by H. S. Cross
—What?
John thought his throat might be closing up.
—It’s Wilberforce. It’s complicated.
—What? Burton demanded.
—It’s awkward. I’ll come back later once you’re quite alone.
Burton drew him farther from the group.
—I sent for the pair of you. The Board wanted to meet the two who so impressed them this afternoon.
—You sent for me?
Burton was making no sense at all.
—What’s he doing here? John blurted.
Burton didn’t ask whom he meant. He drew the kind of breath that meant he was struggling to keep his temper.
—Awkward, Burton replied. But pull yourself together. I need you.
He led John back to the gray men, who were questioning a flustered Wilberforce. Then the person broke into their midst to hand Wilberforce a glass of lemonade.
—Scotch, Grieves? the person asked.
Was there no way he could escape, even for a moment to use the toilet? Burton turned the brooking-no-refusal look on him. John decided to ignore the person and instead address Wilberforce.
—Did you say good evening to these gentlemen?
This prompted a flurry of introductions. John listened carefully as the gray man gave his name. Overall! He’d been close. He was the Chairman, then. Burton had the grace to slip around to the sideboard and pour John a lemonade. That disposed of the person. How dare that person offer John scotch, as if he knew John’s drink, as if John were the same person he had been when he did drink scotch?
John took the lemonade and pretended to sip it. As the men quizzed Wilberforce on his batting, his father, and his people, John concentrated on his breathing, remembering to do it, regularly, and to an appropriate depth. He glued his gaze to the faces of the gray men, avoiding Wilberforce, avoiding the person. He simply couldn’t fathom what the person was doing there, and without that knowledge, he had no way of guessing when the person might depart. Was it possible the person was included in Burton’s supper party? Clearly it was possible. The last trains had gone.
Conversation stopped. They all looked at him. The person laughed:
—You haven’t changed a bit, John. Not a single bit.
—I’ve changed immeasurably.
The person laughed again. They all laughed.
—Sebastian tells us you were at Marlborough together, Overall said.
—Grieves was a year above me in the House.
—And did he bowl like that when you were boys?
—He’s improved.
Burton refilled their glasses.
—And are you Housemaster of that House? Burton asked the person.
John’s teeth twinged to their roots. Surely everyone could hear the acid in Burton’s question? Instead of ruffled feathers, however, another laugh and obsequious echo.
—That would take some getting used to, the person replied. No, I’m at—
He named another House at their former school. Overall carried on in this vein, quizzing the person about his post as if for the purpose of enlightening John. Burton was nodding as if he had heard it all before, his jaw set so tight that John wondered how the enamel on his teeth was faring. Evidently the person was a Housemaster at Marlborough. He was the youngest Housemaster since someone in the past century, whose name John promptly forgot. His reputation, Overall informed them, preceded him. Before Marlborough he’d been at Trinity. It was all so exceedingly satisfactory that John wondered why Burton was acting as if it were taking every ounce of his strength not to hurl his glass at someone’s head.
—So, Overall said, what do you think of our humble Academy, Sebastian?
—It’s delightful.
Revived by lemonade, Wilberforce joined the conversation, demonstrating full command of the names in the room:
—Mr. Overall, is Dr. Sebastian joining the Board?
Sebastian laughed again, as did his minions.
—This simply makes no sense, John blurted. Whatever you’re playing at, I’ve had enough.
Burton looked aghast, but John realized that he was indeed tired of being knocked about by other people’s whims. He’d done everything asked of him in managing the wretched Old Boys. He’d bowled one of the best games of his life, not that they’d any notion, and probably given himself arthritis doing it. He’d been dragged against his will into the second-most-sordid debacle in the history of the Academy and still faced the ordeal of unfolding it to Burton, if only he could extricate the man from the demonic Board. Now to be forced to stand about Burton’s study drinking lemonade beside Morgan Wilberforce—the most compromised boy in the county, at least!—beside a cluster of tedious old men, and beside Jamie Sebastian, who had no business there whatsoever and who appeared to be part of an elaborate, unhumorous cod—it was more than anyone could or should endure.
—May I have a word? Burton asked Overall.
The chairman of the Board stepped with Burton into a quiet corner. The other two gray men began speaking at once, addressing themselves to Wilberforce and probing his opinion of Hobbs and his centuries. Wilberforce’s discomfort seemed to dissolve once asked to comment on cricket. John squinted at the intruder, as if glowering would provoke an explanation. Sebastian dropped the light, easy manner and replaced it with something more tentative. He sidled near to John and spoke in an undertone:
—I was most terribly sorry to hear about your father.
John flushed to the core.
—I beg your pardon!
—I would have come to the funeral, but we were told it was family only, so …
John choked on air. For Sebastian to speak of matters that had been so thoroughly banned! How could he even respond? And what was this subterfuge growing within him: the temptation to speak of it with someone who had known his father, someone who had in fact seen his father alive more recently than John had himself, someone who’d known his father before everything went wrong.
—We didn’t know what had become of you, Jamie continued outrageously.
It wasn’t clear whether the first-person plural stood for Jamie alone, or if it signified himself and the Bishop, or perhaps himself, his sisters, and the Bishop.
—I’m alive and well, you’ll be chagrined to learn, John said bitterly.
Jamie smiled slightly, an expression full of sadness, regret, and an unendurable pity.
—Overall says you came here after the War?
John nodded mutely.
—Until I read your father’s obit, I wondered if you hadn’t perhaps died in it.
Jamie hesitated, realizing his gaffe, for if he had not known whether John was alive or dead, then John’s father must never have spoken of him after he became a conscientious objector. John knew from the maiden aunts that his father had retained ties with the Bishop after severing them with John. Jamie tried to recover:
—So you see it was a great surprise when I arrived today and learned that the Common Room included you of all people. It’s made deliberations easier.
—What deliberations?
Jamie looked abashed again, having apparently stepped into another quagmire.
—Look, John said severely, this has been a most appalling day. I don’t like being toyed with. It’s inhumane.
Jamie winced, nearly:
—I’ll have to leave explanation to our esteemed Chairman.
Overall and Burton were returning, Burton looking yet again as if he would explode like an overblown balloon. He detached Wilberforce from the group and dismissed him for the evening.
—No, John interrupted, wait—there’s—can I speak to you, please, for a moment?
Burton sighed heavily and allowed John to buttonhole him.
—Can you send this lot off to look at the chapel? John asked. Wilberforce needs a quarter of an hour of your undivided attention.
—No, I cannot send them off—
—Do you have any idea where I found him, and with whom?
Burton’
s face drained of color:
—Is there any way this can wait until the morning?
—Absolutely not, John insisted. If you let him walk out that door, I can’t vouch for what might happen. For one thing, Pearl minor might come down from the Tower, and if they met—
—What has Pearl minor to do with this mess?
—Plenty.
—You aren’t making sense.
—I’m making every kind of sense. It’s this cursed, infernal day that isn’t making sense, and Wilberforce’s catastrophic judgment in every single matter that doesn’t involve a cricket ball!
—What’s so appalling about young Wilberforce? Jamie interrupted.
Burton visibly prevented himself from barking at Jamie.
—Nothing at all, he said. But if you’ll excuse me one moment.
Burton tried to look as though he were merely drifting to the door, but John knew he wanted to thrash about as he normally did. Why wasn’t he, in fact? Burton never had qualms about taking a pair of verbal steak knives to whomever he chose. Why should he tolerate a young visitor intruding in a private, sotto voce conversation between himself and his staff? Burton’s only word on the gathering had been awkward, and he had said he needed John’s help. Of course, he hadn’t said how, which was typical. He expected John to know everything without being told, like some kind of medium.
—Gentlemen, Burton said, if I might press upon your patience briefly, there is something that requires my attention for a few minutes. Clarke here—
He indicated a boy he’d conscripted from the corridor.
—has volunteered to give you a tour of the House.
Overall and his lieutenants found the invitation agreeable and followed the boy into the corridor, Jamie bringing up the rear. When the door at last closed behind them, Burton turned on John:
—Just what is this about?
John looked to Wilberforce, who blushed and looked at the floor. Burton stormed to the sideboard, poured himself a fresh drink, and downed it furiously.
—We are exceedingly short on time, and this is an exceedingly bad moment. Grieves, kindly get to the point. And Wilberforce—
Burton turned a severe expression on the boy.
—whatever this is about, I expect to hear the truth from you. All of it. Understood?
Wilberforce swallowed as if he might be sick. Burton leapt forward, seized him by the arm, and shoved him onto the settee. Burton then dragged over a straight-backed chair and sat in it.
—Well?
As Burton had not offered John a seat, he remained standing.
—Wilberforce was not on the Ramble this evening, John began.
—Then what took so long when I sent for you?
They both looked to Wilberforce. He swallowed again. John wanted to clip him round the ear. Instead he crammed his fists into the pockets of his dinner jacket:
—Are you going to tell him or am I?
Wilberforce licked his lips. If he could explain for himself, John decided he would revise his excremental opinion of the boy.
—It’s difficult to say, Wilberforce began.
—Speak up, Burton snapped. Is there anything about the past twelve hours that you cannot recall?
—No, sir.
—Then stop trying my very short patience and present a brief, audible chronology.
—It’s difficult to say, Wilberforce whispered, because …
—Yes?
Burton pitched his voice equally low, as if to draw out the words that choked the boy. Wilberforce blinked. John wondered if he would cry. Wilberforce had not cried last term over Spaulding, not when John snapped his dislocated arm back into its socket, never under punishment. Now, though, his face had turned so red that John thought tears might roll down it as they had at his table in the middle of that night, another age ago.
The boy scratched at the mud on the leg of his trousers and spoke in a whisper:
—Because I’m so ashamed of it.
Burton took a quiet breath. The man clearly longed to release his frustration in a gush of verbal abuse, but every aspect of Burton’s behavior remained under his express control. John had never understood how Burton had acquired his reputation for extracting confessions, but now he realized he was witnessing the technique.
—We’ve all done things we’re ashamed of, Burton said evenly. I am come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.
Wilberforce glanced up and searched Burton’s face.
—Go on, Burton told him gently. Show your mettle.
Wilberforce resumed cleaning his trouser leg:
—I was with someone out-of-bounds.
Burton made no sound. Wilberforce cleared his throat.
—I’ve been seeing her all term. Usually in the kitchen. She’s … We love each other.
John picked up his glass and wiped away the ring it had left on the table. Burton continued not to speak. Wilberforce continued his confession, omitting details John considered relevant (for instance, that the kitchen in question had to have been at the Cross Keys), but details which, John realized, must have seemed irrelevant to Wilberforce. He stumbled along, admitting to liaisons, outlining his growing devotion to this girl (carefully avoiding naming Polly), and finally his decision, their joint decision, to meet this evening for the purposes of l’amour complet. John had never heard the expression; it turned his stomach.
A knock at the door, though Wilberforce and Burton seemed not to notice.
—Sorry, Jamie said quietly.
Burton put up a hand to demand silence but did not break Wilberforce’s gaze. John set his lemonade back down before he dropped it. Either he had gone over the edge and begun hallucinating, or there was something revolutionary afoot that he had entirely failed to grasp. He scarcely knew where to focus, on Wilberforce, now narrating his plan to seduce Polly in “the barn,” or on Jamie, slinking against the door and watching the scene with fascination. Whatever Jamie had to say to him, it was ludicrous that he intrude upon a most sensitive interview, and what’s more, having intruded, that he fail to say it, instead lounging around as though Wilberforce’s moral nadir had something to do with him. If not for John’s respect for Burton’s technique, he would have told Jamie then and there what he thought of his manners. As it was, he inched towards the door.
—The trouble was, when I arrived, someone else was there. Mr. Grieves already said it, so I’m not telling tales, am I?
—No.
It was the first word Burton had uttered. With that gentle encouragement to Wilberforce, he thrust an impatient arm towards John, using his actual finger to direct John back to the spot where he had been standing. John obeyed.
Jamie’s hand was resting on the edge of the table beside the door, his fingers, long and slender, running back and forth along the table edge. Jamie, like Burton, seemed mesmerized by Wilberforce, though perhaps Jamie was also mesmerized by Burton’s control of the confession. John had never seen anything like it, never seen a boy speak his misdeeds as Wilberforce was doing, never seen Burton sit so silent and still.
Wilberforce confessed to losing his temper at Pearl minor and setting upon the younger boy. He claimed to have come quickly to his senses and sent the boy away. John wondered if this was the truth. It was possible. Wilberforce could have landed the blows to the ribs first, knocking Pearl minor to the ground. He could then have delivered head shots, breaking the nose, blacking his eyes, and cutting open his cheek. If the punches had been accurate, hard, and unexpected, Wilberforce might have done the damage in ten seconds or less. It occurred to John that the Academy ought to revive boxing.
Wilberforce was struggling as he came to the act of l’amour complet. He assured them that the girl had consented, not only consented, but had helped plan the tryst. He reiterated the point three times. John felt a sliver of relief, in contrast to how he’d felt when Wilberforce was spewing nonsense outside the barn, the moment when John had wavered in his self-command. But there was no point in dwellin
g on that. Wilberforce had emerged from the washroom without a glimmer of accusation, as if he’d cleaned the memory as well as the blood from his face. He’d suffer no lasting harm, and anyway, in comparison to what Wilberforce had done to Polly and to Pearl minor, John’s momentary lapse was—
—And that’s when Kilby and Mr. Grieves arrived.
Wilberforce exhaled heavily, as if that concluded his testimony. Burton sat back in his chair, clasped his hands, unclasped them. He looked to John and purposely did not look at Jamie. And why should he look at Jamie? It was no affair of Burton’s if Jamie had appalling manners and insisted on earwigging interviews that were nothing to do with him. Ignoring him was precisely what he deserved.
Burton spoke again in the soothing voice:
—Well done.
Wilberforce glanced up at him, a flood of ridiculous gratitude on his face.
—Is there anything he’s neglected to mention, Grieves?
Burton still wasn’t looking at him. It was embarrassing to be treated as a valet, and in front of Jamie.
—Oh, John replied icily, only a few minor details.
Burton’s attention flashed to him.
—The girl is the daughter of Wakes, the landlord of the Cross Keys. Pearl minor came away with two black eyes, a broken nose, and at least one broken rib. And the barn in question—
Burton leapt to his feet, but John spoke:
—McKay’s.
Burton’s glance to the door, to Jamie, carried something more than mortification.
—So you see, John concluded, Wilberforce’s adventures are all rather economical.
Burton was at a loss. Wilberforce put his head in his hands.
—McKay’s barn? Jamie asked. Is that where—
Burton held up a hand to—
—Yes, John replied chirpily.
Jamie let go of the table and approached Burton’s desk, piercing the perimeter of their conference.
—Who else knows about this? he asked.
—Kilby, Fardley, and Pearl minor, John said. Otherwise, no one.
—Let’s keep it that way, Jamie replied.
A wave of relief crossed Burton’s face.
—I’m glad you see it that way, Burton said. I’ll deal with it. You can be sure—
