by H. S. Cross
8
John knew he had slept because he had no memory of lying awake, but he couldn’t say he had rested. Conversations had too late at night always colored sleep, and each of the evening’s chats had coated his mind in its own way. Kardleigh’s smelled medicinal but had the quietly frenetic character of a physician-cum-choirmaster. The Eagle’s were like the chintz fabrics that he had, over the years, brought back from continental holidays and used to upholster his furniture. The last conversation, with Jamie, though conducted in Jamie’s austerely tidy study, had filled his mind with capacious disorder.
Jamie had been sitting at his desk in dressing gown and slippers. He had listened without interruption to John’s account of Meg, Cordelia, Owain, and the very singular nature of the circumstances. John had paced, mouth tasting of metal. Then had come the sword, that stroke cutting life before from life to come: Jamie had looked at him and said, Bring her. Said, Let me explain it to the SCR. John had been so shocked, so physically dizzy and pattering and incapable of thought that he’d—what? He’d gone back to the House, he’d devoured the rest of the biscuits from the Christmas tin—had he cleaned his teeth?—he’d fallen asleep across the bed and had to get under the covers when he woke later, frozen. Evidently, he’d forgot to set his alarm, so he was wakened by Mrs. Firth just before breakfast. There was a wire on his desk, she announced. John fetched it before dressing, but his fear faded upon discovering only his goddaughter’s train details. No one was dead. Meg hadn’t even got worse. The night’s mercy persisted, with the minor annoyance that Mrs. Kneesworth had for some indefensible reason put Cordelia on a train bound for York rather than the local stop at Sledmere and Fimber. John asked his matron for tea in lieu of breakfast, dressed calmly, and then began to sort out arrangements for Cordelia’s retrieval and accommodation.
This was the way sane people went about living, one snag at a time, panics refused, mercies acknowledged, daily bread.
* * *
The bell rang just as he’d fallen back to sleep. Now, nearly dizzy, Gray was being hauled from bed by Trevor, who clipped him round the ear and told him to hurry. The bell was the second. Breakfast shortly, very shortly. The tap water ached but chased away the fog. In the changer, Trevor beat reveille on the bench as Gray threaded his collar.
—Brains, Trevor said in his avuncular voice, about Grievous’s little comp …
—If you haven’t done it, it’s too late now.
—I did it, Trevor said, but it needs something more.
He produced an exercise book and prepared to take dictation.
—You didn’t, actually, did you? Gray said.
—I had more lines than you.
Gray gave an aggrieved sigh and combed his hair into place:
—Thesis, Napoleon wasn’t conquering for the sake of it—
—Like hell he wasn’t.
—But to spread enlightenment through Europe.
—That’s Rousseau and his nancy friends.
—Code Civil, end of feudalism, legal reforms.
The breakfast bell rang. Trevor cursed. They dashed to the refectory, where scorched porridge and cold toast awaited them.
* * *
John arrived to chapel late and sat in the back. A congregation of half-asleep boys held down the pews as Jamie led Morning Prayer. And the Lord gave the commandments to Moses again, after they had broken, and Moses’ face shone, because he spoke with God face-to-face.
* * *
Concordat. Consular. The Remove humored Mr. Grieves by supplying dates for his time line.
—And when was the marriage of lovers, famous in story and song, Napoleon and Josephine?
Incorrect answers were earning marks in the corner of the blackboard, and since the tally stood three short of a group penalty, they were reluctant to guess. Except, after a pause, Trevor:
—Isn’t it true, sir, that Josephine was in the Bastille during the revolution?
The sparkle came off Mr. Grieves’s mood. He would not, he told them, be misdirected today. He was well aware that the exam for their Upper School Remove beckoned them from the far-off land of summer, but, he informed them, they would not revisit Napoleon again. He raised the chalk to the corner box and asked Trevor if he’d anything relevant to contribute.
—Well, sir, isn’t it true that Josephine sucked up to the Bastille guards so she’d get off being guillotined, and then she met Napoleon and thought it would be clever to marry him, but then he divorced her when she couldn’t give him a son, so they weren’t really lovers in story and song?
Grateful as he was for tidbits from the Bastille, Mr. Grieves was determined to learn the date of the nuptial event. He moved chalk to time line: marriage of Nap & Jo (lovers??).
—1810, sir.
—Guessing, Grieves said. Sit.
A slash to the box.
—Someone redirect us. Riding.
—Sir?
—Stand up. Wake up. Pull your weight.
—The marriage, sir?
Throat, phlegm.
—Wasn’t it sometime in their youth?
Another slash to the box, to the ribs—
—I had supposed, Riding, that you were reasonably informed of Monsieur Bonaparte, but evidently I was mistaken.
They’d never covered it! How could he—
—Paper, pens, questions. Thirty things you truly do not know concerning Bonaparte, five minutes.
—But, sir!
—Go.
* * *
He couldn’t be that stupid. Unless he was cracking up? Jamie had said, Bring her. He’d given his blessing. They’d talked face-to-face. John had left, he’d walked, he’d eaten, he’d slept. The relief had lasted through the second telegram, through Moses, through the Fifth on Crimea, through the lazy Remove on the dates that would, he knew, figure heavily in their summer exam. Then Riding was smirking, as he had the night before, and the leopards were tearing the back of his neck.
But they were writing now; he needed to calm down. No one was dead. They’d talked face-to-face, Jamie had given his blessing, John had left, had walked, had eaten, had—had he actually not told Jamie the other thing, the thing he most certainly had owed Jamie to say? Had the mercy towards his goddaughter been so absorbing, so deceptive that he’d gone derelict of his duty?
—Two minutes. Chop-chop.
He had to have mentioned the business with the barn. Jamie had heard of it already, surely? They must have discussed it briefly, John scarcely paying attention in his anxiety about the other matter. Jamie must have considered it unimportant, or a thing put away. It must have happened like that.
—Leslie, put it away. Now!
Except it didn’t.
His heart wasn’t slowing, it was picking up pace. He hadn’t mentioned it. He’d petitioned Jamie about his goddaughter and failed to warn him about the barn. And now, soon, Burton-Lee would be telling him.
* * *
Gray felt almost happy. He was good at Questions. Grieves sprang it on them regularly, and Gray knew what he liked. What stories and songs were written about Napoleon and Josephine? Actually, he’d say that was cheeky. How long did he have that awful rash? Did he treat his men decently? Why did the English hate him so much when his ideas were good? And what about Josephine? What were her ideas? What did he imagine he’d be when he grew up? What kind of education did he have? What did he do when locked away in prison? Did the weather there help his rash?
—One minute.
Bonaparte, in truth, was a bore and a boar. There were so many more interesting things to know! Valarious had a tutor when he was younger, a crotchety mage who lived in a mildewed cottage. Valarious had been too young when they sent him to the man. He hadn’t wanted to do anything except the things they told him not to. The mage tried to teach him, and later, much later when it was too late and the mage had been killed and the cottage burned to the ground and Valarious had fled to the place beyond the mountains, then he would remember all the books, which had seemed so
deadly boring then, not even written in a language he could read (had Valarious even been able to read then?—work this out!), but later Valarious would think of the books, how far back their knowledge had gone, now ground to grit by the feet of marauding—
—Riding!
—Sir?
—Stop trying my patience. Pen down.
Were they going to have to pass it in?
—Marks for number, marks for insight. Leslie, you’re first.
Leslie, Whittaker, Ives. Grieves was not liking their questions.
—Prout, our hopes hinge on you!
—What is the significance of the year 1815? Prout offered.
—I hope you’re jesting.
—Sir?
—You have plunged us into the abyss. Things you do not know? Of all people, Prout, I’d have thought we could rely on you for dates.
—Thank you, sir—
—Absent sense, of course, not to mention wit, style, or interest. Sit down.
Grieves attacked blackboard with duster. When he swept the corner box, signaling a group imposition, protest erupted. Grieves, back turned, invited them to continue if they wanted fifty lines each in addition to the extra prep they had just earned. The room went silent. Numbers appeared down the board, and beside them, Grieves began to write questions. Free time vanished, time Gray needed to finish his lines from the Flea.
—Sir?
Gray froze. Grieves froze. Trevor was on his feet.
—Please, sir?
The man turned, chalk in one hand, duster in the other.
—Fifty lines … Mainwaring.
—Sir, Trevor said firmly, it’s impossible for us to answer the first question—
—Sit down, boy.
—Impossible because there’s no way to explain the significance of 1815 without bringing in the Germans.
Grieves hurled the duster at Trevor, who dodged.
—The Germans, Grieves enunciated, who didn’t exist as a nation in 1815?
—The Germans in 1914, sir.
Grieves dropped the chalk on his desk.
—Go on. If you can.
Trevor stood as before the firing squad.
—It’s only that in 1815 you’ve got everyone uniting to stop Napoleon, and in 1914 everyone’s uniting to stop the Kaiser.
—Everyone except Austria-Hungary, you mean.
—Yes, sir.
—And the Ottomans. Bulgaria, the sultanate of Darfur, the Dervish state, the Democratic Republic of Georgia.
—Exactly, Trevor replied. The only people on the German side were ridiculous countries no one’s ever heard of.
Mr. Grieves crossed his arms.
—Is there a point, at all? he said acidly.
—The point, sir, is that unlike the Kaiser, Napoleon wasn’t conquering Europe for his own benefit.
Grieves raised his brow. It was time for Trevor to shut up. Grieves wasn’t going to revoke the prep, and the best move was silence so they could start work now.
—Setting aside for the moment your staggeringly shallow understanding of the recent war, it’s an interesting question.
An interesting question, the words you hoped to see in your exercise book, the words you hoped to hear but seldom did.
—Should Napoleon have been stopped from conquering Europe? Grieves asked. Or should his project have been allowed to flourish?
The room stared, baffled.
—No one? You’re breaking my heart.
* * *
Mainwaring was chomping at the bit, but John couldn’t play favorites. He stepped down from the dais and invaded the classroom. Riding had likely turned in a worthwhile composition, and his questions, if they pertained to Napoleon (one could never count on his classwork being quite relevant unless something new was being presented) appeared to have filled two sides. John strolled down the aisles and perused their questions. Some pages he tore out, wadded up, and tossed across the room. To some he issued marks with the nearest pen. Some he rolled up and used as a weapon against the author’s thick skull. Riding’s he squinted to decipher—the handwriting, the spelling … the flight of fancy. The boy buried his face in his arms like some lunatic ostrich. John closed the book and told him to sit up. The boy obeyed with an air of betrayal, as if John had read out his secrets. No other questions called for debate. There was not enough time to start on Poland.
—All right, he said, Mainwaring.
* * *
Grieves was going to kill him, but first, apparently, he meant to draw Trevor into combat. Trevor, too eager, took the bait:
—Napoleon ought to have been allowed to govern for at least six years.
—Monsieur Bonaparte, Christendom’s saving grace? Perhaps you will be good enough to support your assertion with fact?
Trevor mounted his steed, visor down, lance balanced.
—He wasn’t trying to conquer Europe. He was trying to spread Enlightenment.
—Specifics?
Trevor cantered ahead. Gray began to write.
—The Code Napoleon was based on the French model, of course.
—Ye-es, Grieves allowed. And what’s so spectacular about that?
Relig Tol East, Gray wrote.
—He spread religious toleration in the eastern nations, Trevor said.
Grieves nodded.
Serfs-feud-guilds.
—Then he abolished serfdom, and that ended feudalism in Europe.
—He abolished all serfdom?
Trevor hesitated. A hand across the aisle.
—Ives?
—Except in Russia, sir.
—Of course, except Russia, Trevor snapped. But even more, he abolished the guilds, so careers were open to talent.
—So?
Gray was still writing, but Trevor had eyes only for his mark.
—So you take that, and you take the end of feudal manorial rights, and what do you get?
—Modernization! called Leslie.
—And then, Trevor persisted, industrialization.
—I thought industrialization began as early as 1780, Grieves said.
Another voice from the crowd:
—That was in England, sir.
—Modernization on the continent didn’t get going until there was general equality under the law, Trevor said.
—And, Leslie continued, there were all the Napoleonic codes all over the place so people could be equal under the law—
—Modernization!
—Industrialization!
—But then Napoleon had to overdo it, Prout said, so Nelson went over and sorted him out, in 1815.
Four boys were on their feet. The civilized joust had become a riot, but Grieves, rather than kill Trevor and then kill them all, crossed his arms indulgently:
—Why six years?
—Sir?
—Why should Napoleon have been allowed to rule six years?
The others sat, leaving Trevor in the fire.
—It’s a generation, isn’t it, sir? Look at the Academy. It takes six years to get an entirely new set of boys. Take Dr. Sebastian.
—What about him?
—Next summer, it’ll be six years since he came to the Academy. That’s when we’ll know for sure if he’s a success or a failure.
—I’ll be sure to let him know.
—It’s all a bit like Napoleon, sir. More than a bit! Dr. Sebastian came in, he sacked the ancien régime. The docket system’s the same as the Code Napoleon.
—But did he end serfdom? Leslie murmured.
The class erupted. Prout said it was rubbish. Trevor said the Head had ended serfdom everywhere but Russia. Gray closed his notebook and capped his pen.
—That will do, Grieves said at last.
He returned to the board and erased it. Cheers. The bell rang for break, and Grieves lingered near Trevor, now more than bemused. Trevor was dropping names, the Lettres inédites, deuxième édition, and Grieves was looking pleased, believing Trevor had read Napoleon’s letters, read and comprehended
, when in truth it had been Gray who’d found the volume in a remote corner of the library, found and partly read, though it was too difficult to read much. Gray, who’d been thumped by Trevor just two days earlier for reading too much, reading it too much. Gray, who—
* * *
There were days, and this was one, when the forces of chaos toyed with him like a dog that shook a half-dead bird and then dropped it to pursue a squirrel. After the morning’s unspeakable realizations, to end an unpromising lesson so perfectly! John had no idea how he’d roused the jaded Remove, but even lunks like Prout had hurled evidence into the fray, and once Mainwaring had introduced the fascinating parallel with Jamie’s regime, the whole room had fallen to argument, citing points like city barristers, more facts than he’d seen them recall about Napoleon and more than he thought they knew about the school. If only his colleagues could have seen the tide turn, they’d know his methods bore fruit. Know he bore fruit.
* * *
They would have carried Trevor on their shoulders if they could. Instead, they bought him kill-me-quicks at break. Trevor, dazed by fame and food, abandoned shrewdness and approached their Latin master, Gray’s elbow in fist. Burton-Lee regarded them:
—Salvete, legirupae.
Trevor bowed and presented his lines. The Flea inquired as to Gray’s. Gray, he was displeased to hear, did not have them.
—Not in hand, or not complete?
The latter, sir. The Dean of the Upper School professed himself baffled. He hoped that Gray’s career as locksmith would not interfere with the fulfillment of a simple imposition.