Back at the Rectory, he hung on the lion bell, panting. Mrs. Hallows admitted him instantly, as if she’d been standing on the other side of the door.
—His Grace is waiting.
She turned and clacked down the corridor. His side was stabbing from the second run. When he’d left Mrs. Flynt’s office, some weaselly number had informed him that the Bishop was expecting him in less than half an hour. He’d had to take the run at speed, which, following the unspeakable telephone call, had left him limping towards the cloakroom and clutching the basin. Being sick always hurt, and this would be no exception. Bending over the toilet, he felt it all come up—three eggs, four pieces of toast, three cups of tea. His stomach writhed even when empty, a muscle in spasm, a joke that wouldn’t quit. Mrs. Hallows found him on his knees.
—What’s all this?
He wiped his eyes and got to his feet. She stood in the hallway, holding the door. He pulled the chain on the toilet and rinsed his face with cold water.
—Enough filly-folly! she exclaimed. The Bishop is in the summerhouse.
—But …
He could scarcely form words. Surely the Bishop did not wish to see him …
—As you are, she said. His Grace’s instructions. Don’t stand there gawping, young man.
She led the way through the conservatory, where they’d eaten the night before, and onto the patio. The sun blazed, and he longed to plunge into the canal at the foot of the garden. Mrs. Hallows clomped down a trail of flagstones to a gazebo set before two willow trees. The Bishop looked up and marked his place in a book.
—Sir, Morgan began, I’m a sight. If I might just—
The Bishop pointed to a seat, thanked the woman, and filled two glasses from a pitcher. The lemonade was sweet enough to settle Morgan’s stomach and sour enough to restore his head. The Bishop nodded again at the seat he wished Morgan to take. It gave way as he sat, swinging backwards.
The Bishop asked no questions, yet his gaze constituted a sort of embrace, as if speaking were unnecessary between them. He didn’t ask whether the call had come off. He didn’t ask what Morgan’s father had said. He looked at Morgan as if he knew all that but awaited something else. He waited not in supplication or pity, but with the intensity of a watchman, bow in hand, arrow notched, waiting on the walls of a city against attackers in the night. The Bishop looked at him with authority, as if the power of his gaze could transport Morgan back to the room with the voice coming through the telephone—immeasurably let down, preposterous immaturity. His father had truly said those things. And Morgan had done the things he had done. He felt a flash of relief that his mother was not alive to know.
The Bishop continued to gaze at him, infinite will, unflinching presence (desperate case, you aren’t sorry at all). The seat swayed again beneath him. What, given liberty, would this man do to him?
—Sir …
Morgan’s voice scratched.
—What’s going to be done with me?
—Done with you? the Bishop repeated. It seems to me events are already doing quite a lot with you.
Morgan searched the man’s face.
—Something is knocking at the gates, the Bishop said.
A surge of alarm—had he spoken out loud about the city and the gates?
—It’s battering, isn’t it? Nearly splitting the timbers.
Morgan found himself nodding, gripped by the Bishop’s muscular and uncompromising … compassion.
—The question, I think, isn’t what’s to be done with you, but what you will do.
A cloak of lead slipped from his shoulders as another, searing skin snapped tight around him.
—What can I do?
—It seems to me you have two options, the Bishop said. You can continue to fortify the gates and hope that what’s knocking will grow discouraged and depart.
—It won’t, though, will it?
The Bishop blinked as if something pained him.
—Otherwise, Morgan said, I can open the gates.
—Yes.
—But that’s suicide.
—It rather depends on what’s knocking.
—You said battering, not knocking. Enemies batter. Who opens the gates to an enemy?
The Bishop took a sip from his glass as if they were in a summerhouse on a June day sharing lemonade after a morning’s exertions.
Morgan scanned his memory of the Iliad, of classic sieges Mr. Grieves had narrated. Who but a traitor would open the gates to the enemy? He ought to have paid closer attention. When it mattered, he was vague about the things he was supposed to have learnt.
—Batter my heart, the Bishop said, reaching for the jug to refill Morgan’s glass. For you as yet but knock, breathe, shine, and seek to mend.
He knew that! They’d done it with the Eagle, the day something essential happened. But what?
—That I may rise and stand, o’erthrow me.
—Oh, don’t make me sick again! Droit cried kicking the swing into motion.
They’d read it the day after Kilby—after Polly—
—Bend your force to break, blow, burn—
Isn’t that what had happened in the unspeakable interval this morning? Wasn’t he being burnt even now?
—You’re not going in for this claptrap, are you? Droit said severely. The whole thing’s so ludicrously transparent.
Was it?
—Out you’re sent on a stiff run, Droit continued. Then they spring that unforgivably maudlin scene on you. Next, sprint back until you’re puffed beyond endurance. Finally, without even allowing you an uninterrupted moment to retch up your guts, they haul you outside so this number can moon at you and quote clerical poems. Wake up, Dicky!
Morgan’s arms raced with goose pimples. The Bishop sat forward:
—What?
—Sir?
—What happened just now? Don’t lie, I haven’t the reserves.
Fire at the all-but-direct accusation that he lied habitually and without qualm.
—It’s only …
How could he phrase it? He had been told off professionally by a figment of his imagination, a figment that had called him by a most disagreeable name.
—Sometimes I imagine people.
—Here?
Morgan nodded.
—This person, the Bishop asked intently, is he, or she—
—He.
—Is he part of the battering, or is he inside the gates with you?
Droit lounged on the swing, running a damp handkerchief across his brow.
—Inside.
The Bishop received the news somberly. His gaze drifted to the space Droit occupied, not that he could see him. Other people couldn’t see figments of your imagination. That was what made them figments. No one could barge their way into your mind unless you let them.
But sometimes he said things he didn’t mean to say. Words came off his tongue before he even noticed. Was it possible for Droit to escape his bounds and wander, free, in the world?
—I go where I like, Droit whispered, do what I like.
—But you’re mine, Morgan told him.
—You’ve got your pronouns jumbled, Dicky. Just watch—
—Stop calling me that.
—What have I called you? asked the Bishop.
Never had Morgan been more aware of the surface of his skin. Every minute something contrived to send his blood rushing, superheating his face, his chest, the back of his neck, any place blood could flow.
—Let us not waste time, the Bishop said. Explain, please, how I’ve addressed you.
—I didn’t mean to say that out loud, sir.
—See, Droit hissed.
The Bishop set down his glass.
—Would it help if I were direct again?
Morgan couldn’t endure anyone else being direct. But he wasn’t a coward. How much worse could it get?
—You asked what was to be done with you, and while I quibble with your phraseology, the question does need answering.
Morgan cast his gaze to the ground, feeling as though he might be on the verge of a soothingly familiar interview. What’s to be done with you, Wilberforce? I don’t know, sir. Of course you do, touch your toes.
—But before we can answer it, the Bishop continued, you are going to have to stop behaving like a sullen schoolboy who exerts no agency and yet submits to no authority but his own.
The remark stung like a slap.
—Which do you want me to do? Morgan replied. Take action or submit to someone’s authority? Because I’m not exactly clear how I’m to do both.
—That is the sullenness I was speaking of, the Bishop said, and I’ve had enough of it, thank you. It’s doing nothing to diminish the danger of your situation.
Danger?
—And the impertinence isn’t attractive. You’re better than that.
—I shouldn’t think so, sir.
—Self-pity is even less attractive.
The Bishop spoke mildly as if discussing the design of his garden, but his very lightness gave his remarks the snap of the sharpest cane.
—When are you going to tell this number what he can do with his disapproval? Droit murmured. Perhaps if he plunged that ancient cock of his somewhere nice, he’d stop fixating on schoolboys he’d never met before yesterday.
—I don’t want to be this way.
—No, the Bishop said.
Morgan waited for clarification, but it didn’t come.
—My father’s going to arrange for me to go somewhere.
—And then?
—I don’t know. I suppose I’ll be sent to one of my uncles. I suppose they’ll find something for me to do. I suggested the navy but …
He couldn’t bring himself to repeat his father’s response or even to summarize it. If not the navy, then perhaps the army, or the shipyards. He’d never given any thought to his future as it had all been so fixed: school, university, the firm, marriage, children, carrying on until … he couldn’t think that far into the future. Now, though, the itinerary was canceled.
A clarity dawned. He was being banished. This shame would continue until it ran its course, one year, five, ten. His punishment would be to endure it and to absent himself from society until everything wore off. They hadn’t even expelled him to his face. S-K had at least summoned him repeatedly after Spaulding, berating him, bullying him, and generally letting off steam by shouting at him. They, by contrast, had treated him as a pariah. Burton had disarmed him, extracted the hideous confession, and then exiled him to the corridor. Grieves had stood as far from him as possible, looking as though something precious inside had been shattered. Dr. Sebastian for his part had treated him, he now realized, as a prisoner under transport. If Dr. Sebastian had explained nothing, it was because criminals forfeited the right to explanation. Morgan had been so consumed by vexation that he hadn’t until this moment recognized the ignominy of his position, but here it was: His father and the Academy were disposing of him. He would endure the exile alone, without father or mother, without Nathan or Laurie, without Grieves, without any of the irksome citizens of the Academy, without anyone at all.
—Not quite, Droit smiled.
Morgan inhaled sharply.
—You’re undergoing an ordeal, the Bishop said. You’ve been undergoing it for some time, I think.
Words like a puff of air from the shade.
—You aren’t entirely alone, though.
—Oh, don’t worry, sir, Morgan said bitterly. I’ve got company enough.
—I wasn’t referring to him, the Bishop said.
—He had better not speak of me that way, seditious old—
—I was referring to myself.
Morgan couldn’t speak.
—You needn’t face this ordeal alone, the Bishop said. I could stand with you. If you wish.
—I do wish.
He’d spoken before thinking, and now Droit was closing his fingers around Morgan’s wrist to stifle his pulse. The Bishop sat forward and looked at him, his gaze a dog spike, his will driving it into the sleeper, as if with mere eye contact he could secure Morgan’s entire being.
—Mr. Rollins, Your Grace.
Mrs. Hallows had materialized beneath the gazebo, a man at her side.
—Yes, very well, the Bishop replied.
—What’s to be done with this one? Mrs. Hallows asked.
Morgan tried to stand, but the Bishop snatched his wrist, the very wrist Droit had been strangling.
—Your Grace! Mrs. Hallows protested. Doctor …
His wrist shackled, Morgan looked to the Bishop, who had turned pale. The doctor told Morgan to step aside, but the Bishop kept hold of him.
—Mrs. Hallows, said the Bishop with effort, please see that young Wilberforce has a bath and some lunch.
—Of course, Your Grace, but—
—He may have run of the library, and please find him some writing materials.
He was still holding fast.
—Batter My Heart, he said to Morgan, copy it out six times, three copies with each hand.
The Bishop’s voice was gravelly. The doctor stepped forward and loosened his grip on Morgan’s wrist. As the doctor eased the Bishop into his chair, Mrs. Hallows swatted Morgan back to the house.