The Fall of Doctor Onslow

by Frances Vernon

  ‘Very well,’ said Christian. ‘But are you not enjoying the water?’

  ‘It’s passable, after being so hot.’

  They spent some ten minutes in the river, dipping and paddling, and shyly flicking water at each other, laughing as they did so. Then Jemmy decided he was growing cold, and Christian followed him out.

  ‘We must allow the sun to dry us before we put on our clothes,’ he said. To be naked with Jemmy on the grass, he thought, would be better even than being naked with him in the river. He planned to weave a wreath of flowers, and place it on Jemmy’s head, and call him a shepherd of Arcadia.

  ‘Pity we didn’t think to bring towels.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Christian, speaking uncertainly.

  Jemmy seemed to have lost all self-consciousness about being naked. He stood stretching upwards, yawning, his flanks adorned with drops of water; and Christian stared at him. New feelings were roused in him, but old words came to his lips.

  ‘Do you know how very beautiful you are?’ As he said this, Christian stepped forward, and laid a finger, then a hand, on the small of Jemmy’s back. ‘You have come straight to me from out of ancient Hellas.’

  Christian’s penis, soft and gentle throughout their time in the river, was now quite suddenly raised and huge.

  ‘Let me kiss you.’

  Jemmy felt the active penis brush against him. He had never rejected the light kisses Christian planted on his forehead, never objected to praise of his beauty, and Christian now waited, breathing stertorously, with his eyes narrowed and his face flushed.

  ‘If you want to kiss someone, you ought to kiss a girl.’ Jemmy moved away from Christian’s hand, which had descended from his back to the upper slope of his right buttock.

  ‘Jemmy!’ Gasping, Christian saw that the boy’s own penis was erect, almost fully erect as he struggled into his drawers. ‘Jemmy.’

  ‘I don’t want to kiss you, that’s all.’

  ‘But I can tell you do!’

  ‘I don’t!’ Jemmy pulled on his trousers and buttoned them, and after a moment, Christian realised that he too must put on his clothes, wet and shaking though he was.

  When they were both dressed, he said to Jemmy:

  ‘If I have offended you, will you forgive me?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jemmy, not looking at him.

  ‘You will still be my friend?’

  ‘Yes, but I’d like to go home now.’

  Christian did not believe that he was forgiven. He was sure that Jemmy would seek to avoid him now, sure that he had ruined everything by one sudden piece of Charton-like behaviour. The drive back to Salisbury was silent, and when they reached Jemmy’s mother’s lodgings, Jemmy confirmed Christian’s suspicions by jumping out of the dog-cart without offering his hand for a squeeze or his forehead for a peck. It was the end, thought Christian.

  12

  To Christian, the thought that he had behaved like Onslow was almost worse than the thought that Jemmy would no longer wish to see him. He had believed that he was incapable of feeling simple lust, that his need to worship a beautiful boy had everything to do with the Ideal and nothing to do with the penis. It was true that in ‘Hellas’ there was physical love, but Christian believed that it was somehow quite a different thing from the sexual indulgences of Charton boys, especially the indulgences of Onslow and Bright. It was a more passionate version of the keen chaste love he had felt for Jemmy till that blazing day, a holy celebration of nudity such as he had tried and failed to make.

  In the few days before he left for Switzerland, Christian tried to persuade himself that the desires he felt beside the Avon had also been a glorious and noble thing, but accustomed though he was to self-deceit, he was unable to do so. It was all too recent, he could remember it too clearly, he knew too well it was not love of the heavenly Ideal he felt, not when Jemmy’s penis had been erect too. And yet Jemmy had rightly, despite his own involuntary excitement, rejected him for betraying ‘Hellas’.

  The dark Onslow-self inside him must be rooted out and crushed – like Onslow, who must be responsible for its growing inside him.

  *

  Although when he went abroad Christian had no conscious plan of what to do with it, he took the evidence against his old headmaster with him to Switzerland. For several days he took it out whenever he was alone, and contemplated it – it seemed to him that if he were not careful, he would one day express himself in similar terms, and talk of sofas rather than of Plato. He thought of how he had treasured these pieces of paper, and yet till now had never thought of taking any action – he had been able to ignore the sordidness of others’ lives. When Bright first made his revelation, it had not once occurred to him to send the incriminating pieces of paper to Charton’s trustees, or anything of that kind. He had accepted Bright’s demand that he keep silence, and had merely become a cynic.

  Even now, Christian wondered whether he were capable of taking any kind of action. Mixed with his increased hatred of Onslow’s memory there was a new, distinct sympathy for him, the sympathy of one who could understand the power of unwanted impulses: but when he thought of giving way to this sympathy, and maintaining silence, Christian felt panic. To continue helping conceal the evil, as Bright had made him swear he would, would be to send himself down the criminal path at the end of which ‘Hellas’ was a brothel. He needed to teach himself what happened to men who corrupted the sweetest of dreams, yet after many days and nights of worrying, he could not decide whether he had a real right to act.

  In the end, after he had been abroad for a week, Christian decided that he would explain a part of the situation and seek advice. He reviewed his acquaintance with considerable care, and the man he at length chose to confide in was Mr Fergus Mildmay, one of the Fellows of Magdalen who had organised the trip to Switzerland.

  Mr Mildmay was a don who seemed to regard undergraduates not as the drawback to an academic life, but as one of its chief pleasures. He and Christian had had several discussions about Greek art and philosophy, the Phaedrus and the Symposium, and understood each other very well. No mentor could have been more different from Onslow than Mr Mildmay, thought Christian – and yet, Mildmay was also a clergyman, and interested in young men. He was tall and ugly, with a gentle tongue and a kind heart, but rigid principles.

  One morning when all other members of their party were out on the mountain, Christian told Mildmay that he was in sore need of advice, and then haltingly explained his dilemma: Bright had sworn him to secrecy, yet he could not be sure that in such a case as this, it was right to keep his word. He then described the case as delicately as he could, without looking Mildmay in the eye. Mildmay listened to him in astonished silence, asking only whether or not he had proof, and then, forgetting the sprained ankle which had recently confined him to the house, he jumped up. At last he said, staring across at the mountains and nursing his foot:

  ‘My dear Anstey-Ward, I cannot tell you, cannot tell you, how sorry I am. God bless my soul! That you should have discovered your own headmaster, a doctor of divinity, in such a – a – I cannot find words to express it. No, indeed!’ ‘God bless my soul’ was the strongest expression Mildmay ever used.

  ‘But what am I to do, sir?’ said Christian. ‘It has been preying on my conscience for so long. I suppose I ought not to have consulted you, because of course to do so I had to break Bright’s trust in me, but I know that if you think I ought to keep his trust from now on you won’t say a word more about it.’

  ‘No, no! It is your positive duty to break the poor boy’s trust, Anstey-Ward, in such a case as this.’

  There was a long pause. Christian felt oddly cold and flat now that he had confessed Onslow’s sin instead of his own – he thought of Jemmy, whom he had of course not mentioned, and wondered what would happen. He had suspected that Mildmay would not say he must keep his word to Bright, but the consideration that Bright had spoken in confidence had nonetheless weighed quite heavily with him: for eighteen months he had acc
epted the schoolboy code of honour with regard to not telling tales, and it had been hard to release himself from it, even under the pressure of his own needs.

  ‘When you say it is my duty to break his trust,’ he said slowly at last, as Mr Mildmay continued to shake his head to himself in private distress, ‘do you mean for the sake of the boys at Charton – the very bad effect Dr Onslow has had on them?’ He continued quickly: ‘I saw things which I don’t like to describe to you – the endemic moral corruption – it was everywhere.’ He wanted to talk about this very much, quite as much as about Onslow.

  Mildmay stared at him. ‘Dr Onslow’s personal failings are inexcusable, but yet that does not mean he has not been an admirable schoolmaster. He is celebrated, justly so, for the moral reformation which he has wrought at Charton!’

  Christian was astonished by Mildmay’s seeming unwillingness to believe in the appalling state of Charton, in view of the way in which he had quickly been persuaded that Onslow himself had enjoyed a love-affair with a pupil. The mere mention of written proof had been enough. Then he remembered that Mildmay had been educated by tutors, not at a public school, till he went up to Oxford.

  ‘As far as this is concerned,’ he said, ‘there has been no reformation, I promise you.’

  Mildmay licked his lips, unable to tolerate the pictures of dormitory orgies that sprang into his mind. ‘I cannot – cannot believe – I think the question is rather that a clergyman of the Church of England has shown himself in the most shocking way to be unfit to hold his office. Anstey-Ward, no consideration of – of what I might call merely worldly standards of honour, of confidence and so forth, ought to hold you back from exposing him. I am very, very sorry for it, but indeed it is your duty now to act against him!’

  ‘Exposing him? Publicly?’ cried Christian, suddenly appalled. ‘But I can’t, sir – I can’t! I could not take any action – what action? writing to The Times – to the trustees, the Prime Minister? You must see it’s impossible!’ He could not bear the suggestion that he might bring Onslow down personally, and in the most brutal possible way. Even though he had briefly considered doing it, he knew now it would have to be someone else, someone who had never been his pupil and did not share his passion, preferably Mildmay.

  Mildmay said sternly: ‘Will you not even demand privately that he resign? He cannot be allowed to remain in an honourable position and one moreover where he is exposed to temptation. Even though he has done much good –’

  ‘He has done no good!’

  ‘If that were true it would be all the more reason to oblige him to retire.’

  Breathing quickly, they watched each other.

  ‘Oh, my dear Anstey-Ward,’ said the other, suddenly relaxing and placing a hand on his knee. ‘Forgive me. I think I understand. You have hesitated for so long and are now so reluctant very largely because you held Dr Onslow in peculiar reverence and affection, did you not? You felt for him that love of a pupil for a wise master, and the discovery that he had feet of clay, I might almost say of, er, effluent –’ he laughed nervously, tapping Christian’s knee with his fingernail – ‘was indescribably painful to you? No wonder the thought of doing as I suggested is abhorrent to you. It does credit to your heart, whatever else.’

  Christian looked at him dumbly as this misunderstanding grew to gigantic proportions in Mildmay’s mind.

  ‘But you see,’ continued Mildmay, ‘the fact that you love him does not make it less necessary that he be at least removed – perhaps not publicly exposed and disgraced, no. I was allowing anger to overcome me, when I suggested that.’

  ‘No,’ said Christian in a low voice.

  ‘I think that what you should do is simply to inform your father. Dr Anstey-Ward is well able to handle so delicate and painful a situation on your behalf. Bless my soul, yes indeed! You will have discharged your duty in telling him. I cannot think either God or man would require you to involve yourself more closely in something so deeply distressing to you.’

  Christian’s sense of what was honest was keen enough to force him to say: ‘I didn’t love Onslow, sir, as master or – or anything else – I almost hate him for what he has done.’

  This Mr Mildmay took as proof of such pure love as he would have liked to receive himself from all his students. He sighed, his hand still on Christian’s knee and his eyes on the wide water of Lake Brienz.

  ‘Write to your father, Anstey-Ward, and send him the notes you possess. Trust him to do what is right. Do this – please do this.’

  Christian said nothing.

  ‘You must. I do assure you that you must.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Christian eventually. ‘I suppose so.’ Though he spoke with such hesitation, he saw that a tolerable solution had been found, thanks to Mildmay’s horrible mistake.

  ‘Do you have the letters here?’ said Mildmay, leaning forward. ‘No, I suppose you cannot have. It will have to wait until we are back in England.’

  ‘Yes, I do have them – they’re in my portmanteau, upstairs.’

  ‘Then write from here, enclosing them,’ said Mildmay. ‘If I can be of any assistance – to you or to your father, pray, pray do not hesitate to ask me.’

  ‘Thank you. I don’t doubt you’ve given me very good advice. I don’t know what my father will do, perhaps nothing, but it will be his decision – I shall tell him what you think.’

  Christian got up from the bench where they were sitting, and went into the house. Having thrown the pebble to start a moral avalanche, he was walking like a drunken man.

  13

  My dear Father, wrote Christian in the final draft of his letter to Anstey-Ward, I hope this letter finds you well, and Rose and Aunty Chatty also. Pray give them my best love.

  For my part, I am enjoying both the scenery and the climate here, and the cough which was troubling me in England appears to have departed, for which I am thankful. I take pleasure also in the company of those who are with me, in particular that of Mr Mildmay, whom you will perhaps remember meeting, and liking, when you visited me at Oxford in April. We have enjoyed many quiet discussions about Plato and Theocritus since we arrived here, neither of us being quite so fond of mountain-walking as our companions – including Mr Dixon, who is one of the Alpine Club’s keenest members.

  I have, as you will hear, especial cause to be grateful to Mr Mildmay, for he has advised me about a delicate and painful matter, which I must now (on his advice) confide to you. How I wish I might entertain you with a description of the Alps instead! Forgive me, pray, for consulting him first, instead of going directly to you – I think when you have read this letter you will understand why it was less difficult for me to go first to a comparative stranger for advice than to my father.

  How difficult it is to know where to begin, when I know that what I have to say will grieve you. For over a year now, this question has been troubling me greatly, for it was impossible to know where my real duty lay. I was sworn to secrecy and I have, of course, several scruples about breaking the promise I gave to him who entrusted me with his confidence. Yet always I have wondered whether in such a case as this it was right to abide by my promise, for the confidence reposed in me by my friend concerns something that may be a crime and is certainly a violation of the moral law, committed by one who ought to be one of its foremost guardians: my old headmaster Dr Onslow.

  I have now to tell you plainly, after this preliminary, that Dr Onslow formed a shameful connection with a friend of mine, Arthur Bright, while we were both in the Sixth at Charton – I enclose proof of an assertion which you will no doubt find incredible with this letter. At first, I naturally refused to believe what Bright told me about himself and Dr Onslow, but ever since he showed me these papers (in February of last year) I have found it impossible to be anything but wretched. To know that one’s friend has been debauched by one’s headmaster is truly horrible; to know that he neither regrets nor resents this, as Bright made it clear he did not when I tried to impress upon him the need to break
off the connection, is worse. In these circumstances the silence Bright imposed on me eventually became intolerable– how I hope you will not condemn me for breaking it at last.

  I have now, in telling you the whole, cast my bread upon the waters – but I hope it will not return to me after many days, for I have to tell you that as Dr Onslow’s former pupil I would find it impossible personally to take any action in this case should you think it necessary. This impossibility has, like my word given to Bright, kept me silent till now, and I do not think you will wonder at it. Mr Mildmay, however, insists it is not for me but for you as my parent to do what you will, sir, and it is in obedience to his instructions that I am writing to you and awaiting your decision. I expect I ought to tell you that it is Mr Mildmay’s opinion that Dr Onslow ought to be forced to resign his post at Charton, on the grounds that he is clearly not a man fit to have charge of young boys, despite his notable achievements. I do not know whether you will agree with this view, but those achievements, I must now tell you, are less great at least in the moral sphere than report makes them out to be.

  The moral condition of Charton is in fact very bad. Sensual vice of all kinds flourishes there wholly unchecked, and I cannot but believe that this is a result of the Headmaster’s being unable to control his own passions. From him, after all, stems all authority, all power to correct. The other masters, and the monitors, take their tone from him, and the result is that young boys on their arrival at Charton are at the very least forced to witness hideous scenes of immorality, at worst seduced by older boys and referred to thereafter as ‘bitches’, and called by female names.

  You have no need, my dear Father, to fear for me. I succeeded in resisting all attempts to corrupt me, and have paradoxically been given, by my unfortunate education, a lifelong horror of that kind of vice and a love of all that is pure, all who are pure. It would have been best no doubt had I learnt to love what is good by having it placed before me in school, instead of through the natural revulsion I felt for its opposite, for perhaps I cannot be said to have emerged scatheless from Charton. Since going there, and more especially since learning that Dr Onslow is himself morally corrupt, I have become more cynical than I expect you would like me to be. It seems to me that there is very little good in this world, where an ordained clergyman can administer communion to his pupils one day and debauch them the next. How much I wonder whether Dr Onslow is ever troubled in his conscience – I doubt it very much.