Grievous

by H. S. Cross

  Did it go against the point of love to keep chambers of one’s self sealed from one’s beloved? Of course it was all hypothetical, wildly so, but if it ever ceased to be hypothetical, he vowed he would renounce the church and conform himself to the Testimonies they affirmed. As they left the cemetery by the far side, he drew a cross in his hand with his middle finger, This is my solemn vow.

  * * *

  The hockey match at the Friends’ school disconcerted him. The mixed environment for a start, and the sight of his goddaughter whacking things with a stick. He’d never seen her in Games kit before and rarely even seen her amongst other children. She seldom spoke of school, her friends there, her masters and mistresses—teachers, they called themselves. Also, the pupils’ conduct on the sidelines repelled him. They seemed the worst of modern children, though not quite so poorly behaved as the barbarians he’d once observed in a brief, ill-advised episode of holiday training at that progressive school whose name escaped him. The nonsense that was being written about education was enough to drive decent people to violence. At least he and Jamie agreed on that. John supposed the people clustered around the hockey field believed children ought never to be punished, that at root they wanted only to please and that wrongdoing was the product of misunderstandings. Surely no child had ever done a wicked thing for the pleasure of it? Surely actual sin had passed from their world with the establishment of the League of Nations? He was working himself up. A long afternoon beckoned, Mrs. Kneesworth followed by dinner with Owain. The light was glaring, his neck stiff. He’d seen toilets when they’d arrived, and now, as Meg chatted with Cordelia’s form mistress, he excused himself. One drop, a small one, in defense of the headache that prowled …

  * * *

  She’d always wanted her godfather to come to her school, but he’d never been free during term time. If only he could see it at work, he would realize what she’d been telling him all these years, that he should leave his school and come teach here. Now that he’d finally come, she saw with shame how wrong she had been. He looked pained and disapproving, and he greeted her teacher with a chill lack of interest. Like a green cloud snuffing out the sun, he scowled at them all, even slipping away early as if the place were too uncouth to bear.

  She had gone into her bedroom that morning to fetch a hair ribbon and found her bed unmade, one of her maps fallen down, and piles of drab exercise books littering the dresser. Inside one was a boy’s labored script, and in the margin Uncle John’s broad brown ink. She found the book of her yes-no-sorry boy: The Arrow War in China, coolie trade, transit duties, serious topics she’d never heard of. Comments filled the margins top to toe, scolding inaccuracies and praising things that eluded her. This was how he treated his own pupils, strict, unsentimental, unsparing. He lavished time on them, even when he’d left them to come see her.

  * * *

  John had always been a favorite with Mrs. Kneesworth, and he realized as she welcomed them that he’d neglected her. After everything she’d done to help in March, he’d sent her updates from Paris, but since then not a word. She appeared not to hold it against him and kissed them all repeatedly. Since the Líohts returned, she had seen them only once, when the removers came. Since then she had been trying to get them to pay her a visit, but ah, she understood how very busy they’d been. And Mr. Grieves, dear Mr. Grieves, he knew he was always welcome in her spare room should he ever need accommodation in Saffron Walden. Of course, her room would be nothing to the rooms in the grand new house in Ely. John glanced at Cordelia, who returned an expression roughly equivalent to boys kicking one another under the table.

  Mrs. K had made a tower of sandwiches, and although she obviously had a tower of questions, she allowed the conversation to unfold in the customary way: what John was getting up to (a book; an intriguing new boy in his House), how Meg was keeping in Ely (splendidly; plans for next spring’s garden; service with the housebound), how Cordelia was finding the long journey to school (quite short, actually), whether she didn’t after all fancy Mrs. Kneesworth’s spare bedroom (so kind, but no), just how churchy was Ely (rather), how in any case it wasn’t Saffron Walden (never), what the bachelor who’d bought their house was getting up to (travesties).

  —And you still haven’t told me about your Grand Tour.

  Meg glanced at the clock:

  —Your da will be wondering where we’ve got to.

  —It’s only five, Cordelia replied. He said not to hurry.

  —You mustn’t dash off yet.

  And so a monologue was undertaken about their Grand Tour, first by Meg, who put quite a gloss on it, and then by Cordelia. To hear the two of them tell it, the whole thing had been one lark after another, ridiculous foreigners alternating with marvelous foreigners, the account peppered with quaint foreign phrases and their confident assessments of The Germans, The Hungarians, The Swiss, The French, The Italians, The Americans, The Irish.

  —And how is Mr. Líoht?

  John thought Mrs. K’s voice had turned sour. Shouldn’t she try harder to conceal it? But Mr. Líoht, Meg assured her, had never been better. Business was thriving, and he was compelled to travel less than previously, scarcely at all. In short, there was nothing under the sun that could be judged unsatisfactory.

  Mrs. K turned to Cordelia:

  —And whatever became of your correspondent, dear?

  Cordelia blanched, and John saw her gaze flit to the clock.

  —Pardon?

  —The person who wrote to me in the summer, Mrs. K said. I always assumed it was a young man, but I was never certain.

  The girl’s face was flushing, her cup was being set on the table, and a polite smile was forming, one plainly false, yet one John realized he had seen before and taken as true.

  —The one you asked to write to me, dear.

  —I feel queer.

  John had never seen his goddaughter be rude, yet here she was not only interrupting Mrs. K but refusing her mother’s help and now actually pulling Mrs. K into the kitchen.

  —Whatever was that? Meg asked.

  They’d closed the door, and John could glean nothing through it. The mantel clock ticked louder than a galloping horse and then commenced an elaborate chiming.

  —I ought to stay with Mrs. K next time, he said.

  —Darling. Don’t be that way.

  She flexed her fingers as if they were stiff. He set his cup on the table and took her hand in his. The edge left her face. She sat back on the settee and closed her eyes.

  His lips beat. He could see the pulse in her throat.

  It wasn’t too late, couldn’t be. If Christ were to be believed, it never was, not until the end, and that wasn’t yet.

  * * *

  —It was only a young man I met in Budapest, a medical student.

  Mrs. K raised her brow.

  —It was entirely gallant, but you can understand, can’t you, why I didn’t want to bother my mother with it?

  Mrs. K could certainly understand. She’d had a German suitor herself once. This Cordelia had heard many times, but she smiled as if she hadn’t. (Had Tommy Gray not received the update telling him not to write Mrs. K? She’d written it right after the first, at least she’d thought of writing it … had she really lost the thread once her father had … train, Lourdes—)

  —But, Cordelia dear, why would you ask this man to write to me rather than writing yourself?

  She pretended to cough again, and Mrs. K fetched some water.

  —It’s such a tedious story.

  Mrs. K settled into a chair.

  Oh, dear, the truth was that they’d been in a rush. Their train was earlier than they thought, and this boy—the medical student?—yes, this poor boy was simply in love with her, and she felt ever so sorry for him and so she’d tried to make him feel useful and asked him to write to Mrs. K for her. But she hadn’t said America! She’d said Austria.

  But what about the rest? Mrs. K persisted. He mentioned a doctor, Mr. Felix Rush in Asheville, North
Carolina? She took down a tin and produced a letter.

  Oh, dear!—she snatched it—What a misunderstanding! There had been an article in a journal about such a man. The boy must have somehow confused it with Austria. He was foreign and tearful and she needed to be rid of him. It had been unwise, she knew, but no harm had come of it.

  But what if the young man turned up at her door? He sounded unstable.

  But Mrs. K needn’t worry! He was Hungarian and penniless and couldn’t afford to leave Budapest.

  Then why had the letter been postmarked Kent? It was an English letter from an English correspondent. It didn’t look foreign and neither did the penmanship.

  Was that so? Could she see the envelope? How curious. How entirely curious! But … ah, now see, she knew exactly what had happened. What a circus! This penniless Hungarian doctor-in-training had a friend, a kind older doctor from England who was in Budapest at the time lecturing at the medical school. They had spent time together. No, he hadn’t examined her mother, he was a dental doctor. But … what must have happened was that her Hungarian—his name was Stefan—Stefan must have been overwhelmed by the prospect of writing in English, even though he so desperately wanted to help, and so he must have got the English dentist to write it for him. And to save the postage, the dentist must have taken it back with him to England and sent it from there. What an adventure! Wasn’t life funny?

  * * *

  The birthday, after all, was delightful. Owain’s insistence that they not rush back had been, it emerged, so that he could decorate the house with flowers and candles. There was dinner and a cake and a new record for the gramophone, which was playing when they arrived.

  After the meal John presented his gifts: for Meg a book of poems by Elizabeth Barrett Browning, and for Cordelia, though it wasn’t her birthday, a dictionary of geographical places. His goddaughter kissed both his cheeks in continental style. At least she’d lost the strain of earlier, the ugly, cheerful falseness she’d maintained all the way back from Mrs. K’s—some tea cake had gone down the wrong way, Mrs. K had a remedy, and as for the woman’s remark about a correspondent, sadly she was becoming confused, more than ever, muddling their journey to Budapest and Bad Wherever with Mrs. K’s own childhood suitor from Germany. The girl had tried to correct her memory but in the end decided to humor her. C’est la vie!

  —Darling, Meg said as the gramophone reached the end.

  Cordelia sprang up to turn the record.

  —Isn’t it grand? she said to John. Da made it my birthday present. It’s an electric gramophone!

  Must have cost a fortune.

  —And it’s portable!

  —Are you planning another Grand Tour?

  Her face froze, and he realized the humor had failed. But then Owain had returned from upstairs, where he’d gone to fetch Meg’s gift. After numerous my darling little girl’s and nearly as many my onliest heart’s, he presented an envelope.

  —Oh, darling! Meg cried. The Barretts of Wimpole Street! I’ve so wanted to see it.

  —There’s a ticket for you, too, angel child.

  John got up to clear the table, his own gift now striking him as second-rate.

  —Oh, Da! When?

  —Ah, well …

  Owain flushed as he did when in a pinch, a blush John had just seen, actually, on the face of his—

  —You see, it’s a bit intricate.

  By which he meant desperately awkward. Meg examined the tickets:

  —This Monday? How splendid!

  —But that’s Uncle John’s last night with us.

  At least someone remembered. But Owain was spinning an explanation about tickets bought well in advance of John’s proposing a visit, and when the visit had emerged, Owain naturally had rung the box office to arrange a fourth seat, but alas the performance was by then sold out. An intricate situation to be sure, but one Owain was sure they could sort out somehow.

  —Uncle John should have my ticket. I’ve got school in the morning, after all.

  —I won’t hear of it, John said.

  The last thing he intended to do was attend The Barretts of Wimpole Street with Meg and her husband.

  —There’s someone I must see in London, he continued. I’ve been wondering how I was going to fit it in, but now …

  Meg was looking quizzical, Cordelia was trying to conceal her relief, and Owain was beaming.

  —So you see, John said, it’s all very convenient. We can ride down together—

  —And have an early tea, Owain added. I’ll ring right up and change the booking.

  —And I’ll see my friend.

  —Who is this friend, darling?

  —Come to think of it—

  Improvising wildly now.

  —isn’t there a night express from King’s Cross?

  If he took it, he could get back much faster.

  —Oh, but darling—

  —We could pop over to the station right now, Owain was saying. Just see what they know.

  He and Owain went together, and it was concluded that leaving from London rather than Ely would be a boon, a convenience, and a perfect idea.

  Back at the house John excavated a card from the pocket in his case, where it had sat since the last time he used it. F. P. Merewether, LVO, CMG. The Boltons, Kensington.

  * * *

  Sometimes you had a spot, and you squeezed it and squeezed it but it wouldn’t burst. She said she had prep and went upstairs. Her father had put candles everywhere, so it wasn’t anything to take one and to open the window and to feed Mrs. K’s letter to the flame. Mollifying the woman had been harder than the most vicious hockey match, the kind where you came away with cut shins, but she had fought and fought and eventually won.

  He had no reason to write Mrs. K again, but if he did, the things she could imagine were more tangled than morning glory. It had seemed the best thing to send those parcels to him, to treat him as some underground library, open only to monks who knew the password, monks who could say spells and turn people into fishes—like when St. Dunstan turned Ely’s monks into eels—but he was not a monk, her yes-no-sorry boy, he was more like a secret agent behind enemy lines, and you never told agents a word more than necessary in case they were captured, because then they would be tortured and forced to tell whatever they knew, which was why she had to do this thing, no matter what it cost.

  Dear Tommy Gray, If you are honorable, you will do as I ask.

  She had to make him obey no matter what he thought.

  You must swear an unbreakable oath never to write me or anyone I know (most especially Uncle J and Mrs. K).

  To guard against the worst.

  Take everything I’ve ever sent you and put it in the fire, completely all the way.

  Batten the Hatches.

  And then forget I ever existed.

  Luck Turn.

  If you are a gentleman, if you have a heart, you’ll do these things. It’s desperate, life and death. I am not exaggerating.

  Blood Sacrifice.

  My truest and best and onliest friend.

  She had a stamp, and after they’d gone to bed, she went down the road and dropped it in the pillar box. Disaster stopped, nearly, or would be after blood had been given. Her penknife had cut her once by mistake, but now … three down, one across, behind her ankle where no one could see. Iodine like a train’s brakes, trumpet pumping, sparkly sound, my stardust melody, the memory of …

  37

  John forced his sponge bag into the horrible case, but the exercise books would have to be arranged more scientifically in his satchel. If he’d known how slack he would be marking only ten on the train and none during the visit, if he’d known how abominable his head would be, as abominable as the Remove on the Ottomans or the Fifth on the Punic Wars … Failure flooded him, swarmed him, persecuted him, like a murder of crows. Though why not detected him like a sleuth of bears? Worried him like a troubling of goldfish? Upbraided him like a scold of jays? He was being flippant and it wa
s unwise. (Chilled him like a shiver of sharks?) He could hear the gramophone being cranked up—switched on?—the needle lowered onto another record. (Lay in wait for him like a skulk of foxes?) His goddaughter had developed a mania for popular music, which, if this weekend’s sampling was anything to judge by, concerned itself exclusively with love: love lost, love found, love longed for, love soured, love in every state including neat. He couldn’t follow the currents of modern culture; he knew his Beethoven from his Bach, his Elgar from his Gilbert and Sullivan, but that was about it. And these cursed exercise books, an unkindness of ravens, he’d simply have to sit up on the night express and finish them. Hopefully his supper with Merewether would finish early and he’d be able to make a start—finally, the tongue caught and the wretched books shut up. (Ye pandemonium of parrots!)

  He scanned the room for forgotten items. The suffocating map of Indochine lay across the armchair. If the spare room wasn’t finished by his next visit, he would insist on staying with Mrs. K. Sleeping in his goddaughter’s bed felt indecent, and the patchwork of maps were reminiscent of the pin-ups he was sometimes forced to confiscate from boys’ cupboards, as if she’d lain in bed at night thinking rash thoughts about them, an infestation of cockroaches.