Sacred Hunger - Barry Unsworth [106]
As for Erasmus, even while, in the moments before Miss Purdy came up with them, he was assuring Sarah that he loved her more than anything in the world, somewhere within him he was registering a private displeasure at the terms of her apology. This too, though vague at the time, was destined to take root in the formal garden of his future resolves. It had been right for her to ask his pardon, but not for the hurt she had given him, that was neither here nor there. Wounded feelings did not matter, but there was a principle at stake. Her apology still left unresolved the important question of whose fault it had been. She should acknowledge that she had been wrong about the picture. Perhaps some day, he thought, there would be an opportunity for him to return to the question. The present moment was clearly not appropriate. But she was fond of the painting and when they were married it might quite possibly be one of the things from home that she would want to bring with her …
With Charles Wolpert he was quite often at loggerheads these days. There had been a certain coolness between them since the abrupt end to rehearsals of The Enchanted Isle. Charles largely blamed Erasmus for this fiasco, even to the extent of privately holding him responsible for Caliban’s defection as well, though the unhappy curate had long since explained to them the real reason. Moreover, he could not forgive Erasmus the lèse-majesté of waylaying a Wolpert guest on Wolpert ground. There were, besides, temperamental differences between the two young men which would probably have led to disagreement in any case. Charles had his father’s physical bulk and gravity of address, but little of his business acumen. He was diligent and conscientious and sought to conceal his chronic irresolution behind a manner that grew daily more magisterial. Erasmus, possessed by the twin ardours of love and ambition, and with a vision of the towers of Liverpool rising lovelier than those fabled ones of Ilium, besides offering much better rates of compound interest, grew impatient with the cautious and legalistic habit of Charles’s mind and with his long-windedness.
One afternoon, when Erasmus was taking tea in company with Sarah and her mother, Charles returned from the courts in considerable ill-humour and proceeded to complain at length about the protracted course of some litigation the family were involved in, which his father had made him responsible for. As Erasmus knew, there had been recent Acts of Parliament seeking to limit damage to the roads by restricting the number of horses to the wagon and the breadth of the tyres of the wagon wheels. The Wolperts were seeking a ruling on permitted loads per wagon, and it was taking an unconscionable time, according to Charles.
‘They talk about horses, they talk about wheels, but they won’t come round to the question of loads,’ he said. ‘It is exasperating in the highest degree.’ He had taken to wearing a curled wig lately, which increased the resemblance to his father. He was booted still from riding, having entered in haste for his tea and the sympathetic attention of his mother and sister – it had not much pleased him to find Erasmus ensconced there. He sat back frowning, legs stretched out before him, thumbs looped into his waistcoat pockets. It was a pose Erasmus recognized as the prelude to a great deal of tedious prosing.
‘If we could only get a ruling on it, you see,’ Charles said, ‘we might then be able to turn the tables, as we could retort upon them that with loads of that order it is nonsense to forbid extra horses or they will simply burst their hearts between the shafts. If