by H. S. Cross
—No, Morgan replied bitterly, I hadn’t seen anyone die. And I’m not going to talk about it. The point is—was—the girls were talking rubbish, and I lost my temper about it, and it was wrong. That’s it!
—What’s wrong with telling someone off when they’re talking rubbish about someone you knew well who is no longer alive to defend himself?
There was a giant pit somewhere, if only he could sense its edges.
—As far as I can see, the Bishop continued mildly, you behaved with admirable restraint. You were forced to listen to an overly intimate discussion of your future Headmaster, a man for whom you feel some degree of respect, unless I’m very much mistaken.
Morgan did not contradict him.
—Then you had to endure some unkind gossip about your school and about boys of your acquaintance. Finally, you had to put up with humiliating snubs from my daughters. It’s little wonder you took advantage of the decanter.
—I knew it wasn’t allowed, sir.
—Had I forbidden you to drink my port?
He thought.
—No, sir.
—Had I told you to stop what you were doing?
—No, sir.
—Yet, you thought you were doing the forbidden and you did it anyway.
That was one way of putting it.
—You were angry?
—No, sir.
—Try again.
Sod it.
—I was furious. Everyone was being perfectly horrible, and so I thought sod them, and sod this, so that’s why I acted so … unsuitably.
The Bishop stood up and turned to the window.
—You certainly lost control of yourself with the port, which led to the general loss of control, but I’m afraid I can’t agree with your verdict. Your behavior was entirely suitable. If apologies are owed, I’d expect them from my daughters. Alas, we may wait some time for those. So—
The Bishop turned back to the room.
—the best we can add to your account is a charge of rudeness under provocation, and in defense of a place and a person who meant a good deal to you.
He was surrounded by snares, no inch of floor safe, but all invisible, shifting.
—It isn’t very impressive, is it? the Bishop asked. What do you imagine the punishment ought to be?
Again, Morgan childishly blushed at the word.
—The JCR would take a dim view, he said. Drinking, six. To excess, extras. Rudeness, getting above oneself, another six.
—At once?
Morgan chuckled grimly.
—Well, the Bishop said, fortunately for you, or perhaps unfortunately, the JCR do not sit in judgment of your behavior last night. I do. And it’s my view that the circumstances were extenuating and that the port has punished you sufficiently.
He didn’t like the way the Bishop used that verb with the object you. It sounded personal.
—The interesting thing about last night, the Bishop mused, was what became of the sullen schoolboy.
Apparently he was going to have to put up with that distasteful label.
—He turned spiteful?
—He wasn’t there. Early on we had Casanova—and I’m quite interested in that instinct of yours to flirt your way out of uncomfortable situations—and later we had—
—The drunk.
—The impassioned defender. You see, I thought that when the subject of St. Stephen’s arose, the sullen schoolboy would treat it with scorn. But the alarm you plainly experienced at the suggestion that your new Headmaster might abandon the school after a year, that is not the response of a boy who cares for nothing.
Morgan’s voice sounded too small for the room:
—It isn’t done to care, not since the War. They were the ones who mattered, and they’re dead.
—What about those of us left alive?
Morgan shrugged.
—Yes, well, I see we’ve strayed to St. Stephen’s again when we’re here to talk about you. However, I’ve a feeling you’ve had about as much conversation as you’re accustomed to having in a year of Sundays strung together.
The Bishop consulted a pocket watch.
—And I see it’s nearly four. Fairclough will be here shortly. It’s time you got changed.
—For what, sir?
—A run and a bathe. My son-in-law is a keen cross-country man. You look distressed. Still feeling the port?
—Sir, I’m not distressed. It’s only that I can’t think what I’ll say to Mr. Fairclough after how I acted.
—If it discomfits you, consider it part of your punishment.
He couldn’t decide which he disliked more: suggestions of his distress or references to his punishment. The Bishop unlocked the door and shooed him out of it.
—We’ll speak again after tea.
Morgan tripped down the stairs.
—And Morgan? the Bishop called.
—Sir?
The parting shot was becoming a signature move.
—I shall be most curious to hear where you’ve acquired copies of The Pearl, and who procured them for you.
44
The Bishop was right about Mr. Fairclough: he delighted in the cross-country run. After a trying quarter of an hour, the port released its hold on Morgan, freeing him to enjoy the exercise. Mr. Fairclough led him on a varied but essentially pleasurable trot through field and woodland, returning periodically to a stretch of towpath along the canal, or was it several canals? To Morgan’s relief, Mr. Fairclough did not mention the night before. He rarely spoke, except to deliver scenic commentary. Morgan couldn’t decide if he was being trained up by a keen master, minded by a masculine nanny, or taken out for exercise like some borrowed hound. The run slowed along a deserted stretch of canal, and Mr. Fairclough mounted a footbridge. After surveying the horizon, he announced it safe to bathe. They stripped off and plunged into the water, cold and muddy underfoot. Mr. Fairclough suggested they swim to the next bridge and back, so they proceeded, pacing one another.
As disagreeable as it had been to sit trapped in the Bishop’s study being forced to give an accounting of himself, he felt with each stroke through the water that something in the outside world was changing. The Bishop had judged him less harshly than he had judged himself, yet in another sense the interview had been harrowing. The Bishop had bored into … into more than his character—into the inmost tree ring of his self! And then just as Morgan had escaped the room, the Bishop had made that most objectionable remark. The man who had defended his defense of Spaulding would not defend his reading material. So the allegiance Morgan had sensed was only an illusion designed to make him lower his guard. If the Bishop thought he would admit to anything, he had another think coming!
His arms were shaking, unaccustomed to the breaststroke. He switched to crawl and plunged his face into the murky canal. This was his project. He could leave whenever he wished. He had put himself into the Bishop’s hands and asked to be sorted out. That had all sounded captivating under the weight of an arduous swollen head, but how did he imagine things would progress now? Did the Bishop propose to cross-question him each morning, noon, and night until he’d excavated Morgan’s crimes? The rest of his offenses would not shrivel under the Bishop’s judgment. Breath by breath the Bishop would trap him into confessing himself; next he would remonstrate, voicing disapproval Morgan could have cited himself months ago, and then? Perhaps the Bishop possessed some clerical sleight of hand that would detach Morgan from his failings and send him home to his father a well-scrubbed, purged specimen. In sum, predictable and vacant.
He knew very well what people like the Bishop, like his father, like Grieves, would think if they really knew him, but even though he sensed he’d gone wrong, he didn’t believe in his inmost tree ring that his deeds were as consequential as they thought. There was no war on, and even if there were, who’d fight over such a gas-filled, wire-tangled yard of no-man’s-land?
But he’d taken a wrong breath and was now standing ankle deep in silt, coughing the
canal from his lungs. Mr. Fairclough stood by, ready to beat him across the shoulders if necessary. It did not prove necessary. When he recovered, Fairclough proposed a race to the bridge a few hundred yards away. Morgan leapt forward and kicked with all his might, turning his head only every sixth stroke for a sip of air. At last, his hand scraped masonry, but Fairclough was already leaning under the footbridge, gazing up at the bricks.
He could win at nothing. This wasn’t something he could think his way out of.
He caught his breath and stretched under the water, his head against the canal bank. Fairclough floated beside him, eyes closed.
—Do you trust the Bishop? Morgan asked.
—Oh, his companion replied, it rather depends on the circumstances, doesn’t it? I wouldn’t trust him to oversee the ledger of a tuckshop, let alone interpret accrual accounting, but in anything that doesn’t involve arithmetic, I trust him.
—How far do you trust him?
—How far do you need to trust him? Fairclough asked.
Morgan allowed his body to float, his front breaking the surface.
—A long way, possibly.
Fairclough made a sound like understanding.
—Would you trust him to keep a confidence?
—Implicitly.
—Even from his son?
—If the Bishop gives his assurance, you can trust it.
—But, Morgan persisted, it’s a bit more complicated than that.
—Is it?
—What if he asks about something that goes beyond what I’ve done?
—Should you peach on your friends, you mean?
Morgan was relieved not to have to say it. Fairclough seemed to ponder the matter. He was still pondering when he began paddling back to the footbridge that sheltered their clothes.
—You aren’t at school here, are you? Fairclough said.
Morgan conceded that he wasn’t. Certainly not given the way the Bishop had responded to his drunkenness.
—Perhaps you ought to take advantage of that.
Morgan kept pace beside the man as the bank where they’d left their things came into view.
—He’s the most peculiar clergyman I’ve ever met! Morgan blurted.
Fairclough laughed loudly and switched to backstroke:
—He’s certainly a character, but for all that he’s thoroughly orthodox.
Morgan felt his thoughts being swirled around like the mud beneath them.
—Sir, you aren’t one of those people he … sorted out, are you?
Fairclough laughed again.
—Oh, I think having one’s father-in-law hear one’s confession would be taking things a bit far, don’t you?
They regained their clothes, pulled them on over wet skin, and took off at a light trot down towpath. When they reached the Bishop’s garden, Fairclough made his farewell.
—You aren’t coming to tea? Morgan said, feeling suddenly anxious.
—Not like this. And I’m expected home.
A flood of questions filled Morgan’s mind: where the Faircloughs lived, how Mr. Fairclough made his living, how long he had been part of the Bishop’s family, how old his children were, along with countless others he could have asked at any point in the afternoon had he not been so thoroughly occupied with himself.
—Are you comfortable? Fairclough asked.
Morgan replied that he was. It had been an excellent outing. Belatedly he thanked the man for taking the time and trouble to—
—I mean in your room, Fairclough said.
Was he, comfortable?
—It’s a fine room.
—St. Anne’s always leaves me feeling a bit adrift.
Someone had said something about St. Anne last night, hadn’t they?
—Where does St. Anne come into it, sir?
Mr. Fairclough released his right leg and began to stretch his left.
—The name of the room, surely you’ve noticed? They’ve all got names. I’ve slept a few nights in St. Anne’s, but it always feels rather loose somehow, as if someone else might be knocking around in there with you.
Morgan shivered.
—If it gets on your nerves, ask Mrs. Hallows if you can move to St. Mark’s.
—What’s that like?
—Compact, like the gospel.
* * *
Morgan approached his room with a trepidation that annoyed him. It had just gone six o’clock. There was nothing to make a person uneasy in a sun-soaked bedroom overlooking a garden.
What kind of someone else had Mr. Fairclough meant, knocking around with him? Morgan reminded himself that he didn’t believe in ghosts, certainly not in the warm light of summer.
He rinsed under the bath taps and toweled dry. When he returned to the bedroom, Droit was lounging across the counterpane trimming his nails with a penknife. Morgan’s scalp prickled.
—Now listen, you, Droit said.
—Don’t start.
—Get dressed, Droit told him. And for sod-all sake look smart. Enough of this scrapping about.
Shame descended. Had he been looking scrappy? Last night had they thought him callow, or lacking taste?
—I’d think a bit less about what those harpies thought of you, Droit said, and a bit more about how you’re going to survive the next interval. And if you’re still nursing those feeble notions of yours, you can jolly well un-nurse them.
—Why can’t I simply tell him the truth?
Droit looked as if he had suggested taking up prostitution. Morgan rallied a defense, but Droit folded his knife and propped himself up on an elbow:
—Since I can see you’ve had a time of it, I’ll keep things simple. Just what do you imagine is the point of this cozy exercise with your Bishop person?
Morgan couldn’t think of a way to explain it without sounding wet.
—You can’t, can you? Because not only is it wet, but it lacks purpose. Or rather it lacks a purpose for you. For him, the old dodger, he gets to be a hero to Jamsieboy, he gets to relieve the boredom of having to recuperate his silly health, and he gets to enliven his dry old years with spicy accounts.
—He isn’t like that.
—Oh, no? What does a withered old widower know of The Pearl? This item just fancies locking himself away with you, rattling you, and making you tell him things he has no business knowing.
He’d bathed, but a film clung to him. Some foul measure of canal sludge still fermented in his stomach.
—He’s nothing to be afraid of, Dicky. He can’t do anything to you, unless you let him.
—What would he do to me?
Droit got up from the bed and brushed off his clothes:
—Calm down. I’m only saying you hold the cards here, so there’s no reason to pander to his ploys. Don’t sulk. And don’t wear that tie.
Morgan set his House tie back on the hanger. Droit had a point. He’d left last night behind, so he shouldn’t appear in the same ensemble again. Besides, it made him feel he were going to Prep, or for an evening in the Flea’s study. He was no longer the little boy who secretly looked forward to Burton’s extra-tu, and he had nothing to do with the creature who, while there, wondered what Silk was doing and whether he thought at all of Morgan.
He was seventeen years old and no longer at school. He selected the tie he wore on exeat. He combed his hair. It was the best he could do.
45
In the summerhouse they sat knee to knee, just as REN supposedly sat with boys he intended to purge. Morgan drew the swing back. The Bishop could corner him all he wanted. He could grab his wrist. He could breathe all over him. Morgan had made up his mind: he was sticking to his story about The Pearl, and no stare from the Bishop could force him to renege.
Except the Bishop was moving his own chair backwards. He now sat several arm’s lengths away.
The man had ended tea abruptly, suggesting they adjourn to the summerhouse and lance the boil before Morgan worked himself into a state of indigestion. Now the man was staring at his hands a
nd waiting for Morgan to sally out to exposed ground. Well, he wasn’t born yesterday. He dispatched a skirmisher:
—Sir, who was St. Anne?
The Bishop looked up in surprise.
—The mother of Our Lady.
—Why are the rooms named after saints?
The Bishop blinked.
—It was my wife’s innovation.
—Why did you never remarry, sir, if it isn’t too impertinent a question?
—It is exceedingly impertinent.
The Bishop crossed his legs.
—Was her name Anne? Morgan pursued.
The Bishop’s eyes narrowed. Were clergy allowed to glare?
—It was Clara, he said.
—I’m sorry she died. Why did you put me in St. Anne’s?
Firing questions was almost entertaining. Why had he not taken command sooner?
—It’s bright, the Bishop replied, and it has an adjoining bathroom and a soothing outlook. Are you uncomfortable there?
—No, sir.
The Bishop did not look confident of his reply.
—Remember, the Bishop said quietly, this is your project, not mine. You can leave whenever you wish.
He could! He was in the driver’s seat and had been from the beginning.
—You can catch a train to London tonight. I can have a taxi here in half an hour.
That wasn’t what he meant exactly. He only meant he didn’t have to sit and endure twisted conversations. The Bishop gazed at the wisteria covering the summerhouse:
—You and I both know what you were referring to when you alluded to Lord Crim-Con—
Morgan flushed to his eyeballs.
—and the good Etoniensis. Perhaps you’re wondering how a bishop should know anything about Victorian pornography, but when I was your age, I wasn’t a bishop. And Queen Victoria was still on the throne.
Morgan’s balance wavered. The Bishop twisted his cuff links idly:
—I didn’t realize there were still copies of the old rag floating about, but apparently it’s like Count Dracula.
—Bloodthirsty?
—Undead.
Morgan wished the swing were lower so he could keep his heels on the planks of the gazebo.
—I’m sure it’s dreadfully immoral, he said, but I don’t see what harm it does. It’s only words.
