Sir, nothing of note has occurred since you left Penge. Cricket seems over, some of the great trees has lost some of their leaves, which is very early. Has Mr. Borenius spoken to you about certain girls? I can’t help being rather rough, it is some men’s nature, but you should not treat me like a dog. It was before you came. It is natural to want a girl, you cannot go against human nature. Mr. Borenius found out about the girls through the new communion class. He has just spoken to me. I have never come like that to a gentleman before. Were you annoyed at being disturbed so early? Sir, it was your fault, your head was on me. I had my work, I was Mr. Durham’s servant, not yours. I am not your servant. I will not be treated as your servant, and I don’t care if the world knows it.
He had finally got to the heart of it. I AM NOT YOUR SERVANT. I WILL NOT BE TREATED AS YOUR SERVANT. He concluded:
I will show respect where it’s due only, that is to say to gentleman who are gentleman. Simcox says, “Mr. Hall says to put him in about eighth.” I put you in fifth, but I was captain, and you have no right to treat me unfairly on that account.
Yours respectfully, A. Scudder.
P.S. I know something.
He’d lost himself in the letter, moving his lips as he wrote, as if declaiming a speech to Maurice (and to himself) in a way impossible in person, when the words were in the air and you could take them back and stammer and break down. He felt excited while writing, like chasing prey in the woods. He read it over, but it did no good, because it was too soon to catch the errors or to understand that the threats were vile and destructive. He was angry; now Maurice would know. He posted it quickly, before he could change his mind.
Later, at tea in the kitchen, Simcox was reading the evening edition of Police Court News. “Aha,” he said over his specs. “Now, look at this. That snipe of a bellhop at the Wilton hotel, turns out the gent he touched for cash is quite aboveboard and well-connected. The little blackmailer’s facing six months’ hard labor…”
“Blackmail?” Alec said.
“What else would you call it? ‘Extortion,’ I suppose one might say to be polite.”
“Maybe he was just fightin’ back, the lad I mean; maybe the gent took advantage.”
“‘Lad’? Says here he’s twenty; he knows what’s what.”
“Hard labor,” said Milly, “that’s what he needs. He’ll hang hisself behind bars, wait and see.”
Alec finished his tea quickly and rose from the table.
“Oh, here, Scudder,” the parlormaid said. She handed him an envelope. “By the midday post.”
Outside, he went into the alley of primroses to read the note by himself:
A.S. Yes. Meet me Tuesday 5.0 p.m. entrance of British Museum. B.M. a large building. Anyone will tell you which. M.C.H.
8
Alec asked Mr. Ayers for Tuesday off to visit his parents in Osmington in advance of leaving England. Permission granted. He then wrote to his father to say that he would be unable to visit on Tuesday, as they’d previously planned, because Mr. Ayers was unwell and needed him that day at Penge, but he would come Wednesday instead.
For the most critical day of his life, he put on the blue worsted suit he’d bought for Argentina. The ready-made jacket and trousers were stiff, the cheap fabric scratchy, the fit awkward and uncomfortable, but Alec, unaccustomed to business clothes, believed that was the price of wearing them. Instead of his cap, he took the new bowler. He wished he’d remembered to get his hair cut, because, as usual, the damp weather bewitched it: the lustrous ringlets and waves poked fun at the hat’s sober dome. He crammed it on as best he could and set out.
Much as he thought himself worldly, in truth Alec’s acquaintance with the capital was mostly vicarious, gleaned from chitchat and newspapers. He’d paid careful attention when Morgan, who lived in London, talked about culture and landmarks, and when Simcox (who, Alec believed, had a lover in town or was seeking one) mentioned certain locales. Thus he’d put together that the British Museum was not too far from St. Pancras Station, which he therefore chose for his destination; likewise he mentally noted the name of a pub the valet liked and a hotel where he’d stayed—“nothing grand, of course, but perfectly clean.”
He marveled that three years had already passed since his own most recent visit to the city. That had been in 1910, shortly before he’d started at Michaelmount, the twentieth of May precisely: his father decided that the two of them should “witness history” and took his son to view the funeral procession of King-Emperor Edward VII, the Peacemaker.
On that day, the imperial pageant had awed the crowds lining the streets into an eerie silence. Nine monarchs of Europe, helmeted, plumed, walked behind the gun carriage bearing the double-crowned coffin, pulled by hundreds of sailors in lockstep. Entire brigades marched by, fusiliers, grenadiers, royal guardsmen with swords drawn and tucked under their arms in mourning. Courtiers, maharajas, heads of state—the pomp went on for miles, the vast scene set to the music of muted horns and thudding muffled drums.
Now, passing through the countryside, then suburbs that grew thicker as the train approached London, Alec recalled the naïve sixteen-year-old he’d once been and smiled. Three years later, he was wiser, having tasted some of life’s bitterness. He tried to keep his rage against Maurice burning. But when he closed his eyes and rested his head, instead of feeling anger he’d recall the tenderness of their night together, his lover’s kind eyes and touch, their embracing, kissing …
His nerves tensed when London itself first appeared. As the train drew into the station under the iron skeleton with its sooty glass skin, he felt charged with the energy of seven million people, all with their hearts pumping seventy times a minute. The city was drawing his pulse into its own.
On the platform, crowds rushed, somehow merging, the vast spaces hardly able to hold them, their motion seeming to carry him with no effort of his own along the concourse. This was not how he remembered the city from three years ago. But then London, holding its breath for the king’s funeral, had not truly been London. Now the city was itself, driven by the vying hungers of those millions of mouths.
Dazed by the hubbub, he had to orient himself before he could start out for the museum. He walked toward a constable to ask the way. But he was busy, posing for a tourist’s Kodak. The photographer’s pal, a stocky young weight lifter, his shirtsleeves rolled high, was flexing his biceps for the bobby to feel and mug his awe for the camera. The tableau was slapstick and bawdy. Certain men stared voraciously, the way they stared at Alec. They’d scan his form with a practiced glance, catch and hold his eye. He marveled at how openly they dared to show their desire. Or maybe it only seemed so to him because he shared it.
He found a big map behind glass: he saw he was little more than a mile from the British Museum. He decided to walk rather than risk getting lost in the Underground. Besides, the city’s onslaught had unbalanced him, and he wanted to regain his footing before meeting Maurice. Walking calmed his thoughts. But outside, all was traffic, noise, pelting rain. Afternoon was already dim as twilight under the dense cloud cover, the humid air stinking of petrol fumes, horse shit, and urine. He didn’t walk so much as dodge other people maneuvering through the nastiness as fast as they could, like ropewalkers with umbrellas aloft. Everybody looked repulsive—pasty, blotchy, damp, and cross, because the rain required more clothes than did the August heat. When he skipped out of the way of a fast-rolling cab, its filthy wake spattered the new trousers intended for sunny Buenos Aires.
On Bloomsbury Way, he found himself in front of what struck him as the funniest-looking church ever, with a kind of ziggurat for a steeple, growing out of a belfry made to look like a little Greek temple, where a lion of stone seemed to be chasing a plump unicorn, who twisted in terror. When Alec asked a passerby about the museum, he pointed to the next corner.
So dark was the afternoon that some of the lights had been turned on inside, and the great building suggested a tomb, miraculously illuminated by the spirits of
the dead. It was quarter to five. He was glad of the extra time. Here, on the portico, out of the rain, he could finally be still and collect his thoughts. Blackmail. A hateful word. When he’d written the letter, in his hurt and his wish to hurt back, he’d grabbed for any weapon. But surely Maurice would not take his threat seriously …
And soon there he was. Maurice climbed out of the cab on Great Russell Street at three minutes before the hour. How very handsome he was, how much at ease in this city, whose aggression deferred to his stride. Alec despaired. He hated his damned new suit; it was vulgar and ugly, and, comparing himself to the one he loved, he felt that way too. He wanted to be back in Wiltshire, in the woods, at ease in his soft corduroys. But he had no choice now: he must go forward.
“Here you are,” Maurice said, raising a pair of gloves to his hat. “This rain’s the limit. Let’s have a talk inside.”
“Where you wish.”
Maurice was friendly, his voice calm. As soon as they entered the building, Alec raised his head and sneezed like a lion.
“Got a chill? It’s the weather.”
“What’s all this place?”
“Old things belonging to the nation.”
Which nation? Alec asked himself. Surely not this one.
They paused in the corridor of Roman emperors. Alec recognized some of the marmoreal Caesars from the books in the Dorchester library. Here they were, with their Mediterranean profiles and draperies, perpetual captives of the barbarians they had sought to conquer.
“Yes, it’s bad weather. There’ve only been two fine days,” Maurice said; then added mischievously, “And one fine night.”
Alec’s heart leapt at the words, but he turned his face away, because it wasn’t the opening he wanted. He was waiting for signs of fear. He pretended not to understand the allusion, and sneezed again. The roar echoed down vestibules …
“I’m glad you wrote to me the second time. I liked both your letters. I’m not offended—you’ve never done anything wrong. It’s all your mistake about cricket and the rest. I’ll tell you straight out I enjoyed being with you, if that’s the trouble. Is it? I want you to tell me. I just don’t know.”
Since he neither defended himself nor attacked, he gave Alec no opportunity to advance. You’ve never done anything wrong … I want you to tell me. His tone was conciliatory; he was attentive to Alec himself, not to the trouble he was causing. Disarmed by his manner, Alec tried to provoke him:
“What’s here? That’s no mistake.” Alec touched his breast pocket. Maurice looked puzzled, not angry. Did he think Alec was pointing to his wounded heart? He clarified: “Your writing. And you and the squire—that’s no mistake—some may wish as it was one.”
“Don’t drag in that,” said Maurice, but without indignation.
Alec pushed at him harder: “Mr. Hall—you reckernize it wouldn’t very well suit you if certain things came out, I suppose.”
Again Maurice seemed puzzled by the words, not annoyed, as if he sought to understand the emotion that drove them. His forbearance exasperated Alec, who kept on trying to provoke him: “What’s more, I’ve always been a respectable young fellow until you called me into your room to amuse yourself. It don’t hardly seem fair that a gentleman should drag you down.” He surprised himself with the prissiness of his complaint (sounding like Milly, he thought, parroting her journals for young ladies). And worse, he was demeaning his courage: he had gladly risked his safety that night of his own accord.
Growing desperate to goad Maurice, he lied outright: “At least that’s how my brother sees it.” He faltered as he spoke these last words. “My brother’s waiting outside now, as a matter of fact. He wanted to come and speak to you hisself, he’s been scolding me shocking, but I said, ‘No, Fred, no, Mr. Hall’s a gentleman and can be trusted to behave like one, so you leave ’im to me,’ I said, ‘and Mr. Durham, he’s a gentleman too, always was and always will be.’”
Now it was Maurice who’d turned away, toward the bust of Hadrian. He rested his hand on the pedestal and studied the calm bearded face. “With regard to Mr. Durham,” said Maurice, “it’s quite correct that I cared for him and he for me once, but he changed, and now he doesn’t care anymore for me, nor I for him. It’s the end.”
“End o’ what?”
“Of our friendship.”
So it was only by mentioning Durham that Alec had gotten through to Maurice. His lament about being dragged down by a gentleman and the threat of a menacing brother outside had failed to reach him at all. “Mr. Hall, have you heard what I was saying?” Alec stepped closer, next to the bust of Hadrian’s beloved, the melancholy Antinous.
When Maurice turned to face Alec to answer, he was struck by the likeness between the gamekeeper and the beautiful carved image. “I hear everything you say,” Maurice said thoughtfully, and continued in exactly the same tone: “Scudder, why do you think it’s ‘natural’ to care for both women and men? You wrote so in your letter. It isn’t natural for me. I have really got to think that ‘natural’ only means oneself.”
Alec had forgotten that part of the letter; besides, it was irrelevant to his business today. During their night together, it was clear to Alec that Maurice had been jealous of seeing him with the girls, so he mentioned them in his letter to irritate him. Natural? Hadn’t the vicar himself said, “Certainly such attractions are all quite normal”? Alec sensed a weakness, an implied doubt about manhood, and exploited it. “Couldn’t you get a kid of your own, then?” he asked.
“I’ve been to two doctors about it. Neither were any good.”
“So you can’t?”
“No, I can’t.”
“Want one?” Alec asked, as if hostile.
“It’s not much use wanting.”
“I could marry tomorrow, if I like,” he bragged, though he was certain now, after his night with Maurice, that he never would. While speaking, he caught sight of a winged Assyrian bull, and was distracted by his naïve wonder. “He’s big enough, isn’t he? They must have owned wonderful machinery to make a thing like that.”
“I expect so,” said Maurice, also impressed by the bull. “I couldn’t tell you. Here seems to be another one.”
“A pair, so to speak. Would these have been ornaments?”
“This one has five legs.”
“So’s mine. A curious idea.” Standing each by his monster, they looked at each other, and smiled. For a moment, their conflict evanesced; it was sweet for both young men to be exploring this strange timeless place together. Then Alec hardened himself again. “Won’t do, Mr. Hall.” Having created the fiction of his big brother’s presence, he tried to make it less flimsy by repeating it: “I see your game, but you don’t fool me twice, and you’ll do better to have a friendly talk with me than wait for Fred, I can tell you. You’ve had your fun and you’ve got to pay up.”
Maurice looked into his eyes gently but keenly. Nothing resulted from the outburst at all. It fell away like a flake of mud. Murmuring something about “leaving you to think this over,” Alec sat down on a bench. Maurice joined him there shortly. And thus it was for twenty minutes: they kept wandering from room to room as if in search of something. They would peer at a goddess or vase, then move at a single impulse, and their unison was the stranger because on the surface they were at war. Alec recommenced his hints—horrible, reptilian—but somehow they did not pollute the intervening silences. He failed to make Maurice afraid or angry. Instead Maurice seemed to regret that any human being should have gotten into such a mess as the one that Alec was making for himself. When he chose to reply to some remark and their eyes met, he would smile, Alec’s heart would melt in the warmth, and he would smile back. He was beginning to sense that the actual situation was a practical joke, almost—and concealed something real, that they both desired. Serious and good-tempered, Maurice continued to hold his own. If he made no offensive, it was because he felt no anger. To set it moving, a shock from without was required, and chance administered this.
Maurice did not reply. Alec sidled up closer.
“Surely you were at Mr. Abrahams’s school. No, wait! Wait! Don’t tell me your name. I want to remember it. I will remember it. You’re not Sanday, you’re not Gibbs. I know. I know. It’s Wimbleby.”
Maurice replied, “No, my name’s Scudder.”
Scudder? Alec realized that Maurice did know the old man and did not want to be recognized. “It isn’t,” Alec said, “and I’ve a serious charge to bring against this gentleman.”
“Yes, awfully serious,” remarked Maurice, and he rested his hand on Alec’s shoulder so that his fingers touched the back of his neck. The touch stirred Alec, as did Maurice’s taking his name for his own.
The old man gave a friendly nod, as though he understood that these two young fellows were sharing some joke. To Maurice he said, “I’m extremely sorry, sir, it’s so seldom I make a mistake,” and then, to show he was not an old fool, addressed the silent pair on the subject of the British Museum—not merely a collection of relics but a place round which one could take (with a glance at Alec)—er—the less fortunate, quite so—a stimulating place …
A patient voice called from a few yards off, “Ben, we are waiting,” and the old man rejoined his wife.
Alec jerked away from Maurice and muttered, “That’s all right … I won’t trouble you now.”
“Where are you going with your serious charge?” said Maurice, suddenly formidable.
“Couldn’t say.” He looked back at Maurice, whose coloring stood out against the stone heroes, perfect but bloodless, who had never known such bewilderment or infamy as Alec did now. He realized what a fool he’d been to imagine this splendid man could care for him, and more of a fool to plot to force him to do so. “Don’t you worry—I’ll never harm you now, you’ve too much pluck.”
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