Wilberforce (50 page)

—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 through.

*   *   *

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.

—Let us forget about Donne.

The Bishop emphasized his suggestion by dumping the six sheets of foolscap into a wastepaper basket.

—Let us return to the conversation we were having earlier today, and to the metaphor we both employed to describe your state of mind. Something is battering at the gates, you said?

It sounded fey now.

—I think, sir, that I must have been …

—Disturbed? I concur. You'd been whisked away from school, thrust into a strange household, and then subjected to two bouts of stiff exercise and an unpleasant telephone conversation. I should say you were disturbed.

Morgan wished the Bishop wouldn't mention telephone conversations, but at least he grasped the essential facts. On second thought, he summarized as if …

—Sir, did you plan all that?

The Bishop's eyes flickered.

—Sir, Morgan demanded, how long am I to stay here, and what exactly do you require of me?

—Perhaps you'd do better, the Bishop said, to forget about what I require of you and work out what you require of me.

With this, the man abandoned his seat behind the desk to come and stand beside Morgan, focusing his gaze again on him in the magnetic fashion he had employed in the summerhouse.

Morgan didn't know if he had any energy left for dueling. He'd been feinting the whole time, trying to avoid traps, trying to hedge against his own errors. Only now he wasn't sure that the Bishop was playing the same game.

—When you were a boy, the Bishop said, breaking the silence, how did your father deal with you?

The mention of his father dealing with him stirred that childhood yearning even now.

—He'd listen until the truth came out.

The Bishop nodded.

—And even when the truth was horrible, Morgan continued, he stayed with you. Even when he was punishing you, he never left, and then afterwards you'd be with him and away from the horrible thing, and you'd know there was nothing too horrible for him to deal with.

The Bishop leaned against the edge of the desk.

—That's what you need now, isn't it?

Morgan's arm wrapped around his face as if to scratch the back of his head. The fabric of his blazer scraped across his cheek, sunburnt and raw. A little bell began to chime, and far away, a deeper one. A hand gripped his forearm and pulled it gently from his face.

—You aren't a little boy any longer. It's up to you to choose whose hands you put yourself into.

Morgan's throat hurt:

—I don't want to put myself in anyone's hands! That's what it means to be grown-up, to be only in your own hands.

The Bishop relaxed his grip:

—We are always in each other's hands, but often we've no idea into whose grasp we've fallen.

He froze. The Bishop froze. Someone knocked at the door.

—Yes? the Bishop called.

—In the drawing room, Your Grace.

—Thank you.

Morgan felt urgent. The Bishop released a fragment of a smile.

—I mustn't ask you to make important decisions before dinner, he said. We wouldn't want you to feel pinned.

—Sir, I didn't mean—

—Let's take that as read. We'll continue tomorrow after breakfast. Now our dinner guests have arrived.

The sense of menace was dispelling.

—Who are the dinner guests, sir?

—I couldn't say with certainty.

The Bishop unlocked the door with a key. Morgan followed him from the room.

—Oh, and Wilberforce? the Bishop said as they descended.

—Sir?

—I'm afraid I must ask you to refrain from flirting.

—
Sir?

—With my staff and with my family.

They broke through the corridor and into a red chamber.

—You know what I mean, and I would consider it a personal favor if you would spare me the song and dance of pretending that you don't. Elizabeth, darling, how are the children?

 

40

The Bishop broke habit and introduced all of his guests to Morgan, presumably so Morgan would understand in no uncertain terms with whom he ought not to flirt. Three of the Bishop's daughters had come that evening to attend him. Elizabeth, his eldest, was married to Mr. Fairclough and had four children at home with the croup (thankfully on the mend). Agnes turned up shortly after Elizabeth, and her husband, Mr. Goss, arrived sometime later, delayed by trains, curse them. Last to drop anchor was Lucy, who turned out to be Miss Flynt. Her husband did not make an appearance, and no one seemed to expect him. All of the Bishop's daughters were as attractive as Miss Flynt, though only Miss Flynt was young enough to give Morgan any consideration. Not that she was considering him—she was married—but if she weren't married, he suspected that he could convince her to consider him very seriously indeed.

—You've met all of us save Flora, Agnes said with a heart-stopping smile.

—Our other sister, Elizabeth explained.

—She's the beautiful one, Agnes told him, but she wastes it grubbing away for trade unionists.

—Surely no one could be more beautiful than the three of you, Morgan said.

The Bishop cleared his throat.

—They aren't trade unionists, Lucy corrected. Our sister is working to establish a school and hospital for poor children in Bristol.

—Their parents are trade unionists, Agnes said.

—Some of them.

Agnes winked at him:

—Trade unionists or Red communists.

—Everyone who works with his hands isn't a trade unionist or a communist! Lucy replied hotly.

—All the young men of Flora's acquaintance are Bolsheviks, Agnes insisted.

The way she said
Bolsheviks
made his trousers tighten.

—So, she continued, apart from Flora, you've met the whole family? Father, did you say he's met Jamie?

—Stop being mischievous, Agnes. You know perfectly well he has.

Agnes sipped her sherry. The others sipped their sherries. Morgan sipped his lemonade.

—My sister's name is Flora, too, he said.

The conversation revived as they interviewed him about his sisters, delighted that he, too, was a youngest and only son like their brother. Did he give his father half as much trouble as their brother did? When they found out about his mother, they surrounded him in a chorus of pity—their mother had died, too!—allowing their sensational hands to touch his jacket, his hair, his cheeks. It was as much as he could do to keep his trousers presentable in the midst of them and their intoxicating scents.

—Father, did you hear that? Agnes demanded. This poor boy is half an orphan.

The Bishop pursed his lips. He seemed to treat Agnes rather as Morgan's father had treated Emily when she was going through her Difficult Stage, with a certain firmness underpinned by indulgence.

Morgan tried to imagine how it must have been for Dr. Sebastian to grow up amongst them, with the addition of beautiful, bolshie Flora. They spoke of Dr. Sebastian as if he were still an incorrigible boy. The picture corresponded in no way with the man who had brought Morgan down on the train. He couldn't help feeling that something about the portrait was untoward. The whole evening was ludicrous, but then so much had been ludicrous lately that he saw no reason to resist this.