did not tarry, sir, I may tell you that.
We had ridden but an hour when my trust was first shaken. I had
fallen a little behind with Jones, who led the pack-horse, whereupon
he said he must tell me something, but if he spoke out of place, I
was to bid him hold his tongue. I said he should speak. At that he
looked ahead to where the maid rode, sat sideways behind Dick, and
said, Mr Lacy, I believe I have seen that young woman before, and she
is no lady's maid, far from it. He then said he had seen her some two
or three months since entering a bagnio behind St James, Mother
Claiborne's, as it is vulgarly called. The acquaintance he was with
told him that she was -if you will forgive the expression - one of
the choicest pieces who worked there. I was shocked as you may think,
sir, and pressed him to say he was sure. Thereupon he admitted he had
but seen her briefly, and by linklight, and could not swear, yet
found the resemblance striking close, if he were mistaken. I confess
I was left at a loss, Mr Ayscough. I know what such creatures and
their mistresses may earn by their trade, and though I have heard
that such as Claiborne will furnish flesh out for a night to the
favoured libertine, I could not believe she would do it for such a
journey as ours. Nor saw I reason why. I was loth to

believe Mr B. had so grossly deceived me, nor could I
conceive that a notorious whore, if such she were, should let herself
be hired out as a maid. In short, sir, I told Jones he must certainly
be mistaken; but that if he had opportune chance, he should speak to
the wench, to see if he could discover more.

Q. Could Jones put no name upon her of the bagnio?

A. No proper nor Christian name, sir. But that she
was known by those who frequented the house as the Quaker Maid.

Q. What is that to mean?

A. That she would play modesty, the better to whet
the appetite of the debauched.

Q. She would dress as such?

A. I fear so.

Q. And did he speak with her, as you counselled him?

A. He did, sir, later that day. He told me she would
say little. Only that she was Bristol born, and looked forward to
seeing her young mistress again.

Q. Then she appeared privy to the false pretext?

A. Yes, but would say nothing when Jones would lead
her to gossip. For she said Mr B. had commanded her to silence. He
said she seemed more timid than aught else. Spoke very soft, and
answered most often with a yes or no or mere nod. Jones was less
certain now, he confessed as much himself, thinking such as he first
credited her could not be so modest and he must be wrong. In brief,
sir, our suspicion was lulled and abated for then.

Q. Did you speak of this to Mr B.?

A. I did not, sir. Not to the end, as I will tell.

Q. Did he speak apart to the girl - give any sign of
covert collusion?

A. Not then, sir, nor indeed ever in my own sight and
hearing. As we travelled he seemed the rather indifferent to her, as
if she were no more than box and baggage. I must tell you he rode
most often alone during our journey. He asked me more than once to
forgive him, it was little courteous in him to play the sour hermit,
as he put it, but I should understand his thoughts lay all ahead, and
not in the dull present. I thought it ' of no account then, indeed
natural in a hopeful lover.

Q. It was to spare himself the pains of pretence?

A. I now so believe.

Q. Then in general you had little converse with him?

A. Some, for he would ride with me on occasion. I
think none of moment on that first day. We but spoke of what we
passed, our horses and the road, such matters. Not of what we were
engaged upon. He asked me more of my life and seemed ready to hear
such tales as I told him, of myself and of my grandfather and the
king, though I deemed it more politeness than true interest. In
general, the more westward, the more silent he grew. Beside, in
manner direct, I was prevented by our agreement. I gained a little of
him, by chance. It is true, Mr Ayscough, that the part I played in
The Beggar's Opera did mock Sir Robert Walpole, but I beg you to
believe we actors must always be two persons, one upon the boards and
another off them. Why, that very first day we must pass those heaths
of Bagshot and Camberley, and I was no Robin there, I may assure you,
for I rode most alarmed that a real such as I had played should
appear - which he did not, I thank the Lord.

Q. Yes, yes, Lacy, this is nothing to the point.

A. I must contradict, sir, with respect. What I tell
you, I told Mr B.; and went on to speak well of this present
government's policy of quieta non movere, at which he did give me a
look, so to say that he did not agree. And when I did press him to
declare his views, he said that as to Sir Robert he must concede he
was good manager and man of business for the nation's affairs - that
he who could contrive to please both the country squire and the city
merchant must be no fool; but that yet he believed that the great
founding principle of his administration of which I had spoken must
be wrong. For how might a better world come, he said, if this one may
not change? And asked me if I did not think that of the Creator's
divine purposes this at least was most clear: that His giving us
freedom to move and choose, as a ship upon the vast ocean of time,
could not mean that we had always best stay moored in that port where
we were first built and launched. Then that merchants and their
interest should soon rule this world, that already we saw it in
statesmen, for he said, A statesman may be honest for a fortnight,
but it will not do for a month; and such is mercantile philosophy,
from the most wretched niggler and tradesman up. Then did he give me
a sad smile, and added, Though I durst not tell my father such
things. To that I replied that I feared fathers would ever have their
sons in their own close image. To which he answered, And nothing
change to the end of time - alas, I know it, Lacy. If in this a son
doth not bow to every paternal Test and Corporation Act, he is
damned, he hath no being.

Q. He said nothing else of his father?

A. Not that I recall, sir. Beyond what was said at
the first, that he was too strict; and on one other occasion, when he
said he was an old fool, and his elder brother the same. On this
aforesaid occasion he did end by confessing that he was in general
indifferent to politics; and did cite me the view of one Saunderson,
that professes mathematicks at the university of Cambridge, and that
it seems did teach him while he was there; whom he had heard once
say, upon a similar question being put to him, that all politics was
as clouds before the sun; that is, more necessary nuisance than
truth.

Q. And with which he concurred?

A. So I took him to mean. For on another occasion I
remember he said, We should be well quit of three parts of this
world; so to intimate, it was superfluous, or he judged it so. But
now he spake more of the learned gentleman, that is blind, yet hath
by his intelligence largely conquered that deficiency; and it seems
is much loved and revered by his pupils.

Q. Spake Mr B. of religion, of the Church?

A. But once, sir, upon a later occasion. We met a
reverend gentleman upon the road, or rather sitting beside it, for he
was too drunk to ride his horse, which his man held beside him till
lie was fit enough to mount again. At which Mr B, showed some disgust
and said it was too common a case and that it was little wonder the
flock strayed, with such shepherds. In our further conversation he
declared himself a hater of hypocrisy. That God placed most worthy
and necessary veils upon His mystery, but His ministers too often
used them to blindfold their charges and lead them into ignorance and
baseless prejudice. That he believed a man was finally judged, and
his soul saved, by his deeds, not his outward show of beliefs; that
no established church would ever give ground to such plain reason,
for thereby it would deny its own inheritance and all its earthly
powers.

Q. Those are free-thinking tenets. Did you not hold
them reprehensible?

A. No, sir. I held them good sense.

Q. To scorn the established church?

A. To scorn the hypocrite, Mr Ayscough. We who tread
the boards are not the only players of parts in this world. Such is
my view, sir, with respect.

Q. Your view leads to sedition, Lacy. Spurn the
holder, spurn the office. But enough of this, it is idle. Where
stayed you that night?

A. At the Angel, Basingstoke. Thence early to Andover
and Amesbury, in which place we lodged the next.

Q. You went in no great haste, then?

A. No, and even less that second day, for as we carne
to Amesbury he said he would view the famous heathen temple nearby,
at Stonehenge. And we should rest at Amesbury,

though we might have gone further, and I had expected
to.

Q. Were you not surprised? ,

A. I was, Sir.

Q. We will stop now. My clerk shall take you to dine,
and we shall resume at three of the clock prompt.

A. Mrs Lacy expects me to dine at home, sir.

Q. Then she must wait in vain.

A. May I not send to say I am detained?

Q; You may not.

The same further
deposeth upon oath, die annoque praedicto.

Q. Did nothing pass the previous night at
Basingstoke, before you came to Amesbury?

A. No, sir, all passed as was intended. Mr B. played
my nephew, would have me take the best chamber at the Angel, and
showed me all deference in public. We supped in my chamber, for he
would not go into the public rooms, wherever we lodged. Nor would he
linger, sir, the eating once done, but retire to his own chamber, and
leave me to my own devices, which he called no discourtesy, but a
favour to me, since he was such a dullard. I saw him not again.

Q. You do not know how he occupied himself?

A. No, sir. Unless it was with his book s. For he
brought a small chest with him, that he did call his bibliotheca
viatica, as I saw opened two or three times. The one inn, it was at
Taunton, we had no choice but to share the one room. And there he
read papers from his chest when he had eaten.

Q. This chest held books or papers?

A. Both. He told me all were mathematick, his
travelling library, as I said, and that such study diverted his mind
from more troubling thoughts.

Q. Was he ever more particular, as to their nature?

A. No, sir.

Q. Did you not enquire?

A. No, sir. I am not formed to judge of such matters.

Q. Saw you ever a title to any of the books?

A. I remarked a work by Sir Isaac Newton, that was in
Latin, I do not recall the title. Mr B. spoke of him with a greater
respect than I heard him use of any other, that he said he had first
gained of his tutor at Cambridge, the gentleman I named earlier, Mr
Saunderson. He did essay one day as we rode to explain sir Isaac's
doctrine of fluxions and fluents. There, sir, I must confess myself
lost; and had politely to inform lain that he wasted his breath.
Again, it was when we did come to Taunton Deanne, he talked of a
learned monk of many centuries ago, who did hit upon a way of
multiplying numbers. That in itself I might understand, 'twas simple,
but the adding of each last two figures to make the next, to wit one,
two, three, five, eight, thirteen, one-and-twenty, thus forward as
you may will. Mr B. averred that he himself did believe these numbers
appeared, though secretly, in many places in nature, as it were a
divine cipher that all living things must copy, for that the ratio
between its successive numbers was that also of a secret of the
Greeks, who did discover a perfect proportion, I believe he said it
to be of one to one and six tenths. He pointed to all that chanced
about us, and said that these numbers might be read therein; and
cited other examples, that I forget now except that many accorded
with the order of petals and leaves in trees and herbs, I know not
what.