Whichcote’s winnings, partly in ready money but mainly in notes of hand, steadily increased. As he moved from table to table, he kept an eye on Harry Archdale. The young man was drinking as heavily as anyone in the room. His face had lost its pallor and was damp with sweat. His elaborately arranged hair was a ragged mop and the shoulders of his green coat were sprinkled with dislodged powder. He was playing so wildly that he had already lost at least a hundred guineas, and not all of it to his host.
It was after another loss that Archdale suddenly pushed back his chair and stumbled behind a screen in the corner where a line of commodes had been arranged along the wall for the convenience of the guests. Five minutes later, when he had not returned, Whichcote went in search of him. The young man was slumped on a window seat. His face was pressed against the glass.
‘Harry – what ails you?’
Archdale turned his head sharply and straightened up on the seat. ‘It is nothing – it’s so damned hot in here – I wanted air.’
‘Then let us take a turn in the garden.’
Whichcote led the way downstairs. The sky was now dark. A lamp burned in the doorway, and two or three more beyond, marking the path up to the side door of the house. They strolled along the gravel path between the pavilion and the river. On the far side of the water, Jesus Green lay in darkness, apart from the soft gleam of lights from the college itself and, further to the right, the lights of the town.
‘You seemed a little melancholy just now,’ Whichcote observed.
‘It was nothing,’ Archdale said hastily. ‘The closeness of the air made me feel a little fagged – I am perfectly restored now.’
‘I am rejoiced to hear it,’ Whichcote said. ‘After all, you have a man’s work to do tonight. You must go to it with a will, eh?’
‘Oh I shall, I shall indeed.’
They were now walking along the rear of the pavilion on the side facing the house. Archdale swayed. Suddenly he stopped, leaning against the wall. He stared fixedly at the row of ground-floor windows.
‘Is – is she already here?’
‘The sacrifice? Oh yes,’ Whichcote said. ‘The virgin awaits your pleasure.’
‘Does she know what is to happen?’
Whichcote laughed softly. ‘How can she? She’s a maid. Her knowledge of such matters must be entirely notional.’
‘But she knows I will lie with her?’
‘It is all arranged. You are to have the way of a man with a maid. You need not trouble yourself in the slightest about her. If she puts up any resistance, you must not scruple to overcome it. Indeed, many of us find it adds relish to the conquest. The fruits of victory are all the sweeter if hard won.’
‘Yes, yes – Philip, would you excuse me one moment?’
Without further warning, Archdale stumbled away from the path and made his way blindly to a large shrub standing in a pot. Whichcote waited, listening to the sounds of retching. Archdale returned, wiping his mouth on a scented handkerchief.
‘Very wise,’ Whichcote murmured.
‘What? I beg your pardon?’
‘Your decision to vomit. As the French say, it is a case of reculer pour mieux sauter.’
‘Yes,’ Archdale said weakly. ‘Yes, that’s it. Vomiting for that purpose was much practised by the ancients, I believe. Seneca refers to it somewhere in the Moral Epistles, I fancy, and Cicero tells us – I believe it is in the Pro Rege Deiotaro – that Caesar himself was not a stranger to the habit. It also -’ He broke off. ‘I ask your pardon, sir. I allow my tongue to run away with me.’
Whichcote said nothing. Archdale set out to play the part of a rake but somewhere inside him was a scholar. He touched Archdale’s arm, and they moved away. They passed the shuttered window of the whitewashed bedchamber where Molly Price was waiting with Mrs Phear.
‘I wish Frank was here,’ Archdale said.
‘So do I. We all do.’
‘I asked him how it was that night – when he became an Apostle. He would not tell me.’
‘That was very proper of him. He swore a most terrible oath never to reveal what passed on that occasion to anyone who was not an Apostle. And so will you when your time comes. But since you are so nearly one of us, I may tell you in confidence that Frank dealt manfully with his virgin, just as you will, I am sure.’
They re-entered the pavilion and went upstairs. Whichcote had presided over too many initiations to be surprised by what had occurred. For two pins, Archdale would have slipped away from the club. But he was too rich a prize to lose. That was the point of the ceremony – and of the ceremony with the virgin in particular. Archdale had mentioned Caesar: well, Caesar had crossed the Rubicon when he invaded Italy and, in doing so, had taken a step that could not be reversed. Archdale would believe he had done the same when his manly ardour overcame the feigned resistance of Molly Price.
They reached the head of the stairs. Whichcote stopped. They heard the hubbub of voices in the room beyond. Some of the Apostles were singing.
Jerry Carbury is merry
Tell his servant bring his hat
For ’ere the evening is done
He’ll surely shoot the cat.
Archdale blinked rapidly. He looked on the verge of tears.
‘And now we shall have supper,’ Whichcote said quietly. ‘The servants will leave us to wait on ourselves. We shall have the toasts – we shall have the initiation – and you will be canonized. St Bartholomew is the title reserved for you. And then, when you are finally one of us, you shall be conducted to your trembling virgin.’
22
Supper passed in a dream; then came the interminable toasts; then, at long last, the initiation ceremony. Archdale kneeled before Whichcote, very grand on a throne-like chair flanked with black candles; and Whichcote, as Jesus, read out a list of apostolic tenets couched in bad Latin, to each of which Archdale was required to assent.
Archdale took the phallic glass, filled to the brim with wine, and drained it without lowering it from his lips, to the accompaniment of apostolic whoops and cheers. He committed himself to the Holy Ghost for all eternity. Amen. He swore to abominate the Pope of Rome and all his works and to leave no bottle unemptied, no toast undrunk and no virgin undefiled. Amen, amen, amen, amen. There were more tenets and more wine and his head spun around and around. He noticed that the thread at the front of Whichcote’s left shoe had frayed and the sole was beginning to come adrift from the upper. He mumbled the required responses and drank the required toasts. He would have given everything he possessed to lay his aching head on a cool pillow and fall asleep for ever. Amen.
When the ceremony was over, a procession formed up around him. Jesus was on his right and St Peter on his left. St Andrew led the way with one black candle, St Simon followed with the other and St John wielded a handbell. Jesus and the Apostles marched Archdale downstairs, chanting as they went an obscene variation of the Angelus that dwelled at some length on the phallic splendours of the Holy Ghost. The procession halted in the corridor. The discordant voices swirled around Archdale, mingling with the clanging of the bell.
Apart from the candles, the only light came from a lamp burning near the far end of the hallway. Archdale thought he glimpsed the footboy Augustus cowering in a doorway and for an instant felt a stab of relief that he was not alone in his fear.
St John rapped smartly on one of the nearer doors, ringing the bell and calling on the occupants to open in the name of the Holy Ghost. The Apostles formed an arc facing the door with Archdale at its centre. As the door opened, it revealed the shadowy outline of a small woman, childlike in size, enveloped in a nun’s habit and with her face obscured by a domino.