by H. S. Cross
He performed a systematic skimming of shelves until he came upon a volume of Romantic poetry. It contained many boring verses by wordy Wordsworth, but none about battering hearts. On quick glance, “Nutting” did seem risqué. It reminded him of—nothing that he ought to be contemplating if he wished to stay sane. Could the battering-heart poem be a more obscure work of the dreary poet? He didn’t know as much as he supposed he ought about Wordsworth; he knew that the man went stiff over daffodils and the French Revolution, and that he otherwise spent his time mooning over fey, abstract subjects with other opium-eating characters such as Shelley (a girl if ever there was one), Byron (a crackbrain and a rake), and Keats (also a girl, and a hypochondriac to boot). Perhaps one of Wordsworth’s nancy friends had written the Bishop’s poem? The index of first lines disclosed nothing about battering by any Romantic poet. If only he had paid more attention!
He had to think. The day they’d read it with the Eagle, the point had been something to do with the punctuation, but they hadn’t discussed punctuation when trawling through Wordsworth’s treacly ejaculations. Wait! They’d read it briefly because of its punctuation, and then the Eagle had ordered them to copy scads of useless definitions out of their poetry primers. If that had been the context—and he was now certain it was—then the fluttering-heart poem had come from the poetry primer!
Which meant it could be anything, from Lord Randall My Son to brownnose Browning.
He was standing at the garden window watching William clip hedges when Mrs. Hallows intruded and demanded to know what he was about. If he thought such obnoxious disobedience was a clever sign of a modern mind, then she failed to see why the Bishop was bothering with him. Morgan considered defending himself, but he couldn’t find a place to begin. Mrs. Hallows continued her assessment: The youth of today were a monstrous invention. They’d never suffered life’s travails. They kicked up everything in their path, considered the world their plaything, felt it owed them every luxury their small minds could imagine, scorned what others had made—
—Didn’t fight in the War either, Morgan interrupted hotly. And they died for us, all those brilliant, heroic men. We’re parasites. We know!
She stared at him, stunned.
—I’m quite sure I’m guilty of everything you say, Morgan continued, but I’ll tell you something I am not, and that’s a telepathist. Which is why I’m incapable of guessing what book contains whichever poem the Bishop babbled at me. Call me what you will, but I’m not a magician!
They faced one another, breathing more heavily than physical stasis demanded.
—What poem? she demanded.
—I haven’t the first idea.
—How does it go?
He sighed loudly and told her: battering hearts, blowing and burning. That was all he had.
In a few moments, she had a volume in her hands. She slammed it on the writing table and, after running her finger down an index, turned to a certain page. Throwing him another glare, she stalked away, muttering (lazy, ignorant, godless).
He could not remember detesting a woman more than this one.
* * *
The poem wasn’t what he remembered. It was something to do with a woman kidnapped by an enemy and betrothed to him. But it seemed that her rescuer was even more savage than the unwanted husband. The woman did not sound well in the head. Was she asking to be ravished? Were her requests to be battered, burned, and conquered sarcastic, or was she warped?
That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me. Droit had made a jest about that, but if Morgan was honest—and wasn’t he supposed to be, at least to himself?—if he was honest, he could imagine a situation in which being overthrown might, done properly, indeed make him rise and stand in Droit’s sense of the words.
Sometimes Silk knew how to make him hard merely with words. Other times, Silk seemed to know the secret: that Morgan’s cock liked it when Silk conquered him. How many times had Silk compelled him against his will? Had he ever? Even recalling it, he felt the heavy flow of blood and hungered for Silk’s touch. Spaulding had overpowered him in the Hermes Balcony, an overpowering entirely welcome and delicious. Thinking of Spaulding wasn’t allowed, yet thought of him was more real and more recent than memory of Silk. And since by outrageous phenomenon he had seen Silk again in the flesh only … two days ago?… could Spaulding not exist as well? There was no reason in the world that he couldn’t return from where he’d gone, resume his place in the Flea’s House, and find Morgan one lazy afternoon to carry on where they had left off. The notion felt so entirely plausible and palpable that, beside it, reality seemed a twisted dream from which he would shortly awake.
Reason, your viceroy in me, me should defend.
He hoped that his reason would indeed defend him from everything threatening his sanity, yet in the poem, was reason not weak, captive, untrue?
He had to stop depending on figments of his imagination or he would shortly go round the bend. He had to think clearly about them and sort out once and for all what they meant. Figures of the imagination: Who else had them? Macbeth imagined a bloody dagger. That was a figment. But he was cracking up and had scorpions in his brain. (Literally? Perhaps not.) Hamlet saw his father’s ghost, but that couldn’t have been a figment because other people saw it, too. So, if other people could see your figment, then it wasn’t a figment, but a ghost. But other people didn’t see Droit. Droit was something rather like the imaginary friend Flora once had. The only difference was that Flora’s friend remained entirely under Flora’s control, whereas Droit … He wasn’t sure he liked Droit as much as he once had.
But Droit was suave, Droit was witty, Droit did not allow anyone to take advantage. He knew much more about other people and the world than Morgan knew, much more than that childish specimen, the other one, the creature who showed himself only when Morgan was at his worst, who never fought back, who had looked at him as he—perhaps the fight with Alex hadn’t really occurred that way. Perhaps they had struggled longer, more desperately. Perhaps the cracks he had felt under his fist were his own knuckles.
Why did the Bishop insist he copy out the poem six times, three with each hand? He’d already done the three with his right (avec la droite, Dieu et mon droit!), but he could barely form letters with his left. What’s more, his hand was smearing the ink. If he was meant to write with his left hand (avec la gauche, and how very gauche it was!), then why not go all the way and write like Hebrews, from right to left? He was having to turn the page and draw the nib along it as if sketching hieroglyphics, not the sensible code of English. This was going to take forever, and he was fainting from hunger. The Bishop wouldn’t even be able to read the left-handed copies. The pen was doing everything except what he wanted it to do. The room was stultifying. HE ABHORRED THIS POEM AND THESE LINES. IT WAS THE WORST IMPOSITION HE HAD EVER BEEN GIVEN!
* * *
Fourteen times six. Eighty-four lines. Short ones. It could be classed with the mildest of punishments. If not for the unsavory subject matter (nor ever chaste, except you ravish me) and the eccentric ambidextrous requirement, it would have been nothing more than a few minutes’ labor, the most perfunctory of smacks. But the fourteen lines (so it was a sonnet, then, only ten beats per line) written à gauche brought him to the verge of frustrated tears. He finished the last, broke the nib, and only just restrained himself from hurling the open inkpot across the room. Instead he screwed the thing closed and stomped off to the kitchen.
A ruddy girl labored over onions with a knife. When Morgan asked where Mrs. Hallows was, the girl shrugged and continued her teary chopping. Why was everyone in Wiltshire chronically incapable of supplying information? He needed food immediately. He scanned the kitchen but saw nothing but onions.
—Did Mrs. Hallows say anything about me? Morgan demanded.
She grunted. The entire household was bent on galling him! He asked after William, but apparently William had Gone Out.
—Is there anything to eat? Morgan asked.
; —Dinner at eight, she told him.
The clock on the wall declared it half past five. He was dizzy with desperation. What would Droit do? (And where was Droit when he needed him?)
—I’m frightfully sorry, he said, taking a step towards her. I’m afraid I’ve forgotten my manners, Miss…?
She stopped chopping and blinked the tears from her eyes.
—Maryanne, she whispered.
He gave a little bow.
—Morgan Wilberforce at your service. And what an attractive frock that is, if I may say so.
She blushed. He was relieved that she did not think him as preposterous as he sounded to himself. The remark about her frock thawed the atmosphere, however, and she began to chat back to him. What was for dinner? A relatively large menu involving meat, a tart, various vegetables, a soup, and a trifle. Was the Bishop expecting company? Not company, only Miss Agnes and Mr. Goss. Possibly Miss Lucy, and if the children were feeling better, then also Miss Elizabeth, but if not, then only Mr. Fairclough. Morgan could make no sense of her speech, but he paid her another compliment, this time about her hair, and then confessed that he was faint from hunger.
Why had he not said so? He was pale as a sheet. Mrs. Hallows had left no instructions (Hadn’t she, the spiteful hag?), but Maryanne knew better than to let people faint away. She wiped her hands and fetched a plate of scones from the pantry. Morgan fell on them.
He was devouring his third when Mrs. Hallows breezed into the kitchen. He froze midbite. Maryanne punctuated the silence with chopping. Mrs. Hallows took in the scene.
—Finished, have you?
He nodded. She consulted the clock.
—Upstairs, change for dinner. Bishop’s study in half an hour.
He fled before she could examine the situation more closely.
39
No one had told him what to wear to dinner, of course, and he’d only the clothes in his hateful trunk. Given Maryanne’s testimony that there would be no formal company, he decided that his Sunday uniform would be too much. Instead, he chose the cleaner of his trousers and the rest of his summer uniform. He decided he had better polish his shoes, and he gave himself a going over with a flannel. Thus attired, he took the embarrassing lines and went downstairs. He wasn’t at all sure of the route to the Bishop’s study, but if he could find it without having to encounter Mrs. Horrors, he might have a chance of maintaining his composure.
He thought he had the wrong place when he knocked, but then a key turned. After a silent interval, he let himself in.
The Bishop was gazing out the window and gripping the swivel chair as if his balance depended on it.
When people behaved awkwardly, or when one felt awkward oneself, it frequently helped to behave as if one belonged there. Morgan sauntered over to the Bishop and peered out the window at the empty drive. Time passed.
—Why do you suppose she uses that particular floss? the Bishop asked.
As he said it, a bird came into focus before them, a small, brown thing jutting about a nest in the corner of the hedgerow.
—Perhaps it was all she could find, Morgan suggested.
—I’ve laid out five types at the foot of the hedgerow, but that blue floss is all she will touch.
—Perhaps it’s the color of her mate.
The Bishop seemed not to have considered this. They watched until the bird hopped away. The Bishop sighed.
Morgan had determined not to make the first move, but now he found himself submitting to it:
—I did the lines, sir.
—So you have, the Bishop said, stirring from reverie. And here I thought we were going to have to put the screws to you the first day.
Morgan felt his face reacting as it always did, but he kept his arms at his sides and his feet still. The Bishop sat down at the desk to examine the lines, as if they contained a signed statement and not six inept manuscript copies of a poem. Having scanned each page, the Bishop selected one and instructed Morgan to read it out.
At least there weren’t any tricky words. He glanced down and was horrified to see the Bishop had chosen one of the gauche copies, produced by an inmate of an asylum, plainly. He looked up in protest, but the man waved him on.
He read. The Bishop did not interrupt. Morgan thought he might have mistaken one or two words, but he didn’t stumble. The Bishop folded his hands pensively, fingers touching as in that game Morgan’s mother used to play: here is the church, here is the steeple, open the doors and see all the—
—Well, the Bishop said, who is knocking at the gates?
Morgan’s mind deserted him.
—I don’t know, sir.
—Don’t you?
—And it was battering, not knocking.
—For you as yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend?
Were they talking about the poem now or the metaphor (was it metaphor?) about the walls of Morgan’s city, which referred to … he wasn’t sure what, but something real nonetheless?
—I thought we were speaking of both, the Bishop rejoined.
Had he spoken again without meaning to? He had to pay attention so he wouldn’t say anything blasphemous, or worse.
—Who is knocking? the Bishop repeated.
—No one’s knocking, Morgan replied petulantly. That’s the problem. The woman wants someone to knock and come and get her, but they aren’t.
—Ah! How do you know?
—She gets desperate, doesn’t she? She’s probably going to faint as soon as the sonnet’s done.
He was pleased to have got in the word sonnet. At least the Bishop would know he had some education.
—She starts out begging this chap to batter her and knock her down. Then it’s divorce me, untie me, and the next thing you know it’s imprison and ravish me. She’s like someone out of a story by Lord Crim-Con—or—
It was happening again. He was saying things he didn’t want to say. The Bishop was looking at him keenly. He needed to extract himself.
—Or Etoniensis or some such. She’s wrong in the head, that’s all.
—I see.
The Bishop narrowed his eyes as Morgan’s father used to when he suspected Morgan of failing to level with him. If the Bishop pressed him about Lord Crim-Con, he might pass the name off as a mispronunciation of an ordinary name. He would say he had no particular story in mind, merely something his sisters used to read to him when he was small, and so perhaps he had misremembered it. Etoniensis could be a mishearing of some Latin personage. The Romans were always getting up to questionable activities. Perhaps the misheard Etoniensis passage was about a slave auction. Plausible!
—You see the speaker as a woman? the Bishop asked.
Morgan nodded. The Bishop wondered to whom she was speaking. Who was this rescuer she addressed? Address—that was the punctuation part!
—It’s apostrophe, sir, isn’t it? And she’s speaking to some three-headed deity, like the Hindus have. But did people like this Donne chap know about Hindus, sir? Or did they have some three-headed Druid god back then?
—Wilberforce, please read the first line again.
The Bishop gave his command with strained patience.
—I’ve never been good with poems, sir.
—Read.
—Batter my heart three-person’d God—
—Now stop being willfully thick and identify three-person’d God without recourse to paganism.
—Is she meant to be speaking to God, sir?
—You tell me.
—I don’t follow three-person’d.
—No, the Bishop said tartly, and you don’t follow when I make the gesture that distresses you.
He put his hand to his forehead, his chest, his heart. Morgan froze. He’d made a colossal—had he actually said that about Hindus? Could he pass it off as a joke?
—Oh, Morgan stuttered, if that’s all you mean. I was thinking symbolic, underneath it, a kind of allusion—
—Stop backpedaling and read from the beginning, all the way thro
ugh.
* * *
He hadn’t been willfully thick, but he couldn’t imagine why he had so entirely failed to grasp the meaning of a poem that turned out quite transparent. They read it several more times, taking it in turns. When the Bishop read, chills raced across Morgan’s scalp. The Bishop catechized him more thoroughly than the Eagle ever had on any poem, and when he got stuck on a phrase, the Bishop, rather than explaining, would simply read it over with different emphases until it unfolded. The poem was not about a girl who was wrong in the head. It was about …
—You want me to say it’s about me, don’t you?
—Is it?
—No, sir! I mean, there’s the business with the city, but I don’t want God to do anything with me, certainly not imprison or ravish me.
The Bishop merely looked at him.
—And anyway, I don’t believe in things like that.
—You’re an atheist?
—Not exactly.
—Vaguely?
—No, but—stop trying to pin me!
—I apologize. Perhaps it’s time to change the subject.
—I really think we should, sir, no disrespect to your profession. I just don’t think it’s worth discussing. It isn’t practical. God isn’t a magician. That’s just superstition.
—I agree.
—I don’t know what happens after we die, but the point is that’s then and we’ve got to be now, so, all right, we’ve got to try to treat other people decently, but otherwise—may I be entirely honest, sir?
—I expect nothing less.
—Oh. Well … as far as I can see, religion and the Bible are just a waste of time. God has nothing to do with real life.
—Again, I apologize. I can see I’ve adopted entirely the wrong tactic with you.
Morgan wasn’t sure what to think of the Bishop’s employing tactics with him.
