by H. S. Cross
It took them two trips back to the shop for water to get the car started. The rain had begun and was turning to ice on the road, but it made no difference to Morgan’s driving; if anything it made him more reckless. Being back at school, in Prep, even under the odious supervision of the Flea, would be preferable, Gray thought, to having his life threatened by Morgan Wilberforce behind the wheel of this decrepit motorcar.
—Oi! Morgan cried.
He swerved to avoid a fox, and the car skidded into a ditch. They leapt out to push, but no exertions could budge the vehicle, and once it stalled, no amount of coaxing under the bonnet could bring it back to life. They retreated inside the car, and Morgan lit a cigarette. The rain pinged on the roof. They waited. Gray wormed his aching fingers into his sleeves as a damp fear settled: Morgan had something to say, something he’d been avoiding all afternoon even as Gray demanded he explain himself. Don’t tempt the devil, Dr. Sebastian always said. He’s stronger than you. Now in the dark of a Saturday night, he had no escape from what was coming.
Morgan finished one cigarette, lit another, and offered his flask:
—If you want to hear this, boyo.
—I don’t want to hear anything.
—Do as you’re told.
It tasted of petrol and stung his throat.
—Did you get my letter, then?
Down the wrong pipe.
—I’ll take that as a yes.
He conquered the choking. Morgan’s cigarette tip gave the only light.
—You wrote something …
His voice cut through the clatter of the rain:
—No idea why …
The Morgan he knew.
—But we both know nothing like that ever …
The Morgan he’d heard in his mind every day since he left.
—I’ve an idea that you might have seen something …
He groped for the cigarettes.
—Something you oughtn’t to have seen …
Morgan struck a match for him and held it, illuminating that face for a moment.
—Something, at any rate, that wasn’t the way it looked.
He choked again as the smoke burned.
—I’ll take that as a yes. Easy.
Smoother than roll-your-owns, as smooth as giving in.
—Look, boyo … it was just a bit of fun. He made it up. You know Moss.
—Do I?
A sigh.
—I’m not exactly proud of it, but I haven’t lied to you yet, and I won’t start now.
Under cover of darkness and freezing, slamming rain.
—You’ve done a bit of drama. You should know what it is to pretend, and to pretend with someone else.
Moon shines bright, beastly words, protest, conquest—
—It was …
Moss’s arm twisted by an unclothed—
—You didn’t see his … when we said … when we … you had to be there.
The rain had soaked them. The windows had clouded, and their breath gathered before their faces. They passed the flask between them until it was empty. Morgan’s fingers grazed his own, and as the drink melted the ice in his veins, it also fired the longing, which pressed against his eyes until he was glad for the dark.
—Was it the keyhole, then?
He didn’t give an answer, but Morgan read one. The Keeper sighed, at first like relief, but then he shifted in the seat and hunched forward over the steering wheel.
—Is that what happened? Morgan demanded. You looked through a keyhole, got the wrong end of the stick, and that’s why you cut me?
Cigarette punched out.
—That’s why you never answered my letters? That’s why you haven’t spoken to me in three years? After everything—
It sounded spiteful, and it dawned on him that rather than being about to receive an apology, he was in fact on the verge of a rebuke.
—You absolute idiot!
Morgan cuffed him.
—You put that together all by yourself, did you?
Another cuff.
—And what in the devil’s name were you doing out of bed peering into keyholes?
Again.
—Sometimes doors are closed for a reason!
—So people can’t see what you’re up to?
Hand stayed.
—You were too young to see that. You were too young for it all.
And the liquid in the Keeper’s voice, the sadness and tenderness, melted what remained behind his eyes.
—Why do you think no one ever bothered you? Who do you think made them leave you alone?
—No one did even after you left.
—Did you ever stop and wonder why? Who do you think told Moss to keep an eye?
—Moss?
Who did he think had been keeping an eye, ever since the day Morgan left?
—But he never said anything …
Never paid him any notice, in particular.
—Of course not, boyo. You aren’t his type.
—His type? What’s his type, then?
—Girls.
Gray snorted.
—And older boys with dirty minds.
It was true, all of it, he knew in a flood. He’d known it all along, probably. If that night, after Morgan’s farewell and the story of the poacher’s tunnel and the cut that made him heir of Hermes, if later he had crept from his bed to seek one more hour in Morgan’s company, if he’d peered through a keyhole and seen what he did, then Moss’s lack of distress the next morning ought to have told him something. But abhorrence was better than longing for people who weren’t there. Weren’t gargoyles meant to keep evil at bay? And didn’t they do as charged, warding off a desolation so acute it would rend the heart if permitted inside?
The rain kept hammering. He could feel his strength crumbling before the cold and before the truth. The car was dead, there were no passersby, the rain wasn’t stopping and neither was the clock. Morgan switched on a torch, its weak light showing red in his eyes where Gray didn’t expect it.
—Come on, boyo, out.
They emerged into the sleet and its talons. Morgan removed his own muffler and wrapped it around Gray’s throat:
—We’ll have to hoof it. No backchat! Go.
The running warmed them, and neither one slipped on the ice. Soon, though, Morgan’s torch died, and all the forks looked the same in the dark.
—Grieves’ll have our heads! Gray panted.
—He will, won’t he? Morgan replied. You say he’s taken up whacking?
—It isn’t funny!
—Oh, not in the slightest! And it’s your fault as well.
—My fault?
—You swindled me into this exeat and then broke poor Uncle Bertie’s car. Grieves’ll give you the business!
—Shut up.
—Unless you appeal to the lovely Miss Líoht.
—Leave her out of it!
—Absolutely, boyo. Won’t mention her again. Lead, kindly light, amid the encircling gloom—
He lunged at the voice and landed them both in an ice-water ditch.
—Just shut up!
He flailed out, but Morgan caught his fists. When he staggered to his feet, Morgan stayed where he was, hip-deep in water and laughing.
* * *
The clock in the hallway said twenty past eleven. Mrs. Firth treated them as boys who deserved the worst, leaving them to drip in the vestibule while she summoned Mr. Grieves. He burst from his study but stopped short in dismay.
—It’s my fault, sir, Morgan said. The beastly car broke down. We’ve run all the way.
—In this?
Morgan grinned sheepishly. Grieves shook his head and then looked Gray up and down:
—You, bath, bed.
To Morgan:
—And you the same, I think.
—Sir, if I might ring my uncle. I don’t want him to worry.
—He’ll have to, I’m afraid. Telephones went down an hour ago. The lights will go soon if this freezes through. I
’m afraid you’re stranded.
To Gray:
—Why are you standing there? Chop-chop.
Then Mrs. Firth was upon them with her half-dead-of-cold, her catch-your-death, her Morgan-Wilberforce-you’ll-never-change. She herded Gray upstairs, drew him a scalding bath, and ordered him out of his clothes. When he protested, she declared that she had raised five boys of her own and had been giving baths longer than he had anything to hide. Then she confiscated every strip of his clothing and left him alone.
The steam calmed the tickle in his throat, and under the water, the day’s carapace dissolved: He wasn’t strong. He wasn’t sovereign. He was shamefully knit together with people he’d no right to claim. There had been a time when Morgan had stood between him and the world, protecting him even from the worst of himself. Whatever it was that took people away, when they were needed and knit—it was the cruelest thing he could think of.
* * *
John left Morgan in his own bathtub, soaking away the chill and hopefully warding off the chest infection that was doing the rounds. It had been plaguing his goddaughter, and he had just finished supervising her inhalation over a steaming bowl when Morgan turned up with Riding, both looking as though they’d swum home. John set out his dressing gown and his clean set of pajamas, made up the bed in the spare room, filled a hot-water bottle, and tried to suppress the envy that had been festering all day. Once Morgan emerged from the bath, he offered him a brandy.
—A toddy it’s not, but …
Morgan drank it gratefully and followed John into the spare room.
—So it’s to be the Chamber of Death, sir?
John hesitated. Morgan smiled slightly, exhaustion upon him:
—It’s what we used to call it.
He examined the candles John had produced in case the lights failed and then took off the dressing gown.
—Thank you, sir. Sorry to be a nuisance.
—You’re nothing of the sort—
—Uncle John?
His goddaughter appeared at the door, minus dressing gown and slippers, coughing into a handkerchief.
—What are you doing out of bed? he asked. Did you take your medicine?
Her hacking came under control, and her gaze drifted from him to the figure on the bed. Morgan wrapped the dressing gown around himself again, and she ducked behind John’s back.
—You needn’t hide. This is Morgan Wilberforce—Mr. Wilberforce, an Old Boy of the school.
She began to cough again, and John steered her down the corridor, promising to follow in a minute. Back in the spare room, Morgan wore a curious expression:
—Was that the goddaughter, sir?
—You heard?
Morgan nodded.
—Kardleigh gave her a mixture for that cough, but you’ve got to stand over her to make sure she takes it.
—A child that won’t take its medicine? Never heard of that before, Grieves Sahib.
The remark, so vague and trivial, yet carrying with it the remembrance of so much, made John’s chest hurt.
—A shame you rustled her off so quickly, Morgan continued. I’d quite like to have chatted to her—
A grin:
—and seen what this newest project is all about.
John managed a smile in return. The lights flickered, and the hall clock tolled midnight. He left Morgan a torch, and by the time he made it to his own bed, the lights had given up the ghost.
* * *
Pearce had been awake in the alcove off the choir room reading psalms in the hope they would calm his mind. They hadn’t, and now he would be ill-rested for Sunday. He still didn’t know how to phrase the letter—how did a son refuse a family’s ambition and announce a vision as whimsical as it was shameful? Yet, the figure he had seen when the pigeonholes fell on him—island-green-shepherd-sheep—that person was more like Morgan than anyone. Morgan had called him by name, not Jere as he was called at home, but Simon, an apostle. The good shepherd would search all night for one sheep, but what if it was ugly and mean and afraid to be found?
* * *
There was nothing more to drink, nothing more to smoke, nothing to eat besides the last of the biscuits crumbling in the tin.
—Bugger me, it’s cold, Morgan said. I’d forgot.
There was only enough coal for one more fire in the term, and a meager one at that, but Gray got it burning, and they huddled at the fender as the wind rattled the windows.
He didn’t ask why Morgan had come to the study, and Morgan didn’t ask him. The itch in his throat, which had begun with the cigarettes, settled deeper with the heat of the bath. He took care to muffle it in his sleeve, but Morgan looked alert, as if they might be discovered.
—That’s an interesting bark.
—It’s just a tickle.
—I’ll bet.
Morgan said nothing else. The last biscuit was dissolving on his tongue just as the night was draining out. Morgan wasn’t treating him as a friend, he wasn’t talking to him like a Dutch Uncle, and he wasn’t doing what he’d always done when sitting in that chair before the fire. He could hear the catechism through the deafening silence: You haven’t done enough, have you? You’ve left things undone that you ought to have done? Morgan was looking at him, no longer in pursuit, no longer in anger or regret, but with a growing abstraction, as if he were leaving breath by breath. Now when he most needed his hand—Have you told the truth?—Morgan tucked it away, leaving him to stagger under the weight of what he carried.
The truth: he was too old to be helped. Leaving childhood behind meant facing everything on your own.
The armchair creaked. Morgan stood and retreated to the window seat, its arctic wastes preferable to such a one as him.
—I’m sorry.
The words that had choked him sailed across the room. Morgan seemed not to hear but only wrapped the rug around himself.
I’m sorry. I’m sorry!
—For what, exactly?
—Everything.
Morgan turned; his voice, when he spoke again, was thin:
—Did you really put that into a letter? To the Head?
Too degenerate in words.
—I never—I mean, I never sent it—I—
—I hope not!
—I never showed it to anyone.
—Then why?
His ribs jerked.
—It was only a story.
—That’s a fine thing to call a lie.
The old sinking feeling, the heavy dread that accompanied his own wrongdoing, when he was made to see the harm that could come from careless acts.
—I still don’t see how you could think that of me.
Morgan’s voice was hurt.
—It was easier, he said, wasn’t it?
—Than what?
He put his feet on the fender and reached for the fire:
—How did you find out?
—Patron’s Day, Morgan said.
—What! How? Who…?
Morgan grunted:
—If you really don’t know, boyo, I’m certainly not going to tell you.
To know and not tell?
—Does Grieves know?
—Please!
—You won’t tell him about her, will you?
Morgan frowned:
—I should.
—What!
—To save you getting yourselves found out.
—But we—we don’t—we—
—The balcony by the choir room, you say?
The smiling was happening to his face again.
—Even Pearce’ll work it out eventually.
—But—
—Listen, boyo, you’ve got to think of Grieves.
Grieves?
—You’ve got to think of how he’d feel if—
There was a limit, he informed Morgan Wilberforce, to all things in nature, and this was well past it. Under no circumstances would he take advice on such a subject. Matters between himself and Grieves were none of Morgan’s affair, and his friendshi
p with the girl was nothing to do with either of them.
—What happened between the two of you?
—I told you! We only talk!
—No, you and him.
The tickle seized him:
—N-nothing.
—Nothing?
—Except … he can’t … stand me and he’s so bloody … temperamental …
—Look, Morgan said, just what are your intentions with her?
—Are you her father now?
—Don’t get stroppy. You know what I mean.
—I don’t see why you have to spoil everything!
—What will happen once term is over?
—What do you care? You’re buggering off.
Morgan flushed and bit back a reply.
—You think you’re important, Gray said, but you aren’t.
* * *
A jerk ripped Halton from where he had been, where syrup had been flowing down his throat, restoring its power, and into his ears where a melody rang, thick and new and familiar—Oh, miserable power to dreams allowed, to raise the guilty past—that poem Dr. Sebastian made them learn—and back awhile the illumined spirit to cast—broadcast pitch-perfect, meter reconciled, sung by purest treble—on its youth’s twilight hour—he fumbled torch, slippers, stairs—welcome the thorn—choir room, piano—its wholesome smart shall pierce thee—matching sound to keys before him—and warn thee what thou art, and whence thy wealth has come.
* * *
Morgan propped his bare feet on the grate and accepted the tea John offered. The fire, though usually not lit until evening, had been stirred for Morgan’s benefit until Mrs. Firth could rustle up his clothing, hopefully now dry. John took his own cup and sat opposite Morgan on the old, deflated settee:
—He’s been giving you grief, I see. Last night.
—Light night, sir?
—I know an un-slept-in bed when I see one.
Morgan looked abashed, and John felt the kind of fondness he’d not been allowed to show in ages.
—I suppose he’s told you everything.
He could see Morgan waver, flickering between the boy who once laid his burdens at John’s feet and the prefect who sat with him dissecting boys in their charge.
—I’ve made everything worse, sir.
