The Fall of Doctor Onslow (18 page)

On November 24th, Anstey-Ward returned to Poplar House after having spent three weeks in Wales on a fossil-hunting expedition. He was greeted warmly by his sister, and after supper, she began to tell him what had happened in the world since he went off on his trip. She knew that he would not have seen a newspaper while he was away.

‘Now, there was something else I was so sure would interest you – what was it? Oh yes! Dr Onslow is to be the new bishop of Ipswich. It was announced in all the public prints a fortnight or so ago.’

‘Dr Onslow?’ said Anstey-Ward.

‘Do you not remember him? Christian’s old headmaster. He and Mrs Onslow once spent the night here. They came on some errand or other, I have forgotten what it was – I remember thinking it strange at the time.’

‘Yes, I remember him,’ was all Anstey-Ward said.

‘It is a little odd that he has not been made a bishop before this, don’t you think? I believe he has spent the last few years quite out of the world – but perhaps he wanted a little rest from responsibility,’ said Chatty. She went on: ‘I saw Mrs Eames today, and she told me she fears he is rather too High. A great pity. Two High Churchmen on the bench of bishops are more than enough, we were agreed about that. Do you think he will approve of sisterhoods, and confession, like the Bishop of Oxford? I never heard so before – Mrs Eames does tend to exaggerate a little. I wonder where she had her information from.’

‘I haven’t a notion, Chatty.’

‘To be sure, such matters are of no interest to you, more’s the pity.’

‘You’re very right,’ said Anstey-Ward, who had never been more fascinated by any piece of information in his life. ‘If you and Rose will excuse me, there are matters I must attend to.’

‘When you have only just returned?’

‘Yes, I fear so.’

His sister watched him go towards the door with indignation in her eyes, but his daughter Rose regarded him speculatively.

In the library, Anstey-Ward sat down in his armchair and pressed his hands to his forehead, as though to force his thoughts into shape. His thoughts were a muddle of incredulity, anger and fear. He was incredulous because he could not believe that Onslow had simply forgotten what he said, though it was a long time ago. He was angry because if Onslow did remember, he was defying him, daring to challenge him – an idea almost as incredible as that of his having forgotten. And he was frightened because he did not know what to do.

At length, after pouring himself some brandy, he decided that he had three choices: to do nothing, to expose Onslow immediately, and to threaten exposure if he did not resign, just as he had done four years before. At first, Anstey-Ward’s hatred of having the whole sordid business dug up again made him think that to do nothing was the least unpleasant alternative. Let everything be buried and forgotten – yet the thought of that soon made him sweat with furious anxiety. He pictured Bishop Onslow sneering at him delicately to Canon Primrose, mocking his mere bluster and his lack of resolution, observing that those dogs who barked loudly often had no bite. They might meet one day, and then Onslow would smile at him – an intolerable thought.

But the thought of exposing Onslow to the Prime Minister and the public prints was quite as unbearable. For exactly as Onslow had guessed he would, Anstey-Ward knew that after this length of time he would be showing
himself in a very unpleasant light if he were to come forward with the evidence against his enemy, evidence which had been yellowing for years at the back of one of the drawers in his library. People would condemn him either for not having done his duty at the time, or, possibly, for having sat in judgement on Onslow in the first place. No one would think he had acted rightly, and Anstey-Ward wanted to be thought of as a righteous man, just as he could not bear to be thought irresolute. He had blackmailed in the interest of justice and virtue, not merely because he did not wish to involve his son in a scandal – but it was blackmail just the same. He had not thought of that before, and he hated having to realise it.

Savagely he wished that he had destroyed Onslow completely when he had the opportunity, in spite of Onslow’s innocent wife, in spite even of Christian. But it was no use, the opportunity was past. There remained only the third choice: to threaten, and hope his threat was heeded. For if Onslow called his bluff, and refused to resign, he would not be able to expose him. He would not be able to face what would follow – the gossip, the outrage, the criticism, the wondering. And if he did not expose Onslow after warning he would do so, the man would be able to laugh at him, able to sneer more heartily even than he would do if no threat were made and the matter were simply allowed to rest. For Anstey-Ward knew that in the second case he might be able to pass himself off as a mere hot-tempered man, content to let bygones be bygones once his anger had cooled. He could not do that if he threatened Onslow again.

Back Anstey-Ward went to thinking that it would be best to do nothing, and then he wavered once more. In the end, caught between two repulsive alternatives, he decided to spin a coin. Heads represented doing nothing at all, and tails represented issuing a threat which he could only hope Onslow would obey out of fear. And Onslow had already shown himself to be recklessly bold.

*

At Hinterton, Onslow and Louisa were receiving the congratulations of Mr and Mrs Butterick, who had been in London when it was first announced that Onslow was to be Bishop of Ipswich. Two weeks had passed since then, two weeks in which the Onslows had received the congratulations of all manner of people.

‘My dear sir, I cannot tell you how delighted I am that you have accepted the appointment. You have been wasting your talents here, but how we shall miss you!’ said Mr Butterick.

‘Yes, we shall,’ put in his wife, who did not like Onslow, in spite of the fact that he was High Church enough to wear a surplice in the pulpit, something of which she approved. She thought him both cold and arrogant, but she had always been polite to him. ‘And we shall miss Mrs Onslow too – her Sunday school.’

‘And I am sure we shall miss everyone at Hinterton,’ said Onslow. ‘We have spent four very happy years here, have we not, Louisa?’

‘Oh, we have.’ said Louisa. Now that they were to escape from Hinterton, it did seem as though the period they had spent there had not been so very bad.

‘Yours is the first admirable appointment to the bench of bishops Lord Palmerston has made,’ said Mr Butterick. ‘I have never been able to understand his passion for appointing men whose scholarly attainments cannot be said to exist.’

‘Oh, that can be put down to Lord Shaftesbury’s account,’ said Onslow, as he remembered having once said to Primrose. He was enjoying Mr Butterick’s praise – he enjoyed everything now. ‘Let them only be Evangelicals and nothing else is of the slightest consequence.’

‘Then how glad I am for your sake that Lord Shaftesbury did not dissuade Lord Palmerston from giving you your due. We need bishops who are good scholars.’

‘We need Dr Onslow,’ said Mrs Butterick in a shy voice, ‘but I do not think it is of the first important that a bishop should be a scholar. It is of more moment that he should be able to rule his diocese without, without alienating the
affections of his clergy and their parishioners. Do you not think so?’

Mr Butterick looked astonished at his wife’s venturing a decided opinion.

‘Oh yes,’ said Louisa, equally taken aback.

‘No one, madam, could disagree with you,’ said Onslow, observing the expression on Mr Butterick’s face, which amused him.

‘Am I then the only one amongst us who values scholarship?’ said Mr Butterick good-humouredly. ‘I cannot believe it! But Dr Onslow, how well pleased you must be that your appointment has been so generally welcomed – even by those who like to write leading articles critical of all that the Government does.’

‘Yes,’ said Onslow; and Louisa looked at him, thinking that the whole depth of his pleasure had emerged in that one word, and that the Buttericks would consider it odd.

At that moment, the parlourmaid opened the door, carrying a salver on which there lay an envelope. ‘A telegram, sir,’ she said to Onslow. He took it, and as he did so, he knew that his three-week-old confidence was no more substantial than a fine spider’s web, now ripped away from its corner to dangle as a forlorn and dirty string.

The Buttericks were respectfully silent.

‘Would you object,’ said Onslow, ‘if I read this? – my sister in Italy has been unwell.’ Although he guessed what the telegram contained, he wanted to see the words. It was possible, just possible, that a telegram was not from Anstey-Ward, but from some impulsive person who wished to offer felicitations.

‘My dear Dr Onslow, pray do not hesitate!’

Onslow ripped open the envelope and read:

RESIGN IMMEDIATELY – ANSTEY-WARD.

‘May I see it, George?’ said Louisa. Silently he handed it to her.

‘Not bad news, I trust?’ said Mr Butterick.

‘Oh no!’ said Louisa, gazing at the words. ‘No, indeed! Is it not delightful news, George, what a relief – she is better.’

‘Yes,’ Onslow managed to say.

‘I am so glad,’ said Mrs Butterick politely. ‘What has Mrs Jenkinson been suffering from?’

‘Oh,’ said Louisa, ‘oh, she had the misfortune to contract typhus fever. And she has never been strong.’

‘What excellent news, then,’ said Mr Butterick.

‘Yes, it is. We have been so worried.’

‘Most unpleasant to be so troubled in mind at such a moment as this is. Or, to be sure, at any moment.’

‘Yes, indeed.’

‘But now you may be easy. There will be nothing to spoil the pleasure of your removing to Ipswich!’

‘Oh, moving house will scarcely be a pleasure. It never is anything but a trouble,’ said Louisa. Her voice shook a little, but she soon regained control. ‘I so well remember our move from Charton, and how so many things were lost.’

‘I think,’ said Mrs Butterick, who could see that Onslow was deeply affected by the good news concerning a sister whom he scarcely ever saw, ‘that perhaps Mr Butterick and I ought to take our leave of you.’

Louisa got to her feet.

‘How very good it was of you to call.’

‘Naturally we came as soon as possible to felicitate you, Mrs Onslow,’ said Mr Butterick. He wished to remain and talk about the bishopric, but he could not help noticing the way in which Louisa had jumped at his wife’s suggestion.

‘So very kind.’ Louisa looked at Onslow, angry with him for not helping her make the pretence. He used to have perfect self-control – she remembered how he had played his part when they went to visit Anstey-Ward.

‘Yes,’ said Onslow. ‘Yes, indeed. Pray give my regards to Tom, sir.’

‘Certainly I shall.’

At last, the Buttericks left, and Louisa and Onslow were alone in the drawing-room.

Louisa’s eyes fell; clumsily she went over to the sofa and sat down. Onslow turned to look out of the window.

‘So it has happened,’ he said at last.

‘Yes,’ she replied, too exhausted by the effort of deceiving the Buttericks to hate him.

‘I was so sure – so certain – I suppose he must have been abroad when the announcement was made.’

‘Yes.’

Louisa began quietly to cry: not yet with rage at Onslow, but simply because the gleaming prospect of happiness had been snatched away in a moment. And she wondered at her own incredible folly, wondered how in the world she could have thought this would not happen.

‘Louisa, do not cry. It makes it so much worse,’ he said, hearing one small sob. ‘You are not in general so lachrymose.’

She took no notice. She had been so sure that youth and high spirits would return to her once she was installed at Ipswich, with Paris dresses, and important company, and an income of £5,000 a year. Now she would never feel young again.

Onslow turned round from the window and watched her for a while. He supposed he ought to comfort her, but he could not bring himself to do it. He walked out of the room and left her to weep, and then she hated him with all the energy she had left.

Onslow locked himself in his study and went over to his desk, where a half-finished sermon lay on the blotting pad. He took it up and fingered it, looking at the fire. He did
not feel tired out, like Louisa. Now that he had escaped from her sobbing, he felt both calm and capable. The thought of what his life was to be now did not oppress him, for he refused to acknowledge that all hope was quite gone. He still clung to the idea that Anstey-Ward feared to expose himself as a blackmailer, and was in fact eager for the suppression of any scandal – that the telegram, in short, was a bluff.

Onslow could not tolerate the thought of submitting to Anstey-Ward’s command. The idea of having the man gloat over him, as though he were a captured, helpless specimen, made him flush fiercely and crumple up the sermon in his hand. Never that, he thought, even if he were to be exposed. There was a certain dignity about exposure; he would hold his head high if he were exposed. He told himself that now he had taken his chance, it was his duty to see it through to the end.

Onslow made himself contemplate the worst. He saw himself alone in exile abroad, existing on the £200 a year which was his sole private income. He saw himself alone with his God, shunned by the world, and the picture did not trouble him, because there was something almost heroic about it – certainly there would be if he did not slide down into the moral swamp where involuntary exiles lived, where there was drinking, and card-sharping, and unclean linen. At that moment such an existence seemed distinctly preferable to his life at Hinterton, which was not so bad in itself, he knew, but which was poisoned because he lived it at Anstey-Ward’s insistence. And after thinking for two weeks that it was over, he could not bear to crawl back into it. For two weeks, he had been able to think that very shortly he would never see this dark and uncomfortable study again. It was intolerable to think he might write his sermons in it for the rest of his life – the thought was far worse than it had been before he accepted the bishopric.

But almost as soon as he had persuaded himself that he could and would challenge Anstey-Ward again, and endure a lonely life abroad if necessary, Onslow thought of how if
Anstey-Ward took up his challenge, and exposed him, he would be not only reviled, but ridiculed.

He remembered how he had once seen one of the vicious cartoons which had been circulated when the Bishop of Clogher was arrested for sodomy, over forty years before. He had come across it some while after he was made Headmaster of Charton, and had yielded to temptation for the first time. The cartoon had called the Bishop ‘The Arse-Bishop’ in its caption – the memory made Onslow feel ill. Such rollicking brutality was no longer in fashion, but Onslow knew that indescribably coarse material was still circulated, though perhaps more discreetly than it had been in the twenties. He knew that he would be mocked in just such a fashion by Holywell Street pornographers – and though he thought he could stand hatred and exile, he knew that he could not stand being the subject of pornographic ridicule.

Then he thought of how Louisa had said she would not go with him if he were forced to live abroad, and he tried to imagine life without her.

For the first twelve years of his marriage, he had not needed her. Now the case was altered. He knew that while exile with his wife beside him might be less noble than exile without her, it would be far less uncomfortable. In fact, he thought as he sobered down a little, he would not be able to endure the utter loneliness of life abroad if she did not come with him. And she had said she never would – but it must have been an empty threat, for she had always done her wifely duty, and surely would always do it.

Onslow was faced with two equally ugly choices. Even when he thought of what scandal and exile would really mean, the idea of resigning as he had been ordered to do was as repugnant and shaming as ever. Like Anstey-Ward, he could not decide, and he had to decide quickly.

Then Onslow recalled the existence of God, which he had scarcely touched on in his thoughts till now. Looking out of the window, he saw that there was still a little daylight, and in that daylight he could see the church tower, just across the way. He got up, fetched his hat and
greatcoat, and went out. On reaching the church, he pushed open the door, and walked up the aisle to kneel in one of the front pews. The church’s cold and silence and mustiness enabled him to concentrate upon his God.

He remained kneeling on his hassock for twenty minutes, until it was almost entirely dark. Then the sexton came in, carrying a lantern, and the noise and light disturbed him. Onslow felt almost ashamed of having been caught in prayer, as though the sexton could guess precisely why he needed to pray. Fortunately, the man did not appear to have noticed him, but even when he and his light were gone, Onslow found it hard to recapture his mood of prayerfulness, and reluctantly he got to his feet. Then he made his way back to the rectory.

Though his prayers had been curtailed, they had been successful. God, Onslow believed, demanded that he should place himself unreservedly in the hands of the wife against whom he had so greatly offended. It would be for her to decide.

*

Louisa turned on Onslow in a fury when he suggested not resigning, and did not appear to take in the fact that it was her decision that mattered.

‘To have accepted that bishopric in the first place was madness, see where it has led us, and now you dare to suggest that you will still not resign! It is your fault that we are in this mess. Your fault entirely, and now whatever you do there will be gossip.’

‘I am aware.’

‘You think it will be humiliating to resign, but you deserve to be humiliated!’

‘Perhaps I do, Louisa. But I still think there is a chance.’

‘A chance! You have had it proved to you in the clearest possible way that he will ruin you, and still you say there is a chance! Do you want to be destroyed? Do you want to spend the rest of your life abroad? And don’t think I will accompany you.’

‘No, you told me that before. So it is your view that I must resign?’

She drew breath. ‘Yes, George, that is my view, though of course I know it will not weigh with you. So be it. I shall write to Martin, telling him to expect me.’

‘On the contrary, I am, as I told you, concerned only to please you. If you wish it, I shall resign.’

‘Good. And I only hope that you are properly sensible of your own folly.’

‘I am. And once again, I ask you to forgive my original fault. Is that in your mind, Louisa?’

She said nothing. She did not like the fact that Onslow, instead of reaching the only sensible decision on his own, had made her do it for him – and therefore she witheld forgiveness. Onslow looked reproachfully at her sullen face, inclined his head as though she were a stranger, and left the room.

Back in his study, Onslow first composed a telegram to Anstey-Ward, to be sent in the morning. It said merely ‘I resign – Onslow.’ Then he turned his attention to the letter of resignation, which took him hours to write, hours interrupted by a silent dinner with Louisa. At last, the final draft ran: