The Fall of Doctor Onslow (5 page)

‘Dr Onslow,’ said Louisa next day at luncheon, when Primrose happened to be out, ‘I want you to resolve a small difficulty for me. It is very small.’

‘Certainly, my dear, if I can.’

‘I have spent all morning in trying to decide what to wear to the Taits this evening. It is a choice between pearl grey and pale yellow – which shall it be?’

‘But I know nothing of such matters,’ said Onslow, picking up his knife and fork again.

‘You can surely decide between two colours. I am not asking you to look at the dresses.’

Louisa’s two hobbies were her clothes and her garden. When gardening, she wore an old stuff dress with its skirts looped up over a short petticoat, but at all other times her clothes were extremely fashionable and elegant: too much so for a clergyman’s wife, Onslow sometimes thought, but he never bothered to speak seriously to her about it.

Onslow’s mind was now occupied with Arthur Bright, who had been provocatively idle in school that morning. He said:

‘I am very sure it is immaterial which you wear, Louisa. I advise you to spin a coin, if your maid’s opinion will not do.’

‘But I am asking you,’ said Louisa. ‘Can you not give me a simple answer?’

‘Not when I am not qualified to answer.’

‘You are perfectly well qualified to say grey or yellow. That is all I am asking.’

They looked at each other across the table. Onslow said in a worried voice:

‘My dear Louisa, I see that something is amiss. You are not at all yourself.’

‘I am perfectly well. I only want an answer instead of a dismissal of my concerns.’

Onslow paused for a moment.

‘I think this particular concern of yours is of little moment and no business of mine, but since you are so determined to extract my opinion, I will say grey. There, are you happy now?’

‘Thank you!’ said Louisa. ‘Thank you for paying me such distinguishing attention.’

In general, Louisa was the most cheerful and least demanding of wives, and Onslow loved her nearly as much as her brother did.

*

The Onslows and Primrose were to dine at Fulham Palace with Dr Tait, the Bishop of London. Dr Tait was an old friend of Primrose’s, and they had worked together on the commission which advocated reform of Oxford University some years before; but Onslow did not know the Bishop quite so well, though he too had been a member of the commission.

Both Onslow and Louisa wished to keep Dr Tait’s good opinion, because although as Headmaster of Charton Onslow was not subject to his authority, the Bishop of London might prove useful when the time came for him to resign his post. Advancement to a bishopric or deanery was virtually automatic for the retiring headmaster of a great public school, but Onslow’s dread was that if prelates and politicians thought little of him, he would be fobbed off with the deanery, and would then be forced to accept a drastic cut in income from nearly six thousand a year to less than a fifth of that – not for a year or two’s waiting, but for good. It was for the Prime Minister to decide what should become of him, but the Prime Minister might be
influenced by the opinion of senior bishops, especially those appointed by himself. Lord Palmerston, who had appointed Dr Tait, had just resigned from office, but Onslow did not think the new Conservative ministry would last long, and thus he thought it as well to conceal his High Church leanings from Dr Tait in so far as he could do so without hypocrisy, while Louisa sought to appear wise, discreet and serious, without being dowdy. It was to this end she had asked Onslow to choose between two of her more sober evening dresses.

Though quiet in colour and trimmed only with a single fall of lace from the shoulders, Louisa’s grey dress was as fashionable as all her others. Its cage crinoline was so large that when they set out to drive to Fulham it took her, her maid and Primrose several minutes to ease it into the carriage, and when at last she was inserted, there was barely room for the two men, though neither of them was large. This gave her an obscure pleasure. Onslow, who had seen Arthur Bright alone that afternoon, made no comment on his wife’s taking up so much space, but merely squeezed her hand and complimented her on her looks. Primrose saw the hand-squeeze and wondered very much at the way Onslow sometimes behaved as though he were still courting his wife, when in general he appeared to have no more than an indifferent sort of fondness for her. He said:

‘I am being crushed by your skirt, Louie. There is a great steel bar digging into my knee.’

‘What you mean,’ said Louie, ‘is that my skirt is being crushed by you.’

*

Fourteen people sat round the yellow-lit dinner-table, and Onslow thought he was the worst off of all the guests, certainly worse off than his wife and brother-in-law. Louisa was sitting between her host and a fashionable young man of the type known as a swell, while Primrose had a sensible-looking spinster on one side and a pretty young lady on the other. On Onslow’s left there sat Mrs Tait, whom he did
not dislike, but on his right there was the elderly and double-chinned wife of a judge, whose idea of conversation was to ask him his opinion on various controversial religious matters, and nod or purse her lips at his replies. She made him feel like a candidate for ordination.

She had already asked him what he thought of Sunday travel, of confession, and of religious sisterhoods – she was inclined to condemn all three, while Onslow was more prone to condemn those who agreed with her, who were nearly always Evangelicals, like his mother. Yet he thought it unwise to express himself as strongly as he might have done, for Dr and Mrs Tait were sympathetic to the more moderate kind of Evangelical. Now, as the entrees were brought in, the judge’s lady asked for his opinion of geology and geologists, and of those who admired Strauss’s
Life
of
Jesus.

‘Pray tell me Dr Onslow, which do you think presents the graver danger to faith – geology or neology?’

‘Neology, madam,’ he said briefly.

‘How very interesting. May I ask why so?’

‘How very interested you are in my opinions. I must be flattered.’ The boys of Charton would have recognised his tone as sarcastic, but the lady inclined her head and said:

‘Certainly I am. I am always anxious to discover what clergymen think upon serious subjects. I am surprised, however, that you consider neology the greater threat, for the foolish essays of these German professors are more easily dismissed than the discoveries of science,’ she asserted.

‘I do not deny that, Mrs Reynolds, though I have no reverence for science. I mean only that once a man has decided that Our Lord worked no miracles, or even that the Book of Daniel is later than the prophet Daniel, in no time at all he is an atheist – though to be sure he may not call himself an atheist. It seems not to be the case that men end similarly who, like myself indeed, come to accept let us say the proposition that the Flood did not cover the whole earth. You must notice that like a scientist, I judge from observation. I own that the geologists have cast doubt
on the literal accuracy of the first chapters of Genesis, but the rest of our faith they have left untouched.’

‘I do not think I agree with you, Dr Onslow.’

‘Do you not, madam?’

‘I am persuaded that geology presents a greater danger than you appear to believe. The Book of Genesis is as much a sacred text as the Gospels, and if it must be questioned, that is but the first step towards universal infidelity.’

Onslow said coldly: ‘A shocking prospect, madam, and possibly you are right. I will observe only that the Church has survived the assaults of scientists before – how many lost their faith when at last we were obliged to accept that the world is not flat, and that the sun does not go round the earth? A mere handful of men already disaffected.’

‘Perhaps you speak justly, Dr Onslow, but I am not sure that I agree.’

‘But you believe in a round earth and a heliocentric universe, and remain a Christian, madam, even though both acknowledged facts are contrary to traditional Christian wisdom.’

‘Certainly I am a Christian!’

‘Our beliefs about the world are incidentals,’ said Onslow, forgetting he was talking at a dinner-party to a woman he disliked, ‘incidental to the core of our faith in Christ. Greater knowledge of God’s design can never shake our faith in Him. No, madam, I fear a man who doubts the morality of the Old Testament or the reality of eternal punishment infinitely more than I fear any scientist.’ As he said this, he glanced at Primrose, and bit his lip. As firmly as he disbelieved in Hell, Primrose believed everything the geologists told him, and the less compatible their views were with traditional Christian beliefs the more he liked them. He was not one to prefer the catastrophist theory to the uniformitarian because, distorted a little, it seemed rather more compatible with Genesis.

‘You said that you take the gravest view of a man who doubts that Our Lord worked miracles. You forget that geologists, scientists, are more prone irreligiously to doubt miracles than other men,’ said Mrs Reynolds.

Onslow thought of the great clerical geologist Dr Buckland, who had put his tongue to the liquefying martyr’s blood on the floor of an Italian church, and identified it as bat urine. He smiled, and merely said:

‘Certain miracles, madam.’

Mrs Reynolds suddenly changed the conversation.

‘I am very glad to have had this little talk upon so many subjects with you, Dr Onslow, for a particular reason. Mr Reynolds and I are considering consigning our grandson to your care.’

‘Indeed, madam?’

‘Therefore I wished to assure myself that your views on serious subjects are broadly in accordance with our own. They are, I find, sufficiently so.’

‘I am obliged to you, though you surprise me.’

‘But one thing more remains for me to ask. Dr Onslow, the reputation of Charton is excellent, but upon one point I am not yet satisfied – I wish to know how carefully you think it proper to enquire into your prospective pupils’ social antecedents.’

Onslow looked her in the eye, and said:

‘Dear madam, so long as your grandson behaves himself and his fees are paid, no questions will be asked about his social antecedents.’

The expression on Onslow’s face was not malicious, but bland with a hint of solicitude. It took Mrs Reynolds a few seconds to understand his meaning, and when she had understood she wondered in horrified amazement at those who spoke of Dr Onslow as a likely future Archbishop of Canterbury. It was more because of his high reputation than because of her grandson that she had cross-examined him for half an hour, and she now looked forward to telling all who would listen that he was unfit to have charge of a few schoolboys, let alone to sit in Lambeth Palace.

Onslow did not care that he had lost a prospective pupil: Charton was as full as it could hold.

At the other end of the table, Louisa was talking to the fashionable young man on her right, who seemed very much out of place at an episcopal dinner table, but who
was related to Dr Tait. They were discussing the question of whether it was possible or prudent to marry on £300 a year, which had recently been receiving attention in the press.

‘Would you not find it delightful, Mr Newsome? A little cottage at Brompton, and children round your knee, and fetching your linen home from the washerwoman? So agreeable a change after your nasty club, and curacao, and cigars!’

‘Ha! Deuced if I see it myself,’ said Mr Newsome, stroking one of his long whiskers as he leant towards her.

‘Come, come, don’t be so worldly. I am sure you will shock Dr Tait – has he overheard? No, you are safe.’

At that moment, the Bishop turned round and looked kindly at her. He was a big, curly-haired man, handsome in a rather cold and too regular way.

‘Mr Newsome and I were discussing the Frugal Marriage question, my lord,’ said Louisa. ‘Do you think it steadies a young man’s character to marry on £300 a year?’

‘Why, my dear Mrs Onslow, I think the answer to that is simple. If a young man’s betrothed is content to do without the elegancies of life, he is justified in marrying on so small an income, and if not, not. As for steadying a young man’s character – it may have that effect if he is of good character already, but I am afraid I doubt whether it will otherwise.’

‘But then,’ said Louisa, ‘to return to your first point, it is not only the elegancies of life. There are unavoidable expenses in marriage – suppose either husband or wife were to fall ill, and require sea air, not to mention a physician’s attendance?’ She did not like to mention the expense of children, because it was less than two years since, in the space of a week, the Taits had lost all five of their little daughters to scarlet fever.

‘Very true,’ said the Bishop, who looked to Louisa’s eyes as though he were thinking of children. ‘What do you for your part consider an adequate income for a young couple, ma’am?’

‘I fear I cannot make up my mind, my lord.’

He remarked:

‘Sea air can certainly be very expensive – one would never guess it was provided by the Almighty. Are you fond of the seaside, Mrs Onslow?’

‘Extremely! Bathing is my delight. But the difficulty of securing a comfortable lodging becomes worse and worse each year. I would not dream of sullying your dinner-table with a description of what Dr Onslow and I had to endure when we were at Ramsgate last summer.’

As Dr Tait guessed, Louisa was referring to bedbugs: he smiled, giving Louisa some idea that while he thought her charming, he did not think her dignified.

Two places along from Louisa, Primrose had turned away from a young lady now being entertained by Mr Newsome, and was talking to the spinster whom Onslow thought looked sensible, but who was in fact given to making disconnected and eccentric remarks. The young lady had been too shy to make good conversation, and caught between two such women, Primrose wished he were in Onslow’s place between Mrs Tait and Mrs Reynolds. He always found it easier to talk to married women: spinsters made him wish, a little guiltily, that he desired to be married.

Both Onslow and Primrose were pleased when at length, after dessert, the ladies left the dining room. They stood up with alacrity when Mrs Tait did so, and indulgently watched Louisa smile as the gauze scarf she had dropped was handed to her by Mr Newsome, who appeared to think it as frail as a spider’s web. When the last crinoline had been manoeuvred through the dining room door, they sat down again, and waited for the interesting part of the evening to begin.