The Fall of Doctor Onslow (16 page)

The squire of Hinterton was a Mr Butterick, a pleasant, cultivated man of fifty. He was delighted to have so distinguished a man as Onslow for the rector of the parish, and soon became friendly with him. As for the Onslows, to them Mr Butterick’s presence in the neighbourhood seemed a species of blessing, for at Hinterton, the presence of any man familiar with the
Iliad
would have appeared so.

One morning in May of 1860, when Onslow was spending his daily hour with the Bible, Mr Butterick came to call at the rectory. Onslow was glad enough to see him, glad to have the rigid routine to which he clung interrupted.

‘Dr Onslow,’ said the squire, after a few civilities had been exchanged, ‘I will no longer conceal from you that I have come here to ask a very great favour of you.’

‘Have you, sir? I am sure I shall be delighted to grant it,’ said Onslow politely.

Mr Butterick took out his watch and wound it.

‘It is my son Tom, who has been rusticated from Cambridge for a stupid prank. Well, boys will be boys as they say, but what chiefly concerns me is the fact that he appears to have done almost no work.’

‘They never do, Mr Butterick.’

‘Yes, it is all very well, but Tom has to have a profession. He cannot afford to be plucked. I have brought him to see that this cannot continue, and he works with me every morning, but the fact is that while I remember my classics tolerably well, I never was able to understand mathematics. Fortunately at Oxford that did not prevent me from taking
honours, but Tom was set on Cambridge – I have been wondering –’

‘Perhaps you would like me to offer him a little tuition?’ said Onslow.

‘Dare I ask it? It is very presumptuous of me to think you might wish to spend your time in such a way, but I do not know what I am to do.’

‘Certainly! I was once a Wrangler, but I am more than a trifle rusty, and shall be glad to take up my mathematics again.’

Thus a small change was introduced into Onslow’s life.

*

Next day, as soon as he shook hands with him in his study, Onslow remembered having met Tom Butterick before. He wondered why the boy had made only a vague impression on him on that occasion (an evening party given by his parents at Christmas), for Tom was distinctly attractive. He had curling brown hair, bright eyes, a straight little nose, and a good figure. His appearance was spoilt only by his hands, which were like great ruddy spades.

‘I hope we shall become friends, you and I,’ he said.

‘I hope so, sir,’ replied Tom. He looked to be listless, the sort of boy whom in the old days Onslow had tried to punish into intelligence.

‘I take it you are not fond of mathematics, Mr Butterick?’ It seemed odd to be calling a pupil ‘Mr’, but Onslow remembered that he was now teaching an undergraduate, not a schoolboy. It was twenty years since as a young Fellow and tutor of Trinity, Onslow had taught undergraduates. He thought to himself that he must remember that period of his life rather than the other.

‘I’m not especially fond of it, no, sir,’ said Tom, and added in a voice of punctilious boredom: ‘It’s very good of you to offer to teach me.’

‘Not at all. I see you have brought your Euclid. Perhaps you had best show me which propositions trouble you, and I will see whether I can make you understand.’

‘Yes, sir.’

They sat down together at the study table, and their legs brushed as they did so. Tom smelt of soap, but underlying the soap smell there was something more animal – yet it did not resemble the animal smell of the villagers’ cottages. Onslow, noticing this, wondered whether Tom had been forced into coming to him for lessons by threats of a reduced allowance. His somewhat sullen demeanour made this seem likely, but Onslow, though he wished it were not so, was determined not to be daunted.

The lesson did not go well. Tom turned out to be stupid, stupid at any rate where mathematics were concerned. Onslow, instead of being repelled by this, found himself longing to make the boy understand. He never used to feel like that at Charton. There, if a boy proved to be slow, he either mocked him or ignored him. But then, he thought, he had had many bright pupils to delight him, some of whom were handsomer than Tom.

As they worked together, Onslow was constantly aware of the warmth of the boy’s body, constantly distracted by his touchingly sparse whiskers and the way his hair merged into down at the nape of his neck. It was nearly a year since he had been close enough to any boy to observe such details.

*

Over the course of three weeks, Tom’s mathematics barely improved, and Onslow became increasingly frustrated as he sat by him day after day. It seemed to him that Tom was not altogether unintelligent, for his remarks on general subjects were sensible enough, and so he was forced to wonder whether he himself were not a bad teacher. Tom’s failure to make progress gradually made him wonder whether even at Charton, teaching classics, he had really been as good a schoolmaster as he would have liked to be and had once believed he was. Unwillingly, in Tom’s presence, he remembered how often he had failed to kindle interest in boys’ minds – he had forgotten that since leaving, had only remembered a golden age filled with docile and
intelligent pupils. It was terrible to have such doubts about his past, the thought of which had in recent months been as much a comfort as a source of pain to him. It was as terrible as knowing that he could never make any move towards any boy now that he was outside the enclosed, distorted world of Charton.

One morning, Onslow told Tom to copy out several of Euclid’s propositions from memory. He thought this task could not be beyond the boy. As Tom worked, Onslow stood by the open window and thought of what Primrose had said to him about his true sin being not carnal but a misuse of authority. He was beginning to understand what his friend had meant, now that he had no authority to misuse.

‘I have finished, sir,’ said Tom, and Onslow turned his head.

‘Have you, Mr Butterick?’ he said, coming over to the table. Tom handed him two sheets of paper, and Onslow put on his spectacles to inspect them.

Tom had not remembered one of the propositions correctly. Onslow raised his head and looked at his fair, unconscious face. He thought he detected a trace of smugness in the boy’s expression, and quite suddenly, his feelings of frustration overcame him.

‘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.

‘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.