[The following scene was ultimately cut from Chapter 2 for pacing. It's the largest batch of words I've removed, but you can see why. Anyway, if you are more curious about how Timothy Barrington came to terms with his sexuality during adolescence, here you go...]
I sank back into the warmth, pondering Mr. Oliver Fitzgibbon, and began to lather with the soap.
The comfort and quiet lent itself to reflection. Boys are fond of roughhousing, of adventure, of inspecting slimy and crawling things. That was never me. I never played at being a pirate, nor did I care to return home splattered in mud. Children observe these distinctions with alarming acuity. I was bullied, though not savagely so – I was pushed to the ground on occasion and called a girl, or worse besides. And even those who never remarked upon the way I was, even my own family, must have perceived it yet chosen not to confront it. Mine were the signs said to accompany a corruption. Before I had any sense to moderate myself in company, I preferred the society of my sisters to that of my brothers, and I squealed in much the same fashion when startled.
Before I was brought home to be tutored, I attended a small private school in town with a dozen other boys. Boys terrified me, they seemed wild creatures. Forever shoving, forever testing one another, and descending into chaos the instant the master’s back was turned. Had Mr. Barrington fewer children to occupy him, he might have exerted himself to make a man of me. Instead, I slipped quietly through the cracks of indifference. Eyes were averted. Hopes were entertained that the matter was not so grave as it appeared.
In time, I schooled myself. I stopped squealing when frightened. I withdrew from interests deemed too feminine, or else concealed them more carefully. Reading was safe. No one found it particularly strange if a boy preferred to escape into other worlds by way of books. Thus libraries became a sort of sanctuary to me.
It was not until my final year of public schooling that I was more keenly confronted by my own nature. Until then, my mind had been filled with plays and stories of men marrying women, and I had never thought to question the pattern. And then I found myself drawn – not to one boy, as might have been dismissed as an exception – but to three.
They were each somewhat new to the school and quickly formed a close friendship among themselves. They were less boisterous than most. I told myself I merely wished to be included in their company. Yet it was more than that. Their looks differed, but I was taken with all three. I had no language for what I felt. To admire them and wish to stand near seemed sufficient, though I was far too nervous ever to attempt it. I could not even blame their manners for my choosing to keep my distance. Looking back, I understood: something insidious had begun to bloom. After that, my inclinations became impossible to deny.
I had one friend who was thoughtlessly touchy. No one considered him terribly odd, for he delighted in wrestling and carrying worms about on sticks as much as any other boy. He was exuberant and good-natured. I remember the peculiar sensation when he drummed upon my back, or clapped my shoulder and left his arm resting there a moment too long. He meant nothing by it. Yet my feelings shifted from curiosity, to a nervous tickling, and then to something so overwhelming that I began removing his hand and avoiding him altogether. Even then, I knew it was dangerous.
It was church that at last supplied the words. Something was wrong with me. Such urges were to be resisted, suppressed, mortified. When we first began to learn to dance, there was great excitement. The girls appeared in their fine dresses, every effort made to look pretty-pretty, but they did not make me shy. I was infinitely more at ease conversing with girls than with boys. And when the boys first discovered that girls had become interesting for reasons beyond tormenting them with insects, they were at a complete loss as to how to address them. It was a curious thing to find myself braver than those same boys who terrified me, huddled together in a corner of the ballroom. To approach a girl and converse was the simplest, most natural undertaking imaginable.
In truth, people often felt like another species to me, boys most especially. I felt sparks of interest in their windswept hair, their close-fitting pantaloons and neat waistcoats. Ladies in their gowns were beautiful in much the same way that trees are beautiful.
Beyond its immorality and the offence it gave to God, the acting upon such feelings was also illegal. I did not question this, it was simply so. I was not guilty for harbouring the inclinations, only if I indulged in them. And I should only be ruined if they were discovered. Therefore I strove to resemble the sort of sensitive gentleman who fancied women, of whom there were many. I felt guilt over my thoughts at times, but I was not so depraved as to risk the noose and bring disgrace upon my family for sodomy.
It was an irony that I did not share in more ordinary corruptions. I recall one ill-behaved boy drawing crude figures in the dirt with a stick. I could regard the female forms without the slightest disturbance – pulse steady, cold blooded. But when he began, as boys inevitably do, to sketch penises, I felt a stirring and was obliged to turn away.
The kind of man that I am has no established name. It is not spoken of – only the feelings and the actions are. I do not know how many others exist. I had little acquaintance with commoner children, yet I sometimes felt I must be the only one of my sort in all of Slade Vale. Men like me were likely to be girlish boys who learned to disguise themselves most diligently. They marry, perhaps, and beget children, and live outwardly ordinary lives. That was never my ambition.
Fortunately, an older unmarried man is not judged quite so harshly as a spinster, provided he has a respectable profession. All I have ever truly cared for is reading, and the quiet restoration of my spirits in solitude. I do not connect easily with others. Perhaps, then, it would not be such a misfortune to pass my life in peace and solitude.
I resolved not to let my fondness of Mr. Oliver Fitzgibbon imperil any formality. I would remain stiffly polite. No, a friendship between us would be quite impossible. Connexions with others were shallow, but that rendered them harmless. By the time I retired to bed, my mind was wholly made up on the matter.
