The Fall of Doctor Onslow (12 page)

It was dislike of Onslow which made Anstey-Ward take up this extreme position. In reality, he believed Lamarck’s speculation about the origin of the human race to be a somewhat wild one, and was rarely prepared to say unequivocally that he believed in the transmutation of species. Theories of transmutation and theories of immutability seemed to him equally difficult, and though he inclined towards the transmutationists, he had his doubts. For one thing, it seemed unlikely that the three great races of mankind could have descended from a common ancestor in the comparatively short time since humanity appeared on earth, as Onslow would have maintained they had: they must have arisen separately, for the cunning and idiocy of the Mongolian and Negroid races placed them so very far below the White.

‘I never,’ said Onslow gently, ‘in all my life heard any suggestion so absurd. The immeasurable gulf between ourselves and the beasts is alone proof of a divine and special creation of man, and so, I know, would any scientist not blinded by infidelity agree.’ The suggestion that he might be descended from an ape would have sickened him had he not thought it altogether ludicrous.

‘Not
any
scientist,’ said Anstey-Ward, feeling himself to be on insecure ground. ‘There are certainly many who reject the idea of transmutation, but if ever they accept it they will none of them dream of exempting man from its workings.’ He doubted this, but was not going to admit to Onslow that scientists could balk at facts they considered unpleasant. ‘Are your own certainties not in the least disturbed by the great resemblance there is between apes and men? especially between apes and black men?’

‘Great resemblance! What resemblance? Do you call a hideous parody of the physical man a resemblance? It is the mind, the spirit, the soul that signifies, and even black men have a soul.’

‘I don’t think it is that which signifies at all,’ said Anstey-Ward. ‘Do you know, the older I grow, the less respect I have for the mind and spirit and soul of man. The animals manage their lives with a good deal less trouble. Has it never occurred to you that beasts never sin?’

‘Naturally it has occurred to me – you forget I am a Christian, Dr Anstey-Ward. The capacity to sin is proof of our superiority, proof that God gave us free will and the knowledge of good and evil, as he did not to the beasts.’

Suddenly they both remembered Onslow’s capacity to sin.

‘Allow me to give you a little more brandy,’ said Anstey-Ward. ‘I see your glass is empty.’

‘Thank you.’ Onslow closed his eyes and bit his lip when Anstey-Ward could no longer see him. He was sure that his opponent would produce the ‘documents’ as soon as he had given him his brandy, and he waited wretchedly.

Anstey-Ward did consider at last bringing up the matter which Onslow had come down to Wiltshire to discuss, but he shrank from the thought, for he felt both too tired and too close to being drunk to be as dignified as the occasion required. An idea came to him, and he seized it. Instead of mentioning the letters, he said in a voice which was almost cheerful:

‘Would you object to telling me what you thought of Mr Mansel’s
Bampton
Lectures,
Dr Onslow? I think we can discuss those rather more profitably than we can transmutation, and the age of the earth.’

It was so unexpected that Onslow nearly laughed.

‘I can’t conceive why you should wish to know, sir, and I am surprised that a man of your opinions should have taken any interest in them, but I can only tell you that I thought them the most impressive piece of theological argument since Paley – words for our time.’

These sermon-lectures, recently published, had been the
intellectual sensation of the previous year. Mr Mansel was a philosopher and clergyman who had used eloquence and logic to show that it was not so much impious as nonsensical, essentially irrational, to attempt to make limited human reason comprehend the Infinite. It was therefore irrational to doubt the morality of God’s ordering Abraham to kill his son, on the grounds that such an action appeared wicked to the human mind. The goodness of God must necessarily be too high and remote for human understanding; mere rational understanding, he confessed at one point, made the atheist position the most plausible. But it was not so, and the wise who used their reason well would inevitably end in bowing down before the revelations provided by God, no matter how difficult they seemed.

Anstey-Ward had been pleased, and some simple Christians worried, by the remarks about atheism, but many of the intellectual orthodox considered that Mansel had coldly and brilliantly vanquished such nervous Broad Churchmen as Martin Primrose and Frederick Denison Maurice.

‘I thought you might,’ said Anstey-Ward. ‘For my part I agree with whoever it was said he is like the man sitting on an inn-sign, sawing busily. So you think, sir, that there is a morality high above what we consider to be moral – which allows what we consider to be wicked to be in fact good?’

After a moment, Onslow saw where the conversation was tending, understood why Anstey-Ward had raised this unexpected topic. Yet he was astonished by an atheist’s seeming to be concerned by what was moral. Straightening his shoulders and controlling his voice, he defended himself against the hint that he thought fit to ignore common morality, and fancied himself to be obeying a higher law when he sinned. He said:

‘I will not dispute with you about the nature and the actions of a God in Whom you do not believe, sir. He has made us know how it is we are to act through His Son and His New Testament. What He demands of man is what man must deliver.’

‘I see,’ said Anstey-Ward. ‘Yet you must be bound to consider God’s actions better than man’s, for all that, must
you not? And I don’t know that a man who thinks the hewing of Agag in pieces to be far from a crime can be said to possess anything but a twisted morality.’

‘Forgive me for saying that you are blinded by your prejudices,’ said Onslow.

‘I forgive you that,’ said Anstey-Ward, and looked at him.

Louisa lay awake in bed, waiting for her husband and thinking of how passionately she wanted him to become a bishop: not merely any bishop, but Bishop of Ipswich. She had almost rather that than see him Archbishop of Canterbury, for Ipswich was her father’s old see, and she had spent a happy childhood in the palace there. This childhood home she wanted to recreate largely because she still missed her father, though it was eleven years since his death. It was a continuing grief to her that she could not visit his grave, which was in Palestine – he had died of cholera on a trip to the Holy Land in 1848, a year after her own marriage, and had been succeeded at Ipswich by an old man who might at any moment die and give Onslow his opportunity, were it not for Anstey-Ward.

To help keep her mind off the immediate issue, about which she could do nothing till Onslow came upstairs, Louisa began to think about her marriage, and to compare her husband with her father, something she had not done directly before.

Louisa remembered how when she was a small child her father used to throw her up in the air and catch her, making her laugh at being safe again after an adventure. And when she grew to adulthood, she saw in George Onslow a man who would be able to take care of her as her father had: an older husband, best friend of her best-loved brother, destined for a high place in the church. He was kind and indulgent except when he was in a very bad humour, and just like her father, he tried to shelter her from all that was unpleasant, to which she had no objection. But she could
not imagine her father being angry when she turned out not to have been successfully sheltered, as Onslow had been when she revealed that she knew. Yet perhaps, she thought, her father too would have been rather shocked to learn that she was able to look on unpleasantness with cool and open eyes when she could not avoid it.

At the time of her marriage, Louisa had not seen in Onslow a younger substitute for her ageing father, for the two men did not look at all alike. She had simply thought Onslow as dashing as it was possible for a thirty-year-old clergyman to be, and had greatly enjoyed the sensation of being sufficiently grown-up to be married. Yet in spite of the excitement she had felt at eighteen, it had taken her many years to think of herself as truly grown-up. Considering the matter now, she wondered whether she had not thought of herself almost as a child masquerading in adult clothes until the day before yesterday, when her time of trial came, and to her own surprise she had almost welcomed it.

In spite of Onslow’s odd tastes and occasional bad temper, she had felt safe with him till that moment when she saw him read Anstey-Ward’s letter and guessed what it was. And she was even now unable to believe that Anstey-Ward would carry out his threat to deprive Onslow of all high preferment. Such things, she thought, did not happen.

Suddenly she thought of how she wanted a baby, and had been denied one: it was the only true dissatisfaction of her life till now. She would certainly feel entirely adult if she became a mother, and Onslow would acknowledge her as such – but it was perhaps odd that performing certain duties of a wife had not had that effect. She and Onslow embraced, as she called it to herself, perhaps once in three weeks, and she had no idea whether that was much more or much less than other couples. In spite of all her present anxiety, sensuous feelings began to creep round Louisa’s loins as she thought of embraces, and she blushed, for she and Onslow never spoke of these things. They pretended that nothing happened between them that might not happen between brother and sister, and that, she thought,
was perhaps why what they sometimes did together had no effect on their lives outside the bedroom, and did not make her feel like a full-blown woman.

At that moment, Onslow opened the door, and Louisa jumped.

‘I thought to find you asleep,’ he said, looking at her as he set his candle down. His tone of voice was forbidding, but Louisa took no notice.

‘What happened? What did he say?’

There was a pause, then Onslow said:

‘We spent out time discussing Mr Mansel’s
Bampton
Lectures.’

‘What?’

‘We made a tacit agreement to leave other matters till the morning. Please, Louisa, do not question me. You will know all in due course, and I am very tired.’

Onslow removed his coat, took his nightshirt, and retired behind a screen to undress. Louisa, bewildered, said at last:

‘But please, Dr Onslow, tell me a little. That is – were you in agreement about the
Bampton
Lectures
? Was it a friendly discussion?’

Louisa did not share her husband’s view of Mr Mansel. Like her brother, she thought that to say God might act in a way contrary to ordinary ideas of morality was to deprive the concept of goodness of all meaning. She therefore simply refused to believe that God had ordered Joshua to massacre the Canaanites, or Abraham to kill his son.

‘No, we were not in agreement, nor was it a very friendly discussion.’

‘Oh, dear. What did you say? Does Dr Anstey-Ward agree with Martin?’ She did not like to say ‘and me’.

‘Louisa my dear, please go to sleep. I cannot discuss it any further.’

‘How can I possibly simply go to sleep? George, I insist on your telling me.’

‘And I insist on holding my tongue for the meanwhile.’

After a moment, Louisa said:

‘Very well.’ Lying down slowly in the bed, she decided it
would not be wise to press him further, for it seemed matters were at a very delicate stage. If they had spent their time discussing indifferent and intellectual matters, she thought, there must be hope, even though they had disagreed. It was likely that all would be well without her having to lift a finger: she felt a little twinge of disappointment.

As soon as his wife submitted, Onslow felt a great longing to tell her every detail of his unfortunate conversation with Anstey-Ward. He passionately desired Louisa’s sympathy, but he forced himself to be silent for the time being, because he must preserve his energies for what was to come tomorrow.

*

Next morning, Anstey-Ward woke very early, after a night of surprisingly untroubled sleep. He rose and dressed himself, and then went out into the grey cold garden, hoping to prepare himself mentally for the coming encounter – but as he wandered slowly round, he thought not so much of what was to happen between himself and Onslow as of Christian and why he had sent him to Charton, and so brought all this down upon his head.

It was worldliness, he supposed, the simple snobbish desire for his son to have the education of a gentleman. But he wondered whether he would have obeyed the dictates of snobbery had Christian shown any interest in science; and tugging at his whiskers, he pictured the son he would have had in the event of his being kept away from public school.

Had he stayed at home, Christian would have had no clerical tutor to introduce him to Homer and Horace and the other bores. He would have had a scientific and useful education, as Rose had had, and as a result would have been curious and practical instead of dreamy. He might not even have learnt classics enough to take him to Oxford, thought Anstey-Ward in a sudden new loathing of the established system of education. He remembered Christian’s remarks about the quite incredible ignorance of Charton boys thought good scholars: ignorance of the
whereabouts of Moscow, and of who wrote
King
Lear,
to say nothing of their ignorance of the earth’s history. Anstey-Ward thought he would not be surprised to learn that Dr Onslow thought Moscow was in Persia, and taught his boys the same with a neat sneering half-smile on his face.

The entire system, thought Anstey-Ward, was corrupt; and as he thought this, he paused by a yew hedge and saw strung across it a dew-laden net of spider’s web, in which there was a gnat entangled. His thoughts took a different direction. He supposed that some might compare Onslow with the gnat, yet he felt rather that he himself could be so compared, that it was he who had flown into a sticky and elastic net of a world where people of importance would tolerate any fault committed by one of their number so long as there was no scandal. Onslow’s sins, he thought suddenly, would be considered very venial by most of those classically educated men who sat in the Cabinet, or even on the bench of bishops. They would not hound Onslow out of the country simply because they knew, not if their knowledge were private.

Anstey-Ward had once thought of himself as the representative of acknowledged decency, with cohorts of good opinion ranged behind him, but now, when he was about to confront Onslow, he could not think of himself like that. He felt, if not entangled and at hopeless odds with the world, at least very much alone. For he would not have the power to make scandal unless certain of the great chose to let him, and he imagined that in the case of so enormous a potential scandal the editors of influential newspapers might not so choose. The thought of this was enough to make him long to create such a scandal, make him hope that Onslow would issue a challenge by refusing his terms. Yet at the same time that was what he most dreaded, a contemptuous ‘Publish and be damned’ – for if he succeeded in exposing Onslow, he would also be exposing Christian’s part in the affair. It was that consideration which had held him back at the start from deciding to ruin Onslow publicly.

He turned away from the yew hedge, and walked back towards the house. Approaching it, he looked up towards
the window of the bedroom where Onslow and his wife had passed the night – and there he saw Onslow, in his nightshirt, looking down at him. Their eyes remained fixed on each other for some seconds, then Onslow quickly turned away. Anstey-Ward guessed that he would dress himself and come down immediately: the confrontation would take place before breakfast. He went into his library to wait.

Onslow dressed and shaved himself in haste, thankful that Louisa was still asleep. It was best, he thought, to discuss the matter before everyone else was up – he wondered whether Anstey-Ward had passed as disturbed a night as he had, unable to stop examining the evening’s conversation and thinking of all the things he might have said. Now he planned what he was going to say upon entering the library. His stomach churned painfully at the thought that he was at last about to set eyes on the ‘documents’, and he found his old hope growing inside him, the hope that they would turn out not to be irrefutable evidence, not to be words in his own hand.

As soon as he was dressed he went downstairs. He found the library door wide open, and Anstey-Ward sitting in full view. Entering, and closing the door behind him, he spoke the words he had rehearsed to himself before the other had a chance to say anything.

‘Dr Anstey-Ward, I wish to see the documents to which you referred in your letter. I think you will not deny it is my right to do so.’

Anstey-Ward lowered Gosse’s
History
of
the
British
Sea-
Anemones
and
Corals,
which he picked out of the bookcase at random, and of which he had not read a word.

‘No, I won’t deny it. Pray sit down, sir.’

Onslow took a chair. Anstey-Ward went over to his desk and took out his watch-chain, to which there was a bunch of keys attached. He unlocked one of the drawers. Out of it Onslow saw him take a piece of paper which even at a distance looked as though it had spent months in a trouser-pocket, a neat piece of cheap-looking paper, and a folded square of cream-laid. He came over, and handed them to him in silence.

Onslow opened out the first piece of paper, the very shabby one, which was the note Arthur Bright had written to Christian in chapel. As he read it, and gradually took in its meaning, his hands shook: it had never crossed his mind that Arthur might deliberately have told another boy, and told him in such a fashion, only to enliven a sermon he thought dull. Yet while he was coping with this new knowledge, another part of his mind was busily thinking that this was a mere allegation, not proof – but then he came to Bright’s mention of an extract from one of his own letters. He forced himself to open the folded square of good paper.

There were the words in his own hand, referring to his darling’s beauty and the sofa, and it was worse than he had imagined.

‘Would you like a glass of water, Dr Onslow?’ said Anstey-Ward, honestly concerned, for Onslow looked white enough to faint like a woman.

‘No,’ said Onslow, slowly re-folding the pieces of paper, and slipping them into his inside pocket.

‘I am sorry,’ said Anstey-Ward. He thought it was ridiculous for him to be saying so, yet he meant it, for he felt much as Onslow did when called upon to flog a boy who could not be stoical.

There was silence for some time. Then Onslow said:

‘Your terms remain the same?’ He could think of nothing better to say, not now that he knew what Bright had done.

‘They do, sir.’

‘I accept them.’

They had both imagined vaguely that they would have a long conversation, its length proportionate to its importance, yet now it was over.

Onslow got up to go. His legs felt only just strong enough to bear him. As he reached the door, Anstey-Ward said:

‘Oh, Dr Onslow, you still have those letters in your pocket.’

‘Yes?’

‘Pray give them back to me.’

Their eyes met. Then Onslow took them out and laid them on the table.