by H. S. Cross
* * *
Mr. Grieves had been back a day already without giving them his answer on Castle Noire. Now the unnerving message from Crighton:
—Grievous wants you, start of Prep.
—Us? Gill asked.
—You, Crighton said to Gray.
—But why?
—Buggered if I know.
Gray scoured his memory. He hadn’t received a single docket that term, not even the threat of one. If Grieves wanted to discuss the play, he would have included Gill; likewise if he’d found out about late rehearsals. By seven o’clock he’d checked his uniform so many times that Gill threw him out of the study. He went to wait outside Grieves’s door.
The pigeonholes mocked him. They brought post to other people, but not to him, unless you counted his mother’s turgid reports. His godfather neglected him, despite the week they’d spent cheek by jowl in Boggle Hole at the end of the holidays, and despite the fact that Gray had written Peter three times with news of Guilford Audsley and Flight. He used to check his pigeonhole twice a day, but now he avoided it. The other pigeonholes had been ransacked already, though Mac’s still contained a letter, as did Halton’s, and Audsley’s a parcel, likely delivered late and containing, he could tell by the size, a shipment of Nigroids, now all the rage amongst the cast. His mother would not approve. She ought to send him something, though, anything to fill this void that reached back into the deepest—wait … He scraped something forward. Not blue, but—the hair stood up on his scalp—her script across an English envelope, no return address but a postmark—Ely!—torn, shaking— 3 October—four days ago!—If you are honorable …
His breath was stuck in a pipe at the right side of his chest, pressing like a boil about to burst, but as he read, he grew more vital, more defiant. When he came to the end, his answer was sure: Like hell I will. Burn them yourself!
—Ah, Thomas, sorry to startle.
Grieves, books in arm, escorted him through the door. Light, dust, carpet.
—Hope I haven’t kept you waiting.
Her letter bulged in his jacket.
—Sit.
He pressed it as flat as he could.
—I expect you’re wondering why you’re here.
There was no reason on the earth to make him empty his pockets.
—I wanted to speak with you alone.
About the letter? Pull yourself together.
—Please, Riding, sit.
Let him not have gone there. Let him not have made her write—
—You needn’t look so stricken. Unless you’ve something to confess?
Pull yourself together! Grieves was joking about the confession. How did a person with a clear conscience look?
—I wanted to speak to you about this.
Grieves slid an exercise book across the desk. It was Guilford’s. Results of the Punic Wars, 3/20. That wasn’t good. Gray didn’t remember the composition. If Grieves was going to put Gill in extra-tu, why not tell him directly?
The man leafed through another book and, after finding the desired page, placed it beside the first. Also Guilford’s. Causes of the Punic Wars, 18/20. Better. It ought to have been since Gray himself had written the draft, a draft that appeared little changed, to judge by the first page. Why had it earned only eighteen marks?
—So you see, Grieves was saying. It’s one thing to offer friendly advice, but to actually write the composition for him …
Surely this wasn’t all about that? Everyone cribbed. Who was Grieves suddenly to take offense?
—You can wipe that expression off your face. Don’t bother denying it.
What expression?
—You’re a terrible liar, and at any rate it’s obvious when you compare this essay written in class with these others, submitted as prep.
He’d have to be more circumspect in his assistance, but how on earth did Grieves imagine Gill would avoid academic ruin if someone didn’t do his prep for him?
—And you can drop that expression as well. Do you think we masters don’t know everything that goes on here?
Of course, they didn’t.
—Of course, we do. Just because we choose not to remark upon a thing does not mean it goes unnoticed.
Madness.
—For example, Audsley’s last four assignments were written by you. Of course, he copied them over, corrected a few of your spelling errors, sadly not all, fudged a date the wrong way, and put his name to it.
What spelling errors?
—And from the look of his English and Latin preps …
Here Grieves produced more exercise books, bearing the unlikely remarks of the Eagle and the Flea.
—Oh, yes, we do speak to one another. It seems the same is true everywhere, with the conspicuous exception—
He riffled backwards through one of them.
—of the two nights you were in the Tower with a throat infection.
Laryngitis.
—Let me see if I have this straight: Audsley under threat of extra-tu. Rehearsals jeopardized. You assist, which on top of your own work keeps you awake until Heaven knows what hour—
The pipe in his chest!
—Of course, Moss knew nothing about it—leaving you exhausted, hence the throat infection, and today falling asleep in Lockett-Egan’s Chaucer lecture. Am I wrong?
Wherever Grieves had gone, it had transformed him into a freak of nature. There was absolutely nothing to say to the man, which was just as well since he’d launched into the Earnest Rebuke and showed no sign of stopping.
It was unfair, and cruel besides, to terrify him halfway into the grave with invitations to the study and then proceed to jaw him about something as inconsequential as Guilford Audsley’s prep. Obviously, Gill was destined to be one of those boys who languished his entire career at the bottom of the form, a reliable measure of rock bottom. Every school needed such people, surely, and where was the harm so long as Gill offered something else, which he so plainly did, like Halton with the choir or any number of boys with Games? Take Mac, for instance: he hadn’t made it beyond the Fifth and probably never would.
—Are you listening to me, Riding?
—Yes, sir.
The only difference between them was that Halton and Mac actually did their prep, whereas Gill would have turned up empty-handed any number of times if Gray hadn’t intervened. They’d have to discuss that. Guilford had to be seen to try.
—Now, before you go—
It was coming to an end, though not soon enough. He had a hundred things to do before bed.
—I’m hoping you can convey a message to your studymate.
Do your own prep. He could write the script. He could write any script!
—I’ve spoken with Dr. Sebastian—
About this? Was he cracked?
—about your newest play, and I’m afraid he isn’t amenable to your performing it in the chapel.
Ah … that. Gray hadn’t thought he would be, but Gill had insisted.
—However, I’ve managed to secure the gymnasium for the upcoming Sunday. It isn’t as spacious, but I’m sure you can sort something out.
—Thank you, sir. The eighteenth?
—The eleventh, after the Sedbergh match.
Four days away? Impossible! Worse than impossible. Disaster!
—And, Grieves continued, it might interest you to know that I shall be making a tour of the dorms tonight, and in future whenever it seems necessary. I shall expect to find the entire House asleep, and I shall look unkindly upon any somnambulists I encounter.
Nail in the godforsaken coffin!
—Do I make myself clear?
As death. How had this interview gone so wrong?
* * *
A clear success, as interviews with Riding were wont to go. John knew he shouldn’t have favorites, or their opposite, but Riding he had to class one of the latter—keen mind, a way with words, but outside the classroom, deliberately infuriating. What was it Morgan used to say? Anxious and pleasing
, or sullen and resentful. Now the boy had got his categories crossed, anxious and resentful, of what even? And the lying! Not that he’d actually said anything untrue this time, but his expression screamed untruth. For a boy with little need, he lied often and unconvincingly. He had to be the world’s worst liar, which, John supposed, might be a kind of achievement.
* * *
Gill called the news a minor snag and started twirling pencils in and out of his fingers, his usual technique for solving problems. They’d only rehearsed the first two scenes. They could shorten the others, but how much? And they hadn’t even begun with the costumes or the setting or—
Gill stopped twirling:
—A serial!
—What?
—Like Tarzan the Tiger, but live and talking!
Objections were already clogging the pipe.
—We’ll give the first two scenes Sunday, then one or two more each Sunday after that!
What was the point in objecting? He knew they’d do it. They always did it. He even wanted to do it. Why should his be the voice of reason? If saffron-haired girls could emerge from the void to write such arrant trash …
39
John ransacked his medicine cabinet for a suitable container. Kardleigh had asked for the vial back, and a difficult patch lay ahead. Jamie had asked to see him after lights-out, and while he hadn’t said why, John suspected the Headmaster hadn’t appreciated the witty advertisement Audsley and Riding had staged at the end of Evening Prayers. Pearce had already given them fifty lines apiece, so as far as John was concerned, justice had been dealt, a fact he would convey to Jamie in no uncertain terms.
Also pressing, letters. He’d already sent Meg a note of thanks, simple and neutral, for the visit. Her reply would show him where things stood. He had written Tuesday night, and now it was Saturday; nothing would come tomorrow, so … He rinsed out the iodine bottle and poured Kardleigh’s solution into it. A drop rolled down the side; he licked it—prophylactic—before refilling Kardleigh’s vial with water.
Dorms, Kardleigh, Jamie. Then work, to repel thoughts of Monday’s post.
—Sir, to what do we owe the honor?
Moss greeted him outside the washroom.
—Making sure everyone finds his way to bed.
—Of course, sir.
—I’ll be through later.
—That won’t be necessary, sir.
—Nevertheless!
He left them to their noise. Outside, the wind had teeth. He bounded up the stairs to the Tower.
—Maestro?
—Be right there, Kardleigh called.
His heart slammed. The morning runs had improved his stamina, and he wouldn’t expect the stairs to wind him, even taken two at a time. Perhaps he ought to try Ovaltine? Tonight alone he had the Fourth, Remove, and Upper Sixth to mark in addition to the day’s correspondence. What was taking Kardleigh so long? It was spoiling the illusion of spontaneity.
—I’ve no idea how—
Kardleigh returned, wiping his hands with a towel.
—But Fletcher has made a pig’s dinner of his knee.
—He was all right at Prep, John said.
—Some sort of mucking about on Burton’s stairs.
—I only popped by, John said, to return your little drops.
He removed the vial from his pocket.
—Didn’t need them after all, luckily.
And dropped it on the floor.
—Oh, no!
Where it broke.
—I am sorry. What frightful butterfingers!
He stooped to collect the pieces.
—I’ll clean this up. It’s the least I can do.
* * *
Burton was in Jamie’s study when John arrived. Jamie was refilling their drinks and wearing that look: Headmaster displeased with his school. John refused the brandy and was forced to sit on the settee since Burton was occupying John’s usual seat.
—There’s method in Audsley’s insolence, Burton was saying, as if he’s laughing at us.
Jamie murmured in agreement.
—Tradition is tradition because it works, Burton continued. We must maneuver within it. We must find ways around one another.
Heavily, John realized he ought to have tackled this sooner, before Burton had worked himself up and before Audsley had worn out his welcome with Jamie. He poured himself a glass of soda as Burton waxed lyrical.
—Think of the original Academy.
The garden made by Academius for Plato, to think, to work, to teach. What would have become of the Academy, Burton asked, if each pupil had taken Academius to task for the shape of the walks, the choice of flowers?
—People like your Guilford Audsley—
Burton waved at John.
—Are blind to the delicate equilibrium we labor, yes labor, to maintain here, one garden at a time.
Jamie was agreeing with him.
—Peace is fragile.
Even John was beginning to agree with him.
—I’d thought, Jamie was saying, that it would only be the one play. But now we have another, not to mention these disruptions.
—Work is suffering, Burton said. Look at young Halton. Look at Audsley himself. You can’t deny it, Grieves. Ordinary life is suffering.
The days of excess were past, Burton reminded them. Their mandate was balance, decency, discipline. Without these things, one element could overpower the rest, like aggressive weeds or bullies. Too much study led to dullness, too much sport to brutishness, too much prayer to zealotry, too much diversion to shallowness, too much food to gluttony, too much desire to wantonness, too much of anything, in short, led to corruption and the flight of reason.
—I’m not sure what we’re arguing about, John said. The performance is tomorrow, and then it will all be over.
* * *
A fag came to him halfway through the Sedbergh match to announce Uncle Peter, waiting at the gates. Gray left the sidelines, walking briskly, nausea rising. To run would make real what he feared. That was how disasters worked. They hacked down everything you took for granted just to show you how powerless you were. He hadn’t answered his mother’s last letter, the one asking about Christmas, and now it would haunt him to the end of his days. Though, perhaps Peter had come to say she was only ill. Had his knowledge of the girl’s mother brought a sword upon his own? Or was this punishment for his refusal to obey the girl’s final command?
—What’s happened? he demanded.
Peter’s face was cheerful, not grave. He opened his arms to Gray:
—Unexpected change of plan.
—Is she…?
—Well! She’s very well. Oh, no, look at you.
* * *
As usual, he’d made a mess of it. First, he’d frightened the boy half to death arriving unannounced for his first visit ever without considering how it would look. Once the boy recovered himself, he began to babble, and Peter saw how foolish he had been to assume the boy would be grateful for a spontaneous exeat. It seemed a football match was in progress, attendance compulsory, and after that … The boy’s letters had described a play he had written, and now it emerged that he’d written another, to be performed after the match. Exeat therefore impossible. Chastened by his ignorance, Peter accompanied the boy back to the pitch, determined to see the school at least.
The playing fields, hacked out of moorland, looked as though they might revert to wilderness in the holidays. The school was smaller than he expected, only four houses, which helped explain why attendance at the match was compulsory. After the visitors had humiliated the First XV, the boy introduced him to his Housemaster, and Peter accompanied the man to the gymnasium for the promised performance. Grieves, too, was nothing like he’d imagined. Young, bright, charming, and possessing a sense of humor, he bore no resemblance to the dire tyrant his godson seemed to think him or the austere saint Elsa portrayed. There was an awkward moment when Grieves asked after Elsa and her fiancé, and Peter had to report that she was well a
nd that the fiancé was he, or had been. Grieves had grown flustered, and Peter had been forced to reveal his purpose, which was to explain to his godson why the engagement had been suspended.
—Say no more, Grieves stuttered. Forgive me.
—Only suspended, not called off.
Something about the man compelled him to explain himself. She needed more time. The engagement had been too swift. They hadn’t called it off, but they weren’t going forward presently. It was all frightfully intricate, and the last thing Peter wanted was for his godson to get the wrong end of the stick.
—He’s good at that, Grieves said.
—Isn’t he though?
Grieves offered the exeat before Peter could ask. He’d need the boy back for Prep, but the Cross Keys in Fridaythorpe did a first-rate steak and kidney. Grieves also recommended the spotted dick, if they had it.