Wilberforce (53 page)

—If daddy is baddy, you'll go maddy.

A blow—ringing inside and out all at once. Then Lucy stood before him, lips more red than he could stand.

—I swear I'll give you a smack you'll never forget, she whispered.

Then someone was pulling her away and his husband was leading him by the waist to the upstairs dance floor. It wasn't a dance, though, was it?

—Where have you got him?

—St. Anne's.

People were talking and something was hurting on his face. Had it been Lucy that stung him?

—Come on, said the arm round his waist. Easy.

The arm pulled him up the way Rees had pulled him when he slid down the grass, when his own arm didn't work. But his arms worked now, and he was holding on to the bathroom basin, and the man was pressing a wet flannel against his face, and it was like every kind of reprieve there was to have. Except Spaulding wasn't having a reprieve. His face was still broken open, the blood goring onto the floor. Had they put it back inside when they buried him? It wasn't right for him to be mauled that way. To die was bad enough, but to have his head ripped open, and for nothing except being brave enough to climb all the way up there and cut down the rope to let Rees away from … Why couldn't he have caught him? If Spaulding had fallen a foot closer, all that blood would have stayed inside.

He was being leaned over the toilet, and it was all pouring out of his mouth, that precious casketed gold, down the pipes, never to return, and it had been so very good going in. His cheeks stung, his nose full, his throat tight against everything.

—Is he really dead forever?

He couldn't stop it. He couldn't stop anything.

—It would seem.

—But he was so alive! He had everything … He was
alive
!

He was being lifted to his feet and supported to the bed. He collapsed across it and clung as it spun, and a weight like a slab of marble fell upon him.

*   *   *

A candle in darkness. A ghost in dressing gown loomed giant above him. He gasped.

—Take this, the ghost said.

A warm hand pressed pellet into one palm, glass into the other.

—A phial. Like Romeo. Will everyone think I'm dead?

He put the pellet on his tongue and sipped from the glass.

—I think perhaps you'll wish you were in the morning.

A ghost of a smile on that face. Could ghosts have ghosts of smiles? Did that make them doubly spectral, or did a ghost of a ghost add up to something alive?

—Lie down.

His limbs obeyed. Was he possessed? The ghost touched him, rubbing his forehead and holding it. What did it want with him?

His forehead warmed beneath the hand, tingling, but not like the slap. And then a kind of cloak was upon him. Sleep was coming, but it held no danger, not beneath this cloak. Here only the benign, the naïve, the …

 

42

He sat at the Bishop's breakfast table wishing he were dead.

—I'd offer you the hair of the dog, the Bishop said, but somehow I feel that would be irresponsible.

He said grace and poured black coffee into Morgan's cup. Morgan had never tasted coffee, but the smell of it was the only thing in the room that did not make him want to retch. He sipped it tentatively; it did not burn his tongue or turn his stomach. A slice of toast clanged onto his plate.

—Eat that, the Bishop said, with or without the butter.

Definitely without. The very word
butter
sent an oleaginous shiver down his neck. The Bishop scraped marmalade across his own toast with the vigor of one stripping metal. He chewed at a most offensive volume.

—I propose we begin right away, the Bishop said, before you wake up and start thinking again.

—Sir, whatever you're going to do, please could you do it as quickly as possible? I know it's part of the punishment to make you wait, but to be perfectly honest, I can't endure it today. Not without going mad.

The Bishop made a sound like a snort.

—Can't have that. I'm not kitted out for Bedlam. Right, it's settled.

Breakfast seemed to be over, and they'd only just sat down.

—Breakfast, then torture.

*   *   *

—Sit down before you fall down, the Bishop said as they reached the study.

Morgan collapsed into one of the spindle chairs. The Bishop adjusted the curtains, admitting a painful quantity of sunlight, and then sat in the other chair. Morgan braced himself. First the inquisition, hopefully brief. Next the rebuke. Finally, the punishment. He'd no idea how he'd cope in his present state, but waiting would be worse. The Bishop folded his hands and stared at them. Time passed.

—I'm very sorry, sir, Morgan began.

It usually helped if you indicated your intention not to make excuses.

—I've no excuse.

The Bishop looked up from his knees.

—Perhaps you'd like to tell me what you're sorry for?

Had he done other things he'd no memory now of doing? Stumblingly, he forced himself to expand the apology. He was sorry for having behaved so badly at dinner, for having drunk so much, for having spoken in such an ungentlemanly manner to the Bishop's daughters. It was all insult upon injury, he knew, as the Bishop was being so charitable as to keep him a few days until his father could sort out where he was to go.

—Oh, for goodness' sake, Wilberforce! I thought we were past this.

He felt he might blub again, and in the light of morning!

—It isn't safe to leave you on your own, it would appear, even to sleep.

—But I didn't do anything in my sleep! I didn't even—

He blushed.

—No, the Bishop said tartly, I should think you didn't in that condition.

He wished the lid of the tomb that had pressed last night would fall and crush him now. He wished another rafter in the godforsaken barn would fall upon him and obliterate him. Was that what he had been hoping without knowing it when he took Polly there? That somehow the business that had gone wrong before would go right this time and take him where he deserved to go?

—You know perfectly well I'm not keeping you here until your father makes arrangements. Don't you?

He nodded, willing his eyes to clear.

—Then let us hear you say why you are here.

He swallowed.

—I don't know, sir.

—Try.

Refusing to release him, refusing to let him drift or disguise.

—I've gone wrong somewhere.

—Yes?

—And everything's ruined.

—Everything?

—Everything I can see. Except …

—Except?

—Except you act as though it isn't entirely.

—Do I?

—Like Dr. Sebastian acted about St. Stephen's … Is it really as bad as the girls made it sound?

—I've the impression you don't think St. Stephen's is beyond hope.

—It can't be! There've been some messes, I grant you, but it isn't all rotten. There's plenty of good there!

—James will be relieved to hear it.

—All it needs is someone to sort it out. It wants that!

—When you say
sort it out
, are you using the term as you used it yesterday when speaking of your father?

He felt the toast crawling his throat.

—I suppose so.

The Bishop nodded.

—And what should this sorting out entail?

—I don't know, sir. I'm not Dr. Sebastian!

The Bishop pressed his fingers together and waited for Morgan to continue.

—Well, the first thing he ought to do is sack some people.

—Such as?

Morgan caught himself before falling into the trap.

—If Dr. Sebastian wants a turncoat in the Academy, he can have the nerve to ask the questions himself, and then he can ask someone else because I'm not a sneak and I'm no longer a pupil.

The Bishop tapped his fingers:

—You've made a great number of assumptions. Do you care to find out if any are true?

—Of course, they're true!

—Has anyone told you you're no longer a pupil at St. Stephen's?

Morgan boggled at him.

—Second, if you support James's efforts, how is it turning traitor to aid him?

He continued to boggle.

—Third, I thought I made it clear that what passes between you and me is strictly confidential. The seal of the confessional, if you like.

—You didn't make that clear at all.

—Then I apologize, the Bishop said. Now, I think we ought not divert ourselves any longer. James will sort out St. Stephen's. Who is going to sort out you?

Morgan looked away, his voice suddenly husky:

—I don't think I can be sorted out. And that isn't feeling sorry for myself. It's the truth.

Sometimes when you couldn't look at people, it helped to look just above them. Then they thought you were looking at them, but you didn't actually have to.

—You aren't beyond hope.

The Bishop leaned forward and put a hand on Morgan's wrist. The gesture unleashed all he'd worked to repel, and his eyes surrendered to everything English boys were trained to resist.

—I wish that were true, sir.

—It is true.

—If someone could sort me out, it would be a miracle. But I don't believe in miracles.

—That doesn't mean they never happen, the Bishop said gently.

—If you … knew someone … who could sort out a person like me … It's much worse than I've said. It's a ruin, one disaster on top of another … but if you knew someone, perhaps …

—I know someone.

Morgan reined in his breath. He stopped looking above the Bishop's head and allowed his gaze to fall to the man's face. Was he misunderstanding this as he misunderstood so much?

—You haven't misunderstood.

—But we only met two days ago. I'm nothing to you. And what about your health?

The Bishop sucked in his cheeks:

—If you understood all my motivations, provided they could be understood, what difference would it make?

What difference
would
it make? Either he suspected the man of cynical designs, or he trusted the man to deal rightly with him. Everything else was decoration.

—Your daughter said you were a commander.

—Besides a bishop, you mean?

—It's what she called your work.

—Spiritual direction? That doesn't involve commanding. If anything, it involves standing beside people and helping them work out how the Holy Spirit is directing them. But you needn't worry about that.

The Bishop stood as if to signal the end of the interview.

—I've no intention of trapping you or otherwise inflicting religious notions you find so distressing.

—They don't distress me—

—You've asked two things of me, nothing more. Yesterday you asked me to stand with you. Have I managed that?

He thought of yesterday, of the Bishop standing by while he behaved … however he had behaved … not losing his temper, not granting the girls' requests to send him to bed; he thought of the figure in dressing gown bringing him water and aspirin; he thought of the Bishop this morning, shepherding him from breakfast to the study, standing now with him in the light that slammed through the windows.

—Yes, sir.

—And today you've asked me to help sort you out. Is that right?

Morgan breathed in, and out.

—Will you put yourself in my hands?

Was he not already in those hands?

—Entirely in my hands.

Could he? The Bishop opened his palms, wide and creased.

—You don't know these hands, but then you didn't always know your father's hands. Did you?

Morgan shook his head.

—Yes, sir. I mean, I'll do it.

The Bishop struck a gaze deep into him. He extended his right hand to Morgan. Feeling it might transmit electricity, Morgan took it.

It was warm and dry. It clasped his, like a tutor who proposed to work him past his current abilities, like a father who knew him better than he knew himself and would not stand for inferior performance.

—This isn't a performance, the Bishop said.

Had he spoken aloud again?

—It will go much easier if you can keep this moment in that head of yours and remember that you have put yourself in my hands, voluntarily and with no coercion. Remember that this is your project, not mine. You're free to leave whenever you wish.

Morgan felt himself grinning.

—I suppose I do get confused rather quickly.

—Only when you start behaving like the sullen schoolboy we saw so much of yesterday.

Morgan took back his hand. This was going to be unpleasant.

—Right, the Bishop said, tapping the desk, if we are to go on together, you'd best be called by your Christian name.

A surge of alarm.

—Does that distress you?

—No, sir. And I really wish you'd stop—

—It's Morgan, isn't it?

He could only nod. The only man besides his father to call him that had been … Mr. Grieves. And how long ago?

—I must now obey my physician for an interval. In the meantime, you may take as much exercise as you can stand, without diverting my staff please, and then you may sit in the library and begin your written account.

—Of what, sir?

—Of everything that needs sorting out.

—Oh, sir! I couldn't possibly write it down in words.

—Is your hand deformed?

With that the Bishop unlocked the study door and held it. Feeling suddenly dejected, Morgan dragged himself from the room.

—Courage, the Bishop said. The port will have finished punishing you by lunchtime, I should think.

He felt a flush of shame at the word
punishing
, as if he were a small boy shy of the subject. They reached the corridor, where Mrs. Hallows stood, apparently awaiting the Bishop.

—And, Morgan, the man said, only your right hand today. These eyes need gentle treatment.