Grievous

by H. S. Cross

  Uncle John said that there were no ghosts at the Academy, but then Sunday came and Advent, hopeful and terrible, and when darkness fell across the afternoon, she could feel the thing coming, that vile cheat slipping in when she was weak, sliding its rotten old hand up her leg.

  * * *

  It was John’s unpleasant duty that month to supervise the Fourth Form at Prep. The Fourth towards the end of Michaelmas were almost as notorious as the Remove in Lent. Having made it through their first year and grown bold at the start of their second, they faced the final weeks of term with brazen hearts. John was particularly vexed by the reunited quartet of White, Fletcher, Malcolm minor, and Halton. He had done what he could with glares, threats, and rearranged seating, but he had hesitated to dispense lines, his usual penalty for mucking about in Prep, because impositions would interfere with Halton’s schedule of recreational reading, something John had labored all month to establish. However, to let the four continue in their obnoxious whispering, snickering, and passing of lewd notes was to encourage them, or, worse, to encourage their odious leader, White. White’s sidekick, Fletcher, was decent at heart, John believed, but under the sway of White’s charisma, he had grown flippant and lazy. Malcolm minor had always gone along with whatever was going, and since Halton seemed determined to egg them on, John saw little hope that any of them would recall his better self.

  He fell into discussing the problem with the Common Room, with whom he’d been spending more time lately, in part for the fire and in part to exhibit gratitude for their help with his goddaughter.

  —Why don’t you simply docket the little devils? the Eagle asked during morning break.

  It was difficult to be perfectly frank. Docketing the boys would deliver White and Fletcher to their Housemaster, who would deal sharply with them—not, John knew, because Burton routinely backed him up but because Burton thought very little of White. The trouble, of course, was that what Burton did, John would have to do, or the boys would perceive unfairness and the trouble would continue. John explained his objections to the disciplinary options at his disposal until his colleagues’ eyes glazed over.

  —But damn it, man, the Eagle exclaimed, this is precisely why your bolshie beliefs are so very unfair on the boys.

  —Whack ’em and have done with it, Palford advised.

  John had inured himself to the opinions of his elder colleagues, but he was not prepared to take advice from a Welshman of twenty-three. Nevertheless, he could see that his principles did, on this occasion, box him into a corner with options either unfairly burdensome or irrelevantly light.

  —I was thinking, John said, that if I were to have a quiet word with Halton or perhaps with Fletcher—

  —Don’t be inane!

  Burton thrust aside his paper:

  —Why must you make simple things so infernally difficult?

  John poured himself another coffee and retreated to the window seat, but the man had been roused. Burton-Lee was there to tell him that it was a fact, one he’d learned from bitter experience, that it was no use whatsoever to interfere in relations between boys. One could only hope that St. Stephen’s would instill enough character to temper the odious ones or at least enable the decent ones to reject them in time. The Third and Fourth Forms were hothouses of tribalism, and it would be folly to try to influence Halton, Fletcher, or any boy away from his unsavory peers. One was more likely, Burton argued, to drive them closer together. Except in cases of flagrant or gross bullying, it was the role of masters to stay out of it.

  —But surely, John argued, it’s wrong for us to stand by and—

  —That is precisely what we must do, Burton declared. Moral guidance is one thing, living their lives another.

  As for their insubordination, Burton confirmed that it would only escalate if nothing were done. He assured John that he’d be pleased to deal with White and Fletcher if John could be bothered to write them a docket. He wouldn’t take the cane to them, as that would give them too much satisfaction. No, Burton concluded, the only way to injure White’s infernal pride would be to put him across the knee like a prep school boy and apply the slipper until he howled.

  —Don’t look so scandalized, Burton said. It isn’t as though you don’t know how.

  John left the room.

  The sense in the Common Room had always been that Jamie had dealt with the Riding-Mainwaring debacle. John had never corrected them, and neither had Burton. At any rate, he had been given no choice that night; he’d protested, yes, but then he had to follow Jamie’s orders. His only other option would have been resignation.

  Unless, of course, he had simply refused the orders. He might, if he’d thought of it, have sent Riding out of the room and gone bare knuckle, figuratively speaking, with Jamie. There had been the pressure of the train, but he might have refused that, too. If he’d had his wits about him, he might have launched another contest—himself, Jamie, and Burton contending over the future of Riding as they’d contended over Wilberforce when he, too, trespassed at that barn.

  The drops soaked into his tongue and melted the pain in his knee. If Morgan were here now, he would sort Halton out in ten minutes. He would perceive that Halton was the hinge in this cohort, and that Halton stood in the greatest danger. He was brighter than he looked, Morgan would see, and if he didn’t find a suitable outlet, he would make their lives a misery, including his own.

  John stopped pacing the cloisters and went to sound Kardleigh.

  —His voice has broken, Kardleigh said. He keeps trying to prove himself, but I can’t rely on him anymore. That throat infection over the weekend didn’t help either. He’s off singing until Friday at least. Please don’t let him go off the rails in the meantime.

  That afternoon John kept the four boys after History. He was finished, he informed them. If he had to speak with them again, they would not care for the consequences. Halton flushed, which gave John hope that they might pull themselves together enough to keep their mischief beneath notice.

  That night at Prep the four behaved worse than ever. They clowned outrageously in the back, and then, once separated, Halton directly below the dais, they had the nerve to pass anatomical diagrams and continue their communication in semaphore until the rest of the form stared at John in disbelief. There was nothing for it; he wrote White and Fletcher dockets and told Halton and Malcolm minor to see him afterwards. The rest of the period he spent uselessly reviewing his options, and when it was over, Halton and Malcolm minor standing before him, he procrastinated further by demanding to see their prep. Malcolm minor’s was uninspiring, Halton’s a travesty.

  —I have just about had it with you!

  John lowered his voice and instructed them to report to his study when they were ready for bed. They looked surprised, but not as surprised as he expected. He dismissed Malcolm minor and turned to Halton.

  —Please, sir, the boy said. I’ve got choir.

  —Oh no, you haven’t!

  * * *

  The Elf Rider was debating with the gaoler’s daughter the many, many dangers of attempting an escape, and her keys were jangling and bells were ringing, and by the time he was finished crawling from the dream, the bells had fallen silent and the studies were still and he had slept through Prep and missed the start of Prayers. He could hear the voice of the gaoler’s daughter, two lates already, dangers many and many, but no, he told her, he knew this dungeon, a winding iron staircase, choir room to sacristy. If he spent the service in the chair loft and came down just in time, he could slip into the recessing crowd, and Pearce would have to say he’d been there all along.

  * * *

  Uncle John wasn’t in his seat. He wasn’t anywhere in the chapel, though it was hard to see because the candles hadn’t been lit. One of the prefects said the choir was going to process. That meant parade around. They were going to carry a big candle and walk in a shape like a knot, and while they walked and sang, the candlelight would spread. It was special, the boy said, for Advent. And th
en they were lighting the candle and a shadow was rearing, coming towards them like a snake—she told the prefect she’d be back in a jiffy.

  * * *

  Heart in his throat, wild beats. There she stood, and there she sat, having dropped to the floor of the chair loft. The light was growing, brighter even than daytime. She clutched her knees to her chest, rage pulsing, and he felt the hungry excitement of fear. He could touch her if he wanted, the strands of her hair escaping her hair ribbon, the holes in her stockings. She put her head in her arms, and her shoulders were trembling. Was she actually weeping, or preparing to denounce him? Below, the Litany: Remember not, Lord, our offenses, or the offenses of our forefathers.

  —I’m sorry! he whispered.

  Spare us, good Lord, spare thy people.

  —You’re always sorry!

  She was crying after all, looking like his mother had looked before striking him. He deserved it, and in that breath he craved it, but he was falling forward, pulled by her fist, nose bumped bone, and something dry and warm—her lips on his chin, on his mouth, her hand on the back of his head. She pressed, and he pressed back. When she pulled away, he gasped for breath, but then she had him again, teeth bumping his, flood of lemon drops.

  * * *

  John sat in the back and tried to calm his pulse. From lightning and tempest; from plague, pestilence, and famine; from battle and murder, and from sudden death—the world was not unraveling everywhere at once—Good Lord, deliver us. The problem at hand was not life and death but simply a pair of boys who believed they had more influence than they deserved. From hardness of heart, and contempt of thy Word and commandment; Good Lord, deliver us. How hard was his heart, after all? Too hard to touch them when they needed it? The Eagle had accused him, and now the Litany did, too: Who said pacifism had to be so cold? One could refuse to take life and yet deal with boys as they deserved. What if his long objection was merely a form of contempt, a shield against things that shamed him? And what if it had caused him to set his heart against them, even as he considered himself benign? That it may please thee to strengthen such as do stand, and to comfort and help the weakhearted. These boys had asked for the strength of his arm, loudly, repeatedly, over and against everything he had offered. Was he so selfish as to keep it from them now? Uncomplicated, unvarnished, direct, and in that way much closer to the simplicity of the Saffron Walden Meeting House than his usual tactics. Begun and ended quickly, no more maneuvering, no more words.

  Advent said the world was coming to an end, the world as they knew it to be. A turning, or re-turning, a homecoming after years of flight to truth he had known before he realized it took knowing.

  * * *

  It wasn’t the same kind of kiss as the Toad’s. Nothing was in it except his lips and his tongue and his teeth, and the place on the edge of his chin where it prickled. Her ribbons fell out, and her hair got tangled in his spectacles. When they stopped, he looked as though he would laugh, and she could tell it was one of those times when explanations could be skipped.

  * * *

  By the time Halton got back to the dorm, the monkeys were chattering. They had heard the news from Malcolm but demanded it again from him. Grievous had deployed the slipper? Against him and Malcolm minor? They’d already seen Malc’s marks, and now he showed them his. They unanimously declared it not cricket. Masters had no business changing; it undermined everyone’s hard-won understanding of them. Halton heartily agreed. God knew he had spent enough time exploring Grieves’s foibles, and despite a variety of provocations, he’d never been able to get more from his Housemaster than lines, sad lectures, or referrals to the JCR. Even in his first term when he’d accompanied White and Co. to McKay’s barn with Pearce so blatantly trailing them, even then Grieves had been more interested in Riding and Mainwaring, and in restraining his annoyance at Pearce, than he had in Halton. If being caught at McKay’s barn under accusation (sadly false) of smoking could not provoke Mr. Grieves, nothing could. So he had thought. So they’d all thought.

  The monkeys condemned the man and his fraudulent pacifism, but their vehemence didn’t make the experience any less vexing. He broke free from the dorm to go brush his teeth, but he could feel the Turtle at his heels, bursting with questions. If the brat said one word, he would make him regret it. It was bad enough that Grieves had oppressed him all month with extra-tu, most of it having nothing to do with History, not to mention wasted his time with tedious lectures and empty threats when he could see that Halton had no intention of abandoning his friends; but then for Grieves to make him late to the Advent service with more bloody jaw, so he had to sit in the back instead of with the choir, even if Kardleigh had forbidden him to sing, in fact for Grieves to make it clear that he knew Halton couldn’t sing; and then for Grieves to have the gall to slipper him and Malcolm, hard, leaving them with the unpleasant sensation of having underestimated him; and then, when he had simply attempted to bring some color back to Malcolm’s face by joking about Grieves’s reversal, for the man to seize him, to turn him over his actual knee, like a child, and to start whacking all over again until he yelled pax; and, finally, for Grieves to dismiss Malcolm and jaw him yet again—this wasn’t the playground where Halton might call pax, this was his Housemaster’s study, Mr. Grieves was his Housemaster, and he was an impudent boy who had better rearrange his priorities. At this point Halton had actually begun to feel a glimmer of hope despite the embarrassment, but then the man had to spoil it by taking away his morning break the next day so he could return to the study and redo his English prep.

  —But, sir! Halton had protested. I’ve got to pass it in at Primus.

  Grieves had actually torn the page from his exercise book, wadded it up, and thrown it at him:

  —You’re not passing this anywhere!

  Halton wanted to shout right back, to tell Grieves to get his own priorities straight. Either he could take up whacking or he could interfere, but to do both, to wield a plimsol like an expert and then to make him work, when everyone knew he was a lost cause—

  —I say, said the Turtle.

  Halton spat into the sink, elbowed the Turtle down the row of toilets, shoved his head into the last, and flushed.

  * * *

  He’d no idea that a kiss could be so infectious. Something had come inside him, and now it was moving through his head, disordering his thoughts and everything they touched. They’d hardly spoken, but now they didn’t need to. She had forgiven him whatever there was to forgive, not only forgiven but reached for him.

  Something sensational was being discussed in the dorms, but gossip paled beside this. Not a single one of them would understand, and none, he felt certain, had ever passed a half hour as he had just passed.

  In the washroom, Halton was cleaning his teeth. Could he ever clean his own teeth again? He washed his face and swallowed the flavor in his mouth, unlike anything that had been there before. He peered into the glass: his lips looked normal, but wasn’t it obvious just to see his face?

  Behind him, the Turtle emerged from the toilets as if he’d taken a shower in pajamas.

  —What’s the idea? Gray said.

  The Turtle froze and Halton spun around, their expressions handing him knowledge he neither sought nor wanted.

  —It’s only a joke, Halton said through his toothbrush. Mind your own bloody business.

  46

  Tuesday. Wednesday. Thursday. Friday. Each an eternity, yet gone before he could catch it. They met in the chair loft during free time and talked, and then again at Evening Prayer, when they didn’t. She had seemed too grave to laugh, but he discovered the wit that would make her. They spoke of books, newspapers, songs; the Academy’s people, places, and customs; everything except the past. He found a moment, the third day, to mumble a condolence, but she instantly changed the subject. Friday evening, she blurted:

  —What about Christmas?

  He felt it like an elbow in the side, and he knew what she feared, the hollowness of the first one, th
e half-alive gestures, the attempts to keep things as they’d always been when their hearts lay frozen in the ground.

  —Can you spend it somewhere new? he asked.

  They stretched across the floorboards as the hymn was sung below.

  —Does it ever get better?

  He considered lying, but it stuck in his throat.

  The next day he woke with new determination, to bring her new air and show her new things. The last thing she ought to do was stew. It was Saturday, a half holiday, and they’d arranged to meet by the ruined lodge after luncheon. He had drawn a map to show her where to go. They would spend the afternoon in Grindalythe Woods, hours to call their own. She promised to bring a tea flask and biscuits; he promised to read her some of Valarious, which he had described but never shown. A day of disclosure, at least on his side. He’d induct her to the poacher’s tunnel, and she’d meet his people. In some sense, he thought, it would begin to right the balance between them.

  Lessons that morning were purgatorial, and his pigeonhole announced the weekly letter from his mother. He put it unopened into his pocket and entertained himself imagining a strictly truthful reply. Can you imagine, Mother, the torture of standing in the lunch queue and watching her across the cloisters in conversation with Mr. Lockett-Egan?

  —You can quit lusting, Leslie said.

  —I wasn’t.

  —You were, but it’s all for naught, Brains. She’s an ice queen.