The Philosopher's Pupil (40 page)

‘Your family are Quakers. Do you practise your religion?'

‘I go to Meeting - to the Quaker Meeting - sometimes. It means something to me.'

‘Did you go last Sunday?'

‘Yes.'

‘Good. Are you engaged to be married?'

‘No. Certainly not.'

‘Are you - please excuse these questions - but - well - are you living with a young lady?'

‘No.'

Tom's mind switched back to buried treasure. An adventure, a quest. Good. A dangerous one? Not so good. Suddenly he thought, he wants to recruit me for the Secret Service! That's what all this ‘confidential' business is about! I'll say no. I couldn't stand
that.
But it's exciting all the same, and jolly flattering really!

‘But you have done - I mean - you have had - sexual experience?'

‘Yes, but not much, and not now.' Unless what happened last Sunday night counted?

‘Are you heterosexual?'

‘Yes.' Tom thought, that settles it, it must be the Secret Service. It's true I'm heterosexual. But suppose he asks if I'm homosexual too?

This question did not occur to John Robert. He pondered. Tom had begun to feel, staring at the philosopher and distinguishing his face from the light behind, slightly giddy. The dazzling white clouds were driving the narrow tilting ship-room swiftly along. John Robert's face, huge with command and troubled concentration, was difficult to keep in focus. Tom thought, he is coming to the point, whatever in heaven and earth the point may be. He could hear his own fast breathing and Rozanov's.

‘I imagine you know that I have a grand-daughter, Harriet Meynell.'

This took Tom completely by surprise. He had not heard the local gossip. He was vaguely aware that such a person existed, but he had never seen her or thought about her and felt extremely vague about her age. He thought, does he want me to take her on visits to the Natural History Museum? Jesus, how can I get out of this?

‘Yes.'

‘She is seventeen.'

This put a slightly different complexion on the matter. Was he to show her round London, take her to
Hamlet?
Where was she anyway? He said, ‘Is she in America?'

‘No, she is in Ennistone, at the Slipper House. Didn't you know that I have rented the Slipper House from your mother?'

‘No.' Tom did not feel bound to go into his relationship, incomprehensible to himself, with Alex.

‘She is there with her maid,' said John Robert with a ridiculous solemnity.

‘Oh - good — '

‘She has never been in Ennistone before.'

‘I could show her the town, if that's what you want — ' Or was the weird old codger merely chatting?

‘I want you to meet her, to get to know her.'

‘And introduce her to some young people? I could do that. I could give a party for her.' Already Tom was planning whom he would invite.

‘I don't want her to meet anybody else. Only you.'

‘But why - why only me?'

‘Only you.' John Robert was breathing audibly through his mouth which he had opened wide, and was gazing at Tom with a look which seemed like hatred but was no doubt only the result of concentration. Being so concentrated upon was beginning to give Tom a panicky feeling of being trapped. He wanted to get up and lean on the mantelpiece, or open the door into the hall. But he could not move. He was fixed by John Robert's glare and John Robert's purpose.

‘Perhaps you could
explain,
' said Tom, trying to sound forceful but sounding timid.

‘She needs a protector.'

‘Oh, I'll protect her - I mean when I'm here - I'm usually not here. I can protect her for a fortnight.'

‘I shall require more than that.'

Tom thought, he is mad, he is totally unhinged. He is mad, and yet he is not mad. As he underwent the philosopher's gaze Tom felt rather mad himself as if he might suddenly have to get up and go to John Robert and
touch
him.

‘I've got to go back to London and - and work — ' said Tom. ‘I can't sort of - do you mean a sort of chaperone? I'm not the person you want.' As he said this he felt a sudden pain, as if to be separated from John Robert forever, after this conversation, would be terrible anguish! Is he hypnotizing me? Tom wondered.

‘You
are
the person I want.'

‘But what to do, what for — '

‘I don't want a lot of people, a lot of men — '

‘A lot of men?'

‘Vying - for my grand-daughter.'

The word ‘vying' sounded so odd and foreign to Tom as John Robert said it that Tom could hardly for a moment understand it.

Tom said, ‘She's only seventeen! And anyway, why not? Am I supposed to keep them off?'

‘She is nearly eighteen.'

‘Then can't she look after herself? Girls can these days. If you want a chaperone, can't her maid do it?'

‘You ask if you are supposed to keep them off. Yes. I want that to be - clear.'

‘But how can it be! I can't devote the rest of my life to her!'

John Robert was silent, leaning back now and staring.

What
is
this that I'm being turned into, this
task
that is being
forced
on me, Tom thought. Shall I go, shall I
run?
Shall I suddenly be
bloody rude?
He could not. He said, leaning forward and speaking gently as to a child, ‘Do you want me to sleep in front of her door?'

‘No.'

‘Do you want me to be her brother?'

‘No. I do
not
want you to sleep in front of her door, I do
not
want you to be her brother.'

Tom took in the emphasis. ‘Whatever do you want then?'

‘I want you to marry her.'

John Robert rose to his feet, and Tom, as the philosopher's huge form blocked the light, sprang up too and retreated to lean against the flimsy shiny little sideboard. They remained so, John Robert staring open-mouthed and Tom gazing at the blurred image of the philosopher's head, beyond which the cold brilliant sun was shining on the agitated branches of the apple tree. Then, as if there was nothing else to do, they both sat down again. Tom found that his heart was racing and that he was blushing violently. He thought, I didn't know that one could blush from
fear.

John Robert, as if what he had just said was something perfectly ordinary, went on, ‘I shall settle some money upon her, not a great sum. I hope, of course, that she will go on to the university if she proves able to. Marriage should not interfere with that.'

‘But I don't want to marry her! I don't want to marry anybody!'

‘You haven't even met her yet.' John Robert said ‘even' in a tone which suggested that he had understood Tom to say the exact opposite of what he had said.

‘But I don't want to meet her, I have to go back to London tomorrow — '

‘Surely that is not so.'

‘All right, it isn't, but — '

‘I would be glad if we could arrange now — '

‘But
why,
what is this, why me, what about her, she's a child, she won't want to marry, and if she does she won't want to marry me. I mean things aren't like that — '

‘Oftener than we think,' said the philosopher, ‘we can make things be the way we desire.'

‘But why - why
marry
her?'

‘Do you suppose that I am simply inviting you to seduce her?'

Tom felt positively guilty before John Robert's indignant look. Was he then already so far entangled that he could be accused of some sort of levity? It had occurred to his confused mind that John Robert was some sort of crazy
voyeur.
He seemed to be
offering
Tom his grand-daughter, but with what motive? He was a madman from California, a dangerous
crazy
man. But Tom was, at that moment, too dominated by John Robert, too much under the spell of his high serious tone, to be able to see his proposal in any crudely sinister light. He did, however, very much wish that he was somewhere else, that he was
free
again as he had been.

‘Look,' said Tom, ‘let's take this slowly. I mean, what's this idea for?'

‘I should have thought,' said the philosopher, ‘that it was clear what I wanted. In many parts of the world marriages are arranged. I am attempting to arrange this one.'

‘But — '

‘It is often said that an arranged marriage gives the best hope of happiness.'

‘Not for liberated people. I mean she hasn't grown up in purdah!'

‘She has had a very sheltered upbringing,' John Robert said primly.

‘Yes, but that's not a reason - really I -
why
try to arrange this —?'

‘I want to see her settled.'

Tom thought, he wants to
get rid
of the child, he wants to
palm her off
on someone he thinks he can intimidate! He said, ‘But why choose me? I told you I was going to get a second class degree.'

‘A middling talent makes a more serene life.'

Tom, incensed, said, ‘But I might become a great writer, and you know how selfish writers are.'

John Robert replied gloomily, ‘Some risks must be taken.'

‘But the world is full of young men - what about your pupils - there must be someone —?'

‘I do not think a philosopher would be suitable.'

‘Why, are philosophers under a curse?'

John Robert took this exclamation seriously. ‘Yes.'

‘All right, but there are plenty of men around who are not philosophers! You must have had some positive idea in your head when you selected me. Or have you already tried dozens —?'

‘No! Only you.'

‘But why —?'

John Robert hesitated. Then he said, ‘There are, it is true, accidental features involved. No doubt I could have made a more - a more brilliant choice, if I may put it so. But if I had made a contest of all the world I would have consumed time and probably bred confusion. I want it all to be simple.'

‘Simple! I was available and you thought I'd agree!'

‘I thought,' said John Robert, ‘that you - I have the impression that you - I have been told that you have a happy temperament. I wonder if you realize how rare that is?'

‘No - yes - but — '

‘I want my grand-daughter to be happy.'

‘Yes, of course, but — '

‘You seem to be a clean-living young man.' Echoes of John Robert's Methodist childhood, and some American campuses, were in the tone of this utterance, which sounded to Tom, although it had some echoes for him too, utterly ridiculous in the context.

‘But I said I'd had girls!'

‘Some experience is desirable. I assume you are not promiscuous.'

‘No, I'm not,' said Tom, though he was not sure just what standard of clean-living he was thereby claiming.

‘There you are then,' said John Robert, as if this finally proved Tom's suitability for and acceptance of his plan. ‘I do not want her,' he went on, ‘to enter a world of vulgar sexuality. I want her innocence to be respected. I want a simple clear arrangement, without - confused situations or - false melodrama.'

‘I appreciate,' said Tom, picking up John Robert's measured tone, ‘that you do not want to
waste your time
on this matter. I am sure you have a great many
more important things
to do. You want to get all this fixed up and
finished with!
'

John Robert ignored or perhaps did not notice the sarcasm. He said, ‘Finished with, yes. Some money will, of course, come with her, as I told you.' The ‘of course' was uttered as to an established suitor. He added, ‘I need hardly mention that
she
has had no experience - she is - a virgin.'

Tom felt that he was being steadily entangled simply by forms of words. He looked away from the philosopher's face and gazed, blinking, out of the window. He saw, two or three gardens away in the middle distance, a man in a tree. The man was sitting astride a branch and holding something, perhaps a saw. Tom immediately thought about Christ entering Jerusalem. There must be some picture, he thought, where there is a man up a tree watching Christ passing by. How ludicrous and weird it is that I am sitting here and watching a man up a tree while I try to think what to say to this perfect lunatic. How can I get
out?
Of course it was all crazy, but he must be polite to the old eccentric. And of course it was, in a way, flattering … and awfully interesting …

He closed his eyes, then looked down at the threadbare red-and-blue Axminster carpet which at once began dancing and jumping before his gaze. Now the blue was the background, now the red was. The carpet was flashing at him like a lighthouse.

‘Well?' said John Robert.

‘Have you told
her
—?' Tom was endeavouring to focus once more upon the big face which now seemed to overhang the room like a pendent rock. John Robert seemed to be getting larger. Soon he would resemble Polyphemus.

‘No, of course not,' said John Robert, as if this were obvious.

‘Why not?'

‘When and if you agree, I shall inform her.'

‘But I can't agree, it isn't possible — '

‘In that case I will ask you to go. I am sorry I have taken up your time.'

‘Wait a minute — ' I can't go now, thought Tom in anguish, I
can't!
He said, ‘She won't like me, why should she? And perhaps I won't like her - and anyway it's daft.'

‘Naturally,' said John Robert, ‘I do not expect you to promise to succeed. I doubt if, except in certain simple cases, it is conceptually possible to promise to succeed.' He paused for a moment to consider this, then went on, ‘I want you to promise to try.' He added, ‘I should
require
you to promise to try.'

Tom plunged his hands into his curly hair and pulled. ‘But you can't control people like this — '