A Treasonable Growth

by Dr Ronald Blythe

  Mary had not yet thought herself into the martyr stage. Goodness was one of the things about herself she found vaguely hypocritical. But she genuinely and desperately felt herself neglected. She would have been greatly comforted if she could have known how much Richard longed to be with her at that moment. He needed her presence to drive from his mind a horribly-swelling suggestion that the world was some sort of distorting glass and that wherever he looked he would only see what was defective or inharmonious. Famous, gifted people like Sir Paul Abbott were at heart miseries, tarts were prigs, Bateson was a lout and as for Copdock, his coming there was like taking a header into polluted water in which unspeakable odds and ends drifted, some of them, like the death of Mr M’Tooley, actually entangling him in a situation which was pitiful, yet at the same time disgusting, and which he resented.

  Outwardly, however, he was tremendously polite. He walked along between the Canon and Mr Winsley feeling remote and detached. Bateson kept pace beside them in a rather deliberate way, his tilted face and the stiff, absorbed, leggy manner in which he moved reminiscent of a borzoi. The Canon was thinking: well, that’s over. Then, as he thought of Richard: poor boy, that’s a good start to a new post! And poor M’Tooley, of course!—who had, after all, done his best towards exonerating them all from entertaining guilty self-accusations where he had been concerned. Did not everything in his destruction point to it being a purely private matter? His death was stoical, as had been his life. We are not to blame ourselves, reflected the Canon, although this did nothing to dispel a conviction that so far as himself was concerned, he may have contributed to Mr M’Tooley’s distress by not listening to everything he said. ‘Yes, yes,’ he used to say, and when Mr M’Tooley went on too long about Premonstratensians and Cluniacs. Even, ‘Yes, yes, yes, yes.’ It had not been kind. The Canon felt a tinge of remorse.

  Gulls flung their thrilling whiteness against the sky.

  ‘Must be rough in your part of the world,’ Bateson remarked self-consciously because he felt that somebody had to say something.

  ‘You find Lafney cold, Brand?’ enquired Mr Winsley with elaborate courtesy. His small pointed feet went tip, tip, tip, over the coagulated snow. Without waiting for an answer and looking straight ahead, he said: ‘I have heard from the Vicar of St James-the-Less, Mr Ilif—’

  ‘Father Ilif,’ said the Canon.

  ‘Father Ilif, of course—thank you, Canon, and there is I am happy to say no question of there being any difficulty about the—er—funeral. I mean it will be a proper one. The entire school won’t need to be there, of course. But the Sixth might be present. Bateson, you will go: myself, the Canon … Miss Bellingham, I suppose …’

  ‘Oh, will Miss Bellingham be going?’ Richard was so surprised that the question burst from him before he could stop it. The idea of her leaving her room, especially after all the recent talk of her being so ill, struck him as apocalyptic.

  ‘You won’t be I’m afraid, Brand,’ said Mr Winsley evasively. ‘Someone will have to be left in charge. The service will be at eleven. The best thing will be to have everybody together in Big School—but we can discuss all this another time.’

  ‘Oh, yes.’

  ‘There is one other thing, Brand,’ said Mr Winsley slowly. They had walked a little ahead of the others and were almost to the huge Victorian front door of Copdock, where Darwin was blackleading the scrapers and breathing on a massive brass plate which announced the school and Miss Bellingham’s credentials—Miss Freda Bellingham, M.A.(Oxon.), D. Litt., Principal. ‘Morning, Darwin. Yes, it’s this eternal question of succession—a heartless one, you might think to raise at the present moment—but even when we mourn we may not slacken! Life goes on, Brand. We must have a little talk about your geography. It was one of the subjects you put in your application, wasn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, but …’

  Mr Winsley mistook diffidence for delicacy Also he felt a great need to clear himself of the last traces of his indebtedness to Mr M’Tooley … ‘You would be surprised, Brand, how many people leave their jobs with the unalterable opinion that now that they have, er—departed, it will be impossible to replace them. I’m not saying this of poor Mr M’Tooley, of course. He and I were great chums—great chums! But I like to think of life as a pail of water—just a picturesque description, you understand, to point my particular philosophy—into which one thrusts a finger. The water rises, but do you see it? Hardly. You take your finger away and what happens? Nothing. The surface is left cold and blank and—er—impressionless. So it is with us—with all of us. Our vanity mustn’t deceive us into believing that we leave our mark.’

  ‘I don’t quite agree …’

  ‘What?’

  They had reached the hall, which seemed to be full of telegrams.

  ‘I mean that if you carry humility to the point in your story, it really isn’t humility any longer. It’s pessimism. Or that is what I should call it.’

  The narrow gold rims to Mr Winsley’s spectacles flickered with a peculiar animus of their own. The small whitening tuft of grizzled hair showed wet at the roots when he removed his hat. He was getting angry and trying not to be, a familiar dilemma for him, but a dilemma all the same. He had never been able to get the better of these miserable little spurts of temper.

  ‘Better pessimism than conceit, Brand!’

  And seeing Richard’s bewilderment.

  ‘Oh, say no more now. This morning—the whole week, if it comes to that—has been too much for us.’

  ‘That’s all right, sir.’

  It wasn’t all right. In fact it was most unfortunate. Mr Winsley turned cerise. His eyes, much magnified, became brilliant with the huge hauteur of small men.

  ‘I am not apologising to you, Brand.’

  The Canon and Bateson, sensing a row, made an elaborate business of wiping their feet. Mr Winsley, taking small, slow steps, disappeared. Richard would have hurried away as well but just as he was about to do so the Canon put out one of his fat white hands, which looked so much like milk-fed chicken’s flesh, and drew him towards the drawing-room. With the other hand he propelled Bateson. ‘Come in here,’ he said pacifically. Then, while struggling with the sherry bottle in which, like dole from a fairy purse, there were always just about three drinks and never more, he added, ‘We’re hardly likely to help one another at such a sad time if we let ourselves get distraught, are we! Brand, dear boy, do you see another sherry glass anywhere—I always thought there were six—a mistake obviously. Well never mind. Have yours in this.’ He slopped a finger of wine into a small tumbler from which he had evicted a few late snowdrops. ‘Come to think of it, Brand, I do recall your dear father now. You remember how at first I thought we could not have met? Well we did and it was at Lacey-King’s last archi-deaconal at Bury in ‘twenty-seven’. Could it have been Admiral Crawford who introduced us?’

  ‘He was dead by then.’

  The Canon passed one well-kept old white hand slowly over the back of the other and produced a dry papery sound. His too-kind gaze travelled from Richard to Bateson and then to the window. A complicated piece of farm machinery was being towed slowly by. The room darkened, the windows jerked and throbbed and an intense forlornness draped itself damply over the sofas and chairs like antimacassars.

  ‘And your dear lady mother, Brand, she is well?’

  ‘Oh quite—thanks.’

  The Canon slid the sherry between his teeth and said, ‘She will be delighted when she hears of the improvement in your position.’

  ‘I don’t know that she will be “delighted”,’ said Richard. ‘It’s not as if I’d achieved anything. It’s not even certain that I’ll have the House anyway, not with Mr Winsley in his present mood.’

  ‘But you would like it …?’ Canon Ribbs insisted gently.

  ‘Why do you teach?’ Bateson asked suddenly. He didn’t even attempt to disguise the unfeeling note in his voice.

  The Canon was caught off guard and replied in an over-jolly manner, ‘
What’s this you’re asking, Bateson? Why do I teach? Now if you’d asked me a question like that in the ordinary way I might have been able to answer you. But your question isn’t ordinary, is it …? You don’t want my reasons, but my motives. That’s it, isn’t it? Well, dear boy, I’ll tell you something—something I have always believed to be absolutely true. It is that our motives are our own—providing they are noble, of course. They are the well-head of our actions and so of our happiness.’

  ‘Our unhappiness, too,’ said Bateson, remembering Mr M’Tooley.

  ‘I shall agree with you there, Bateson, although all this is not answering your question, which is, “why do I teach?” Shall we say that I teach because I have a weakness for inculcation? It is hardly a hidden weakness … you are seeing it now!’ The Canon smiled broadly, revealing his beautifully preserved incisors, strong and long and the colour of watery gold.

  ‘Well, you’re lucky,’ Bateson said shortly. ‘I came to the conclusion long ago that I can’t teach and never will. I might provide a sort of pattern to mimic, but that’s about all.’

  ‘Exactly,’ insisted the Canon enthusiastically. ‘You say “mimic” because you are modest, dear boy. Oh yes you are!’ he repeated somewhat coyly, though Bateson had shown no sign of refusing the compliment. ‘Why, your work here has been simply splendid, simply splendid …’

  Annoyed and embarrassed, Bateson retorted, ‘Well I don’t think so.’

  ‘Of course not,’ the Canon snuffled. The pink skin just above the corners of his mouth expanded reminiscently. ‘I remember once being asked to Church House by dear Randall Davidson. It was just after my “Pulpit Attitudes” had made its own little stir in the world—oh long before your time—Yes, what is it, Lindsay?’

  ‘It’s Miss Bellingham, sir.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘She would like to see you.’

  ‘Me, Lindsay? Now?’

  ‘Yes, sir. You and Mr Winsley as soon as possible.’

  The Canon concealed his pleasure.

  ‘Are you to take an answer back to Miss Bellingham?’

  Lindsay may not have heard this. He was affecting what he considered to be a becoming languor, one hand against the door-post, and his eyes fascinated by the dirty turkey-work carpet. Then he looked up suddenly, which was the other part of the game, the brilliant darkness of his gaze all set to bewilder the Canon. But the Canon had turned and was busily gathering together all the notes he had taken for the inquest and the full force of Lindsay’s ambiguous amusement ricocheted and struck instead the astonished Bateson, who blushed a complete and even damask. Lindsay blanched and fled.

  ‘Odd boy,’ said the Canon, missing all this. ‘Why on earth he couldn’t wait for an answer I don’t know! It means I shall have to trail up all those stairs. Where was I? What was I saying …? Oh yes, Randall Davidson. What a shame. It was an incident that would have illustrated my point perfectly. Never mind. It will keep, I suppose. Look, why don’t you both come along and have a bite at the Rectory soon? Do.’ At the door he turned and said, ‘If you can squeeze anything more out of that bottle, do.’

  ‘You’ll take it, I suppose?’ said Bateson, when they were alone.

  Richard hesitated. ‘What would it mean?’

  ‘I think she gave him three hundred.’

  ‘I could hardly expect that; not straight off.’

  ‘Oh for God’s sake do stop being so damned considerate. You’ll have to do poor old M’Tooley’s work won’t you? Put your hand out and keep it out. Incidentally, have you noticed anything peculiar about Lindsay?’

  ‘Lindsay? No. Why?’

  ‘Oh nothing. How about another little trip to “The Case”?’

  *

  Sometime between Tuesday and Thursday Mr M’Tooley’s body was smuggled out of Copdock House and taken to a small chapel at the undertakers. On Friday he was buried. The boys maintained an aloof and incurious silence about the whole business. Their instincts were those of animals when it came to death. They clung together in little romping groups, carefully averting their minds from the horror and keeping well out of the way of all the various officials connected with it. They were neither shy nor respectful. They were disgusted. On the day before the funeral, when the snow had quite gone and the roads were disclosed in strips of an unbearable liquorice blackness, a barrel-organ played with wild merriment in the street below Big School. That same evening Mr M’Tooley’s relations began to arrive. Darwin showed them into the drawing-room. Mr Winsley, receiving them, thought how strange it was that in all the years he had worked with Desmond M’Tooley he had never gained the remotest idea of his background. Being basically uncharitable he had decided that it must either be a necessarily apologetic one, or because Mr M’Tooley was unmarried, he must also be unrelated. The distinction of the mourners, however, obliged him to amend both conclusions. And Mr M’Tooley himself, bolstered up on the formal regret of his family, regained a little of the respect of which the manner of his death had deprived him. The M’Tooleys didn’t seem to mind very much. Under the lantern in the hall they made loud neighing ‘goodnights’ and went off quite equably to the local Trust House, where beds had been booked for them. None of them asked to see Mr M’Tooley’s room and one of them, a Dr Osmund M’Tooley-Browne more than implied that it was a pity that his nephew had done away with himself in January since it was not the best of months to come from County Cork. Had it been May he might have combined his respects with a short tour of the Suffolk Wool churches, which he had long desired to see. On Friday it rained steadily, so Miss Bellingham didn’t go to the funeral. Everybody else did, however, including nine of the older boys. Lindsay stayed behind to help Richard keep order in Big School. They sat side by side on the dais, Richard, depressed rather than sad, and Lindsay, narcissistically reading his own name and achievement over and over again on the scholarship board and thinking how pleasant it was to be eighteen and clever and going to the University. Rain spattered and stung the windows. Lindsay heard it and thought it utterly delightful. The whole school read or wrote solemnly.

  At six Miss Bellingham sent for Richard and offered him Mr M’Tooley’s house. Unlike Mr Winsley, she didn’t seem to expect any particular demonstration of gratitude, but appeared relieved to have settled the matter. Her only comments on Mr M’Tooley himself were surprising but brief.

  ‘He died ages ago really.’

  ‘A great deal has certainly happened since Sunday,’ Richard agreed.

  ‘You don’t seem to understand me. I mean ages—actual years, if you like.’

  ‘Oh—I see …’

  She twisted her old, elaborate head and took a quivering glance and said rather grudgingly, ‘Why I believe you do!’

  ‘What you are actually saying is that something died in Mr M’Tooley a long time before …’

  ‘That’s a fault!’ Miss Bellingham cried in a claiming way, like somebody winning a point in a game. ‘It’s a horrible didactic thing you all have! Thank God I was born in an age which traded in nuances and not in amateur psychology! How did you get on with Pauly?’

  ‘Very well indeed. We made a good start with the library.’

  ‘Sheldon’s frightfully pretty, don’t you think? Was it all muck and dust? I shouldn’t wonder. The Penchants are a rubbishy couple.’

  ‘No. It looked remarkably straight.’

  ‘Shall you be going again soon?’

  ‘We arranged every Sunday, except those on which I have tables-duty. I was going to ask you, will my—will this change cause any difficulty?’

  ‘Why ever should it!’

  Miss Bellingham rose from her chair and trailed across to the window, miraculously supported on her tiny feet. ‘Do your best,’ she said. ‘Get what you can out of Sheldon—don’t hesitate. Those places only exist for the pickings. Tell Darwin I want my milk.’

  He was nearly out of the door when she demanded, ‘Don’t you know how much more you are going to get? Caddie and I have been talking and we think—tw
o-twenty.’

  Richard felt a reckless anger spurting through him in swift indignant flames. He longed to be absolutely gross, to shout at her, ‘two-bloody-twenty!’ and then stare at her astonishment. Except, of course, there wouldn’t be any astonishment. His fury with her meanness—all of their meanness, because the whole set-up groaned with the words scrimp and scrape—would have no effect upon her whatsoever. Neither had his momentary bewilderment. ‘It’s an ill wind …’ she reminded him, which was true enough. A week ago a change in his job would have been unimaginable. He wrote to Mary, hesitating between her and his mother because of feeling the need only to say something on paper;

  My dear,

  Now this really is the limit. What do you think? I’ve succeeded poor old M’T.—you will have seen all about that in the local rag I expect. I won’t go into it now—and have become a ‘housemaster’—except of course there isn’t a house! It’s the same job with knobs on, one of the knobs being £220.

  How are you? Is Mrs Crawford any better? I do hope so. Our snow has gone and what is even better, the wind has shifted from my side of the school for the first time since I came here.

  I can’t help thinking of our funny afternoon in the museum—by funny I mean strange. There is something else: I have a need for you. Oh, not when I’m ‘down’ or anything like that. In fact absolutely the opposite. Unlike most people, it’s when I’m cock-a-hoop that my judgement goes. When I’m depressed I’m ghastly sane. This sounds rather mean, as though I’m attributing you with the qualities of a wet blanket, which is miserable rot. Could it be because of all these old fogies who have (here ‘us’ was heavily scratched out) me in their clutches. Fogey number one is out of favour you may be pleased to know, though not me with her. I still get all her tittle-tattle and advice, not to mention her questions. God! her questions … Wanted to know who you were. I had a brainwave. I said (read the next bit slowly, lento … len … to …) ‘my fiancée.’ The Belle said absolutely nothing at all. Just sat rolling her eyes left-right, right-left like a dreadful old doll. It was a terrible fib, but it needn’t be. What do you think?—beyond this being the coolest proposal since Friga’s. But it is this coolness, this marbly commonsense which is my proof. In spite of all the poetry to the contrary I’m not at all so sure that love should be a form of enthusiasm—or enthusiasm a form of love, if it comes to that. Dearest, I shall be home at half-term for a whole day some time the week after next, Thursday I think, although it hasn’t been settled yet, when I shall press upon you the advantages latent in a cold and calculating heart. I have done one or two pretty silly things lately. They would disgust you by their being just this. Let’s get all this off our chests when we meet. I feel it should all be talked.