Grievous

by H. S. Cross

  Jamie wore him down, of course. If John had been older or wiser, he might have seen it coming. It was a crying shame you couldn’t see things coming until they’d happened over and over.

  As they crossed the lawn carrying towels, the Bishop had opened his study window and asked them where they were going. When Jamie told him, the Bishop narrowed his eyes:

  —Do not climb that tree, or I’ll lick you.

  Jamie had stared at the corner of his towel.

  —Do you hear me?

  —Yes, sir.

  —And you?

  John had felt naked, ashamed, already erring even though he had no idea what was being discussed.

  —Yes, sir, he said.

  The Bishop released them, and when Jamie turned his face away, John saw an expression he didn’t know then but came to know soon: the love of hazard. And he knew that Jamie would indeed climb the tree, and that he would have to climb it, too. They’d both climb it, and they’d both be punished. The friendship had already begun.

  * * *

  Pearce woke frozen with fear—that God wasn’t real, that he had been inventing him to feel important, different, not a failure, that it was all an empty nothing.

  The blankets wrapped him, but he was cold, like the dark wall of ice in the story about Van Vandalson. Had there been a book, or had someone merely invented the story? Van Vandalson trekking across the ice farther from Vandalhaven than any man had trod. Through a world-ending blizzard, through that snow and ice and wind and teeth, Van Vandalson had come to a wall whose top he could not see, whose breadth he could not spy, even after the snow stopped falling and the polar sun squinted on the horizon. An adamantine wall of ice. Except there was a chink that led to an arch and finally to a hall, more vast than the great hall of Vandalhaven. The vestibule of hell. He seemed to remember the wall closing behind Van Vandalson, drawing him inside to fire that burned but melted no ice, lava that boiled but chased no chill, and although Van Vandalson knew how crowded hell must be, he found it was growing vaster and vaster, lonelier and lonelier, and would one day consume creation, because it was so strong and heavy and prolific.

  23

  After years of contention, diplomacy, and bribes, Farmer McKay tore down his barn. The news was received with the muted tones due the dead, but for Moss and the other prefects, it called for raising a glass. Carter and Swinton and those of their year went beyond relief to a puzzling form of rancor. The Head should have made him tear it down years ago, they said. The place was a crime (or at least a crime scene). Moss refilled their glasses and tried to emphasize the positive. No longer would they be plagued by bounds-breaking there. They could rest easy that the summer’s bunking off would be limited to nearby hills, streams, and at worst run-ins with the keeper of Grindalythe Woods. Sanity was reigning at last. Even Grievous had risen from his sickbed.

  Happy days are here again … It wasn’t just a song; it was reality. Halton was a more careless fag than his predecessor, but Moss and Crighton found him infinitely more amusing. It wasn’t hard to trim his leash: short enough to avoid anarchy, long enough to enjoy life.

  Moss himself had never minded fagging; secretly, he’d rather enjoyed it, though Crighton and others in their year still bore the scars. Lydon had been a laissez-faire fag-master. Provided Moss did the basics—and this included a butler-like responsibility for keeping Lydon on the rails, making sure his shoes were in order, that he ate, that he had things he could eat, that he kept general track of time—if Moss did these things, he’d be given some of the things Lydon had to eat, and Lydon would make him feel that the Academy wasn’t such a bad place, and that living across the globe from parents had a certain charm to it, that amusements could be had if one found the places to pursue them, and the discretion, the style. He had Lydon to thank for his nickname, too. Lydon called him Bastable and made everyone else do the same, giving coherence to the initials H. O. without his having to reveal what they really stood for. The nickname didn’t stick beyond that first year, lacking the ring and the sense of good nicknames, but it had bestowed favor and belonging at the start, an unearned gift that cemented Moss’s loyalty to Lydon. Moss hadn’t yet been able to think of a satisfactory nickname for Halton. Last term the fags had called him Infant, but it was a dull name Halton had already outgrown. The way things were going, though, something sensational was bound to present itself.

  6 Mai, Vichy—Dear Thomas Gray, you said your father was a physician. I’m wondering, that is I’m writing to ask if he was ever unable to diagnose something. If a diagnosis is correct, then different doctors must agree on it, mustn’t they? If not, then isn’t it a question of finding the right doctor or waiting for enough evidence? Do you know anything about the French medical profession? Are they renowned? It’s hard to take someone seriously when he doesn’t speak English very well. I know, I’m a snob. You won’t hold it against me, will you? I hear her waking. Must stop. Amitié, Cordelia (Líoht).

  Letters fixed times and places together. The words she’d put on the page Wednesday week were still there when he read them this Friday and would be a hundred Fridays from now. She wrote them in Vichy, and he held them here in Yorkshire. Verba volant, littera scripta manet. Her manuscript, as individual as a fingerprint, grazed him as her chatter never had. The envelope flap had been licked by her tongue, the paper folded with her fingers. Yet, as outrageous as the sudden missive was, what he felt most keenly was her failure—by oversight or design?—to include a return address. Sometimes eating something small made you hungrier. He asked Monsieur Henri about Vichy, and the Frenchman lent him a copy of Baedeker:

  The town of Vichy is prettily situated on the right bank of the Allier and has a healthy and temperate climate. Except its old quarter, which dates only from the middle ages, the town is modern. It is easily reached from Paris in 5 hrs. (by the Vichy–Royat Express, p. xiii) to 7 hrs. 25 min.

  —What’s this, you brownnosing little sod?

  McCandless snatched the book from his hands. After a glance at the fraying red cover, the form’s beefy leader hurled it to Tighe, who caught and opened it to the title page.

  Gray had been a fortnight in the Fifth and was no less hated than when he arrived. Nearly three years their junior, he could not hope for friendship. His former companions in the Remove had even less sympathy for him; not only had he set himself above them, but he’d had the indecency to place into the Top Fifth, rather than the Bottom or possible Middle Fifth, as any self-respecting cad would have done. Tighe, known as Legs due to his enthusiasm for cycling, was the most sympathetic of the lot, but Gray did not expect his visible support. He would have let them punt Baedeker around until they tired of it except that he’d promised it would come to no harm.

  —It’s Ennui’s, he said.

  —Taking you on holiday? McCandless sneered.

  Legs twirled the book on a finger.

  —Don’t bugger it about.

  —Golly, he’s fierce! McCandless cried.

  He gave Gray’s desk a hearty kick as the Fifth responded with mock fear.

  —He’s far too clever for us, isn’t he, Tighe?

  —Too clever by half, Legs replied.

  —Him and his stonking great cerebellum.

  Gray lifted the ink as McCandless dumped his desk and its contents onto the floor and Legs slammed the book over his head.

  He’d suffered resentment before, but not recently and not alone. Now at meals, he sat in Coventry, at Games he received boots and elbows, at Prep he worked alone in the empty form room while the rest of the Fifth repaired to their studies. He’d made an attempt at ruin, twice submitting juvenile efforts in lieu of prep, but the tongue lashings he endured from offended masters did nothing to improve his standing amongst the Fifth, who considered his poor performance a type of mockery.

  Hôtel du Globe, Vichy, 14 Mai—Dear Uncle John, You’ll never believe I got my very first French manicure! Mum got un soin des ongles, too, and now we’re ready for the Season (which opens
tomorrow, in case you didn’t know). I’ve told her I’ll need proper shoes, too. Mum says I’m too young for court shoes, but I can’t keep dressing like a child, especially when I’m expected to toujours discuter nos affaires comme une jeune fille française. You probably won’t believe me, but Miss Murgatroyd agrees. In case you didn’t know, le subjonctif is beastly. Miss you heaps. Love, Cordelia.

  John dispatched letters daily to the Continent and hovered by the pigeonholes each morning and night as Fardley sorted the post. He emptied the library of medical volumes and was working his way through the stack of journals Kardleigh had given him. His first exercise book (marked France) soon gave way to others, as off-hours reading became single-minded research. A German called Ehrlich had created Salvarsan. He called it a magic bullet. The medicine was neither magic nor applied by firearm, but it was made of arsenic and appeared especially toxic to the microbe causing morbus gallicus, or so The Lancet claimed.

  No, she isn’t taking M. Chose’s tablets anymore. Messrs. F, M, and B stopped them because of what they were doing to her digestion. I thought I’d explained all this! M. Bétise was particularly concerned about the effect of le médicament on her liver. Of course, Miss Murgatroyd says the French are morbidly obsessed with their livers, but it never hurts to be careful, does it?

  The doctor in Paris had said Salvarsan was the modern treatment, but the three warlocks in Vichy seemed to have lost track of essentials. John could not, through letters, make sense of their views, but he could see that their bickering blended perfectly with Meg’s parade of complaints, and presumably with the fog of charlatanism in Vichy, to the point that the treatment had devolved into lethal whimsy. Even if Meg refused to hear reason, he ought to be able to influence matters through her daughter, but letters were a vexing medium. If John had been present with the girl, he would have been able to educate her on this matter as he educated the boys on others, step by step, not overwhelming with what they couldn’t understand, but leading them inexorably to an appreciation of the truth—in her case, not the precise truth but at least an understanding of the appropriate treatment. As it was, the ambiguity of the written word on top of the exasperating postal delays rendered him nearly helpless. Nevertheless, he persevered, editing each of his letters into a potent, persuasive document (perhaps not a magic bullet, but what kind of image was that anyway?). Meantime, his research expanded as much as Kardleigh’s periodicals would permit, which at least allowed him to feel he was making progress somewhere.

  * * *

  Dear Tommy Gray, What would your father say to a patient who couldn’t cope on her own but refused to be helped?

  * * *

  The Fifth were more restless than usual, even for a Saturday morning in summer. John was hoping he could ignore it, but since it was only Primus, he knew the disorder would gain steam if left unchecked. He wished he could speak to them man to man. Just relax, he’d say, and we can pass a pleasant morning with the Third Messenian War. He had a few jokes in hand, and if they would stop being so very juvenile, he could deploy them. But before he could do anything but prepare the blackboard, his peripheral vision caught sight of Riding, pariah of the Fifth, rolling down the aisle an object that resembled a sausage from the breakfast table.

  —Riding and Tighe!

  The two boys slouched to their feet, the first defiant, the second incredulous. John was not born yesterday. He had every intention of giving Riding the notoriety he sought, but he knew that misery loved company and that multiple casualties improved esprit de corps. Thus he treated them both to a florid harangue on the subject of the lower-thirdery to which they had sunk and, remembering that a little unfairness went a long way, gave them both late-school stretching into the next hot week. When Riding protested, claiming sole responsibility, John delivered the coup de grâce:

  —Very well. Tighe, vade in pace. Riding, my study after Games.

  * * *

  This was why he hated his Housemaster, and why every right-thinking cad did as well. Five days of late-school was a suitably oppressive penalty that also gave him somewhere to be during the afternoon break, but having bestowed the boon, the beast took it back and lowered the hammer with my study after Games. In the changer, he had to listen to sardonic remarks and sound effects, and by the time he arrived to the study, his courage had decamped. Dr. Sebastian said God heard every prayer but answered them according to his wisdom. If that was so, he thought, checking his fingernails, the divine wisdom was grievous. He knocked. Hark, you tyrant! Almighty and indifferent, who gave your servant into the hands of the accuser, who saw his family slaughtered, who covered him in boils and never said sorry …

  Dear Uncle John, Thank you! Thank you! We’ve just returned from the shops with the most gorgeous pair of shoes you’ve ever seen in your whole long life! They’re navy blue, with a very sensible heel (Miss M says), and they’re made of the softest leather you’ve ever felt. Thank you milles fois for everything you said. Mum says to write that it’s beautiful here and that we ought to come back soon all together. I prefer Paris moi-même but il n’importe pas where we go so long as we’re together. Love love love, C.

  P.S. I didn’t mean to imply you were old when I said that about your long life. In fact, Mum says you’re a dashing gentilhomme, so there.

  John startled at the knock on his door. There wasn’t time to brace himself, but he called the boy in and opened with his gambit:

  —Ah, Riding, good of you to drop by.

  John had a line in surprises and normally could direct all the sections of the orchestra: the public appearance of strictness, the private admonishment, either appealing to better nature or threatening more stringent tactics, and finally the chord, unexpected but perfectly tuned, of allegiance. Sometimes he gave lines when they deserved the JCR, sometimes he omitted punishment altogether, other times he imposed it but not as they expected. He’d never intended to go through with the late-school, but Riding didn’t know that. By the end of the interview, he would believe he’d had a lucky escape, and at long last relations between them would be restored to something like normal. John was prepared to forget about the past; one way or another, this boy must be made to realize it.

  John sorted mail at the table as if Riding had merely dropped by to banter, but the boy stood rigidly on the rug. John tried it all, from How are you getting along? to What shall we do about the study? Riding returned monosyllables. The stonewall provoked John to chatter, and he ran again through the options before them, all of which involved Riding joining a previously established Fifth Form study. Riding behaved as if facing an executioner. Even when John suggested that he might be able to do his prep in the library if a key could be found, the boy stared resentfully at the floor. The interview was a failure. If he reprimanded Riding or punished him now, it would only harden his sense of opposition; if he let the boy off, he’d be rewarding bad manners.

  —Well, Riding, what have you to say?

  Hostility and blame came off the boy in waves, even as he refused to reply; John’s blood was rising.

  —Out, he said. And stay out until you can behave decently.

  21 Mai, encore en Vichy—Dear Thomas Gray, What do you know about the major diseases and their cures? Monsieur Miteux has Mum on magnesium tablets to treat spasmophilia. The trouble is they’re making her hands tingly. Try telling him and he shouts “Impossible!”

  —Blubbing, Cerebellum?

  Gray crushed the paper before they took it from him. He tried bravado, calling McCandless a fool-born maggot-pie, but this only enraged the henchmen. They seized him, dragged him down the row of toilets, and upon threat of Noah’s Flood made him admit what had not happened in Grieves’s study. He may as well kill himself now, they opined, unless he meant to enlist as Grieves’s pet and sleep in a basket at his feet. Only the announcement, relayed from the corridor, of a wireless program in the Eagle’s houseroom diverted them from bodily revenge.

  Gray had avoided the chair loft that term, lest someone see him a
nd follow, but now as the Fifth tramped away, he returned and sprang again the latch.

  I’ve been thinking perhaps she has a disease of the nerves, or a parasite. When I suggested this to M. Miteux, he treated me to his best French disdain: “Mlle Lumière, vous lisez encore de toute évidence.” The beast. We can rule out Malaria because she hasn’t had chills, but I’ve been wondering if it might not be the Kala-azar. I’m looking into things as well as I can, and my reading is improving, at least. I’m doing lessons in the afternoons with a rather dusty English lady named Miss Murgatroyd. (Need I say more?) Mum met her here in Vichy. She says she was recovering from a crise de foie she got during her last appointment, but j’ai mes soupçons!