by H. S. Cross
—I’ll decide what’s to happen, not you.
John could feel it himself, the need for conclusion, and he could sense now what unhinged the boy. Don’t write to them. Fear not of the father, but of others. The mother? Or was it the sister, the twin, and the thought of the look on her face if she heard? She would not avert her eyes from wickedness in his charge. He would never be the same to her.
—Your father’s coming to the carol service, isn’t he?
—Yes, sir. They all are.
After the furnace, the slate was to be wiped clean. That was the contract. Not perpetual disgrace in the eyes of those who could never understand.
—Very well, John said, I won’t write him.
—Oh, sir!
—But I will speak with him. We shall speak with him together.
—Oh, sir …
Tears again, almost.
—Do you trust me, Timothy?
A look of bewilderment.
—Trust me, please.
49
The sky behind the chapel looked auspicious, but Cordelia couldn’t be sure. The wind cut from the east, and the clouds moved in the opposite direction. Would the two fronts blow past one another, one above, one below? Would they collide in slow motion and brew for days? Or would their encounter produce another storm, even tonight? Adam lay ybounden, bounden in a bond. The choir had been practicing after lunch. Four thousand winter though he not too long. Not too long if it kept them there, safe in their secrets, making life over wildly in ways she’d never thought she would seek.
* * *
By tea the sleet had turned to a vindictive rain that fell heavily and froze. Gray slipped crossing the quad, and when McCandless and Co. laughed at him, they slipped, too. In the study, he burned old papers in the grate and opened a new exercise book. Guilford’s Throat and Voice drops didn’t stop the coughing, but they calmed it as his hand raced. He had always imagined the romance of the tale would lie between Valarious and Kahrid of Langstephen, but the play had shown him how flawed that notion was. Not only was Valarious too gripped by his quest to have time for anything else, but Kahrid of Langstephen, as she’d been portrayed by the Turtle, was far too intrepid for a romantic lead and had, furthermore, taken up with Master Shadow as a kind of apprentice. Everyone knew that books required planning; Dickens had sketched his enormous plots at the outset and never deviated. Were his own fits and starts the fault of his poor talent, or did they express, as Guilford had always claimed, the voice of the story itself, telling him what it was, rescuing him from error, drawing him nearer to its true heart?
Boyo, the Elf Rider, had been imprisoned in Castle Noire longer than he could precisely remember, and although he had desired freedom, always freedom, his captivity had been marked by his friendship with Aurora of the golden hair, the daughter of his warden, Perspicacious. Now that Valarious and his party had finally found Boyo, won his release from the dungeon cell, and slipped a draught into Perspicacious’s cup—now that freedom beckoned—the Elf Rider grieved at the thought of leaving his wonted home, the prison and the girl who had been his companion these many, many years.
* * *
—Who wrote this one, Uncle John?
His goddaughter held out an exercise book with exaggerated horror. She’d been feverish again at tea, so he’d made her spend Prep before his fire. Having finished her book, she was amusing herself leafing through his last pile of compositions.
—His name’s Halton, John said.
—Which one’s he?
John summarized: House, choir, Fourth.
—You mean the one with the frog eyes?
John almost laughed.
—It isn’t very good, is it? she said of the composition.
—You should have seen what he was writing a month ago.
—Why was he in that room last night?
—Pardon?
—Did he do something wicked?
—I don’t think that’s any of your concern.
Her chin turned pink, and she took up a different exercise book. The ache in John’s head had been there all week playing its tune in a variety of keys. Just now it sat on his forehead with the steady thrum of a double bass.
—Who’s your worst student?
—I’m sure I can’t say.
—Can’t or won’t?
He frowned.
—All right, she said, which is the cleverest?
—You’re the cleverest.
—Uncle John!
She held out the book she’d been examining:
—How about this one. He seems clever.
Riding, John saw. She certainly could pick them.
—Is he clever?
—Quite.
—Is he naughty?
John capped his pen:
—It’s time you were in bed.
—But it’s only eight o’clock.
He moved the exercise books away and handed her A Christmas Carol.
—In that case, he said, you can be quiet.
* * *
She watched him around the edge of her book. Hunched, absorbed in their work, he wouldn’t have noticed if she’d stuck out her tongue. His lips twitched in a silent conversation with them, and when he uncapped his pen, she could tell which compositions interested him and which tried his patience. She couldn’t imagine his reading a letter from her in the same way.
—Uncle John?
—Hmm?
—What can I get you as a Christmas present?
—I’m sure your smile will be enough.
—I’d like a set of pajamas.
He looked up.
—Whatever for?
—Loads of girls wear them. Julia, for example.
—Julia?
—Vandam. From Paris.
He touched the nib to his tongue as if trying to keep his patience. Julia had actually worn a silk gown, but that could only be attempted with a suitable bosom. She longed for pajamas, striped like they wore. For her to prop her feet now against the fire rail, the draft blowing up her bare legs, and then to encounter men and boys in the corridor, not to mention loitering in the chair loft, with nothing above her ankles—it was crippling.
—Were you ever in love, Uncle John?
—I beg your pardon?
—With anyone but your wife, I mean?
He set down pen and book:
—What are these questions?
—Nothing, she said. But were you?
He pressed his thumb to his eye socket in a maneuver she was sure would blind him one day.
—Perhaps, he said at last.
—How did you manage, when you had to part?
—Not very well.
He left the room. Something from the fire went up her nose, and she began to cough, the kind that wouldn’t stop until you’d almost retched. He returned presently and caught her like that, gagging into her handkerchief, and that was the end of the evening. She wasn’t crying, but it didn’t hurt that the tears from coughing made it look as though she were. When he turned out her lamp and felt her cheek, she took his hand and made him sit on the edge of her bed.
—Were you ever naughty, Uncle John?
—Pardon me?
—When you were a boy?
He crossed his legs.
—I’m sure I was.
—Very naughty?
—Perhaps not very.
She poked a foot out of the covers. Light from the door fell across her ankle, and she could see him pretending not to look at it.
—Did you get into trouble at school?
—Certainly.
—And how were you punished?
He covered her foot. She could not see his face.
—In the usual way.
—What about girls?
He got up from the bed.
—Don’t go!
—Then close your eyes.
She closed them. He drew up a chair.
—Did you know any girls?
He sighed.
&n
bsp; —Not especially, except for Dr. Sebastian’s sisters.
She pulled the blankets around her ear to show she was settling down.
—What were they like?
—Oh … Amazons. Except Lucy, who was only a few months older than I.
She tried to imagine him as a boy with Dr. Sebastian, perhaps like the youngest boys here and Lucy just her age.
—Was she ever naughty?
—Aren’t you asleep yet?
—Was she?
He sighed again, but it was more like a laugh.
—Several of our mishaps were entirely her fault.
—What happened to her?
—Oh, her father made very little distinction between her and her brother, or me for that matter.
—You?
—Enough, now.
She rolled over to face the wall and swallowed against the relentless tickle.
—Was he a terribly strict man, Dr. Sebastian’s father?
—Terribly? No.
His chair scraped the floor.
—Reasonably.
—Did you ever sneak out at night, you two, in your pajamas?
—We wore nightgowns.
She turned around. He was standing in the door with the light behind him.
—But you were boys!
—Most boys did, then.
—Like mine?
—I suppose, as far as nightclothes are concerned, you’re no different from a boy of thirty years ago.
* * *
Moss came to John’s study after lights-out to discuss the Christmas tea. For an event that lasted less than an hour, it always required an inordinate amount of preparation. As they reviewed the roster of parents, tallying those who’d sent replies, adding those who were likely to turn up regardless, and considering what kind of handling each was likely to require, John was reminded that Elsa Riding had promised to attend and for the first time. He felt a ripple of hungry fear at the thought of her black garments and sapphire eyes—though surely she no longer wore black?—and grew distracted wondering how she would regard him. Would she embarrass him by addressing him as she had in their correspondence and inquiring after the manuscript that still languished in the cupboard? Or would she be formal, making it clear that she was finished with him since he’d declined to intervene between her and her son? Of course, Owain would be there, too, and would require looking after if only to curtail visits to the punch table.
—Is there anything else, sir? Moss asked.
John collected himself. They hadn’t discussed Halton, and they had to.
—I need a few minutes with Halton and his father, in my study.
Moss rubbed his nose:
—Sticky stitch, that one, sir.
—I’m afraid it could be.
John switched off the desk lamp to signal the end of the conversation.
—Still, Moss said, well done today.
The chisel again, or not?
—How is he?
—Sore, Moss said.
John inhaled.
—Whatever you did, I’ve never seen him so—
—Please—
—calm, sir.
John blinked, and Moss began to relate what had happened at Prep, how Burton had sent Halton to the JCR.
—A docket? John balked.
—Of sorts. Said Halton had fallen asleep. Twice.
After everything that had happened, for Burton to persecute the boy!
—What did you do?
—I sent him to bed, sir.
Moss’s voice contained a note of outrage, as if he couldn’t believe John had asked.
—He groused about it being only a quarter to eight, but when I came back a few minutes later, he was dead to the world.
That night after his last dose, John composed a prayer of thanks for Moss, for Wilberforce, for the others like them, before and to come. And as he lay in the dark—the kind of dark that took root in December when storms smothered all memory of stars—something pressed upon him, there in his chest, something that could not be dislodged by sleep or doses. It hadn’t been with him when he woke that morning, but by the time his goddaughter began her questions, it had found a roost in his ribs. Had it been there in the study with Halton, just before it began? He had stood on the carpet feeling at each side an avatar pressing for submission: the pacifist demanding he lay down his weapon, and the other one, cold wrath in his fingers. But John had stood between them and submitted to neither, permitting the furnace its flame and char, standing it, withstanding it, until something else moved his arm.
His foot jerked in the bed, and a knowledge washed across him: it couldn’t be taken away, what had passed between him and Timothy Halton. No matter how the boy might grow or how far he might travel from the Academy, this couldn’t be erased; there would always be that study and the things they had learned there, the wind rattling down the chimney and the pressure in his own throat as he gave the boy what he needed, not recoiling—from it or him—ministering, administering the suffering required to escape that exile, to relinquish wrongdoing, to bring him again to his fellow man when he was lost, loving him enough to do this.
* * *
Pearce knew he’d passed the point of being able to sleep, but getting up was out of the question on a night such as this, black, wild, colder than the cellar of hell. In reality, of course, hell was colder, but who cared when merely taking his head from under the blankets made him shiver. His dressing gown hung at the foot of the bed, and if he could reach it, he’d be warmer. Rise up, Lord, and help us. If he had a book of prayers like Dr. Sebastian’s, prayers beyond the prayerbook, God might hearken unto his request. Instead, day after day his letter stayed unwritten. Even scripture failed him. Advent was an unending procession of Isaiah, which, however salutary, could not be said to encourage anyone, not even in the upside-down style of Amos, whom Morgan liked to quote as if he were the Lord and they Israel. You only have I known of all the families of the earth—you see, Simon, God has projects, too. But God’s favoritism of Israel, like the interest Morgan took in him, came dear—therefore will I punish you for all your iniquities. Never had he been more secure, more seen and steered. Now he stood alone, vision in one hand, nothing in the other.
A whimsy unfurled of traveling to London in the holidays. He’d use his Christmas money and go to Morgan’s house or his club or his flat if he had one. Need a word. Could you? Morgan would wire back, Come, time, place. He’d wear his uniform, and while he wasn’t thirteen years old anymore, would it be so very different? Morgan would untangle his long legs before a fire: All right, Simon, start at the beginning. Since the beginning, everyone had said he’d be in government and the law. It had all been assumed, until the collision with Moss—he’d blush admitting this, and Morgan would raise his brow and wrath would be put on the list—the collision with Moss and the pigeonholes, yes when they were both prefects, yes in front of everyone, yes he’d charged him, fists flying, until the pigeonholes came down on them both. Clang in the head, flashes: island-green-shepherd-sheep.
Once Morgan had ticked him off for brawling, he’d turn onto the trail of truth. Sure it’s not a farmer you’re meant to be? But that would be a joke, to ease his true pursuit. Have you sat the exam yet? For Christ Church, he meant, where he was to read law. What makes you think you’ll pass? A syrup seemed to seep into his scalp. Not to put too fine a point on it, Simon, but nobody will be surprised if you don’t. His father would be let down, though. His mother worse. But that’s the trade, isn’t it? Morgan was handing him a cup of tea and making him sit beside the fire where it was warm. Don’t get too comfortable; there’s still the pigeonholes to deal with. The tea was sweet and salty, like melted toffee and gravy. What you need, Morgan said, is someone who knows about this shepherding of yours, where to go, how to get sent, who you’ve got to know. And the tea was empty and Morgan was punishing him for his wrath and his cowardice and his stubborn pride, and he was weeping, but instead of relief, they were tears of despair: I
can’t find out! I don’t know anyone! Morgan touched his shoulder. Sure about that?
A shot like a cannon outside the window, and the bed rattled and the air went back inside him and he remembered the time that he’d broken Moss’s nose. Morgan was taking Moss home for the holidays because Moss had no people to go to, because his parents were abroad, his father with the Bank and his mother a missionary in the far, Far East.
* * *
Gray woke to a crash outside. Through the window he distinguished something—branch of a tree?—across the gate. The lamp lay smoking on the ground, and the branch loomed above it, like some monstrous arm begging admittance. He couldn’t see the clock, but he felt his mistake, falling asleep when he’d promised to meet her. The night was dark and the tunnels darker still, but the chair loft glowed with her torch. She wasn’t angry, he wasn’t too late. She’d brought a rug, and when he showed her the new exercise book, she put the rug over both of them and closed her eyes as he read. It took longer than he expected, and at the end he saw streaks by her ears that could have been tears. In forty-eight hours, her hair would no longer drift into his mouth. Christmas brutal, seven weeks, an age. Seven weeks ago they’d been rehearsing Castle Noire. Her mother had been alive, insensible to the sword that would cut her from them.
—Did you do what I told you? she asked.
—Pardon?
—With the letters.
He froze and couldn’t answer. She pulled away with the rug:
—You didn’t, did you?
He began to cough.
—Where are they?
She fixed him with her stare, the one that always made him feel full and warm in the root, now even more since she’d spoken things they’d silently agreed never to mention. He fought for breath, retorts filling his mind, but when the coughs finally stopped, he found himself smiling. And she was smiling, too, and both of them were laughing, and his reason melted and he pushed aside the chair and up came the floorboard.
He couldn’t tell if she was more astonished to see her letters or to discover that they’d been underfoot all the time, but he removed both bundles and set them before her. Her own letters she ignored, but her father’s she untied, examining the postmarks. They were hers, her inheritance from her mother. He was right, he saw, to preserve them. She retied the bundle and set it behind her.