by H. S. Cross
—There you are, Mr. Grieves.
This chat wasn’t on his list. The worst ones never were. He held the door for Nurse Riding, and she came into the House with her son.
—Do you have a moment to spare us?
Her sapphire eyes pricked him. Her son gazed at the clock.
—Won’t you come across to the study? he said.
This was going to be unpleasant.
—Ah, she said, the inner sanctum!
He gestured to the settee. Would it be too much to offer her a drink? She joined him at the fireplace, but Riding slouched by the door. It was obvious he’d been dealt with, and now his mother was perching on the settee awaiting an explanation John was helpless to give. Her gaze roamed as if touching every object and then landed on John before flitting away again. She looked more like her son than John remembered. She wore blue instead of black, and her voice was higher than he’d imagined from her handwriting, more light and girlish, a voice he would have considered flighty if he hadn’t known its mind.
* * *
Grieves couldn’t even bring himself to speak to his mother—that was how much he despised him. Silently, the man held out a glass. She took it, but didn’t drink. How long would they all stand there, helpless and held in? Grieves put a piece of coal on the fire. His mother picked something invisible off her frock.
—Excuse me, sir! Fletcher cried, bursting in without knocking. Is Kardleigh here?
Was this what they called being put out of your misery?
—He isn’t.
—It’s Mrs. Sebastian, Fletcher reported breathlessly. She and the Head were in our houseroom, talking to my pater, and Mrs. Sebastian up and fainted!
If this didn’t end soon, Mrs. Sebastian wouldn’t be the only one.
—Is she hurt?
—I don’t think so, sir, but—
Grieves told him to try Lockett-Egan’s, and Fletcher dashed away. Mercifully, his mother got up:
—We really must be off.
Opened her handbag, removed a parcel.
—I hope you won’t mind, she said, offering it to Grieves.
The man accepted it gingerly, as if it might bite.
—A small thank-you for all you’ve done.
Gray retreated from the room and his movement drew her with him, out of the House, across the quad, through the gates to a verge of rucked-up grass, where she approached a motorcar that had his trunk inside. When he opened the door, the smell hit him like a fist—leather, antiseptic, his father’s car displaced from home. When he asked where they were going, she said not far. He turned his face to the window. The sun had fallen behind the ridge. The Head’s letter crackled beneath him in his tails.
Grieves hadn’t said goodbye and neither had the girl whose fountain pen pressed his leg. They hadn’t even looked at him. He was poison. Worse.
She stopped across from the post office in Sledmere.
—What’s wrong?
—We’re there.
He followed her to a cottage, watched her produce keys, open the door, light a candle inside.
—It’s cozy enough with the fire going, she said.
A cruel joke? Or punishment? Christmas here, where his father was buried, that place they’d gone once and never again.
He began to cough and was sick, and then they both knew how to behave. She said it would all seem better in the morning. She’d brought the bicycle up and some lovely new books.
Back at the Academy, Kardleigh would be tending to Mrs. Sebastian. The girl and her father would be sitting by the fire, talking with Mr. Grieves, loved by Mr. Grieves. The studies would be empty, his still marked by Guilford’s stencils, its window seat empty and abandoned. The pigeonholes of the House would forget his name, forget their sacred office, forget they ever held for him pieces of a heart.
CHRISTMAS
53
Could time not pause even briefly, stop the earth’s whirl and the graying of his hair, the factories, the mines, the omnibuses and trains, hold all his errors in a cellar until he could work out what to do with them, or until they didn’t matter anymore? Could grace, which none earned and none commanded, not fall one time on him?
The courtyard outside John’s House had the dejected look of a theater after the audience had left, but at least Marion had come round, or such was the word when John arrived at Burton’s House. Kardleigh was examining her in the parlor while Jamie and Burton paced the study. When John tried to ask what had happened, Burton silenced him with a look. He collapsed into a chair, but beneath the exhaustion, John felt a certain eager excitement. If she died or was dying, it would be awful, but on the other side Jamie could start fresh. He’d be a widower, of course, not a bachelor, but after a few years, would there be such a difference?
—Headmaster?
Kardleigh was at the parlor door, beckoning Jamie as if to the Colosseum. Burton mentioned going to check with his matron, and John realized they were leaving Jamie to it.
He drifted back to his House ashamed of his thoughts. Darkness had fallen as swiftly as a guillotine, and although the air was warmer, the ice still tried to trip him flat. Inside, a lamp stood sentinel on the table, and more light spilled from the houseroom, and voices.
—John, my boy!
Owain sprang from his seat beside the fire and assaulted John with claps to his person and exclamations of praise for the carol service. He’d clearly found the punch bowl and achieved a state of merriment. His daughter had been showing him her lessons, he said, and they were nothing short of enchanting. The girl herself huddled by the fire until her father brought her to his side, at which point she hid her face as he called her angel child. John asked about the journey, a deflection that inspired Owain to narrate multiple delays along the line, not to mention his acquaintance with the pair of Irish brothers—Jesuits but not bad ones—who shared the carriage from Peterborough.
—Could talk of anything and everything, and did!
The girl looked flushed, and when John felt her brow, it was warm. True, she’d been sitting by the fire, but it was possible, even likely given the past twenty-four hours, that her fever had returned. She belonged in bed with soup brought to her later.
—Christmas at Lindisfarne, now there’s a place!
It occurred to John that Owain would be spending the night. They’d never discussed arrangements, but of course Owain would have to stay, presumably until John was ready to leave with them for the holidays. He’d have to be fed, entertained, endured, and without electricity, proper heat, or kitchens.
—Now, Owain said, throwing a heavy arm around his shoulder, about this business.
The girl stared resolutely out the window. John drew Owain into the corridor and cast about for how to begin:
—I … that is …
Owain grinned:
—Young love! Never forget your first, now do you?
The man gabbled with pride and delight: she had told him everything (everything?), and he’d a notion John would be taking it to heart, but he mustn’t because it was a dear thing, and the young were foolhardy but where would the world be without them? As for the young pup, a fair lad if bashful, and something of a poet, by the dear saints.
—Now, John …
Owain turned somber, or turned on the somber performance:
—It’s been gnawing, it has.
—Yes? John was forced to ask.
—I know you Friends don’t go in for the sacraments, but that doesn’t mean they’re wrong, now does it?
John agreed that it didn’t, that they weren’t. Owain had included him in you Friends, but it struck him like a drowning wave that he didn’t see himself as one of them, and hadn’t for some time.
—I’m sure as can be that her mother wouldn’t mind if she could see the state we’re in.
—Mind?
—Having her confirmed. What d’you think I’ve been saying, man?
John had no idea what Owain had been saying, and in any case, he found the man’
s scruples forced seeing that Owain was the one who’d insisted on having Cordelia baptized a fortnight after she was born; nevertheless, having confessed his current aim, Owain abandoned the conniving charm and relaxed into a state of ease. John gathered that they’d come to an agreement, though the how, when, and where of it seemed immaterial. John edged back into the houseroom, hoping to leave Owain by the fire while he broke the news to Mrs. Firth that they’d have another guest for tea and for the night, but Owain seemed to have fixed upon the idea of visiting the local, for comfort and a meal, all three of them. It would be his treat, he wouldn’t hear of John’s paying and he wouldn’t hear—something banged in the corridor, startling Owain:
—Ho!
John went to see.
—Jamie! What’s—
Jamie seemed almost to stagger towards him, swinging a lantern. John took it from him, led him into the houseroom, and made him sit down.
—Is she…?
Jamie’s eyes opened wide:
—She’s pregnant.
John inhaled but could do no more.
—I’m going to be a father.
With that, the Headmaster burst into tears. John froze with shame, but then Owain began weeping, too, loud and fruity, and Jamie’s head fell into the hollow of John’s shoulder, pressing against him and shuddering.
—Oh, now! Owain cried.
Unlike Owain’s display, Jamie’s tears were silent, seeping through John’s shirt as if they might through holy orders dissolve whatever they touched. Owain clapped each of them on the back, and John managed the words study, mantel, brandy, sending Owain away in a flurry as Jamie gripped his arm.
They were going to have a child. Children sealed a marriage. Children made the future. Yet here was Jamie, clinging as if John were his raft, his tears on John’s wrist, his head falling to John’s lap, John’s hand on the back of Jamie’s neck, feeling its heat and the oil from his hair.
—Now! Owain announced, setting down the tray. It’s a miracle!
Jamie inhaled sharply and sat up:
—I’m sorry.
Owain handed him a glass.
—I never thought, Jamie stammered.
—Sláinte!
John echoed the toast, and in relief they drank.
—May we see you gray and combing your grandchildren’s hair! Owain cried.
They drank again, and a mournful dismay came over John, that Jamie’s tears, the first he’d seen since they were boys, had passed and might never return.
—May misfortune follow you the rest of your life … and never catch up!
Owain refilled their glasses and called a fourth toast:
—May peace and plenty be the first to lift the latch on your door, and happiness be guided to you by the candle of Christmas!
—You must be Owain, Jamie said.
John tried to rescue the introduction, but Owain raised Jamie to his feet and embraced him as a long-lost relation.
—After all these years! Owain cried.
The girl regarded them from across the room as one peering into a sewer. John set down his glass as memory of the previous night crashed over him. Had he looked anything as mawkish and torrid as this father?
Owain was orating on the blessing of children, and Jamie was beaming and inviting them to supper, overcoming John’s objections and even Owain’s thoughts of a pub, and before John could collect himself, Jamie had left, Cordelia had vanished, and Owain had collapsed in an armchair and begun to snore.
* * *
Her father made a fuss over Mrs. Sebastian, and Mrs. Sebastian liked it more than she should have, given that she was married to the Headmaster and having his baby. Cordelia had never had a long conversation with Mrs. Sebastian, and now she was glad of it. The woman was just the sort to lap up her father’s nonsense. Mrs. Riding had not lapped it up. She’d been kind to him but kept a certain distance, as if he were a patient she felt it necessary to humor. Mrs. Sebastian could perhaps be called pretty, but Mrs. Riding was beautiful. Mrs. Riding wore a light scent, like summer in a woodsy glen. She felt sure Mrs. Riding had never been ill a day in her life.
When her father took Mrs. Sebastian’s arm for dinner, the Headmaster offered his own:
—Miss Líoht?
He was going to be a father. Soon he’d have no use for other people’s children.
—What is it? he asked.
She threaded her arm through his, and they stood alone in the parlor. The words she’d put beneath the chair loft floor rose as if to choke her. He took hold of her chin and narrowed his eyes:
—None of that. It’s Christmas.
* * *
Marion presided at the table with thinly veiled triumph. Before the meal, John had tried to find out from Jamie what had happened with Riding, but no sooner had they stepped into the corridor—only long enough for Jamie to say what he hadn’t done: I didn’t flog him if that’s what you’re asking, and I didn’t dispose him either—than Marion pounced, wrapping her arm around Jamie’s and insisting that he was needed and that surely business could be suspended on this night of all nights.
Talk at the table quickly turned to Christmas, exposing John’s lack of planning and leaving him defenseless against Owain’s juggernaut.
—We’ll go home tomorrow, Owain said to Marion as if it were her concern. The place is temporary, but three bedrooms.
He was speaking of Cambridge, where he’d found a leased flat. He’d told the agent it must have three bedrooms, insisted upon it. One bedroom looked out to the back garden—for you, angel child—and another had a cozy nook for a reading chair.
John protested. He couldn’t possibly leave in the morning. Mountains of work, term reports, Housemaster’s reports …
—Oh, now, Owain said, I’ll take the child and you follow when it pleases.
He really could not stand the way Owain called her the child.
—John can come down with us, Jamie inserted.
They were stopping some days in Oxford—
—My people’s place, Marion said to Owain.
They’d carry on to Wilshire for Christmas Eve. The three of them must come to the Rectory in the New Year.
—Oh, now! Owain rejoiced.
Even Cordelia perked up at the suggestion. Obviously, they would do no such thing, but John thought this not the time to discuss it.
* * *
Calendars made everything terrifyingly concrete. There was one on Jamie’s desk that extended into next year, and it demarcated the finite stretch of days before he would become something other than himself, something other than Headmaster, son, husband. At first, in that window when all restraint failed him, he’d thought John understood the scope of it. Now he wasn’t sure. At supper that evening, John had resembled a wraith floating above the sod of life, and last night, Jamie had come by John’s study in the hopes of discussing it, only to find John in the grips of procrastination, the room thick with cigarette smoke, John’s desk littered with papers and remnants of food. More alarming, he found John had not even begun his term reports but was still marking classwork. Jamie felt a jaw was in order. It was Sunday night, he declared; everything would be posted Tuesday, and the other Housemasters couldn’t complete their Housemaster’s letters until John had sent them the History reports for their boys—
—I know!
The classwork, surely, could be considered later.
—You know these boys, Jamie said. Just write the blasted reports and be done.
But John, rather than be soothed by the suggestion, launched into a tortured and torturous monologue: perhaps he had overdone it assigning compositions that term, but it had done the boys good, Jamie had no notion, and their efforts deserved John’s fullest attention. Jamie by necessity saw the school from above, like a soaring eagle, but it fell to foot soldiers such as John to cultivate them day by day, to contend with each mind, and to develop now a detailed critique for each boy so they’d have a launching point for next term. He continued in a flurry of
mixed metaphors until Jamie managed to interrupt: Reports for the other Houses would be completed no later than noon on the morrow. The other Housemasters were waiting and would wait no longer.
He left without broaching what he’d come for, but even though his request felt urgent, he knew it could keep until the holidays. John would say yes; who refused the honor of godparent? In the new year he’d have new time, to achieve entente—with Marion, his father, and John—and to exert himself with this girl who had come to him in the night. She’d sought something from him that John could not provide; Jamie hadn’t provided it either, but that didn’t mean he had to let her down entirely.
* * *
Henri stopped by Monday evening, and John, having finished with History and now facing the Matterhorn of Housemaster’s letters, greeted him warmly and offered him a drink. Henri declined and announced he’d come in search of two missing History reports. John riffled through the piles and by some miracle found them. Rather than thank him, Henri frowned like a prefect with something unpleasant to impart:
—Is there anything particular I ought to know?
—About what? John said.
—About Riding.
* * *
Marion was asleep, so Jamie ushered John through to the study.
—How could you? How bloody could you!
John looked crazed. Not as bad as the other night, but still. When Jamie asked lightly what was the matter, John began to splutter. Jamie’s heart beat as it always did when he knew he had it coming:
—I didn’t tell you?
—Don’t try that! John said. Don’t you dare.
—Oh, very well. I did mean to tell you, but you’ve been so very—
—What?
A vein was pulsing in John’s throat, and Jamie felt that no one cared for John quite as he did, and that no one could see what he saw, the luster around John like frozen breath.
—You’ve been through so much this term, Jamie said. I didn’t want to—