Grievous

by H. S. Cross

  They changed their shoes, Gill rehearsed their alibi—library, reading—and they staggered up to the dorms, which were empty save for the dorm fag, who gassed about the Empire Film in the gym, North American prairies, everyone watching a second time through. In the washroom, Gill seemed to supervise him, as Morgan sometimes had, taking a flannel to the back of his neck and hanging up his dressing gown in the dorm.

  —Good night, sweet Prince.

  Gill’s voice was benevolent, as if it were true what he had said, that nothing was ruined, like the kindly light amidst the gloom that encircled but never quite consumed.

  44

  John couldn’t see why Owain refused to use the telephone, though on reflection it was obvious: telegrams were more dramatic. COME AT ONCE SHE NEEDS YOU STOP was designed to instill panic even before John picked up the apparatus to ring for an explanation. This time he didn’t bother asking Jamie, who was in any case away with Kardleigh. John informed his matron and then departed for the station just in time to make the night express.

  When he arrived in Ely Saturday morning, no one met him. He walked to the house in the dark. It took repeated hangings on the bell to rouse Owain, and when the door finally opened, John’s alarm surged.

  —Thank Jesus you’re here, Owain muttered.

  The man’s voice and appearance were rough. John followed him into the kitchen, where Owain poured a drink from a near-empty bottle and offered it to him.

  —Let’s start with some tea, John replied.

  Owain fell into a kitchen chair and cradled his head. Questions swarmed, but John concentrated on the tea and then on washing the dishes piled in the sink. Owain seemed to have fallen back to sleep, but once the tea was ready and the whiskey removed, John jostled his chair.

  —You look awful, he said.

  Owain blew his nose into a dirty handkerchief:

  —You’ve no idea, no earthly idea.

  John resisted the urge to roll his eyes. Instead he stirred sugar into Owain’s tea and pushed it across the table.

  —Jesus, man! Owain said as the tea sloshed and burned him.

  John wanted to tell him not to take the Lord’s name in vain.

  —Where is she?

  —Upstairs!

  Having delivered himself of this, Owain began to weep. John decamped to the corridor. The jaws of family had closed with the front door and were pressing with all their undressed knowing. He called to his goddaughter, and, receiving no answer, went up and announced himself at her door. It was locked, the corridor frigid and drafty.

  —Cordelia?

  —It’s no good, Owain called.

  John peered down the stairs, but Owain merely gestured for him to descend. John did, impatience growing. He hadn’t come all this way to indulge an Irishman.

  —She’ll not answer, Owain said. Locked herself in three days now.

  —Surely she comes out sometimes.

  Owain denied it. She’d taken neither food nor drink. Owain had heard her moving about, and her wireless played loudly whenever the programs were on.

  —So you see, Owain concluded, why I sent for you.

  John took his tea into the parlor to think. He knew he mustn’t be drawn in, to the dramatics or Owain’s tears, but, good Lord, how many children would he have to sort out? He asked Owain for the key, but Owain claimed not to have it.

  —You mean she has the only one?

  —What d’you think I’ve been telling you?

  His head was hurting now. He retrieved the drops from his case and took them with his tea as Owain raised a smeary glass. An idea sailed over the wall … and Owain’s collar was in his hands, and he was shoving him against the table.

  —If you’ve laid one finger on her, God help me, I’ll—

  His hands were doing it, closing on that throat to end the odious breath.

  —Jesus! Never!

  —Swear it.

  —I swear.

  —On her mother’s grave.

  —On her mother’s godforsaken grave!

  Owain sobbed again, this time with rage:

  —Black-and-tan bastard!

  His fist connected with John’s face, and they yelled together, John’s knuckles hitting bone and flesh, and they were falling to the floor cursing.

  —Dirty mick!

  He was saying things he’d never said aloud, and they were scrapping with the strength of lifelong rivals.

  —Blow-bottle!

  Then Owain was rolling away and sobbing, or was it laughter, and something was dripping down John’s face, and he realized he was laughing, too.

  —If she could see us now, he gasped.

  Owain’s laughter mixed again with tears:

  —Hooligans.

  Later, after each of them had bathed and changed, Owain announced his intention to pop round his offices. John began to object but then realized the wisdom of it. Perhaps the upstairs door would open if Owain were out of the house, and if it wouldn’t open willingly, John would be free to try stronger measures.

  First things first: old tea discarded, fresh prepared. Next: renewed knocking, feeble beside the blaring wireless. Then torch, cellar, fuse box … silence already down the long stairs. He let his feet fall heavily on the steps. Time for the man who could make boys quake.

  —Open this door, Cordelia Líoht. Your father has gone out.

  Silence. Jamie’s father always claimed that boys were a walk-over compared to girls. Right again, John realized grimly.

  —Enough nonsense, young lady!

  Sounds of movement in the opposite direction.

  —If I have to dismantle this door, I shall, but you won’t like the consequences.

  To complete the performance, he banged with the butt of his torch. He was just wondering if the ladder in the cellar was long enough to reach her window when the key turned. He pushed into the room and into its cold draft. She huddled on the bed, blankets tentlike around her, eyes sunken like a consumptive, the room’s every surface covered with maps.

  Words failed him. He lifted her and carried her squirming from the scene. She was bigger than the last time he’d carried her, but he made it to the bathroom and set her on the stool. Breath labored, he stood there, one hand on the door, one on his hip, waiting for something, from himself or from her. She hugged herself and avoided the gaze he was deploying, the one that always drew from boys stammered explanations. When she darted for the window sash, he caught her:

  —Oh, no you don’t.

  He secured the latch, put the plug in the bath, and turned on the taps. She flopped down on the floor, suddenly deflated, and when the tub had filled, he told her to get in. Her expression sent a splinter through his eye.

  —Oh, very well, he said turning his back, though I don’t see what the fuss is about. I’ve been giving you baths since you were born.

  He waited, arms crossed, until he heard her settle beneath the bubbles. It was too soon to get her to talk, so he sat down on the stool and occupied himself skimming back issues of The Friend, which he found in a basket beside the toilet. She stared at the walls, and when the steam stopped rising, he added more hot water. He wet her hair, and she let him wash it as he used to when she was small. Finally, he set out a towel, gathered up her clothes and told her to wash properly. Taking the key from the bathroom door, he went down the corridor to her room.

  The draft, he discovered, was coming from the window, which was open behind the map of Suez. The whole chamber deserved to be burned, but first, key to his pocket, hairbrush from bureau, clothes from the press, he gathered it all and locked the door. The bath was draining, and she stood at the sink cleaning her teeth, cloaked in the towel like some Indian chief. He set down her clothes and stepped into the corridor—but then returned: What was that on the back of her legs, like the scratches of a cat but more vivid and regular?

  —What’s happened?

  She dropped to a crouch, covering herself, but her arm revealed more. He took her wrist and then her other arm, pu
lling her up to see her legs and the backs of her knees.

  —How could he?

  His arms were around her, tears at his throat.

  —How could he? she croaked. Is that what you think?

  He reached for her, but she pushed him away.

  —He isn’t here, darling. He can’t—

  —Don’t be daft!

  She drew the towel tight.

  —I always knew you were green, Uncle John, but this takes the cake.

  He recoiled as if struck—by her, and by a thought.

  Corridor, key, stripping the bed of its morbid covers, pencil case, nibs, penknife, handkerchief, spotted red.

  * * *

  He made her eat toast and an egg and then come for a walk. At the cathedral, she led him to a place off the transept where there were chairs and prie-dieux. Someone was practicing the organ, and the low notes filled his throat. She slipped her hands into the sleeves of her coat, like a cold monk.

  —If I tell you, she said, do you promise not to speak of it? Ever to anyone, even me.

  How could he promise? But how could he not?

  She knelt and put her head in her hands. He imitated her, the organ a force field of sound, like a labyrinth raised around them. Between the blasts, she whispered, not many words but enough to make his skin prickle. Her words issued from a grief-filled mind, but what if they also were true?

  * * *

  Someone shook his shoulder, the Turtle’s voice like a hurricane in his ear.

  —Second bell, Riding.

  He turned his head but then laid it down again.

  —Moss wants you in your study, ten minutes.

  He groaned.

  —He says you’re not to tell anyone, and you’re not to think of skiving off to the Tower.

  He sat up, but the maddening messenger had gone.

  His head was pounding like an overzealous organ. He was parched, but anything more than sips from the tap made his stomach turn. Evidently, Gill was not suffering, as he’d already gone down to breakfast. Gray couldn’t remember Morgan’s face ever looking the way his looked now. Probably he was coming down with something.

  No sign of Moss at the study. He tidied the table and floor. The newspaper lay where Gill had let it fall, open this time to an item of sensation: Actress’s Death from Burns. A lady had died from burns received in an accident at her lodgings. She had come to London to rehearse with the Classical Players. Authorities believed that the lady was alone in her rooms when her nightdress came into contact with a candle. The article did not explain why the lady should be running about with candles when an electric torch would do, but Gray supposed it was the kind of thing actresses did. Mrs. Ward acted under her maiden name of Muriel Rhys-Mills. Her brother, Theodore, will accompany her body to Edinburgh, where the funeral will be held. Rhys-Mills, Theodore? Vain, untalented, thirty years old? The Classical Players have confirmed that Mr. Rhys-Mills has resigned his role. There is no word yet as to how or whether the Players will proceed with the production.

  Here was a bright spot in an unpromising day. At least Gill could rest easy that Theodore Rhys-Mills would not profane Hamlet, this season at any rate.

  Moss burst in without knocking:

  —There you are.

  He was pale.

  —What’s the matter?

  Moss rubbed his nose.

  —Don’t piss about! Gray said. Tell me.

  —Did you see Audsley last night?

  If this were about last night, they’d be standing before the JCR, their fate already decided.

  —We went to bed early.

  Moss looked pained:

  —There’s no good way to say this, and after chapel everyone will know.

  —What? For God’s sake!

  * * *

  Everything had passed over into the absurd, John thought. Here he was Sunday morning, stuck in Nowhere, Lincolnshire, waiting for an accident up the line to be cleared. His goddaughter stretched across the seats, asleep at last. Against his better judgment, he’d given her one of his drops, but then so much in the previous twenty-four hours had been against his better judgment. Had it been good judgment to grant her request, issued hoarse beneath folded hands:

  —Take me away from here, Uncle John. Please.

  As if he alone could save her. John had sent her to the shop so he could snatch a few words with her father. Alone with Owain, John had rambled. He had no qualms about breaking her confidence, but how to avoid appearing out of his mind?

  —Been seein’ ghosts, has she? Owain replied to the winding introduction.

  John felt the hair stand up on his arms.

  —How did you…?

  —You can laugh.

  John wasn’t laughing.

  —In my country we know to be careful of the dead.

  His eyes pricked in fear.

  —She never seemed to notice until a few nights ago, Owain continued. I was frying an egg, like her mother used, trying to get her to eat, and the room came over cold, and the smell …

  She’d whispered as much in the back of the church: lemon all around but like fruit gone off; chill like snow when the windows were closed. There in the kitchen, John smelled nothing besides Owain’s drink, and felt nothing beyond the heat of the stove. It was little wonder the girl was losing her grip, shut up with a man who slept in shirtsleeves and armchair, a man who hadn’t seen twenty-four sober hours since—

  —You must take her, Owain said as her key turned in the door. Take her away from here.

  —Take her?

  —Love her, Owain whispered, like she was your own. Can you do that, for her mother’s sake?

  He hadn’t asked Jamie. This was bigger than Jamie. Orders of magnitude couldn’t be refused.

  * * *

  Gray refused to believe it. Why would Guilford have crept from the dorm after midnight? Why would he have broken into Mr. Grieves’s study, drunk his brandy, and then raised the alarm by knocking over a table? And why, having done these incredible things, hadn’t he escaped before Mrs. Firth appeared in dressing gown and dismay? Why had Guilford—master of improvisation, master of drink—offered no excuse beyond a drunken blathering?

  —The Head didn’t elaborate, Moss said. Put him on the early train and told Matron to send his things on.

  —Did you see him before he left?

  Moss hadn’t, but he took a note from his pocket:

  —Matron gave me this.

  Torn from an envelope, the girl’s script unmistakable: 27 Willow Walk, Ely.

  —Audsley asked Matron to give it to you.

  On the reverse, Gill’s hand, small and clear: Write!

  He’d written her so many times in his mind, but now that he tried, everything sounded wrong. Chapel passed, luncheon, football. He tackled the weekly letter home, a task made more turgid by the fact that he couldn’t mention the week’s extraordinary events. At three o’clock, Divinity lesson cast him into the company of the Sixth, who, rather than interrogate him as the Fifth had done at luncheon, regarded him with an embarrassed kind of awe. Dr. Sebastian thankfully ignored him as they swept through the day’s scriptures and hymn. Source for the latter was a poem by Newman, the Head informed them, written nearly one hundred years ago while Newman’s ship home to England was becalmed by fog in the Strait of Bonifacio. The hymn was known as “Lead, Kindly Light,” but the poem was called “The Pillar of the Cloud.”

  —An allusion to what, Riding?

  So much for slouching in the back of the room.

  —Exodus, sir?

  —Go on. And stand up straight.

  Had Guilford told the Head of their excursion to Fridaythorpe, when Gill’s torch had led them home like the light in the hymn?

  —God uses a pillar of cloud, sir, to guide the Jews out of Egypt, and at night it turns into a pillar of fire.

  Dr. Sebastian nodded and called for their hymnals, which they produced for close reading. The poem was beautiful enough to break hearts.

  Af
ter Divinity, he took paper and pencil to the window seat. Could a letter begin with the poem? So long thy power hath blessed me, sure it still will lead me on. Was there a way to link the condolences he had to offer with a glimpse, if she wanted, into his heart and the force her letters exerted on him even now? O’er moor and fen, o’er crag and torrent till the night is gone. And in the morn—

  A motorcar crunched below. Its engine choked off, doors clicked open. The window was dirty, and the square by his face was cracked, but it couldn’t conceal what was on the other side: in twilight and mist, the saffron-haired girl, materialized within the gates of the Academy as if called there by the force of things unsaid. She wore black, not gray, and lugged a heavy case. As Mr. Grieves paid the driver, she set her burden down, cast her eyes upon the barren scene, and coughed.

  * * *

  Lewis was on guard when John arrived:

  —He’s expecting you. Go straight in.

  With this, Jamie’s secretary rolled off, as if he’d merely been waiting to admit a boy for his thrashing.

  —Thank God! Jamie exclaimed when John entered.

  John fumbled the greeting, but Jamie drew him near the fire, offered him a drink and, when he refused, tea.

  —Is everything all right? Jamie asked at last.

  —Yes, John said. I think it is now.

  Jamie looked puzzled, tense.

  —I’m sorry to have dashed off like that, John continued, but I think I can promise it won’t happen again.

  He launched into the story, but it sounded even more inept than when he’d practiced. Jamie listened without interruption, draining one glass and most of another. When John came to the end, he kept talking even though he knew he was repeating himself—his goddaughter would on no account pose a disturbance, Jamie need never meet her, she could take her meals in the kitchen and never be seen in public.

  —Don’t be silly, Jamie said. I expect her at Prayers this evening.

  The color was returning to Jamie’s cheeks. He poured himself a third glass:

  —Now about her lessons.

  John assured him that he would see to her tuition and that the boys would not suffer.