'I won't sign, sir, and I advise you not to either.'
'Why?' The Abbot sat up from the depths of his chair. 'Why do you give such advice?'
Lyall felt he could not say he was not sure which of two things was harder to put up with, the Abbot's conversational style, with its bland coherence and assumption of severely limited cogitative powers in the hearer, or his recurrent look of pleased surprise as each fresh piece of evidence of his wisdom or moral worth turned up, but between them they were likely to implant in certain minds a hardy seed of revolt. There were other things Lyall felt he could not say: that he intended to enjoy using to the fullTm'sTinexpected gift of a fragment of power, a small weapon against the Church's self-perpetuating hierarchy, and, by way of a footnote, that the look Dame Anvil had sent him at the end of breakfast was an encouragement to any and every sort of assertive behaviour. And he did not say that there might be some sort of natural case against mutilating a child for the greater glory of music or God or His Church or anything else whatever, because no such thought occurred to him. So what he did say was, 'We have in our hands the mortal life of a child of God, my lord. Are we to dispose of so much of it after such little consideration?'
'What further consideration would you have us give, Father?' The Abbot sounded honestly puzzled.
'I don't know, sir. It's not five minutes since I first heard of this proposal—how can I weigh it fairly? I ask for a postponement during which I can consult my conscience.'
'I'm advised that time is pressing.'
'But Hubert isn't yet eleven years old, and surely all of us have heard boy trebles of thirteen or fourteen whose voices were still unimpaired. Must we be so precipitate?'
'Father, be so good as to give me credit for knowing something of this matter, which has arisen before in my experience. Those of thirteen or fourteen have gone beyond the age at which alteration will have the desired effect. By then, it's too late. We haven't years to spare, as you seem to imply.'
'But we must have days to spare, at least.'
'Can I be of help, my lord?' asked Dilke. 'As one in holy orders and—I hope—of good repute, well conversant with the matter in hand...'
The Abbot smiled faintly. 'You are all you say, Father, and more besides, but this provision is quite specifically laid down in the relevant Act of Convocation. The crucial word is "habitual" attached to "confessor". You've never once, I believe, had occasion to confess Master Anvil, and Hubert seldom. We must abide by the letter.'
'Yes, my lord.'
There was silence once more. Twice in quick succession the window-frames shook slightly at the passage of express-omnibuses or other large vehicles: the traffic in Tyburn Road was heavy that day. Tobias looked grim, also apprehensive, no doubt at the prospect of again being asked to sign the document and having to cross either his own spiritual guide or the Abbot. Lyall was already regretting his hardihood, and would have withdrawn his objections on the spot if offered any reasonably dignified means of escape. But the Abbot gave him a cold glance and said, 'Would a week be long enough for you to finish consulting your conscience, Father?'
'Yes, my lord, I'm sure it would.'
'Let it be a week, then.'
Nothing was said of the possibility that at the end of that time Lyail's position would be unchanged, and it might weli have seemed to be ruled out by the making of an arrangement that Hubert should visit his home at the week-end to be told what was in store for him. As soon as they were alone, Tobias said to Lyall, in wonder rather than anger, 'In Christ's name, Father, what do you mean to do?'
'No more than I said, Master Anvil.'
'Your conscience and so on. How will you deal with it?'
'Prayer and meditation are sure to guide me.'
'A week of that?'
'There are other things to be done, master.'
'What things?'
Rather than have nothing to say, Lyall said, 'Naturally I must consult Dame Anvil.'
'My wife? Consult my wife?'
'Yes, sir.'
'But'—Tobias spoke as one stating a seldom-contested fact—'a woman's opinion on a matter of this kind is of no import whatever.'
'Hubert is her son, master.'
'He's my son too: that's what signifies... But again, Father, what do you mean to do? Abbot Thynne is a very eminent man. You can't simply defy him.'
'We shall see.'
'All too clearly, perhaps. But I don't think you mean to continue to defy him. I think this is a sort of game. All you mean is to savour the thrill of defiance without any actual risk. Let me know when you've had enough of your game. You place me in a most uncomfortable posture.'
Good observation but bad policy, thought the priest, and said, with as much fervour as he could summon, short of sounding ridiculous, 'This is no game, Master Anvil.'
Tobias raised his eyebrows. 'Bravely spoken, Father Lyall.
Well, I must be about my business. When you're not praying or meditating or consulting my wife, I ask you to bear in mind who it is that employs you.'
A more than usually smart express, its walnut panels stained a dark crimson and its front and rear trimmed with placcas that bore the initials CD (Corpus Diplomaticum), was twisting its way along King Stephen II Street in Coverley through the horse-drawn traffic. Its only passenger was Hubert Anvil. He wore chapel dress with the permitted addition-since he was on extramural precept for the afternoon—of a coloured scarf, and was sitting well forward with the window down in order to see and be seen. The foot-passengers, the other vehicles, the great shops and grand public buildings were all a delight to somebody who lived most of his life within the same stone walls, but Hubert also wanted to be the subject of questioning glances, signs that it was being said or thought of him, 'Who's that young boy in the handsome express? How can he be of so much mark? What high mission of Church or State is he upon?'
Nothing of the sort showed itself. There was little to be seen of the gentry, and that only for moments at a time: the tall old man in the vermilion jacket and pink breeches entering a teahouse, the two ladies with bright bonnets and sashes halted at a jeweller's window-none could have reason to spare him a glance. As for the people, they strolled along by the thousand in their greyish or brownish tunics and trews, their glances moving over him with the same indifference they showed towards everything and everybody, even one another. They betrayed no envy of the attire or adornments of their betters, nor any resentment of the expensive inns and ristorantes they passed and would never enter or of the displays of fine goods they would never own or consume. Well, after all, they were the people, resigned to their God-appointed lot, too coarse of soul and sense to want what their betters enjoyed as a right: offer any one of them a bottle of first-harvest Chichester, say, instead of his usual mug of swipes, and he would not thank you. That, at any rate, was Hubert's father's view. Hubert himself was less sure that that was an end of the matter; and if it was not, he reflected now, there was something unworthy in his presenting himself as though for admiration, something close to a sin of pride. He sat back against the cushions of the express.
After a little, the vehicle turned off, sounding its bell and causing a drably-clad group to scatter out of its path; Hubert forgot his pieties and chuckled at the sight. This was Hadrian VII Street, where some of the most magnificent houses in the city were to be found, and it was into the paved courtyard of one of them that he was shortly driven. There were stone pillars with a blue-painted pediment, an ornamental astrolabe on a bronze pedestal, a great many flowers and some clumps of strange tall grass. The driver helped Hubert down. He was strange too, tall and muscular in trim red-and-blue livery, but narrow-eyed and dark-complexioned; his straight black hair had a blue sheen on it. He said in a strange accent, 'Please to mount the steps, young master, and to use the knocker on the door.'
'Thank you.'
'It's nothing, young master.'
The man who opened the door, though older and not so strong-looking, might have been the drive
r's brother, but Hubert had little time to consider him, because Cornelius van den Haag, hand outstretched, was striding across the lofty hall.
'Welcome, Hubert! So they let you out, eh? Wonderful! Let me bring forward my wife, who says she must see for herself the person I talk of so incessantly—and my daughter Hilda.'
The New Englander had managed to indicate that formal bows were not called for, so Hubert just shook hands with Dame van den Haag, a pretty, dark-haired, smiling lady in a sober but rich-looking gown, and with Hilda, who was almost exactly as beautiful as he had hoped and almost persuaded himself not to expect. She had blue eyes like her father's, a curved mouth and a very straight nose, and her hand was warm without being moist. Rather to his disappointment, she wore a green short frock cut high at the throat and made from something that could not be deerskin. But of course he was excited and happy, struck by the foreign way the New Englander family had come out into the hall to greet him instead of waiting while he was fetched in to them by a servant. It must be a result of being brought up in log cabins, and was very kind and undignified of them.
'Does this contain what I hope it contains?' asked van den Haag, taking the leather satchel that Hubert carried. 'Good. But that will come later. We have a few minutes before the other guests arrive, so we can all become acquainted. Well, Hubert, this is our home. Do you like it?'
Hubert was not used to being asked if he liked things like homes, and had had no time to notice more about the room in which they now sat than that it was cool and dark after the sunlight and that it had italian windows opening on to a garden. He looked hastily round in search of some object to praise, but saw only a painting of a bald man with eyeglasses and a thick mustach who was evidently Joseph Rudyard Kipling, First Citizen 1914-18. He murmured a few words that depended more on their sound than on their sense before curiosity, all the stronger for being pent up, had its way.
'Those men, sir, the one who drove me here and the one who let me in—what are they?'
Van den Haag said at once, 'They're Indians, Hubert. Descended from the folk who lived in the Americas before the white man came.'
'I thought they rode horses and hunted buffaloes and lived in tents.'
'They did at one time, or some of them did, but no longer. Now they work in the mills, in the fields, in the mines, in the fishing-fleet, and some as servants, like Samuel and Domingo whom you saw.'
'Domingo—isn't that an Italian name?'
'Spanish, or Mexican more truly. Yes, they come to us from all over the continent and further, from Louisiana, Cuba, Florida, even from South America and New Muscovy.'
'Why do they come from so far?'
'For the good life we offer them, Hubert, so much better than they've known. And we pay their journey costs. It makes the other countries angry-they say we steal their best folk. Only last month, the Viceroy of Brazil issued a decree forbidding any further—'
'My dear Cornelius,' broke in Dame van den Haag, 'you imagine that this is the House of Commissioners. Hubert is here to be entertained, not instructed.'
Her husband smiled. 'He knows my weakness from our first meeting. I'm in England only since a year. Soon I expect to be able to speak of more things than my country and my countrymen. Yes, Hubert?'
'Your indulgence for another question, sir, but I notice you say you're in England since a year. That must be a New Englander expression, yes?'
So it was, by van den Haag's account: one of a number of ways in which the speech of his nation had been affected by that of its French-speaking neighbour, Louisiana, whose Indians had turned out long ago to be peculiarly well fitted to serve as nursemaids to white children. Hubert was interested enough to hear this, but he had asked his question chiefly in order to help the talk follow the course it had been given. He knew that his host had started explaining about Indians in such detail not only because the subject was one of his favourites, but also in order to give him (Hubert) a chance to become accustomed to his unfamiliar situation. That was kind, and necessary too: it had been quite a shock to hear Dame van den Haag actually interrupting her husband in public, even though she had spoken amiably and he had taken no offence. No doubt that log-cabin upbringing had been at work again. What it might have done to somebody like Hilda was impossible to estimate. At the moment, her knees raised as she sat on a low stool, her glance neither seeking nor avoiding his, she seemed very much like most girls of her age, only more beautiful. But then she had not said anything yet.
Hubert tried to rectify this when the mention of languages led to a discussion of studies. Describing his own on request, he threw in several cunning phrases about different children liking different subjects, some not liking any at all, etc. To no avail: the man and his wife agreed with him, thought his studies remarkable for their scope and volume, declared that nothing of the sort would ever be attempted in their country; the daughter might have echoed all these sentiments inwardly, but all she did was sit as before and look several times at the toes of her slippers. So Hubert fell back on looking at her as often as he dared. Quite soon, he had decided that the best thing about her was the way her crisp dark hair grew out of and across her forehead, and the next best thing the tiny blue veins in her eyelids.
At about that time, he heard the front-door knocker, and the Indian who had opened to him brought in a series of other guests. Some were quite old and very serious, like bishops in lay dress; some were foreign, with French or Netherlander names and accents; some were children, and van den Haag brought each of them forward to Hubert, but did not indicate that he and they should move apart from their elders. That suited him; he stayed at Hilda's side, and then, just after a pale, curly-haired little boy of about eight had been steered up to him and mercifully steered away again, she turned and looked straight at him for the first time.
He immediately said what he had had ready for the past ten minutes. 'Do you like living in England, Hilda?'
'Yes, I do. We were in Naples before, and it's so hot and dirty there.'
Her voice was wonderfully hoarse, but he could not tell her that, so he said, what was true enough, 'You speak just like an English person.'
'Why not? I go to school in Coverley, and most of my friends are English.'
'But you've been here only a year.'
'That's enough time. My ears are quick.'
Quick or not, they were thin and slightly pointed, and seemed to Hubert more intricate than most other folk's ears. 'Did you learn the language when you were in Naples?'
'Yes, of course—some of it.'
'Say something to me as they say it there.' He was not making conversation: he wanted to hear how her voice sounded with foreign words. 'Say, "I have a pretty blue frock just like this green one."'
'Oh, no.'
'Please, it can't be difficult.'
'I don't want to.'
He thought from her demeanour that his coaxing pleased her and that she meant to yield to it in the end. 'You've forgotten how to say it.'
'Yes, I believe I have. Why oughtn't I?'
'If you've forgotten how they speak in Naples, you must surely have forgotten how they speak in New England. How the people there speak, not your father and mother.'
'Trash, I remember well. We were home after we left Naples and before we came here.'
'Then say something as they say it. Anything—whatever you choose.'
'I don't want to.'
'If you won't say something, I shan't believe you remember how to.' The smile with which Hubert accompanied this had faded by half-way through.
'Have you truly only ten years, young master?'
'Eleven in July. But I'm-'
'You don't look ten or eleven,' said Hilda van den Haag with her eyes wide open. 'You look like a little man.'
'Do I so?' Hubert felt himself flush: in one sense he did not understand her, because in his world it was childish looks that were to be scorned; in another he understood well enough and to spare. Without any volition, he added, 'I'm sorry.'
'Sorry, trash. How can you be sorry for what isn't your blame? Now I go to help my mother.'
The help turned out to have to do with the big afternoon table that had been prepared, and in particular with attending to the wants of one or two of the younger children. As she did this, Hilda looked kind in a serious way, and sweet; perhaps she really was, thought Hubert, and tried to find justification for her harsh words to him just now. However she might appear, she must be shy; he had pressed her in a way most boys would not have resented, but a girl well might. He would find her again later and do what he could to make her like him; meanwhile, there was the table.
Here two maidservants stood, not dark of skin but recognisable as Indians by their eyes and hair. By a procedure unfamiliar to Hubert, guests were served with their preferences and carried their own filled plates and glasses to seats scattered round the room. The fare, once again, was strange: Hubert perforce went by appearance and found, on inquiry, that he had chosen pecan pie, molasses cookies and Mexican bridal cake, together with a cold drink called Calvina mint tea. All were delicious. He ate and drank in a chair near the italian windows, next to a thin dark boy of twelve whose name was Louis, or Luis, and who, having soon established that Hubert had never visited Asia, told him in some detail about places in that continent. Hubert listened to quite a lot of this, though Louis seemed to have had the bad luck not to have come across much of interest on his travels, and, out of politeness towards his host, who glanced every so often in his direction, made a show of listening to it all. He was content: a careful survey had shown him earlier that there was no one present with the watchful yet withdrawn look he had come to recognise as the sign of a possible new friend or leader, and there was only one girl who appealed to him, and she was still looking after overgrown babies.
While the remains of the meal were being cleared, van den Haag came over. The boys got to their feet.
'I see you two have found plenty to talk about. Good—it doesn't always happen that way at these shows. Well now, if you'll give us leave, Louis, I must take Hubert off. We have some preparations to make.'
The Alteration Page 6
