Young Phillip Maddison (48 page)

“Come, Maddison, I am busy! Your reply, sir!”

“I don’t know, sir.”

The Magister shifted in his chair. “Your usual reply, sir! Again and again when you have been before me, you have not known anything! You are a corrupting influence, sir! Life without honour can be no higher than that of the beasts of the field! I shall have to consider your removal from the school, unless you can remember!”

I like the beasts of the field, thought Phillip wildly, as in a dream, or a nightmare, he heard his voice stammering, “If you
please, sir, M-Milton asked me not to tell that we spoke to each other, before we c-c-came in here, sir.”

“Well, Maddison?”

Phillip swallowed the lump that had risen into his throat, and managed to say, “Please don’t blame Milton, sir, it was my fault, I think.”

“In what way was it your fault, Maddison?”

Phillip tried to answer; but what could he say? All he could say was, “I don’t know, sir. Except that Milton wanted to shield me, sir.”

The Magister removed his gold-wire glasses. His face lost its keenness, he looked more like Mr. Graham without them, Phillip thought, remotely. The Magister seemed to be thinking. Phillip watched for some hopeful sign, as the Magister polished the lenses. Then putting them on again, the Magister looked at Phillip. He said softly,

“Are you not wanting also to shield Milton, Maddison?”

“No sir,” said Phillip, feeling that now he was lost indeed.

“Then why did you tell me what Milton asked you?”

“Please sir, Milton was too far from my desk, to overlook my paper, sir. So I may have told him after all, sir.”

The Magister smiled at him. Very softly he said, “You do not remember, Maddison, speaking to Milton?”

“No, Sir!”

“And you, Milton, what do you say?”

“I don’t remember either, sir.”

“You may go, Milton. Now, Maddison,” said the Magister, when they were alone. “There is one explanation which cannot be ruled out. There are cases on record of mental phenomena, under shock, instantly manifesting themselves in material conditions. In the periodical
Nature,
recently, there was the case of a woman startled by an adder: the back of her hand ever afterwards bore the pattern of its back upon her skin. The medical and scientific journals have reported scores of similar occurrences. ‘Knowledge is the consciousness of ignorance’. You are soon to leave the school, Maddison. I would help you, if you would let me. But nothing is truly possible between men without candour, or truth. Do you agree?”

“Yes sir,” said Phillip, unable to disappoint the Magister.

“Then tell me, Maddison, did you give your answers to Milton?”

Abandoning himself to tears, Phillip said, “Yes, sir. I think I did, sir.”

“I am glad that the element of honour has not, as I had thought, altogether remained undiscovered in your life so far, Maddison. Do you agree that you should be punished? Even our Founder, finding himself at fault, made confession to the great Burleigh, and having purged himself of
hubris,
thereafter saw how he might live a full and useful life. Soli Deo Honor et Gloria, Maddison.”

The Magister always quoted the school motto before caning a boy. He turned to the portrait of the Founder, who with the ruff around his neck looked to be deliberately self-narrowed to a small scope, the natural imagination limited by experience. The unknown painter had painted what he had seen in the face of his sitter: the expression of a man subdued.

*

Three hundred and fourteen years previously, the Founder had made a wild speech in the Common Room at Christ Church, following the arrest and execution of his hero, the Earl of Essex, on a charge of treason.

The Founder’s father had been a poor boy, who from Christ’s Hospital went to the University of Oxford with a grant
of
viii
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weklie
untill
he
mate
have
a
Skollershippe
and
also
such
bokes
as
he
had
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for.
He took his degree as Bachelor of Arts, proceeding four years later to Master of Arts; and so to a Vicarage, whence he became one of the Canons of Canterbury. In due course the son attended the King’s School there, before going up to his father’s college of Christ Church. It was there that he, the future Founder, in the testimony of a witness.

The scandalous behaviour by the undergraduate of Christ Church was reported to “the Lord High Treasurer of England, Sir Robert Cicil”. In the actual words of the indictment,

Statements of witnesses to the original, or seditious speech followed.

So the young “Scholler of Christ Church” found himself in Newgate Prison, where he wept more of the “tears of things”, and wrote a long epistle addressed to Sir Robert Cicil, beginning,

When he left the study, after being caned, Phillip was ashamed of his tears, his throat seemed to be hollow and long; and, feeling gold and black dust in his being, he returned to the classroom, and waited there until the boys filed in from the interval, his head bowed over the text of the next lesson, Book Six of Virgil’s
Aeneid
, where Aeneas descends into hell.

*

However, he reflected with some satisfaction, he had been allowed to keep his full marks for Arithmetic, with a Distinction, and had come out top of the Upper School in that subject. The Magister had told him that, until the Lists were published, he was placed on his honour not to reveal the results. He would keep the secret, too!

Secretly exulting in his trust, Phillip marvelled how he, one of the lowest boys in the form, had beaten Milton and all the others at the top, in arithmetic.
Could
Milton have looked over his shoulder and copied the answers? For he was sure he had done no more than smile at Milton, when he had laid down his pen. No matter: he was top in Arithmetic!

But Milton—a cheat? No, he was sure Milton would never be that: as he, Phillip, had been all his life. So he must have told Milton the answers; though he was sure he had not. Anyway, he had been beaten for it, that was a good thing! He had saved Milton, by confessing; so he was not altogether selfish!

By the end of the day Phillip felt happy about the incident. Milton had come to thank him; and had called him a stout fellow. Phillip began to like school, now that he would soon be leaving; and alas, no longer would he be able to cycle out in the coming spring to his preserves to see the woodpeckers, the warblers, the nightingales, the pigeons, the flycatchers; or the glistening brown dorsal fins of carp basking in the Fish Ponds.

And because he had protected Milton, he felt a glow of hope through the opaque barrier of life. He wished he had played more football with the chaps.

Life seemed keener, especially as cousin Willie might be
coming to work in London. With Desmond they could be like the Three Musketeers, all for one and one for all! He must wangle his way out of going to Australia somehow.

Oh, why did one have to grow up?

*

That night when Richard came home, he told Phillip that his Uncle Hilary was back from Australia, and was ready to discuss arrangements with him about going to the Agricultural College in Sydney. Uncle Hilary was in town for a few days, staying at his club, and had invited Phillip to luncheon. Now would Phillip write to his Uncle and thank him for what he had already done, and say that he would write again in the immediate future, and propose a day when he would be able to come and see him.

Phillip felt most unhappy, but thanked Father, who thereupon wrote to the Magister stating the circumstances and asking permission for his son to be away from school for a day, in the near future. Phillip posted both letters, to catch the 9.30 p.m. collection. He also wrote to Willie, saying he did not want to go to Australia after all.

The next morning Phillip was surprised that the Magister was so pleasant to him, as he gave the required permission.

“Labor omnia vincit, Maddison,” he said kindly; while Phillip hastily agreed, although he did not know what it meant.

The Australian net seemed to be drawing tighter. How could he get out of it? Perhaps it would not be so bad, after all. He imagined himself galloping after cattle, cracking a stockwhip under a pitiless sun, while kangaroos loped away and the duck-billed platypus laid its eggs in sand, and suckled its young. Farewell, Fish Ponds! Goodbye to the bluebell woods of Whitefoot Lane, and Shooting Common! Adieu, ye cool green beechen glades where the woodpecker cried its laughing cry in spring! Instead, there would be the Laughing Jackass, long thin leaning trunks of eucalyptus trees, and rabbits, rabbits, rabbits, falling to both ball and shot of his No. 2 saloon gun.

In two minds, once more, Phillip faced his future with uncertainty.

*

Phillip put on his best suit, a dark grey one, and a borrowed bowler hat, stuffed with folds of paper to make it fit, belonging to cousin Bertie, to meet Uncle Hilary in London. He went by train to Charing Cross, where the traffic outside the station
alarmed him, it was so fast and thick with taxicabs. He had been there once before, but at night, when Father had taken him to the only London theatre he had visited, to see
The
Blue
Bird,
by Maeterlinck. On that occasion Father had pointed out where Grandfather Maddison had been killed under the wheel of a heavy dray.

Phillip crossed again at this place. After staring at the fountains in Trafalgar Square, Nelson on top of his column, and the hundreds of pigeons, he asked a policeman the way to Pall Mall and the Voyagers Club. He wore his gloves, and carried his eighteenpenny umbrella, bought sale-price from Murrage’s, on his arm. It had a cotton top, but would keep out rain. He swung it, rolled tight, on his hand by the handle, as he had observed a gentleman in a top hat swinging his umbrella.

With the help of two more policemen, Phillip found his way to the dark portals of the Voyagers Club. There was an awesome figure standing outside, in a top hat with a cockade and a gold band on it, and a uniform with many gold buttons. To Phillip’s surprise, the figure saluted him as he hesitated by the revolving glass and mahogany door, of a kind not seen before.

“Up from the country, sir?” he said, his medals clinking as he leaned forward to push the door.

“Yes,” said Phillip, after hesitation. It was true in a way, as he had come up from Rookhurst only three weeks before.

“I am supposed to meet my uncle, Mr. Hilary Maddison, here at twelve o’clock,” he said hurriedly, lest the other ask more questions; for perhaps he knew Uncle.

“Mr. Maddison’s just gone in,” said the other, with a smile, and a bow, as he pushed the revolving door. Phillip got through somehow.