Hubert felt a tingling at the back of his neck. Although neither of them made any move, he was always to say to himself afterwards that they would have kissed then if no one had come along. But someone did: Louis in his frilled shirt and chequered stockings, smiling, swinging his arms.
‘So you hide in the woods,’ he said amiably. ‘Come back to the festa, Hilda. There’s to be a game of Old Mother Broomstick.’
‘Oh, that I mustn’t miss.’
She started for the house with Louis at her side and Hubert following.
Father Matthew Lyall struck a phosphorus and lit the gas-lamp in his room above the express-house. At first sight it was very much a priest’s room: small, low-ceilinged, barely furnished, containing indeed only a bed, a chair, a writing-table, a press and a chest-of-drawers in unvarnished wood, a prie-dieu and some hundreds of books. The walls, done over with a dark wash, were bare except for the legally-required crucifix and pious picture—in this case a Virgin and Child identical with millions to be seen throughout Christendom in the habitations of the people. The bed was somewhat larger than one person might have been expected to have a use for, but Father Lyall was a restless sleeper and needed the extra space, or so he would say. The chair was unusually comfortable, but that was no more than the due of a man given to meditation. It was far less obvious that the books, except for a few dozen in unlettered bindings, never left their places on the shelves, and not obvious at all that the press hid several suits of decidedly secular clothing, a couple of bottles of old geneva, and a store of preventative sheaths.
Lyall screwed up his legs and yawned: it was late, past ten o’clock, and supper had not been an easy occasion. That morning, Dame Anvil had responded with a violent display of passion to the news, delivered jointly by her husband and Lyall, that the alteration of her younger son was proposed. At table, Master Anvil had addressed her only on indifferent matters, and so she had had to keep her emotions to herself, or rather had not spoken of them: she had made them plain enough in other ways. Lyall took her behaviour for little more than a piece of feminine self-assertion, and it would certainly be useful to him if he were to decide to carry further his obstruction of Abbot Thynne’s wishes; at the same time, it had done nothing to improve his relations with Anvil, who had made it equally plain that he saw Lyall as the instrument, if not the instigator, of the lady’s capriccios.
But (the priest told himself ) he must not be uncharitable towards somebody who suffered: if Dame Anvil really felt one-tenth of what she professed to feel, she was to be pitied. He would pray for her mind to be eased, not an altogether straightforward task. Praying for her had recently become apt to turn without apparent transition into thinking about her, thinking thoughts too that ill suited the occasion.
He had taken off his gown and was just unfastening his collar when he heard quiet footsteps on the steep right-angled stairway that ran up from the corner of the express-house. There was a tap at his door.
‘Who is it?’
‘Dame Anvil. May I come in?’
Discretion pointed two opposite ways: for her to be in his room at night was bad enough in itself, but what might she not do if refused entry in her present state? Inclination settled the matter.
‘Of course,’ he said.
Carrying a bare candle, she stood on the threshold as if there was nothing left of whatever impulse had brought her so far. The priest hurried over, shut the door behind her and took and blew out the candle.
‘Dame, this is most unwise. What if you were discovered here?’
She smiled, showing her fine teeth. ‘You’re my spiritual guide, Father.’
‘Much heed your husband would pay to that.’
‘My husband has gone to the gaming-rooms down Tyburn Lane. He won’t be back before midnight.’
‘The express is below.’
‘He walked. And nobody in the house knows where I am.’
‘What do you want with me? Can’t it wait till the morning?’
‘Come now, Father, you know what I want with you, and if it could wait I should have let it.’
‘Very well. My excuses, dame, but you startled me a little. Please sit down. And try to be calm.’
‘I am calm. I haven’t come here to say all over again what I said this morning. I’ve come to ask you about something I didn’t know then. When my husband told me that he and all the men at St Cecilia’s, that everyone concerned had agreed on this thing, you were silent. And you were silent when I called it a barbarity and an abomination and fit only for Turks and whatever else I called it. But I’ve since learned that you had already refused to sign the document authorizing it.’
‘Your husband and I had differed on the matter earlier. It would have been improper for me to continue the argument in your presence.’
‘I understand that, Father. It wasn’t what I meant to ask you about. There was something to the effect that you had some days to decide finally whether or not to give your consent. You will of course persist in withholding it?’
‘I’ve not yet had time to consider the issues fully.’
‘But what is there to consider?’
‘The . . . interests of the child, your own feelings . . .’
‘You know what they are, the interests and the feelings and everything else. What could induce you to change your mind and sign? What made you refuse at the outset?’
The answer to the first of her questions was easy to formulate but hard to deliver. The true answer to the second was in the same case, but false answers could at least be attempted. With the best show of firmness he could put on, Lyall said, ‘The first concern of us all, as ever, is our duty to God. We speak of that as of a simple and obvious thing, and sometimes indeed it is so. But at other times we have to walk with caution and seek for guidance. That guidance may come—’
‘Oh, is that all?’
He did not need to look at her to feel the weight of her disappointment.
‘You must allow me to know more of these matters than you, my child.’
‘Yes, I suppose I must. One last question, Father. If at the end of this period you were to remain steadfast in your refusal, what then?’
‘Then,’ he said, with real firmness this time, ‘I should soon be removed from the office which gives import to my refusal, and a more pliant person would be substituted.’
‘My husband would be compelled to dismiss you and to appoint . . .?’
‘No compulsion would be necessary. Master Anvil is an exceedingly devout Christian, and is known to be one. A word from the right quarter acquainting him with the divine will in this business, and that would be an end of it.’
She nodded without speaking. After a moment she said in a lifeless tone,
‘There must be some right of appeal, to the Archbishop or Convocation.’
‘Right of appeal, well and good, but no surety that an appeal will not be dismissed without even being heard. No substantial grounds for appeal that I can discern in this case. And unsuccessful appellants are not well regarded in our polity.’
‘In other words, you’ll do nothing.’
‘If I thought I could be of the least—’
‘Enough.’
There were tears on Dame Anvil’s face as she left the chair and made slowly for the door. Father Lyall barred her way, taking her gently by the upper arms. She lowered her forehead on to his chest.
‘My child,’ he said several times. To begin with he said it like a priest, but only to begin with. When she lifted her face in one of her brief timid glances, he kissed her. Her lips shook, then steadied, then responded, then withdrew.
‘But you’re . . .’
‘A sinner,’ he said, smoothing her tears away with his fingertips. ‘That’s nothing so terrible, I promise you. There are plenty of us in this world.’
Some time later, a voice rose in what sounded like, but was not, a theatrical prelude to a sneeze, followed by what sounded like, but was not, a long cry of grief. ‘Blessed Lord Jes
us,’ said Margaret Anvil without much clarity. ‘What happened to me then?’
Holding her in his arms on the bed, Lyall made an instant deduction, one that called for no great cleverness or insight, merely for some experience of married women of the higher social condition. ‘It was love,’ he said.
‘Love? But love is what we . . .’
He put his mouth on hers. They lay there a few more minutes in the dim light from the lowered gas-lamp. The tower clock struck eleven.
‘Father, something troubles me.’
‘I see no bar to your calling me Matthew now.’
‘Yes, Matthew. Something troubles me.’
‘Don’t begin to repent just yet. Have your sin out. It will have lasted such a short time.’
‘It isn’t the sin,’ she said urgently, pulling away from him. ‘God will take care of that. What you think of me is important too.’
‘Of course it is. I think you’re beautiful.’
‘Oh, Matthew, do you? But you distract me. What I must say to you is this.’
For the moment, however, Margaret did not say what she must say, presumably because, in one quick movement, Lyall had thrown the bed-covers aside, altogether exposing her naked form. Her right hand flew to cover her crotch; her left forearm went across her breasts. Without touching her, without stirring, Lyall looked her in the eyes. Her head jerked away, then slowly came back till she could glance down at her own body. Another jerk, another return, this time to Lyall’s face and away again. After a minute of this, she was looking straight back at him, eye to eye, and her arms were at her sides.
‘I must make sure you are beautiful, all of you,’ said Lyall. ‘I may have spoken too lightly, out of nothing more than instinct . . . Well, if so, it was sound enough. You are entirely beautiful. But your most beautiful part . . . is here.’
He reached out and stroked her temple and cheek. She caught his hand, kissed it, and said in a shaky voice,
‘Nobody has ever looked at me like that before.’
‘You haven’t allowed it?’
‘No, just—nobody has ever looked at me.’
‘I’m glad I was the first.’
‘So am I.’
After putting back the covers and waiting for a moment, he said, ‘Well?’
‘Forgive me?’
‘There was something you must say to me, I thought.’
‘Oh. Oh yes. But it seems of less import now.’
‘Since you were distracted from whatever it is by my telling you you were beautiful, you may forget it for ever and not ruffle me.’
‘No. No, I must say. Here it is. Matthew, it may seem to you that all of my talk of Hubert and the document was a pretext, and I called on you only to come to your bed.’
‘That is not so.’
‘No, it’s not so, but do you believe it’s not so?’
‘I believe it.’
‘Swear that you do. Swear by Almighty God.’
‘I so swear,’ said the priest, making the Sign of the Cross as he lay naked on his back. Nor was this a false oath: it was a quarter of an hour or more since he had discarded the view he had just denied. ‘Now, is that better?’
‘Half better. Only half better, because I must talk to you again of Hubert and the document; I must try again to persuade you to help me. And this may make you believe something different, but still bad. Matthew, I didn’t come to your bed to make it harder for you not to be persuaded.’
Both manners and policy dictated his answer to that. ‘No, Margaret, I’m sure you didn’t.’
‘Are you? Your voice isn’t the same. This time you’re thinking. You spoke without thought before. Now, you consider whether you’ve heard the truth or not. Isn’t that so, Matthew?’
‘Yes.’ Lyall had indeed been thinking, to the effect that only a bold and devious woman would have ventured to raise openly the point about persuasion, let alone press it, and that Margaret Anvil was not bold and very likely was not devious either.
‘Say, then.’
‘I swear by Almighty God that I truly believe that you came to my bed out of no ulterior motive.’
She sighed but said nothing.
‘Where’s your persuasion?’ he asked after a time.
‘Here it is, now that you ask—to begin it at once would have been too vulgar. As Hubert’s mother I have a duty to protect him, a duty laid on me by God and nature. But, in this world, what can a woman do? I must have a man by me who will—’
‘You have a man. I’ll help you, so far as I’m able. That may not be far, but there’s something in the wording of that document which gives room for debate, and two years ago a friend of mine was in the Archbishop’s directorate. I must discover if he’s still there.’
‘You said nothing of this before. All was hopeless.’
‘That was before.’
‘And now you see things differently.’
‘Yes.’
This was broadly true. What he did not see differently was Hubert’s interests: fame, money, position, divine favour and—hardly less important—ecclesiastical favour were surely a rather better than fair exchange for the sexual and parental functions: the one would in this case never be missed, and the other, to judge by the families one came across, brought no great joy to anybody. It was now clear, however, that the feelings of the boy’s mother, reasonable or not, extravagantly expressed or not, were as near genuine as most feelings were. This and the fact that he was in bed with her had done something to Father Lyall’s hitherto lukewarm, half-whimsical desire to flout the Abbot and what stood behind the Abbot.
‘When I . . .’ Margaret stopped and tried again. ‘You said it was love then. You remember.’
‘Yes, of course.’
‘I don’t understand, Father.’
He waited for her to correct the appellation, but she did not. When he put his arm round her shoulders, she looked nervously into his eyes and away again at once, but turned towards him.
‘You must be patient, my child,’ he said.
Chapter Three
‘Will it hurt?’ asked Hubert.
Tobias Anvil shook his head emphatically. ‘You will feel nothing. You’ll be deeply asleep when it takes place, and afterwards—soft bandages, soothing ointments . . . For just a few days. Then you may leave your bed and never think of it again. The surgeons will be the most skilful in the land. I talked to one yesterday: an old friend of mine. In these times it’s not regarded as a serious action: they have so much experience. There’s no risk, even of pain.’
‘Where does their experience come from, papa? You told me this was rarely done.’
‘With children it is. It’s sometimes necessary with . . . others, for their own good.’
‘Their own good?’
‘And that of the State. You needn’t concern yourself with them. Have you any more questions, my boy?’
‘When will it happen?’
‘Within a fortnight or so. By then you’ll be quite used to the idea.’
‘Yes, papa, I expect I shall.’
‘Good . . . Well, Hubert, you may leave me now, and consider what I’ve said to you. When you’ve done so, you may find there are other things you want to ask. Come to me and I’ll answer them.’
Tobias patted his son’s head affectionately and saw him to the library door. Outside, Hubert was at once approached by a servant, no doubt set there for the purpose, and asked to attend his mother in the bower at the end of the garden. He thanked the man and, with lowered head, went slowly down the curving staircase, across the hall, through the parlour and into the open. He was trying to think, and finding it hard. His father had been at great pains to make himself understood; Hubert believed everything he had been told, but he had not been told anything about the most important part of what was to happen, about how the world would seem to him when he was a man in years. There seemed to be no words for that part, only for what it was like: to be living in a country of which nothing was known except its position. r />
Hubert passed the orangery and the aviary, went down the walk between the lily-ponds and reached the bower, a recess in a grassy bank under a hooped wrought-iron framework entwined with climbing plants. Here his mother sat in a canvas chair with Father Lyall standing beside her. Not for the first time since arriving home that morning, Hubert was struck by how pretty she looked, how much like his earliest memories of her. Although he had left her barely half an hour before, he put his arms round her neck and kissed her.
‘Your father told you everything, dearest?’
‘Yes, mama: everything he could. I followed it.’
‘What did he say?’
He sat down at her feet on a three-legged wooden stool. ‘That I had been chosen by God and it was a most notable honour and I must be grateful and it was for the glory of God and of His Holy Church. And I should be admired and respected all over the world. But I couldn’t have a wife or children. But it wouldn’t hurt, being altered. But I . . .’
There were no words again. His mother drew in her breath sharply, as if startled. Father Lyall said in a grating voice,
‘I’ll leave you together.’
‘No, Father, please stay, I beg you.’
Hubert was glad that the priest, whom he thought amusing and intelligent, had not left: at the moment, he would have welcomed the company of almost anyone he knew. But he wondered why the two had arranged beforehand their piece of talk about leaving and staying.
‘Papa said’—he found he could go on now—‘that it was a pity I couldn’t have a wife, but that there were very many men without a wife, like priests and monks and friars, and I should be better off than they, because I should never want a wife and they often do, papa said. Do you ever want a wife, Father?’
‘Yes, Hubert, sometimes.’
‘Does it make you unhappy, that you mustn’t have one?’
‘Again sometimes, but then I remember my promises to God, and I pray to Him to comfort me, and then I . . . But there are priests and others who are often unhappy, I believe.’