Wilberforce (60 page)

There was an important cricket match on a day known as Parish Day, in a fortnight's time. This year, they would be playing against the boys of Croffs School, who were very good indeed. Last year had been the first time they'd played against another school, and the match had gone poorly. With Morgan's help, they might have a chance this year to play with honor. Furthermore, some of them had the idea that important personages might attend Parish Day, and if they acquitted themselves well, they thought it not beyond the realm of possibility that these personages might find it in their hearts to be beneficent.

Then Mrs. Fairclough was extracting him from the schoolroom and promising to bring him again tomorrow at the same time, and Morgan was waving goodbye to the swarm of them. He felt warm in his chest, in an agreeable way, for the first time since he could recall.

 

50

After feeding him at her home with her two eldest children, who had recovered sufficiently from the croup, Mrs. Fairclough drove Morgan back to the Rectory. Mrs. Hallows reported that the doctor had been and gone, and that the Bishop was resting. He would rest the remainder of the afternoon, and he left instructions for Wilberforce to take himself for a run and then to retire to the library for letter writing. Tea would be served in the conservatory at six.

—Thank you, Morgan said to Mrs. Fairclough. For …

—Don't mention it. Well done today.

He was immeasurably embarrassed and felt he would prefer her ear-boxing, but Mrs. Hallows rescued him and conducted him upstairs. His things had been relocated, she informed him. She led him to a door at the far end of the passage.

The room was small, containing a single bed, a bedside table, and a straight-backed chair. His trunk occupied the floor by the wardrobe, and a narrow stand held basin and jug.

—You know where to find the bath.

She pointed out the towels hung on a rail behind the door and then left him.

Above the bed hung a cross. Plain, dark wood, like the one downstairs but smaller. The bedside table contained a single book. Above the washbasin he made out an etching of a man writing and a winged lion curled at his feet like a dog.

He sank down on the bed facing the chair, window on his left, headboard on his left, cross on his left. An inexplicable sense of discipline surrounded him, but not a petty, oppressive regime; rather, something like the containment and longing he had felt in Grieves's rooms that night. The object over his bed—and he already thought of the bed as his—ought to irritate him, but it didn't. It hung there as an unabashed declaration, of what he wasn't sure. As his breath came suddenly jagged, he was seized with a mysterious combination of restriction and safety. Here nothing could get at him. The only authority hung over his bed, silent and alluringly austere.

The chamber was cramped and dim, the bed narrow, the decor monastic. It was not by any stretch of the imagination a room for someone like him. The hunger everywhere in his body had never been so keen, or so nearly fed.

*   *   *

—So, the Bishop said after greeting him and pronouncing grace, how are the letters coming along?

He didn't ask about the outing. He didn't ask about the new bedroom. He didn't ask about the run, or anything else in Morgan's day. He asked about the one thing Morgan did not wish to discuss.

—They aren't, he admitted.

The Bishop tsked.

—I tried, Morgan said, but whatever I put sounded wrong.

—To whom did you attempt to write?

He had tried first to write his father, but the experience had been so unbearable that he had turned instead to Laurie and Nathan in an effort to regain his composure. This had proved disastrous since he had been unable even to begin relating what had happened, never mind why, and when it came to explaining Alex to them, Morgan had actually grown short of breath at the recognition of … He might as well have gone at their study with a hatchet.

Only one letter had not been consigned to the wastepaper basket, but Morgan knew very well it would shortly go there once the Bishop learned its addressee. The Bishop looked expectantly. Morgan sighed in his best aggrieved fashion and confessed that the letter was for Polly. He removed it from his jacket and surrendered it to the Bishop, who regarded it disinterestedly.

—Do you require a stamp?

Morgan gaped.

—Ah, I see I've disappointed you again, but I'm afraid I can't object to your writing this girl.

—I haven't sealed it, Morgan said, showing him the flap.

—That's unwise.

—But, you'll want to read it.

—Only if you require assistance with spelling.

—At school they always look over your letters.

—This isn't school. As previously discussed.

Strangely defeated, Morgan took back the letter. It wouldn't put anything right with her, but at least it would end his barbarous silence.

The Bishop served a leek pie and then broke his custom and conducted conversation as they ate. He inquired into Morgan's outing and listened attentively to Morgan's descriptions of the boys, their cricket, their sorry equipment, and the subtly fraught relations among them. The Bishop let him witter on, but when Morgan realized he had eaten nothing while the Bishop had finished, he pulled himself together.

—I've talked too much. I'm sorry.

—Nonsense.

Morgan paused long enough to shovel the pie into his mouth, but then at the Bishop's urging embarked on his impressions of the Fairclough household and of the Bishop's granddaughters. Morgan hadn't spent enough time with them to form any firm judgment, but his off-the-cuff descriptions appeared to amuse the Bishop and to vindicate some private theories he seemed to have held.

—Sir, Morgan said at last, what's to become of me?

The Bishop still looked amused:

—I'm sure I've no idea.

Morgan suppressed his irritation at being taken lightly.

—I mean, the woman at that school asked me to come back tomorrow. They've got an important match in a fortnight, and they're in a desperate state.

—Would you like to do that?

—I wouldn't mind. I don't know the first thing about training little boys, but their play is rather dire.

—That takes care of your mornings.

—But what else am I meant to be doing here?

The Bishop looked impassively:

—What do you think?

—Sir, has anyone ever told you you've an infuriating line in sphinxes?

The Bishop unleashed a belly laugh but said nothing.

—Dr. Sebastian brought me here hoping you could sort me out.

—Yes, but that was only the instigation. As I recall, you subsequently put yourself in my hands.

—Exactly. So how will we know when I've been sorted out? What will it involve, and how long will it take?

—You speak as if it's a mechanical procedure, like building a canal boat.

—Why can't you answer a simple question? Morgan snapped. You and your offspring seem to get a perverse delight in hoarding information. It's mean!

The Bishop put his hands on the table. Morgan started to backpedal, but the Bishop held up a finger.

—I'm sorry, he said. You are doubtless correct in your analysis of my family, as you've been correct in your other analyses this evening.

Morgan wondered if the Bishop had just paid him a compliment.

—But, the Bishop continued, I'm afraid I can't be as definitive as you'd like. Before you get angry again, I'll go over things so far, shall I? You said you felt you'd gone wrong in some way. Last night during a long and rather harrowing interview, we began to chart the territory.

Morgan was annoyed to find himself blushing again.

—In the course of this expedition, we seem to have disturbed something, which proceeded to pursue you even into your dreams.

The chill returned, goose pimples on his neck.

—Have I covered everything?

Morgan could only nod.

—So, with your consent, I propose to continue until the terrain becomes clear.

—Do you mean I'm going to have to make revolting confessions like that every day?

—Possibly.

—Then I do not consent.

The Bishop sat back in his chair.

—That's your prerogative, of course. Perhaps you've some ideas of your own as to how we might sort you out?

—I've told you everything. Why can't you deal with it and have done?

—And how do you propose I deal with it, presuming we can even agree what
it
is?

—The way people always deal with it! How many kinds of punishment are there?

—A good deal more than you've imagined, the Bishop replied.

—Frightening me won't work. Whatever punishments you've got in mind, I'd be much obliged if we could get on with them.

—I see, the Bishop mused. You think I'm trying to frighten you?

—Of course you are.

—I've not the slightest need to frighten you. You're scared stiff already.

Morgan realized he was going to have to cede ground.

—I was last night, I'll admit, but I'm not a child. I'm not going to quake in my boots at the threat of whacking.

—Corporal punishment doesn't intimidate you?

—It certainly doesn't. Of course it hurts, and I'd just as soon avoid it if possible, but I'm not a coward.

—That's the last insult I'd level at you.

Morgan wondered again if he'd just received a compliment.

—Look, obviously I've done some rotten things, so I don't see what we're waiting for. Punish me and have done with it!

The Bishop poured out the rest of the tea and rang for Mrs. Hallows.

—I'm not impressed, the Bishop replied, with your memory. It seems that whenever you leave my presence, a type of oblivion comes over you, necessitating a tiresome review of what has passed between us. Therefore, I would appreciate it if you made a particular effort to listen to what I'm about to say, to hear, mark, learn, and inwardly digest it.

The Magnetron again.

—First, you have put yourself in my hands, which means I will decide when to punish you, how to punish you, and indeed whether to punish you.

Morgan swallowed, feeling empty and full at the same time, as he had felt in the little bedroom, but more ticklish.

—Second, before anything of that kind can occur, we must complete our excavation so that we have a clear picture of the truth, as much as it can be known. The truth of Morgan Wilberforce.

Was it possible to grow allergic to one's own name?

—Third, I'm forming the impression that you, Morgan, are far too fond of physical punishment. You can take that expression off your face; I don't mean after the manner of your Etoniensis. Oh, you didn't detect that about him?

Morgan, appalled, could not even swallow.

—I mean you've come to rely on it as a cheap settler of accounts, a way to pay your debts without having to undergo repentance. It gives you the satisfaction of having been courageous, but it fails to touch you where it counts.

Morgan was so furious that he was afraid he might start swearing.

—Finally—and I've lost count of what number we're on—I should make it clear that I've no intention of punishing you, physically or otherwise, until you display a rudimentary understanding of what punishment is for.

—I know what punishment is for, Morgan snapped.

—Oh, yes?

—It's to discourage you from doing whatever it was you oughtn't to have done; it's to discourage other people from trying it on; and it's to clear the air. Unless idiots are giving it, in which case it's to advertise their dazzling power over everyone.

—Yes, yes, the Bishop said airily. That's all very well for school, but it's nothing to do with penitential suffering.

Morgan's ears went hot.

—Penitential suffering is precisely what you mean when you talk of being sorted out, by your father, by me. It's a different kind of punishment altogether than the crude sanctions necessary to maintain civil society. It's nothing to do with discouragement and everything to do with atonement.

—I thought that's what
he
was supposed to have done, Morgan scoffed.

—Exactly.

—So what is your
point
?

The Bishop placed his hands, palms up, on the table:

—Follow me.

*   *   *

After a gooseberry fool, Mrs. Hallows cleared, and the Bishop announced his intention to retire, then, at half past seven in the evening.

—You may have a turn around the garden until eight, the Bishop told him, and afterwards, you may spend the evening in your bedroom as you're so keen to be punished.

—But …

—Tomorrow we'll make a start on your reading, but for tonight, you may borrow a book from the library if you wish.

Morgan felt unexpectedly ashamed in the face of the Bishop's instructions. He had indeed brusquely demanded the Bishop get on with punishing him, but he didn't expect to be sent to bed hours before dark, like a little boy, and yet benevolently be permitted to read, denied even the edge of outrage.

The Bishop came to stand beside him. As he'd done in the night, he placed his hand on Morgan's head and repeated the words he'd said then. When he removed his hand, his voice was soft:

—You know where to find me. Don't hesitate.

*   *   *

He stalked around the garden in a fury but came indoors at eight o'clock even though no one made him. Taking the book he'd used for the wretched lines, he went up to his dormitory, or his cell as he decided to call it. He removed shoes, jacket, collar, and tie and hurled himself across the bed. It sagged. The evening sunshine streamed in the window. He opened the book and perused its contents.

Had we but world enough, and time
 … He closed the cover. He knew that poem and would never forget it, but seeing it with his eyes might prove ruinous; it might transport him backwards in time, northwards in space, into a person he never wanted to inhabit again. Still, it pressed on him, the nearly irresistible urge to look, as if its lines could deliver the sensations he longed for but abhorred. Reading the verse would not materially conjure Bradley or the secret realm they occupied while obeying the poet's command, yet he could feel with every nerve their closeness and pull …
Your quaint honor turn to dust, and into ashes all my lust
 … His chest ached to breaking. His cock filled and stiffened. He threw the book across the room.