Arthur might have better stomached the Mam's response to their reduced social condition if he had not already met her first lodger. Bryan Charles Waller: just six years older than Arthur, but already a qualified doctor. Also a published poet, whose uncle had received the dedication of Vanity Fair. Arthur did not object to the fact that the fellow was well-read, even scholarly; nor to the fact that he was a hot-hearted atheist; he objected to the way he was far too easy and charming around the house. The way he said, 'So this is Arthur,' and smilingly held out his hand. The way he implied he was one step ahead of you already. The way he wore his two London suits, and talked in generalities and epigrams. The way he was with Lottie and Connie. The way he was with the Mam.

He was easy and charming with Arthur, too, which went down ill with the large, awkward, stubborn ex-schoolboy just back from Austria. Waller behaved as if he understood Arthur even when Arthur could not seem to understand himself, when he stood there by his own fireside feeling as absurd as if he had a Bombardon tuba wrapped twice around him. He wanted to blow a blast of protest, the more so when Waller affected to peer into his very soul and – which was the most annoying part – to take what he found there seriously and yet also not seriously, smiling away as if all the confusion he detected was unsurprising and unimportant.

Far too easy and charming with life itself, dammit.

For as long as George can remember, there has been a maid-of-all-work at the Vicarage, someone in the background scrubbing, dusting, polishing, laying fires, blackening the grate and setting the copper to boil. Every year or so there is a change of maid, as one gets married, another goes off to Cannock or Walsall or even Birmingham. George never pays them any attention, and now that he is at Rugeley School, taking the train there and back each day, he notices the maid's existence even less.

He is glad to have escaped the village school with its stupid farm boys and odd-talking miners' sons, whose very names he soon forgets. At Rugeley he is generally with the better sort of boy, while the masters consider it a useful thing to be intelligent. He gets on well enough with his fellows, even if he does not make any close friends. Harry Charlesworth goes to school in Walsall, and nowadays they merely nod at one another if they meet. George's work, his family and his faith, and all the duties that flow from these adherences, are what count. There will be time for other things later.

One Saturday afternoon, George is called to his father's study. There is a large biblical concordance open on the desk, and some notes for tomorrow's sermon. Father looks as he does in the pulpit. At least George can guess what his first question will be.

'George, how old are you?'

'Twelve, Father.'

'An age at which wisdom and discretion might to a certain degree be expected.'

George does not know if this is a question or not, so he remains silent.

'George, Elizabeth Foster complains that you look at her strangely.'

He is puzzled. Elizabeth Foster is the new maid; she has been there a few months. She wears a maid's uniform, like all the previous maids.

'What does she mean, Father?'

'What do you think she means?'

George ponders this for a while. 'Is it something sinful she means?'

'And if it is, what might it be?'

'My only sin, Father, is that I am hardly aware of her, though I know her to be part of God's creation. I have not spoken to her more than twice, on occasions when she has mislaid objects. I have no reason to look at her.'

'No reason at all, George?'

'No reason at all, Father.'

'Then I shall tell her she is a foolish and malicious girl who will be dismissed if she gives further grounds for complaint.'

George is eager for his Latin verbs, and does not mind what becomes of Elizabeth Foster. Nor does he wonder if it is a sin not to mind what becomes of her.

It was decided that Arthur would study medicine at Edinburgh University. He was responsible and hard-working; in time he would surely acquire the stolidity patients liked to trust. Arthur was agreeable to the idea, if suspicious about its origins. The Mam had first proposed medicine in a letter to Feldkirch, a letter sent within a month of Dr Waller's arrival into the household. Mere coincidence? Arthur hoped so; he did not care to imagine his future being discussed between his mother and this interloper. Even if he was, as people constantly reminded him, a qualified doctor and published poet. Even if his uncle was the dedicatee of Vanity Fair.

It also seemed a little too damned convenient that Waller was now offering to coach him for a scholarship. Arthur accepted with adolescent ill grace, which drew a private word from the Mam. Nowadays he towered over her, and her hair, which had already lost its fairness, was beginning to whiten where it was drawn back behind her ears; but her grey eyes and her quiet voice, and the moral authority implicit in them, remained as powerful as ever.

Waller proved an excellent tutor. Together, they crammed the classics, aiming for the Grierson bursary: £40 a year for two years would be a great help to the household. When the letter came, and the household was united in acclamation, he felt it was his first real achievement, his first act of paying back his mother for her sacrifices over the years. There were handshakes and kisses all round; Lottie and Connie became absurdly sentimental and wept like the girls they were; and Arthur, in a spirit of magnanimity, resolved to lay aside his suspicions of Waller.

A few days later, Arthur called at the university to claim his prize. He was received by a small, embarrassed official whose precise status was never made clear. It was all entirely regrettable. It was still unclear how it had happened. A clerical error of some kind. The Grierson bursary was open only to arts students. Arthur's entry should never have been accepted. They would take steps in future, and so on.

But there were other prizes and bursaries, Arthur pointed out – a whole list of them. Presumably they would give him one of those instead. Well, yes, that could be the case, in theory; indeed, the next bursary down on the list was available for medicals. Unfortunately, it had already been claimed. As, indeed, had all the others.

'But this is daylight robbery,' Arthur shouted. 'Daylight robbery!'

Certainly it was unfortunate. Perhaps something could be done. And the following week it was. Arthur found himself awarded a solatium of £7, which had accumulated in some overlooked fund, and which the authorities graciously felt could be applied to his purpose.

It was his first experience of rank injustice. When he had been beaten with the Tolley, it was rarely without some reasonable cause. When his father was taken away, it had struck a pain to his son's heart, but he could not protest that his father was blameless; it had been a tragedy though not an injustice. But this – this! He had a case in law against the university, everyone agreed. He would sue them and reclaim the bursary. It took Dr Waller to persuade him of the inadvisability of suing the institution you were relying upon to educate you. There was nothing to be done except swallow pride and bear disappointment like a man. Arthur accepted this appeal to a manliness he had yet to inhabit. But the calming phrases he pretended to find persuasive were mere breath in his ear. Everything within him festered and burned and stank, like a tiny corner of the Hell he no longer believed in.