Wilberforce (19 page)

—Perhaps I feel sorry for him.

He stepped past Morgan and down the passage.

—Don't you feel sorry for me? Morgan called.

—No.

Spaulding hurried down the stairs and disappeared into the crowd. Morgan followed, frustrated and unsteady. Spaulding had been seduced by Rees, the lowest of the low. Not only seduced, but turned. The incandescent Spaulding, who could have found eager welcome in any boxroom of the school, had lost sleep to trek out to McKay's barn, sordid, incommodious, foul. Spaulding had foundered even by his own admission. Exceedingly desired, exceedingly weak, Spaulding was almost too much to bear.

As if at gunpoint, Morgan forced himself to join the anonymous throng. How long could the day continue this-wise: formless, boundless, insanity-fueled? When he had arrived at the Academy—lifetimes ago?—he had felt imprisoned by the timetable, suffocated by the impossibility of a moment alone. The timetable hadn't altered since then, but its grip had grown weak, like failed elastic bands around the knee stockings he had worn when small. The Academy's edicts no longer bound him. If he chose to go somewhere besides lessons, he could. If he wished private audience with Rees, for instance, he could delay entrance to Chemistry and summon him as he had summoned Spaulding. If he wished to return to the Hermes Balcony alone, to sleep, to ponder, to exercise himself, for whatever purpose, he had only to go there now. In the confusion of this day, he could explain any absence. And if someone were to take exception, what recourse would they have? They could take the stick to him, but he knew, as every one of his masters knew, that such a maneuver would provide no deterrent, to Morgan or anyone, and would merely earn Morgan's exhausted scorn. As last resort, they could send him to S-K, but S-K could do no more than deliver a stale, years-old harangue, as he had already done that morning. Morgan was free to do as he pleased, more free than pupils of the scarf-dancing girls' school he had conjured to insult Alex's revolutionary ambitions. The airy-fairy girls would be bound at least by a fear of offending one another, or by a desire to please their bride-of-Lenin mistresses. No such concerns bound him.

Lacking a more original idea, Morgan trudged to REN's classroom. He sank down between Laurie and Nathan, uninterested in their glances. REN swept into the room and fiddled with the pole, moving slabs of blackboard up and down until he achieved a pleasing arrangement. Muttering to himself, he leafed through some decrepit tome and then shouted at them to begin taking notes. With a desultory movement they scrounged exercise books—their own or others, it scarcely mattered—and began sketching in vague correspondence with REN's remarks, which he recited loudly, only occasionally raising his eyes to ensure mayhem had not taken hold of the room.

Morgan lowered his head, suddenly dizzy with fatigue. The fabric of his jacket cushioned his cheek like the firm, outsize pillows they'd once had at Longmere. A busy corner of his mind attempted to record the various hours since he had last slept properly, where he had been during those hours, what had occurred between the tollings of clocks, and what he had learned about the matters of the age, about the fags and their rebellion, about the War, about Silk and Gallowhill, and then his mother was clutching him between her knees to towel his head dry, and back in the dorm, just as they were rising in the dark of morning, one of the fags, the youngest and smallest, like Laurie when they had first come, this boy stood in the niche by the washroom, stood there in nightgown and bare feet, bursting into tears, plaintive and forceful, and Morgan went to him to find out what was so very much the matter, and the boy cried out,
Mr. Grieves!
This boy had seen Mr. Grieves's dreams and he knew the awful secrets that tormented his heart.
Poor Mr. Grieves!
This boy mourned for him, and suddenly Morgan did, too, his heart straining for Mr. Grieves, whose sorrows were known only by this boy and by Morgan, who had known them already, who had in fact been watching out for Mr. Grieves, who even now longed to take from Mr. Grieves those things that seared him—the whole slew of unsalvageable humanity—to relieve him of these sorrows he didn't deserve, poor Mr. Grieves, secret Mr.—

—Oi.

Something poked his ribs and cut his shin. His eyes flashed open to see Nathan and Laurie staring at him, appalled. His lungs heaved. He was sobbing out of his dream, though the reason for it had evaporated. He swallowed, and scraped face against sleeve, subduing his renegade eyes.

 

13

No learning would occur that day. In cynical mode, John might argue that learning scarcely occurred any day, but he reined himself in. Gallows humor was one thing, nihilism another.

Powerless before the lunacy that ruled the East Riding of Yorkshire, John rallied to carry on. He would continue, just as he continued in that gray Saffron Walden Meeting House to wait on the light, season upon season, year upon year. The light might fail to shine upon him or within him. God might decline to speak to him or through him. The Holy Spirit might conceal its influence from his eyes. Yet despite everything, everything before and everything yet to come, he resisted the sin of despair. His heart might long to despair, but his will refused it satisfaction. Others had suffered as he never would, and still they maintained their zeal. They worshipped in the catacombs of Macedonia, in Japan while outwardly denying it, under lash, under fire, they praised their maker and redeemer. Under the circumstances—these or any—John knew no justification for abandoning hope.

The Fifth dragged their feet into his classroom and drooped into their seats as if their slumbers had merely been interrupted by the bell. John had planned on reading to them, but as he greeted them, he had to admit that his throat was parched after reading to the abominable Third. That group's smug composure had all but proven their responsibility for the night's chaos, and now they had departed to oppress someone else, leaving him with the more intractable Fifth, bored beyond repair with everything His Majesty's realm could offer.

—Please take a sheet of impot paper and tear it neatly in two, he heard himself say.

Some errant lobe of his brain had taken command and was instructing the form to write the name of a historical figure on one half, and on the other half a personal secret.

—You mean a secret that person had, sir?

—How are we to know anything like that?

—Don't be so literal, he scolded. Write a name on one side, and some secret, related or not, on the other. Don't share with your neighbor. Yes, of course you should fold it up. Don't be a nitwit.

John produced two tins from his desk and dumped their contents unceremoniously into the drawers. He passed tins down rows, directing the Fifth to place names in the blue tin and secrets in the red.

—What's this got to do with history, sir?

—Are you going to make us write something?

—We couldn't possibly write anything, sir, after the lunch we had.

—What if someone finds out our secret? Then what, sir?

—Don't put a real one, idiot! Holland's secret's real!

John refused to let verbal disorder rile him. They were awake now, and although he would surely have cause to regret it, the errant lobe declined anxiety. It sailed forth in the lee of its brilliant idea.

—Right! John said pitching his voice to the back of the room. The game is called Chairs.

Groans.

—Sir!

—Can't we have independent reading, sir?

—Chairs, John repeated. Last to bring his papers to me—

This as he strode down the aisle and retrieved the tins.

—will be It.

A pause in which they translated his command, then they rushed his desk, elbowing one another to get their papers in the correct tins. Rees was still cogitating in his usual constipated manner. He would easily be the last. And now, having resumed their seats, they were indeed waiting for him.

—Never mind now, Rees, John said. You're first in the Chair.

Cries of mock horror accompanied Rees's march to the front, in which he affected martyrdom but accomplished only a priggish gait. Capitalizing on the sense of drama, John swept his desk chair forward and gestured gallantly for Rees to sit. With a look of supreme disgust, Rees sat. Applause broke out. John raised a hand and made it cease. With the elegance of a court butler, John offered Rees first the blue tin, then the red. Rees opened one slip from each as if expecting scorpions.

—Read silently, John instructed. Say nothing.

Rees read them and passed them to John. Without satisfying his own curiosity, John tucked the papers into his waistcoat.

—The Chair is now occupied by a historical figure. He—or she as the case may be—in addition to possessing an eminent biography, also possesses a personal secret, which may well be unknown to this very day. Your task is to unmask both. Right! Roundheads—

He gestured to the right-hand row of desks.

—and Cavaliers.

He gestured to the left. The Fifth sniggered. John was perfectly aware of the anatomical usages of the terms, but he pretended ignorance.

—Each side will take turns asking a question of the Chair. The answer may not exceed one sentence, so ask with care. The Chair must answer truthfully but may not mention his or her identity or secret directly. If, upon hearing your question answered, your side wishes to essay a guess as to the Chair's identity or the Chair's secret, you may. Incorrect guesses will forfeit a turn. Correct guesses will earn the side five bonus points in the next examination.

John had played this game, or something like it, at student parties in Cambridge. They did it with historical and literary figures, but the addition of the secret—where had that come from? The game was challenging enough, he recalled, merely guessing the Chair's identity if the Chair played along, which he doubted Rees could; but to introduce an alien element, a secret that likely had nothing to do with the actual figure in question, wouldn't that muddy already murky waters to the point of nonsense?

Sense was overrated. Forty minutes remained to his enforced society with these creatures, and the lobe had determined they would spend it guessing Rees's secrets—fiction or fact, who actually cared?
Alea iacta est!

—Are you a man or a woman? a representative from the Roundheads asked.

Rees curled his lip into a sneer:

—A man, you impertinent scoundrel.

Ooh
s rolled through the room. The Cavaliers' first questioner stood:

—When were you born?

Rees consulted the ceiling:

—As the Great Regent was assassinated. Cruelly, I might add.

This was just the type of arcana Rees was wont to latch onto without having the slightest notion of its implications. It was also the type of showing off that went such a long way towards alienating his peers. John could see none of them followed. A few faces cottoned on to the general period, but even John had to think before working out the year to which Rees referred, and even longer before it struck him who had been born then. By this time, several more questions had passed, establishing that the Chair had died a painful death; that he had escaped at least part of the death to which he'd been sentenced; that he had fought as a soldier; and that he had been born in England.

Despite his irritation at Rees's ornate display of historical minutiae as well as his artificial acting style, John could not deny that Rees had thrown himself into the role. And once John had worked out who it was, he had to admit that Rees's performance was canny. He strung them along, growing more irate with each turn, taking on more and more the resentful psychology of a misunderstood martyr. Yes, he had endured torture. What of it, worms? No, he had not been burned at the stake, not precisely. A brilliant red herring, John realized. He was in fact—and the Chair assured them this was not merely his own vast opinion of himself—among the renowned of history.

And on it went, until the Roundheads put it together and named him: Guy Fawkes, in the flesh. Rees managed a disdainful nod but remained in character, for there was still the secret to guess, and John had garnered no clues during the first part of the examination as to what the secret could possibly be. He tried to predict the imagination of the class. Would it be violent? Whimsical? Depraved? John felt sure their imaginations ranged across every spectrum, but what would they dare write upon anonymous papers on such a day as this?

The sides closed in with rapid questioning. Was his secret generally known? It wasn't. Was it a sin? Fawkes confessed that it was. Did it involve a woman? It did not. Did it involve murder? It did not. Theft? Blasphemy? False witness? None of the above. John watched the class grow bolder as they suggested crimes of increasing vulgarity: fornication? lying with a beast? Greek love? Rees grew incensed in his denials, his face turning red, his voice rising in strident disavowal, to the point that John began to wonder how many of the denied crimes Rees had ever perpetrated, or at least contemplated.

—Where did you commit this crime?

John thanked God for Morgan Wilberforce, who had the self-command to haul the conversation out of the gutter and ask a pertinent question.

—Under torture, Rees/Fawkes replied after a ghastly pause.

Furious whispered conference amongst the Roundheads, and then Wilberforce raised a hand to indicate a guess from his side.

—Did you apostatize? Wilberforce asked.

Rees dropped his head in shame, resigned before his executioner. Like Iago, he said no more, holding his posture dramatically until it dawned on them that Wilberforce's guess had been correct, and the Roundheads had won both points. Rejoicing broke out across the form. John allowed them some celebration and then offered his hand to Rees, still frozen in tableau.

—Well done, Rees.

Rees held his pose a moment too long before raising his head, still cloaked in the aura of Fawkes.