The Alteration

       'You said nothing of this before. All was hopeless.'

       'That was before.'

       'And now you see things differently.'

       'Yes.'

       This was broadly true. What he did not see differently was Hubert's interests: fame, money, position, divine favour and—hardly less important-ecclesiastical favour were surely a rather better than fair exchange for the sexual and parental functions: the one would in this case never be missed, and the other, to judge by the families one came across, brought no great joy to anybody. It was now clear, however, that the feelings of the boy's mother, reasonable or not, extravagantly expressed or not, were as near genuine as most feelings were. This and the fact that he was in bed with her had done something to Father Lyall's hitherto lukewarm, half-whimsical desire to flout the Abbot and what stood behind the Abbot.

       'When I...' Margaret stopped and tried again. 'You said it was love then. You remember.'

       'Yes, of course.'

       'I don't understand, Father.'

       He waited for her to correct the appellation, but she did not. When he put his arm round her shoulders, she looked nervously into his eyes and away again at once, but turned towards him.

       'You must be patient, my child,' he said.

Chapter Three

'Will it hurt?' asked Hubert.

       Tobias Anvil shook his head emphatically. 'You will feel nothing. You'll be deeply asleep when it takes place, and afterwards—soft bandages, soothing ointments... For just a few days. Then you may leave your bed and never think of it again. The surgeons will be the most skilful in the land. I talked to one yesterday: an old friend of mine. In these times it's not regarded as a serious action: they have so much experience. There's no risk, even of pain.'

       'Where does their experience come from, papa? You told me this was rarely done.'

       'With children it is. It's sometimes necessary with... others, for their own good.'

       'Their own good?'

       'And that of the State. You needn't concern yourself with them. Have you any more questions, my boy?'

       'When will it happen?'

       'Within a fortnight or so. By then you'll be quite used to the idea.'

       'Yes, papa, I expect I shall.'

       'Good... Well, Hubert, you may leave me now, and consider what I've said to you. When you've done so, you may find there are other things you want to ask. Come to me and I'll answer them.'

       Tobias patted his son's head affectionately and saw him to the library door. Outside, Hubert was at once approached by a servant, no doubt set there for the purpose, and asked to attend his mother in the bower at the end of the garden. He thanked the man and, with lowered head, went slowly down the curving staircase, across the hall, through the parlour and into the open. He was trying to think, and finding it hard. His father had been at great pains to make himself understood; Hubert believed everything he had been told, but he had not been told anything about the most important part of what was to happen, about how the world would seem to him when he was a man in years. There seemed to be no words for that part, only for what it was like: to be living in a country of which nothing was known except its position.

       Hubert passed the orangery and the aviary, went down the walk between the lily-ponds and reached the bower, a recess in a grassy bank under a hooped wrought-iron framework entwined with climbing plants. Here his mother sat in a canvas chair with Father Lyall standing beside her. Not for the first time since arriving home that morning, Hubert was struck by how pretty she looked, how much like his earliest memories of her. Although he had left her barely half an hour before, he put his arms round her neck and kissed her.

       'Your father told you everything, dearest?'

       'Yes, mama: everything he could. I followed it.'

       'What did he say?'

       He sat down at her feet on a three-legged wooden stool. 'That I had been chosen by God and it was a most notable honour and I must be grateful and it was for the glory of God and of His Holy Church. And I should be admired and respected all over the world. But I couldn't have a wife or children. But it wouldn't hurt, being altered. But I...'

       There were no words again. His mother drew in her breath sharply, as if startled. Father Lyall said in a grating voice, 'I'll leave you together.'

       'No, Father, please stay, I beg you.'

       Hubert was glad that the priest, whom he thought amusing and intelligent, had not left: at the moment, he would have welcomed the company of almost anyone he knew. But he wondered why the two had arranged beforehand their piece of talk about leaving and staying.

       'Papa said'—he found he could go on now—'that it was a pity I couldn't have a wife, but that there were very many men without a wife, like priests and monks and friars, and I should be better off than they, because I should never want a wife and they often do, papa said. Do you ever want a wife, Father?'

       'Yes, Hubert, sometimes.'

       'Does it make you unhappy, that you mustn't have one?'

       'Again sometimes, but then I remember my promises to God, and I pray to Him to comfort me, and then I... But there are priests and others who are often unhappy, I believe.'

       'I knew papa was right. Another thing he said was that he was very happy with you, mama, but that he knew men who were very unhappy with their wives, and they must simply go on being unhappy unless they could have an annulment, and that's only possible for very pious servants of the Church. I expect I knew something like that, but I never thought of it before. Oh, and he spoke of the sins of...'

       'Go on, Hubert,' said Father Lyall gravely. 'You may say whatever you please to your mother and to me. God won't be angry with you.'

       'Fornication and adultery. I shall never commit those, and I shall never want to, and wanting to is another sin, isn't it, Father?'

       'Yes, my child.'

       'What else had papa to say, dearest?'

       'He talked of love, mama. He said there were many kinds of love: love of friends, love of brothers and sisters, love of parents, love of children-I shall be able to love children, the children of others. And there's the love of virtue and the love of God, the highest kind. And of course the love of men and women, which is not the highest kind, papa said. He was right, wasn't he?'

       'He was quite right, Hubert.'

       'Forgive me, Father, but I must know what mama thinks.'

       'Papa was right,' said Margaret, and looked down at her hands, which were clasped in her lap.

       Hubert gazed at her. 'Tell me the truth, mama.'

       'It is the truth.'

       'In the name of God, mama.'

       'In the name of God and of the Blessed Virgin and of all the saints, it is the truth. The love of men and women is not the highest kind of love and that's the truth.'

       'Then why do you say it as if it's a lie?'

       'Your mother means that there are—'

       'My mother will tell me what my mother means.'

       'Hubert, dearest, I can't tell you anything more.'

       'But there is more to tell, isn't there? I must know what it is.'

       'You could not understand it.'

       'Tell me and I'll see whether I do.'

       'Very well. The love we speak of is not the highest but it is the strongest and the most wonderful, and it transforms the soul, and nothing else is like it.'