Chapter 1800 Maidenhead
MAIDENHEAD
William Collins walked the mile from the vicarage to his home in the centre of the town.
For three years now – since he was ten – he had been having lessons twice a week with Mr Poulteney, the vicar, with four other local boys.
Mr Poulteney was a kind, highly educated man of about forty, with an interest in many things beyond the scripture.
Those he taught were local boys who might go on to be farmers, soldiers, shopkeepers or work in service.
He therefore did not waste his time or theirs teaching them what boys at Harrow or Eton would be studying.
He could not resist teaching them a little Latin but did not go beyond the basics: amo, amas, amat, and a few fun phrases for them to throw in to impress a stranger.
But he did teach mathematics, as well as botany and geography – skills that might be applied broadly and which were useful in all walks of life.
With some help from his wife, he even taught them some simple country dances.
It was quite a sight: thirteen-year-old boys self-consciously holding one another’s hands in a square formation, walking in a circle around a vicar’s small drawing room.
William had a feeling his father would not approve of this activity, and fearful he might somehow catch wind of it – or worse, see it!
– he always chose to bow out of the lesson, standing at the side and claiming a bad leg.
He was short for his age and had no skill for sport; in times outside of study – when the boys would run or tussle or shout well-meaning insults at each other – he always felt a little out of place.
He made up for it in his studies. He learnt the Bible very well, having an unusual capacity for memorising verses.
He also had a fine hand for sketching, which was nurtured by his tutor.
Mr Poulteney had given him sheaves of paper, expensive paper, to draw studies of the plants and flowers from his garden that they were learning about.
His botanical drawings, unlike his peers’, were intricate, more like art than science; they were carefully shaded, using a mixture of a soft and heavy touch of the pencil.
One afternoon, his tutor gave him his drawings to take home to show his father, and some blank pages besides to fill in his own time. William felt proud of his work and pleased with the gift; such paper was a real luxury.
On entering his home, he could see his father through an open doorway, sitting in the front room.
It was neither a study nor a drawing room, containing both a desk and an old settee, and the family had always simply called it the ‘front room’.
The house only consisted of five rooms in total so they each needed to perform overlapping functions.
There was no room in the house whose sole purpose was repose.
His father was seated behind the desk and seemed to be leafing through some letters, emitting angry grunts, a heavy frown etched into his forehead.
The fire wasn’t lit. No fires in the house were lit, despite the chill.
Recently, William had formed the impression that his family were poorer than they had been a few years previously, but he did not know why.
He knew that Eton used to be talked of for him, and no longer was.
He knew that the house used to be warm, and no longer was.
He knew that his father used to smile at him, and no longer could.
Since his mother died, his father had changed.
He had always been serious, but now he was surly.
His temper could rise at the drop of a crumb from the table.
He would snap at the maid and dismiss visitors boorishly.
But then there had been some callers who were very unfriendly, arriving late at night, and whom William had overheard making demands of money – and making threats.
His father had not been boorish with these men, instead pleading quietly for them to leave.
William did not like seeing his father desperate and decided he preferred him boorish.
That preference came with its limits, however.
William knocked at the open door and entered at his father’s command.
‘I am back from my lessons, sir.’
‘I can see that.’
‘Mr Poulteney told me to show you these. He said… he said they were exemplary.’
‘What are they?’
‘Drawings.’
‘Drawings! What is he teaching you there?’ The elder Mr Collins unfolded the sheets and looked at his son’s sketches, still frowning. ‘What are these?’ he asked quietly, pointing at the middle of one page.
William peered over to see what he was looking at.
‘Er, those are foxgloves, sir.’ Greeted with silence, and finding that his sketches held no interest, William tried to appeal to his father’s thrift by adding, ‘Mr Poulteney gave me some spare paper to draw on at home.’ William held up the other two sheets to show him.
‘Good.’
William’s spirits rose a little.
‘We are out of paper.’ His father took the empty sheets and placed them in the drawer.
He then returned his attention to his son’s sketches and, after gathering them all up into a pile, he slowly ripped them in half.
Taking one of the torn scraps, he lifted his pen, dipped it in black ink and started writing in a thick, unrefined hand, across the lower half of a pencilled foxglove.
He dragged the nib of the pen heavily, and it scratched loudly against the paper, leaving blots and leaks blighting the handwriting, pouring more scorn on the care with which the underlying image had been drawn.
He let it dry for a moment, then folded it in half and handed it to William. ‘You give this to your Mr Poulteney.’
William took the note, cradling what was left of his artwork in his hands, now a blotted mess of a letter. He blinked tears back from his eyes before his father could see them.
He went to leave, but his father called him back. ‘Read it aloud.’
William was shaking. He didn’t move.
His father lurched suddenly across the desk and slapped him, once, hard across the face. It nearly knocked Willliam over, and the letter flew out of his hand onto the floor.
‘Pick it up and read it.’
William, his cheek burning and his head pounding, scrambled to pick up the paper, and opened it. In a quiet voice, he started to read, ‘Mr Poulteney.’
‘Speak UP! Speak like a MAN!’
‘Mr Poulteney,’ William tried again, his still-unbroken voice trying for a volume he could not achieve. ‘In the future, I would appreciate you t-teaching my son skills that will be useful to him in his life, not… training…’ He broke off, his chest heaving.
‘Not training him,’ picked up his father, his voice rising, ‘in the frivolous pursuits of a woman!’ He shouted the last few words, then collapsed back in his chair.
William took this as an opportunity to flee the room, knowing too well what treatment might befall him if he stayed until his father’s temper reached its peak.
He sought solace in his bedroom, still trying to stop his tears, even now he was alone.
His father had always tried to shape him into the image of the son he wanted.
He had tried to beat the softness out of his body and make him sturdier by withholding affection.
But the beatings had made him stoop, and the coldness had made him desperate.
His mother had arranged these lessons with Mr Poulteney before she died, and his father, thus far, had honoured the arrangement.
But if he handed his tutor this letter, he feared it would bring about an end to them, and so an end to his hopes of Oxford and beyond – of escape.
He would end up like his father, perhaps.
But if his father found out he had not handed the vicar his letter, he would beat him and probably end the lessons anyway. So what choice was there?
After reading the missive, the Reverend Poulteney refolded Mr Collins’s note and placed it on his desk.
He looked at William, then let his eyes roam across the room.
His study was generously appointed and filled with objects of interest: ornate Chinese vases, a large globe, an ivory elephant, a tin whistle, a chunk of amethyst; the rare sitting side by side with the mundane.
Poulteney was well travelled and enjoyed having reminders of his former adventures around him.
But he was settled now. His living was a good one; he had a large income and lived in a fine house, and he enjoyed the free time his income allowed to do things like teach poor boys how to dance a quadrille.
He seemed to be ruminating on something, and after a few minutes, he pulled out a clean sheet of paper, wrote a letter on it and went to hand it to William.
But then, looking at this desperate messenger, weary from delivering difficult messages between two figures of authority, he said kindly, ‘I will return to your house with you today, William, to visit your father.’
William never knew what occurred between his father and his tutor that day, but it caused a change in his life for which he was to be forever grateful for.
Whether the vicar threatened his father with the threat of hell, shamed him, invoking his mother’s memory, or, as William sometimes wondered might be the case, offered to pay some of his debts, he knew not.
What he did know was that Mr Poulteney walked out of the front room looking victorious, holding a piece of paper, and told William he would see him tomorrow.
William’s father never hit him again; William saw him fight the impulse on occasion, but he never rose to it.
Furthermore, from that day, William was allowed to spend a great deal of his time with Mr Poulteney and his wife.
While he still slept in his father’s house, he visited the vicarage daily.
The couple had no children of their own, so there was ample room in their life for a rather strange, lost young boy with a dead mother, beautiful manners and bruises on his body.
The week following Mr Poulteney’s visit to his father, William returned to the vicarage for a lesson and walked into the study as usual.
He had often peered at the interesting items around the room, so different from the bare surfaces of his own home.
But today, William’s eyes fell on an addition to its walls.
Above the fireplace hung a newly framed picture: a finely drawn pencil sketch, torn at the bottom, of the top half of a foxglove.