Page 40 of Introducing Mrs. Collins
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 Oxfordand 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, fromthat 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.
CHAPTER XVI
