‘How brilliant, how admirable is this piece of work, sir,’ he said in the voice of biting sarcasm he used to use at Charton. ‘Allow me only to make one or two corrections.’ Grabbing Tom’s quill, he drew it across the paper in a great X, so hard that he broke it. Tom, who had been treated with cool kindness by Onslow till now, could not understand what was happening.
‘All I can say, sir, is that you are very fortunate that the Senate now allows men to try for classical honours without more mathematics than the Previous. In my day it was very different!’ He paused and stared at Tom’s face, which was one of stupid shock. ‘Are your classics as poor as your mathematics? It would not surprise me to learn so.’
‘Yes, sir,’ said Tom after a moment, almost defiantly. He was determined not to be cowed, for he was no longer a schoolboy.
‘Then why are you taking honours at all?’
‘Because my father refuses to let me go out in the poll. I know well enough that I would be lucky even to get a poll degree.’
Onslow sat down, and there was silence for a while. Then he said:
‘My dear boy, I must apologise to you. I have been unforgivably ill-tempered.’
‘Don’t mention it sir, I expect I deserved all you said,’ Tom replied stiffly. He thought Onslow slightly mad for having lost his temper in such a way, and he also thought that the man, having given way to his passion, was looking older than usual. It occurred to him to wonder whether Onslow was quite happy at Hinterton.
‘I think I had better not come again,’ he said. ‘I am going back to Cambridge next week in any case.’
‘But what will you tell your father?’ was all Onslow could think of to say.
‘I don’t know.’
Onslow said: ‘Would you like me to speak to him?’
‘Speak to him?’
‘I could, for example, tell him that you ought to be permitted to take a poll degree instead of trying for honours. If that is all I can do for you.’ Onslow wanted very much to do something for Tom, to compensate not only for his loss of control but for his secret feelings.
‘I don’t think he would listen to you, sir. He is altogether set on my taking honours.’ He added with a kind of laugh: ‘He’s made me work harder now than I ever did at Cambridge.’
‘He is a strict parent?’ Onslow would never have thought it of the polite and genial Mr Butterick.
‘Yes, sir.’
‘Dear me,’ said Onslow, in a normal voice.
Tom hesitated, then said:
‘No, perhaps I am wrong, perhaps he would listen to you. I was forgetting you were a headmaster for such a long time, sir. If you told him my abilities are not equal to my taking honours he might believe you.’
‘You would like me to do that?’ said Onslow.
‘I think so, sir.’
‘That is all I can do to make amends for my outburst?’
‘I’d be very grateful, sir.’
‘I fear to incur his wrath.’
The boy smiled. He could not believe this. He did not understand that it was important for Onslow to be on good terms with his father, for he lived in a wider world than Hinterton.
‘But naturally I will not allow such a consideration to deter me,’ said Onslow, getting up from his chair. He added: ‘Yet perhaps it would be best if you did come here on Wednesday and Friday as usual, Mr Butterick. I think I might be able to make out a more convincing case if I were known to have carried on to the bitter end, if I may so phrase it.’
‘Oh, I don’t think so, sir,’ said Tom. He meant to spend the hours he should have been with Onslow out of doors, and could only hope that no one would remark on having seen him.
‘We need not devote our time to mathematics. We might discuss all manner of things – I would like to hear your account of life at Cambridge as it is now. I am sure it has changed a good deal since my day,’ Onslow pleaded. He could not bear to think that he had wantonly deprived himself of another two hours of the boy’s company, even though that company caused him such irritation.
‘I expect it has, sir.’
‘Well,’ said Onslow, ‘consider what I have said. In the meantime I suppose you ought to go now, or else you will be late for luncheon.’
‘Yes.’
Onslow stretched out his hand and said: ‘I am forgiven?’
‘Oh yes. And thank you again, sir, for all you have done for me,’ said Tom. He took Onslow’s hand, then dropped it, then went.
Onslow felt almost as he had done two years before, when Bright said goodbye in his study at Charton. Such, he thought, was the effect of the punishment which Anstey-Ward had no doubt thought would reform him. It had made him desperate even for the shadow of his former delights, and there was no hope of his ever feeling differently.
26
‘I did not see your pupil come in today, George,’ said Louisa at dinner, two days after Onslow parted from Tom Butterick. ‘Is he unwell?’
‘He is no longer my pupil,’ said Onslow.
‘Oh,’ said Louisa, who had scarcely ever mentioned Tom to her husband, and by pointedly failing to do so had both relieved and frightened him.
‘He and I were agreed that it would be useless to continue. I can do nothing for him.’
‘I am sorry.’
Onslow hesitated, and Louisa could see that he was wondering whether to speak. She waited, and at length he said rather stiffly:
‘It was not to be, but I hoped that I would be able to do as I did for many boys at Charton, or at least as I believe I did, and awaken a love of learning in him.’
‘Did you hope that?’
‘Why else do you suppose I agreed to give him lessons, when I learnt how things were with him?’
‘Oh, out of a wish to oblige Mr Butterick,’ said Louisa. ‘Am I not right then?’
‘I have seldom had a more obstinately stupid pupil,’ Onslow told her.
‘I am sorry,’ said Louisa a second time. Then:
‘But he is a handsome young man, is he not?’
‘He is not ill-favoured, no.’
Louisa dared say no more. But however painful it would be, she wanted to hear the whole story of his feelings for Tom Butterick, and not to pretend that young boys had nothing to do with their being at Hinterton. She wanted to be intimate with her husband, whom she no longer lightly called ‘Dr Onslow’. To her, the time for calling him that was past. She was too thoroughly bound to him and his faults now to feel anything other than an experienced wife, but she thought it was hard to make Onslow see that things had changed between them. He did not wish to see it, he wished to pretend that all was as it had been. Louisa guessed that even now, he could not forgive her for having known the truth.
After eating a few mouthfuls of mutton in silence, Louisa said:
‘I think we ought to go away for a while. I can see that your spirits are low, and perhaps a little travelling would do them good.’ She wondered whether he would rebuff her, but all he said was:
‘We cannot afford to travel, Louisa. You forget that our circumstances have changed.’
‘Do you indeed think I forget it?’ She wondered how she could do so when every day she was made aware of the fact that they employed no male servants indoors, and kept no carriage but a gig.
‘I do not mean to imply that you are extravagant.’
Onslow, inspecting the beautifully-kept household books, had almost wished that Louisa were extravagant, so that he might blame her for a small part of his unhappiness. During their time at Charton, he had had a mental picture of Louisa as an expensive little puss, though she had never once overspent her generous allowance. Now he was forced to see that his idea of her had been false.
‘I am glad of that,’ said Louisa dryly.
He looked at her.
‘I wish we might go away for a while, indeed,’ he said, to conciliate her. The last thing he wanted was a quarrel, or even a coldness – he wanted the easy, friendly relationship they had had in the past.
; ‘Perhaps you would prefer to go alone?’
‘Oh no,’ said Onslow. ‘On the whole I think that if I were to travel I would prefer to have you with me. I have no wish to be alone.’ He dreaded to think what he might do if he were alone.
‘I am pleased to hear you say that. What a pity we cannot go even for a fortnight to the seaside!’ She added: ‘I expect we could do that, in fact, but I know you do not care for watering-places.’
Though they had effectively ruled out the possibility of travelling, a few days later the Onslows received an invitation to travel in a small way. It came from an old friend of Onslow’s, Dr Powell, who had lately been made Master of one of the colleges at Oxford. He invited them to stay with him and his wife for a week or so, and told them that Primrose would be coming. The Onslows decided that this was just what they were looking for, and on the 24th of June, they left Hinterton for the first time since they arrived there the previous November. Onslow looked forward to dining at High Table much as a girl of seventeen might look forward to her presentation; Louisa thought rather of the pleasures of the Botanic Gardens.
*
One evening after supper, when one of Dr Powell’s daughters had just finished playing the piano, Primrose said to him:
‘Powell, my dear fellow, I am sure you have been paying attention to this meeting of the British Association. I have a mind to attend it tomorrow – I hear it is not open to the public, but would you as a member be able to introduce me into the hall?’
‘I see no reason why not,’ said Dr Powell, who took a keen amateur interest in entomology. ‘But why are you so interested? I had no notion that natural science was of any interest to you.’
‘Oh no, not in general, but I am told that old Soapy Sam, whom I so much dislike, is proposing to demolish Mr Darwin’s new theory of transmutation, which I find most impressive, most interesting – I do not know what you think of it?’
‘Let us say I have grave doubts.’
‘Well, I am very sure the good bishop will make a fool of himself and I long to be in at the kill, as it were.’
‘How very uncharitable, Martin,’ said Onslow. Primrose often talked with cheerful callousness after a glass or two of wine. ‘But what is this new theory? Has not transmutation been discussed in certain circles for many years now?’ He thought of Anstey-Ward.
Another man, a young scientist, spoke before Primrose could reply.
‘If you are hoping that the Bishop will make a fool of himself you probably hope in vain, Mr Primrose. He has consulted leading authorities in the field, Professor Owen in particular. He will not be arguing purely as a bigot, and for my part, though I don’t absolutely say that Mr Darwin is wrong, I think Professor Owen’s objections to his book are well founded.’
‘Are they? Of course, I do not know about that,’ said Primrose. He turned to Onslow, and briefly described The Origin of Species, which had appeared the previous November and escaped Onslow’s attention. The book was not yet a matter of public concern, though it had sold well for a scientific work.
‘I do not know how you can talk about such a thing so light-heartedly,’ said Onslow in disgust.
‘Now come, George, you are as prepared as the next man to own that all too much of what we were taught in childhood was not literal truth. How is this different?’
‘Do you not see that this or any other idea of transmutation would abolish any notion of design, of final cause? It is not a mere detail, like the Flood. How can it possibly be compatible with religious truth – with an omniscient Deity?’
‘Why, it does not diminish God’s glory in the least,’ said Primrose, surprised. ‘Don’t you see it is no less glorious, miraculous even, for Him to have set so astonishing a – a mechanism in motion, than for Him to have ordered special creations?’
The young scientist listened to the clergymen’s argument with a sardonic look on his face. Primrose’s ignorant enthusiasm for Darwin’s book was more responsible for this than Onslow’s intransigence: it made him wonder what the Church was coming to.
‘No, I do not,’ said Onslow. ‘You are worshipping the repulsive God of the Deists of the last century, Martin, not a Person, if that is what you think.’
‘How interesting it will be to hear the debate on this subject!’ said Mrs Powell, who disliked argument in her drawing-room. Louisa was grateful for her interruption: her old dread of a quarrel between Onslow and Primrose had been revived by their interchange. ‘Tell me, who is to reply to the bishop? Is it Mr Darwin himself?’
‘No, he is by far too unwell, so I have heard,’ said her husband. ‘He will not be present at all. I believe that if anyone replies it will be Sir Joseph Hooker.’
‘Mr Huxley?’ suggested the young scientist.
‘Possibly, but he seems somewhat unwilling to champion Mr Darwin in public. You were not present at yesterday’s meeting? He had very little to say – merely remarked that a general audience was not one in front of which he could expatiate. And when Professor Owen observed that the brain of the highest ape bears no more resemblance to that of man than does that of any other creature, all he could produce was a flat denial.’
‘Who is Mr Huxley?’ said Primrose.
‘Oh, a naturalist, not a man of any great note in the world of science. One odd circumstance is that he looks remarkably like a Wilberforce, so like that he could almost be the bishop’s son,’ said Dr Powell.
‘How odd, to be sure!’ said Mrs Powell.
‘I think I would like to attend this meeting also,’ said Onslow, for whom the subject of transmutation was like a loose tooth to be painfully waggled. ‘Could it be arranged, Powell?’
‘Why, I believe so. Mrs Onslow, would you care to join us?’
‘Oh yes,’ said Louisa, who had nothing better to do.
Thus it was settled that theirs would be a party of five: the Powells, the Onslows, and Primrose, who was the only person to regard Mr Darwin’s theory with positive favour.
27
The next afternoon, Dr Powell and his party went along to the hall where the meeting was to take place. It was a larger hall than the one which had served the members of the British Association till that Saturday, and had been chosen at the last moment, for so many people wished to hear Bishop Wilberforce that the old hall could not contain them. There were over seven hundred present in all, including noisy undergraduates and ladies in billowing bright dresses, but the majority of those who had come to listen were members of the Association.
‘Gracious me, what a crush,’ said Louisa as they pushed their way through towards a row of empty seats. It was not so very bad, but her crinoline was making it difficult for her to move, and seriously inconveniencing those she passed.
‘Yes, indeed,’ said Primrose. ‘But here we are.’
As they prepared to sit down, Onslow noticed that a man seated some feet away was looking intently in their direction: then he saw that it was Anstey-Ward. For a moment the two men stared at each other. Slowly, Anstey-Ward gave a kind of half salute, to which Onslow replied with the hint of a bow. Then Louisa, observing this, also recognised Anstey-Ward. She gave a gasp of surprise as he raised his hat to her.
‘Who is that man, Louie?’ said Primrose.
‘It’s Dr Anstey-Ward.’
‘Indeed!’
‘Yes. I believe he must be a member of the Association – his house as I remember was full of rocks and dead animals.’
Onslow began to talk about the Bishop.
‘I can only imagine that Soapy Sam is attempting to restore his family’s reputation. When two of one’s brothers have gone over to Rome, it is desirable to make it quite clear that one remains such a sound Low Churchman as one’s father would have approved. I can only hope he does not carry it too far.’
In contrast Anstey-Ward, like Primrose, was hoping that the Bishop would make a fool of himself – though he supposed there was not much chance of that, for he knew that both Sir Joseph Hooker and Mr Huxley expected him to be a formi
dable opponent.
Having acknowledged Onslow’s presence, Anstey-Ward took out his watch and wound it, though it did not need winding. As he did so he thought that he ought not to be so very surprised at the Onslows being here. The room was full of women and clergymen, even though the meeting was not officially open to the public. And it was quite possible and allowable for Onslow to come down occasionally from his northern fastness.
Anstey-Ward had been almost as impressed as Primrose by The Origin of Species, but it worried him, as it had done with earlier theories of transmutation, that the fossil record provided so little which could be called evidence in favour of the hypothesis. Now he forgot this worry: he remembered the interview he had had eleven months ago with Onslow in his library, and he became a determined, instead of a moderate, supporter of Darwin. He had no doubts what Onslow was thinking. Neither had Onslow about the thoughts of Anstey-Ward.
A hush descended: the speakers had begun to arrive and make their way towards the platform.
The proceedings began with the reading of a paper by a Dr John William Draper, the title of which was ‘The Intellectual Development of Europe with reference to the views of Mr Darwin’. Dr Draper was an admirer of Darwin, and in his hour-long speech he drew parallels between the gradual upward development of species and the progress of the human intellect towards enlightenment. Few people in the audience were interested in his views, for the majority of listeners regarded the expression of them as a tiresome preliminary to the bishop’s speech, while the professional scientists in the audience thought them wholly irrelevant to the real issue. But Anstey-Ward and Onslow listened intently, and were agreed that the paper consisted largely of crass generalisations. Onslow was delighted.
‘Well, I am glad that has come to an end at last,’ said Mrs Powell, fanning herself with a piece of paper. ‘Are we now to hear the bishop?’
‘Presently, my dear,’ said her husband, who saw quite a different man rise to begin the discussion. The man was an economist, and he objected to Darwin’s views on religious grounds, but he was not allowed to develop his ideas, for the undergraduates grouped in one part of the hall shouted him down in their impatience for Bishop Wilberforce. They treated the next speaker similarly, but this had nothing to do with their being in favour of Darwin, for when a third man rose to say something, this time in Darwin’s defence, they behaved in just the same way. The speaker wished to give a mathematical demonstration of the truth of Darwin’s views, and drew a diagram on a blackboard, saying: ‘Let this point A be man, and let that point B be the monkey’. He pronounced ‘monkey’ as ‘mawnkey’, and this gave the undergraduates the opportunity to yell: ‘Mawnkey! Mawnkey!’
The Fall of Doctor Onslow Page 18