Wilberforce (54 page)

 

43

The Bishop scanned the page Morgan had painfully produced and then turned it over. Finding the reverse blank, he collapsed into the chair behind his desk.

—Morgan, he said.

Morgan winced at the alien sound of his own name, and spoken with such disappointment. The Bishop pursed his lips and allowed his gaze to return to the document.

—Unsuitable conduct? Whom did you allow to write this? The sullen schoolboy?

He disliked the appellation. In point of fact, it was a civilized and legible accounting. It had seemed decent when he read it over. He didn't recall anything sullen about it.

The Bishop set the paper wearily on the blotter.

—If you insist, I suppose we must take you as we find you. For the moment.

He poked in a drawer, produced a pair of reading glasses, apparently alien, and placed them on his nose.

—Item one: unsuitable conduct last night. Item two: unsuitable conduct on Patron's Day. Item three: general disobedience. Item four: failing to honor one's father.

The Bishop peered over the glasses:

—
One's
, Morgan?

—What's wrong with that?

—Can you not write
my father
?

Morgan had nothing to say. The Bishop resumed his recitation.

—Item five: sloth. Item six: luxuria. Item seven: failing always to tell the truth. Item eight: miscellaneous unsuitable conduct. You've quite a flair for generalization, haven't you, boy?

And he was back with Burton-Lee, facing him as he'd faced him the final term of his first year, the term Burton interposed himself between Morgan and Silk, the term Burton oppressed Morgan with the tacit goal of shielding him from a more perilous oppression in Study No. 4.

—Not much of a sorting out, is it? the Bishop continued. Disobedience, disrespect, laziness, lying, lust, and behaving in an incorrect manner at an incorrect time. How very pedestrian!

Was the Bishop mocking him, or was he disappointed in Morgan's misdeeds? Perhaps he was accustomed to dealing with criminals.

—It isn't murder, I grant you.

—Would that it were! the Bishop retorted. At least then
one
could grapple with it. Instead you've provided a most insidious accounting. When was the last time you told the unvarnished truth?

—I haven't lied! I don't lie.

Unless …

—Let us see if you can tell the truth about the first item, the Bishop said. Let's move beyond this delightful euphemism of yours and hear exactly what was unsuitable in your conduct last night.

Morgan shifted in the chair. The spindles were hitting his back in an awkward place. How had he got himself trapped in a verbal confession, before a bishop, in a locked study? He tried to summon the little courage at his command. The Bishop was still sitting there, as if he had nothing to do the entire afternoon except wait for Morgan to explain matters to his liking.

—I drank far too much, Morgan said. And then I began to say things I didn't mean.

—Didn't you?

—Of course not!

—Truth, Morgan.

—I …

—What do you remember saying?

—I poked my nose into the conversation about your family. It was none of my business.

—Perhaps not, the Bishop said, but I don't recall your issuing advice. I seem to recall your saying you wouldn't like it if your own sisters interfered in your private life the way that my daughters were interfering with their brother's.

—It wasn't for me to say.

—Why not? the Bishop replied. They were carrying on appallingly. It did them good to hear the impression they were giving.

Stunned, Morgan looked for traps.

—Your remarks were certainly unwelcome, but they weren't untrue, and as far as I can see they were heartfelt. Same for your spirited defense of St. Stephen's.

—It was so awkward, sir. I couldn't bear to hear them talk that way about it, or about …

—Go on.

The Magnetron held him in its heating, hurting beam.

—I lost my temper. I shouldn't have said all that about what happened.

—You were there when that boy died?

Morgan nodded.

—What did you say his name was?

—Spaulding.

It wasn't right to say the name out loud.

—Spaulding, the Bishop repeated. Did you know his Christian name?

—Charles.

—Charles Spaulding, may he rest in peace.

He was speaking of someone else, not the Spaulding Morgan knew, the person he'd tackled across the football pitch, the person who'd held him so deliciously in the Hermes Balcony, the person whose head—

—So, the Bishop said quietly, you were close enough to know his Christian name. You saw him die. Had you ever seen anyone die before?

This wasn't what they were meant to be talking about.

—It's exactly what we're meant to be talking about, the Bishop said.

—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.