The School of Night

by Louis Bayard

  Vaguely she waves her duster among the pewter vessels and pots, the rods and bronze disks and magnifying lenses, the used-up goose quills, the dried inkwells. A sea of objects, islanded with paper.

  And here is the question she will never be able to answer: Why does she pause over this particular paper?

  There is nothing remarkable in its appearance: its blots of ink, its scabs of grease and wax. It is a table, no more. Names and figures.

  Cyprium

  2.43

  Adamas

  2.42

  Sapphir

  1.76

  Krystallos

  2.00

  Rubeus

  1.76

  Achates

  1.54

  Mel

  1.49

  What stops her, finally, are the words scratched across the top of the paper.

  Problema: Datis fractionibus ab aere ad aqua et ab aere ad vitrum: fractionem ab aqua ad vitrum invenire.

  Her eyes sift out the words, and her lips form around them.

  Aere … aqua … vitrum.

  And from some dark well, the meanings drop onto her mind’s slate.

  Air … water … glass.

  And with that, the old music rushes back. A sound so thrilling and sad she stands there in a daze, outside time. Only to be called back by a rustle of black at the edge of her vision.

  The master.

  Sitting on one of his hard oaken chairs, a paper spread across his lap.

  How did she fail to see him? Was it the spell of the words themselves?

  She knows the rules. Do not speak. Leave at once. Report directly. Something about him, though, won’t let her.

  She tries to speak, to explain herself. Mrs. Golliver … she’s ill.… The words won’t come, nor will the curtsy. It is fear at last that sends her rushing blindly from the room.

  She is nearly out of the house when he calls after her. And the words are the more dreadful because they are the first he’s ever addressed to her. They seem to thunder in her ears.

  —Can you read?

  20

  MARGARET CROOKENSHANKS CAN read.

  She owes this to two quirks of fate. Her father loved books, and her father lacked sons.

  When Margaret’s older sister proved unsuited to word magic, Margaret happily took up the hornbook. Lifted its transparent sheet and gazed at those strange, pregnant symbols.

  Aa … Bb … Cc …

  The Lord’s Prayer was the first thing she learned to read. Sang it, to hear her father tell it, as if the words were dancing straight off her tongue.

  After that, her days were peopled with Tom Thumb and Dick Whittington and Robin Hood and King Arthur. And when the time came for more serious reading, her father guided her through the Geneva Bible and Foxe’s Book of Martyrs. And when he saw her passion rise to each new challenge, he guided her through the maze of Latin.

  Nominative and genitive and dative and accusative. Tenses and moods and persons and voices and aspects. She read Lily’s grammar and then crawled, line by line, through Cicero and Terence, through the Eclogues and the Metamorphoses and the Commentaries of Caesar, through Horace and Tully and Lucretius.

  Sometimes, in the midst of reading, she would become aware of her own breath steaming the pages, and it would seem to her then that she’d wandered (of her own will) into a greenhouse, warmed by word-light, and cooled by her father’s firm cadences.

  —Try again, Margaret.

  * * *

  On the way home from his shop, Mr. Crookenshanks sometimes veered over to the west door of St. Paul’s and bought her a volume of love sonnets. With how sad steps, O moon!… Come sleep, O sleep!… Leave me, O Love!… One day I write her name upon the sand.… Since there’s no help, come, let us kiss and part.…

  Mrs. Crookenshanks couldn’t read, but she understood the radiance that took hold of her daughter in these moments, the way her lips parted to receive each offering.

  —Put them away! At once!

  Margaret was old enough now to grasp that she was both cause and captive in her parents’ war and that the only way to safety was through the very books her mother hated.

  When Margaret turned twelve, her father took the unprecedented step of teaching her how to write. Mrs. Crookenshanks, who could do no more than make her mark, received this as a direct blow.

  —She shall be unfit for work or marriage!

  One afternoon, Margaret found her frowning down at a sheet of her daughter’s scribblings.

  —Mother?

  Mrs. Crookenshanks swung her face away, but not quickly enough, for her daughter could see the film that lay across her eyes.

  * * *

  Two weeks after Margaret’s fourteenth birthday, Mr. Crookenshanks’s hosiery shop burned to the ground. There was no capital to rebuild, so he tried selling his apparel on the streets, but he had no stomach for the work or for the city air. He took to bed earlier and earlier—there was no longer time to read—and shortly after Advent he took ill with indecent haste. He died in his bed two days later, an ivory crucifix lolling from his wasted neck.

  The next morning, Mrs. Crookenshanks took all of Margaret’s volumes—her Ovid, her Tully, her Montaigne, her Astrophel and Stella—and tossed them into a sack and sold them to a book dealer.

  —No need for these any longer, said Mrs. Crookenshanks.

  She was merely being practical. Her husband’s debts had blighted any hope of dowries or advancement for her daughters. The family’s task now was to survive.

  At the age of fifteen, Margaret Crookenshanks went into service. A cousin got her a job making hay in the Lambeth fields. She wore a red stammel petticoat and a vast straw hat, and sneezed a dozen times a day. In the autumn, she hired on as a milkmaid, but her shoulders weren’t stout enough for the pails, and after her third tumble she was discharged.

  She made malt; she cleaned chapels; she picked oakum. On good weeks, she made sixpence; other weeks, none. Most days, she got by on a single meal. In still moments, she could actually feel the weight dropping from her, ounce by ounce—except for her bones, which became impossibly dense.

  In the summer, she took ill with goat fever. Lay in her bed, sweating out whatever was left in her. Her mother nursed her, and when Margaret was ready to stand, it was Mrs. Crookenshanks who was ready with the tidings. An old friend of her father’s had arranged for her to journey to the Isleworth fair to meet the comptroller of Syon House.

  —Imagine it, Margaret! The Earl of Northumberland!

  Her hands were still pretty then, and to make her color richer, she walked for an hour before her interview. She kept her voice low and her eyes lower. She was engaged on the spot.

  * * *

  Five years have passed, and Margaret Crookenshanks is still an apprentice, but come next spring, she hopes to earn a wage. Thirty shillings per annum, if she’s lucky.

  She keeps no books. She would not read them if she did.

  * * *

  This is the kindling into which Master Harriot, without meaning to, tossed his spark. Margaret Crookenshanks can read, and from the start it has been her undoing.

  Will it be so once more? Surely, Master Harriot, outraged by her intrusion, will convey his feelings to the Gollivers. Tomorrow morning, Mrs. Golliver, pleased to have her dire predictions confirmed, will take away her livery and send her on her way, not a penny in her purse.

  * * *

  She rises at five the next morning, goes about her appointed rounds with a doomful tread. Stooping to scrub the soot from the hearth, she hears from behind her the loping step of Mrs. Golliver, roused from her sickbed. Closing her eyes, Margaret steels herself for what is to come.

  And is startled to feel not a slap or a box but a tickle. In the vicinity of her left ankle.

  —Beastly girl! You left it behind you.

  She stares down at the top of an old cotton stocking. Her cleaning rag.

  —The master had to bring it himself.

  She cannot at first
credit her own reprieve. But the morning wears on, and her bones ache in all the old ways, and the Gollivers snarl at each other just as they have always done. By noon, she is sufficiently lulled that when the door of the north parlor opens behind her she doesn’t even turn her head.

  Then she hears the clearing of throat. A sound far too discreet to be made by a Golliver.

  It is the master. Dressed as usual in a plain black gown, a skullcap pressed over his short-cropped hair.

  —I pray your pardon, he says. —I appear to have frightened you.

  He smiles then. Or, rather, he gives it his very best effort, but his teeth, fine and even and only slightly gray, scurry back into the safety of his mouth.

  —I do have a way of going unnoticed, he tells her. —Or else too noticed. I can’t seem to find the golden mean.

  She does not hear the apology in his voice, she is too busy making her own amends.

  —Oh, sir. I am so very sorry. I meant nothing. I was putting things tidy. Please don’t speak to Mrs. Golliver.

  —But I have spoken. That is to say, I have returned your rag.

  And still she cannot bring herself to look him in the eye.

  —I feared I might have offended, sir.

  —But why?

  —I am not to touch your things, sir. It is strictly forbidden; it is a rule.

  —I am not at all sure I know these rules myself. It seems to me someone might do me the favor of elucidating them. Hold a bit. Is that why it’s so deathly quiet in this house?

  —Yes, sir. That’s the first rule of all.

  —Ahh.

  He takes a single step into the parlor. Briefly considers whether or not to step back.

  —May I ask. Have you been working here long?

  —Three weeks, sir.

  —There was another girl, wasn’t there?

  —Yes, sir. Jane. She has gone and married.

  —Has she?

  He considers this news. Then:

  —And your name …

  —Margaret.

  —From London, by the sound of you.

  —Yes, sir.

  He nods, three or four times. He attempts to smile.

  —Well, then, my name is Harriot.

  —Yes, sir, I know.

  —Oh, of course. They must have said as much.

  The faintest streaks of color along his cheekbones.

  —It is a pleasure to make your acquaintance, Margaret.

  —I thank you, sir.

  —There we are.

  Raising his hand in a gesture of farewell, he stares, as if for the first time, at the paper tweezed between his fingers. Clearing his throat once more, he drops the paper on the trestle table.

  She doesn’t recognize it at first. Then the Latin flashes on her eye.

  —You, you may take it if you wish.

  —Take it, sir?

  —I am occupied with other business at present. It occurred to me you might wish to peruse it. At your leisure, I mean.

  At her leisure.

  —I thank you, sir.

  —It’s in Latin, of course.

  —Yes.

  —I did not know if you could—

  —I can, sir. A bit.

  He doesn’t smile, exactly. His lips enact a kind of wincing motion, which, under the circumstances, is not altogether unpleasant.

  —Very well. Bring it back tomorrow, then. If that be satisfactory.

  —Yes, sir.

  * * *

  The only trick is concealing the page from the Gollivers. She tucks it inside her stomacher, and only late at night, an hour after everyone else has retired, does she dare to withdraw it. She lays it out across her pallet and studies it by candlelight, taking the greatest care not to drip wax. She reads like a fugitive.

  The next day, she makes sure to station herself in the parlor by noon. She is ready for him this time.

  —I beg you to forgive me, sir. I was not much for following. Not the whole way.

  His lips are thin but not cold.

  —Tell me where you faltered.

  —Oh.

  Stiff as whalebone, she sets the paper on the table.

  —From air to water … that line is quite simple. From air to glass, from water to glass. All well, but then comes the fractio—

  —Fractionibis.

  —That is the one. I take it to be some sort of fraction.…

  —Yes, I am guilty of shorthand. The fraction in question is the refractive index.

  —And please, sir, what is that?

  —Oh. Well, now. When light—when it is met by some other substance—a transparent medium, let us say, on the order of glass or, or water—well, then it will be bent at a particular angle. The refractive index is simply a way of measuring the degree to which a particular substance bends, or refracts, light. Forgive me. I fear I have been obscure.

  —Oh, no, sir, I was merely thinking how strange it is.

  —Strange.

  —Why, that light should bend at all.

  —Nothing strange about it. You have seen a rainbow, have you not? That is merely the effect of light being bent, as it were, into its constituent lights. Similarly, if one were to poke a stick into a pond, why, the stick would—it would appear to bend suddenly at the point where it breaks the pond’s surface. This, of course, is no more than an optical illusion brought about by the agency of, of refraction.

  She nods. She tells herself it is time to go. And then, to her own great shock, she hears herself speak again.

  —And how could one even measure such a thing?

  —Well, yes, that strikes at a most interesting question. Through experimentation, I have ascertained a rather persuasive correlation between the, the angle of incidence—that is, the angle at which the light converges with the other object—and the angle of refraction—that is, the emerging ray. Divide the sine of the first angle by the sine of the second, why, then, the quotient is the refractive index. At least so far as I have been able to calculate.

  Her fingers lightly stroke the paper.

  —So all these figures, sir. They are the refractive indices?

  —For different media, yes. You can surely translate the Latin. There is glass and crystal and marble. Rubies. Copper ore. Even brimstone! The devil, it seems, has a devilishly dark time of it down there.

  He chuckles. Then, fearing he has overstepped, falls silent. She, too, is quiet for a long while before gathering up her nerve.

  —Please, sir. Why do you care to know all this?

  The question catches him squarely in his middle and pumps out a gasp of air.

  —Why do I … well, now, I would not confess this to just anybody, but I subscribe to the, the school of Democritus, which holds matter to be composed of entities called atoms. These entities are believed to be both, erm, indivisible and indestructible. And, by their very nature, far too minute to be observed by the naked eye. That is where light proves itself such an unsurpassable gift to the human mind, for it can disclose to us the structure that lies beneath the surface of all things. The more light we shine into these manifold substances, the more they reveal their innermost natures and the closer we come to the nature of …

  His own words jar him to a stop. He laces his hands together and, in a low judicial tone, concludes.

  —Well, the nature of life itself. If that coheres into any sort of sense …

  —Yes, sir, it does. I consider it to be most grand and noble.

  At once she regrets the words. Grand … noble … how paltry do they sound alongside the world he has just revealed to her. Light. Atoms. Life.

  —My object, Margaret—and I do delude myself into believing I have one—is to devise a mathematical relationship between the three variables. By which I mean density and molecular structure and refractive index. And in so doing to—oh, dear, I fear I’ve grown confoundedly tedious. I must apologize, I was so enjoying our little interview.

  —No, sir, the pleasure has been mine. The honor. Truly.

&n
bsp; —Oh.

  He draws away. Scratches a patch along his jaw.

  —I don’t know about honor.

  She understands then. Flattery is a kind of grief to him.

  —Margaret.

  —Yes, sir?

  —Would you care to observe some of the work in question? At closer quarters?

  —Observe, sir?

  —It so falls that tomorrow afternoon I shall be taking the measure of amber. If you should choose to be a fly on the wall, I should not at all be put out. Oh, God’s wounds, such a look. Am I breaking another rule?

  —I fear so, sir.

  His lips coil into a knot. And then, ex nihilo, a thought flies up.

  —Perhaps I might speak to Mrs. Golliver about it! I cannot see how she could protest overmuch. A ten-minute respite from your diurnal rounds, no great harm, is there?

  Margaret scarcely knows what to say. Mrs. Golliver will protest. She will protest very loudly. And yet it is the master proposing it. Who can gainsay him?

  —Sir, I should be … whatsoever you see fit to …

  —Then let us propose three in the afternoon. In my laboratory.

  And now that there are coordinates attached to it—a time, a place—his plan grows the more fearsome in her eyes. And she the more powerless before it. The words spill from her like a sentence of doom.

  —As you wish, sir.

  OUTER BANKS, NORTH CAROLINA SEPTEMBER 2009

  21

  AND WHAT OF that earlier school? The one Alonzo Wax and I had formed in college all those years ago?

  We never did declare a formal halt to it, but as the spring of our freshman year wore down, we saw less and less of each other. We both put a brave face on things, but we knew the real truant was me, and I was no less puzzled than Alonzo. Did I have any place better to be? A more generous or loyal friend? A better curriculum than reading poetry, arguing philosophy, and getting high?

  Alonzo never demanded all my time or cordoned me off from my other friends. His interest in men was widely assumed, but he never did anything so crass as make a pass at me. And still I could feel the itch of something unconsummated in our time together. I began to invent reasons for not showing up, and sometimes I didn’t bother with reasons. And Alonzo, whose vision of himself had once seemed so impregnable, grew more and more fretful and querulous, like a teacher whose class has slipped out behind his back.