But Clive Durham’s arrival ended Alec’s joy easily enough. When he came to the pitch the lovers were no longer the leading force; people turned their heads, the game languished and ceased. Alec resigned from play. It was only fit and proper that the squire should bat at once. Without looking at Maurice, Alec receded. He stood in front of the shed with dignity, and when Durham was done talking with the ladies, Alec offered his bat, which the squire took as a matter of course, then flung himself down by old Ayers, among the other servants. Durham continued to hold up the match by chatting with Maurice, whose face, earlier honest with the effort of play, now smoothed itself into a genteel mask. Alec imagined their banter frosted with “my dears” and “frightfuls.” How he hated Durham. And he was peeved that Maurice was going along. A nudge from the village’s socialist schoolmaster parted the Cambridge gents, who at long last shut their yaps and returned to the game. Maurice went out first ball and abruptly walked away from the field.
“Wait for me,” Durham called after him.
Maurice ignored the request and went straight for the house. As he passed the servants, they stood and applauded him frantically—but not Alec. He knew Maurice was looking at him, and kept his eyes down. He would not behave like a fatuous lackey. Instead he loosened the top of his shirt so Maurice might see the bruise on his neck, a trophy of last night’s passion.
The squire soon called Alec back into the match and left the field for the house, “to resume his campaigning,” as the park team was told. Was he inside now with Maurice? Alec wondered. Then, when he was fielding, Alec saw Durham’s motorcar on the drive that skirted the field. Safe trip, Clive, deary, he said to himself, and do fuck the fuck off! He felt reckless and strong. He stamped his foot on the ground as the auto passed by.
The park went on to win the match. Alec was praised, and both teams feted with an outdoor meal.
He overheard Milly saying to Simcox, “Took ill somefin’ awful, all of a sudden, green-like in the face. Too much sun, they’re sayin’.”
“It’s that wench in town,” Simcox said. “Now, didn’t I know? He told the young missus that he’d gotten a letter, but there was no letter, I’d have seen it. He’s brokenhearted, the gentleman—”
“The squire hisself motored him to the train. Frankly, I think he’s a darlin’, takin’ it so hard. That’s what a girl wants, a man fallin’ to pieces for her—it’s a sign of true love. She’ll come round, you’ll see.”
Alec immediately lost his appetite. He collected the cricket things in silence. He said privately to Simcox, “Might you write down Mr. Hall’s address for me?”
“What on earth for?”
“He asked about one of the rifles; I told him I’d look up the factory number and such. Now that he’s gone so sudden, I’ll not likely see him before I leave England—I’ll just send a note.” On his way to store the equipment, Alec passed the Russet Room window. The ladder was gone.
He went to the boathouse. He opened the slats of the shutters: sunlight patterned the floor like fish bones. He read the address Simcox had given him, not knowing what he would do with it. He lay back in his corner and watched the dust float in the sunbeams. We’ve been very happy …
One of the spaniels nosed through the door and came to him. He stroked her silky head. Reason admonished Alec: he’d already been too wild, stealing into the manor last night, to the bed of a man who could have rejected or even betrayed him. It would be still more reckless to write Maurice at his home in that haughty suburb. To write would test their relationship. Could it survive outside a moldy bedroom in a decrepit country house? To write would also test Maurice, and himself even more. The pain of rejection would belong only to him, since Maurice held the power to hurt, accorded not only by money and class, but also by Alec’s own yearning. Why risk it? Why not cherish the memory of their night together, keep busy for the next ten days, and set sail?
Still in his white cricket clothes, the trousers now stained reddish on the right leg, where he’d rubbed the ball, he walked to the village with the spaniel. There he sent Maurice this wire: COME BACK, WAITING TONIGHT AT BOATHOUSE, PENGE, ALEC.
7
The weather changed. A cold night followed the sunny day, and Alec, having packed his blanket away, had only his clothes for warmth in the boathouse. The chill kept him mostly awake. When he did doze, the rustle of a twig would rouse him because it might signal Maurice’s coming. But Maurice did not come. At dawn, Alec told himself he had sent the telegram too late. The message likely missed the last post to Maurice’s house, but he would surely receive it this morning. He went about his work quietly and apprehensively, hoping he might hear from Maurice, fearing he would not. He avoided the younger servants, who were eager to josh him about the game. When the Mildreds offered a prize for victory, he said he hadn’t the time, too busy getting things ready for his trip.
At day’s end, still no word. He reasoned that Maurice had not replied because a message addressed in his hand to Alec might attract attention. He’d best come unannounced. At nightfall, he returned to the boathouse to wait. Chance, or nature, had mated the young men so perfectly that, even after one night together, their separation was painful to Alec; his flesh remembered Maurice’s, vividly, palpably, as if he were actually present. When he turned onto his belly during his fitful sleep, he came so hard that it hurt and he woke up groaning.
Before dawn, desolate, he wrote again:
Mr. Maurice, Dear Sir. I waited both nights in the boathouse. I said the boathouse as the ladder is taken away and the woods is to damp to lie down. So please come to “the boathouse” tomorrow night or next, pretend to the other gentlemen you want a stroll, easily managed, then come down to the boathouse. Dear Sir, let me share with you once before leaving Old England if it is not asking to much. I have key, will let in. I leave per Ss Normannia Aug 29. I since cricket match do long to talk with one of my arms round you, then place both arms round you and share with you, the above now seems sweeter to me than words can say …
Writing those phrases, he remembered how passion had humbled Maurice, or had led him, willingly, to humble himself. Alec did so now in turn:
I am perfectly aware that I am only a servant that never presume on your loving kindness to take liberties or in any other way.
Yours respectfully,
A. Scudder.
(gamekeeper to C. Durham Esq.)
Maurice, was you taken ill that you left, as the indoor servants say? I hope you feel all as usual by this time. Mind and write if you can’t come, for I get no sleep waiting night after night, so come without fail to “Boathouse Penge” …
He carried the letter to the village for the first mail; the postmaster assured him it would be delivered by noon. On turning away, he immediately regretted sending it. Why had he groveled? Why call Maurice “Mr.” and “Sir”; himself “only a servant”? Maurice had left him without a word, to shiver in the damned boathouse alone. And now? Too good to answer the menial gamekeeper? “Loving kindness.” Damn! Maurice was worse than Risley, who at least called a servant a servant and would pay for what he wanted.
“Might I have it back, my letter?” Alec asked the postmaster. “I just recalled I left out something important.”
“Ah no, lad. I’d be breaking the law to give back a letter once posted; that could cost me my pension. Write again, why don’t you, to say what you left out.”
On his way home through the park another kind of anxiety overtook him: Could Maurice truly be ill, too sick to write? At the keeper’s cottage, he found Mrs. Ayers in her kitchen pouring tea for Reverend Borenius.
“Here’s young Alec now, Vicar,” she said.
“Good morning, Mr. Scudder,” he said with a friendly smile. “Out and about first thing?”
“Yes sir—the birds and the animals, you know, they’re quite early risers.”
“And won’t they miss you when you leave us—as will we all,” she said. “The vicar’s come to speak with you, so I’m just setting t
he pot on the table.”
After the door closed behind Mrs. Ayers, Borenius said, “I was hoping to catch you before you began your day’s work—to take up our conversation of two nights ago. Have you a few minutes? I’ve asked Mr. Ayers’s permission.”
There was no escaping. “Of course, sir.”
“I inquired at the cathedral about confirmation. As I feared, it can’t be arranged before you go.”
Alec tried to keep from sneering; he wasn’t sure he succeeded. “Please don’t trouble yourself, Vicar,” he said. “I’ll take care of such things overseas when I’m settled.”
“Will you?” Borenius pulled his chair closer to Alec, lowered his voice, and continued more confidentially, “It seems I have more reason for concern. When we couldn’t find you earlier, Mrs. Ayers knocked on your door. The bed was clearly unslept-in.”
Alec, speechless, drank from his cup to give himself a moment before answering. He swallowed and said, “You see, sir … I fell asleep in the boathouse.”
“Working late?”
“Sometimes I go there to read.”
“This is not the first time she’s found your bed so, Mrs. Ayers let slip. Several mornings recently, in fact.”
“Yes, well, sir, it’s a big trip, I’m stayin’ up late gettin’ ready and all—”
“As the good woman herself suggested—she’s very protective of you.” Borenius leaned closer still. “Mr. Scudder, some have noticed your keeping company with two of the girls here in service…”
“Beg pardon?”
“Certainly such attractions are all quite normal, and I would have dismissed it as gossip, but the unslept-in bed suggests something disturbing. You’re at an age when a man seeks a mate. As one who cares not only for your salvation, but for your earthly happiness in the true, deep sense of that word, I take it as my duty to remind you that what it suggests is more than unseemly—”
“Sir, I—”
Borenius cut him off: “It’s perilous, even deadly, I’m not exaggerating. Promiscuity undermines a man’s suitability for wedlock, to say nothing of the consequences to the girls. Two of them? Cousins? It’s shocking. It degrades us; it corrupts our search for true love, which is of course a good and holy thing; not to mention the risk of disease.”
Alec got up from the table. “It’s nothing like what you’re saying—”
“I’m not trying to interrogate you. I’m speaking to you in Christian friendship. Will you accept that? If not, then I’ve failed.”
Alec was too flustered to answer.
“Sometimes,” the vicar went on, “as the poet says, ‘the world is too much with us.’ ‘Getting and spending,’ the business of our lives. Spiritual matters seem unnecessary, even a luxury, and believe me, not only for you. But as much as emigrating is a wonderful enterprise, I’m sure it’s an upheaval as well, and such change is often distressing. Anxiety might lead a young man to seek comfort in the wrong places; it’s then we most need the strength our faith affords us…” Borenius approached him, but stopped short of placing his hand on Alec’s shoulder. He went on, “While there’s no time for confirmation, perhaps you’d care to be shriven before you sail.”
“Sir?”
“To confess.”
“To you?”
“To God. Come, come, you know right from wrong. We’re all of us sinners. The sacraments can be a great comfort in times of change. It’s a first step. Set sail with a clean heart and conscience.”
Alec said nothing.
“You’ll think about it, won’t you?”
“You’ve given me lots to think about.”
“Good. Call at the vicarage anytime.” Borenius turned to go.
Alec spoke up with a hint of defiance, “Sir, if Mrs. Ayers should find my bed not slept-in again, please know I’ll likely be spending a night with my folks in Osmington.”
After Borenius left, Alec, his breath quick and shallow, sat at the table and stared at his folded hands. He didn’t know what to do or even to think, only that he felt humiliated. He dropped his head forward, raking his hair with his fingers. The touch recalled the way Maurice had crushed Alec’s hair in his hands and told him how good it felt and smelled. The memory made him sadder still. “Maurice,” he said aloud.
You know right from wrong … Two days ago he did know. He knew that the Church and the law were wrong and that his own desires were right because they had led him to Maurice. Their night of happiness had vindicated him, redeemed the loneliness and confusion, proven the truth, the goodness, of his desires. But now, if these same desires could lead to the despair he was feeling today, maybe they were indeed wrong, as everybody said. Maybe he ought to ask for forgiveness.
On the lampstand by the door to his room Mrs. Ayers had left a letter. His heart pounded at the sight, but it was from Fred, not Maurice. In his new life abroad, his brother had determined to “move up” from the trade of butchering into the clean-handed world of business. Much as he scorned those he refused to call his betters, Fred believed that with his brains and gift of gab he belonged among them. He was ashamed of Alec’s being in service, especially of his rough outdoor work. Fred had found a job with an insurance company that was opening an office in Buenos Aires. His letter gave news that he’d negotiated a place for Alec as well—as a filing clerk. “So you’ll put to good use that sharp new suit of clothes,” he wrote. “Practice wearing your bowler till you can do so with ease.”
A filing clerk. Like his brother, Alec had a high opinion of his own talents—too high to settle for a life of sorting papers in that magnificent unbounded land. He would go along for now. Once in Argentina, he just might set out on his own.
At the midday meal in the kitchen, Milly was chattering away about the religion class the vicar was starting for servants not yet confirmed. He’d talked to them about confessing their sins. “I think he tends toward the papists. And you know what Romish priests do to girls in confessional boxes.”
Simcox sat at the table with a newspaper and scowled at her over his glasses. He changed the topic by reading aloud, “‘Old people stooped with suffering. Middle age courageously fighting. Youth protesting impatiently. Children unable to explain. Baby crying, can’t tell why.’”
“What’s that,” the parlormaid said, “another revolt in Bulgaria?”
“Listen and learn,” said Simcox. “‘All is misery, from their kidneys.’”
“‘Kidneys’?”
“Sshh. ‘Only a little backache first. Comes when you catch a cold. Or when you strain your back. First sign of kidney trouble—urinary disorders, stone, gravel, rheumatism.’ It’s an advertisement for Doan’s Backache-Kidney Pills. They claim it’s from catching a cold. Anything to sell their pills.”
“Are we so dull in Wiltshire?” the parlormaid asked. “Nothing more exciting in all the Police Court News?”
“Here’s an item from Wilton. A bellboy at the hotel, charged with lewdness involving a guest, a traveling gent, no less—and they discovered a note from the boy threatening exposure.”
Alec choked on his soup.
“Oooo … lewdness and buggers; they’ll both hang themselves,” Milly said. “It always ends that way with poofters. Like last May. Germans, weren’t they? Spies! Dressin’ like mollies and all. I seen the pictures. Remarkable, really, the illusion.”
“Austrian, not German,” Simcox said to Milly. “Just one, Colonel Redl. He shot himself—no rope. The emperor said he was sorry the man died in mortal sin, which is what suicides do, and therefore would go to hell, according to your papists. How might the vicar handle that in confirmation class?”
“Well, pardon me that unlike some I’m unschooled in perversion.”
“Perversion has nothing to do with it. One couldn’t avoid the story, all over the press, a great international scandal, eh, Scudder?”
“Huh? Yeah, I’d heard somethin’ about it—not what you said of the emperor, though.” Alec finished his soup and got up to leave. “’Scuse me now, pleas
e; don’t mean to be rude, but I’m behind in my chores.”
“There’s cold roast from last night,” the parlormaid said.
“Thanks, miss, the soup filled me up.”
Afternoon passed and evening followed, and nothing from Maurice. Why did this hurt so badly? Such risk he’d taken to offer himself to Maurice! He’d been welcomed eagerly, even gratefully. Now shunned. Why? In body and mind, in their passion for each other, they were equals. The force of this pain shocked him: he could feel it just there in his gut. Would it ever ease? Could he do nothing to help himself?
He started another letter:
Mr. Hall, Mr. Borenius has just spoke to me. Sir, you do not treat me fairly. I am sailing next week, per s.s. Normannia. I wrote you I am going, it is not fair you never write to me. I come of a respectable family, I don’t think it fair to treat me like a dog. My father is a respectable tradesman. I am going to be on my own in the Argentine. You say, “Alec, you are a dear fellow”; but you do not write.
It felt good to chide Maurice, but still his words had no force. He wrote and underlined:
I know about you and Mr. Durham.
Let Maurice squirm. Yes, that was good. Still, he could feel tears rising as he wrote:
Why do you say “call me Maurice,” and then treat me so unfairly?
He wiped his nose with the back of his hand. He was resorting to helpless reproaches again. Then he was inspired. Why wait upon Maurice, like a lackey, when he could take action himself:
Mr. Hall, I am coming to London Tuesday. If you do not want me at your home say where in London, you had better see me—I would make you sorry for it.
There—yes! Let him try to explain why this servant had come to call at his house as boldly as a client or friend. Why not go to London? Why should his life be stalled in this helplessness? He would compel Maurice to see him.
Alec Page 7
