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—
—What do you call removing a boy from my House and leaving me to hear it from Henri?
—A mistake.
John absorbed the apology, but it didn’t calm him.
—How am I to explain to Riding’s mother why I said nothing to her?
—She received my letter at the tea.
—What?
Jamie touched John’s elbow, feeling the wool’s scars, the darning that had kept that pullover together since Marlborough:
—I thought it would be best for everyone.
John wrenched away.
—Don’t be this way, Jamie pleaded. I can’t bear it.
—You can’t bear it?
—You know how much we’ve wanted a child. And you know perfectly well I’ll never be able to get along without you.
—But that’s nothing to do with—
—Can’t you be happy for it? Or at least for me?
John was seized by sneezes, and his eyes were running. Jamie watched his body have its way with him, but as the sneezing abated and John blew his nose, Jamie wished they could stay there—this pullover, this Advent—forever before the turn of the year.
A god-awful hammering, and John jolted upright at his desk, neck cramped, arm tingling. His fingers righted the vial. He didn’t remember finishing it, but could it have spilled? Drapes glowed, clock claimed morning, letters lay unfinished on the blotter. An almighty crash in the corridor. He emerged to find Fardley, hurling oaths at a collapsed … wall?
—What on earth? John croaked.
The dust was clearing. It wasn’t a wall, but—
—New one January, Fardley declared. This’n cleared today.
The pigeonholes. John remembered that they were to be replaced before they fell again on some boy and killed him. He tried to inquire why now?, but Fardley honked about some papers in a basket, and then the front door opened with a gust of December.
—There you are!
And with Jamie, too, speaking louder than necessary.
—Cab in ten minutes. Where’re your things?
John began to gabble. He hadn’t packed, and his letters—
—Oh, don’t! Jamie admonished.
Before John could assert himself, Jamie had dragged him to his rooms and was throwing things carelessly into a case.
—You can finish later, Jamie said of the letters, and post them on.
—Don’t crush that!
—If you ever try this nonsense again, I’ll—
—What?
Jamie smiled, golden, golden …
—You, he said, are impossible. Thoroughly, brilliantly impossible.
Marion clung to Jamie on the train. She looked at moments like a child unwilling to give up its bear and at others like a mistress of the hounds who did not trust this dog’s untethered conduct. When Jamie stood to get something down from his case, her hand lingered on the crease of his trousers until it could possess his elbow again.
Everything was too bright and too loud. John was sure he felt just as queasy as Marion, though he did not demand windows be opened and then closed for him, or that Jamie dash down the passage with him so he could be sick between the carriages. The tragedy of it all seemed to squeeze the place around his heart—that Jamie should have made himself one flesh with such an invalid. He closed his eyes and tried to pass out, if only to escape their insufferably shallow conversation.
Owain and Cordelia would meet him in Cambridge, his own people to take him home. It wouldn’t be the home he knew, but there would be three bedrooms, one for him, one for Cordelia, one for …
What if life was on the edge of revolution, and against all reason she was waiting, kept secret by the other two as the most sensational Christmas present? Ah, now, here’s a thing … and there she would be, her hair twisted on her head as she’d worn it when they met, reduced perhaps but breathing, having only been away, having only got lost, and even if it didn’t seem so, the year had turned, the time had turned, and he wouldn’t even wish for her to run away with him, he wouldn’t think of her kiss or look for another, he would be elated to the point of breaking simply to be the member of the family he had always been, never realizing how good it was, how many gifts had snowed down on him, but now, when they took him home and showed him their surprise, he would fall on his face and worship the one who had given him this second chance, the last chance, the chance where he could get it right—even at the last minute, you could write the answer down and turn your exam to treasure from loss—and if he had that chance, what other chances could he not find and take? He’d got it right with Halton; could he not turn the corner with Riding somehow? Then Morgan would come, perhaps even come back, and he could say, See? See! and Morgan would grin, and they would know how precious their work had always been, and he could show Morgan everything he had learned, and even if Jamie cleaved to this creature who was unwrapping a peppermint and sucking it like a child with its thumb, even then he could stand it because of what they’d had before, and even though he couldn’t go back and change the things he’d done, he could be as he was in the dream last night, a passenger in a motorcar, watching the streets of London full of color and beauty, as the man beside him steered through traffic to the white walls where they were going; if he had been driving, he’d have feared the narrow streets, but the man was driving as one who knew the map like his own creation—
—Here’s Peterborough, Jamie said.
—Is this where John leaves us? Marion replied.
There was an obnoxiously cheerful note to her voice. John’s back and arms ached, and putting on his overcoat showed how feeble he’d become. When the train slowed, he fell into Marion’s lap, and her head slammed against his lip. She yelped, and he apologized even though his mouth was the injured party, and Jamie pulled him into the passage where steam clouded the windows, and Jamie’s hand was at his chest, slipping a card into his breast pocket and resting there.
—Telephone, won’t you?
John could smell him to taste. Jamie tapped his chest where the card now lay:
—This evening, so we know you arrived?
His feet were on the platform, and the whistle blew. Soot bit the back of his throat, the train ripped away with its jesses, shards began to wet his face, and things that looked like people moved around him.
He’d seen her dead himself. When he’d touched her body, it was cold and firm, the wrong color, but real. There were no rehearsals, no second chances. Time flowed one way, and it never ever turned.