The Friend of Women and Other Stories (11 page)

“Didn't he have to do that anyway?” I demanded in some surprise. “Why didn't Groton write directly to Higgins?”

“Oh, that's not the etiquette,” Miss Snyder explained. “If you want a teacher from another school, you write first to his headmaster.” She giggled. “And you won't be too surprised, I'm sure, to learn that some of those letters stick to Dr. Lockwood's desk.”

“You mean he doesn't forward them?”

“I mean nothing else. Dr. Lockwood doesn't hesitate to take on himself the decision to sit on letters which might result in his losing a teacher he thinks valuable to the school.”

Miss Snyder looked at us here with a sly wink. She evidently loved showing her intimate knowledge of the habits of the great. The sherry was doing its work.

“But what would he say to the headmaster making the offer?”

“Oh, he would simply write that the teacher whom the other school wanted was happy at Averhill.”

“Ethelinda, you're fantasizing!”

“What makes you so sure of that, Percy?” my wife now indignantly injected. “Really, your subservience to that old slave driver is becoming obsessive. If you were a black, I'd call you an Uncle Tom!”

“But, Hilda, Ethelinda doesn't seem to realize what she's saying!” I was really hot now. “It's one thing to call a man a slave driver. It's quite another to call him a crook. To accuse him of telling lies in order to cheat an employee out of the chance to better himself! Think of it! It's preposterous!”

Miss Snyder was now aroused to defend her veracity at any cost. Her cheeks were dyed a mottled red. “How would you like to know what happened in your own case, Percy Goodheart? You, who seem to know everything? Did I not myself type a letter to Dr. Cram of the Derby School explaining that you were too happy with your position at Averhill to ever think of leaving?”

“Oh, my god!” This was from Hilda. “That must have been what my friend Anita Hunt was hinting at! Her husband is a master at Derby, and she told me he had suggested to the headmaster that Percy might be a possibility as head of the lower school!”

Miss Snyder, realizing now the full extent of her indiscretion, implored me not to betray her. She waxed almost hysterical, crying, “I'll lose my job! I'll lose everything I've got. Oh, please, dear Percy, don't say anything about this. After all, it shows how much Dr. Lockwood esteems you. You know he'd do anything for the school. And Derby's not all that great, anyway. It's not half the size of Averhill!”

I finally quieted her down, gave her an aspirin and a dose of whiskey, and walked her to her tiny cottage in the village. When I returned, I found Hilda with a dark drink, looking ominous.

“I hope this will finally pull the scales off your eyes, Percy. I trust you will now see how tightly the old devil has you in his clutches. And I'm going to drive over to Derby and talk to Anita and see if that job might still be open. Anything to get us out of here!”

I told her there would be no use in that. I had already learned from other sources that Anita's husband himself had been given the post. And I wasn't even sure that I would have taken it if it had been directly offered. But I didn't wash to discuss my more somber suspicions about Lockwood's conduct. I was almost frightened myself by them, and I knew she would simply think I was crazy.

We were both exhausted when we finally went to bed, and I was still in a comalike sleep when the harsh jangle of the bedside telephone awoke me at six. Hilda answered, and I heard the headmaster's peremptory “Put Percy on, please.” She handed me the phone without comment. Lockwood told me gruffly to change the hymn for morning chapel from the one assigned to “Oh, Jesus, art Thou standing, outside the fast-closed door?” and hung up.

That morning in his office he brought up a dormitory master's discovery of some sexual activity among certain boys at night. The supposed ringleader had been sent home, and I was to see what personal possessions the boy had left at school.

Armed with Miss Snyder's revelation, I found myself able for once to voice a query. “Is what the boy did, sir, really grounds for expelling him? I'm not defending it, certainly, but I'm afraid it's not uncommon with juveniles. We know, for example, that at St. Jude's last year—”

“I'm not expelling him,” Lockwood interrupted. “And I don't give a tinker's damn what happened at St. Jude's. Expelling him would be to make this thing public and give us a bad name. Bigger and bugger things at Averhill! Can't you hear them?”

I looked down at my knees in embarrassment. “But if you say he's not coming back, sir?”

“He's not. His father agreed to withdraw him. On grounds of health. It appears the poor fellow has asthma.”

Had he actually winked at me? It was hard to tell. “Then the father knows the real reason?”

“Of course he knows. I made it very clear.”

“Mightn't he be too shocked? Mightn't he take it out on the boy?”

“That's no concern of mine. The welfare of the school is my concern. This way the whole matter will be swept under the rug, which is where it belongs. You will find that rugs have their uses, my friend. The father will never tell. It's not something he's likely to boast about. And the boys here will all know why Hudgins isn't coming back and will be much more discreet in the future.”

“Discreet?”

“Yes. If a boy learns not to do openly what he can be punished for, he will have learned a valuable lesson in life.”

“But he can do it in private? Or in vacations from school?”

“I didn't say that, Goodheart. Don't put words in my mouth.”

“But, sir, I'm a priest! There are things I must ask!”

“Does being a priest involve butting in where you're not wanted? Well, perhaps that
is
what being a priest involves. Go ahead then. Ask your question.”

“Did you mean to imply, sir, that what Hudgins did was not wrong in itself?”

“And if I did?”

“Then, sir, isn't he being wrongfully punished?”

“For doing something that may give the school a bad name? Hardly.”

“Oh, sir, can that be right?”

“Goodheart, there are moments when I wonder if I will ever succeed in making a man of you. The purpose of Averhill is to train youths to become leaders in
this
world, not in some Utopia of your dreams. And you're not going to become a leader if you go about outraging a possible majority of humans who cling, however blindly, to their inherited prejudices. Except, of course, when a real moral issue is at stake.”

“And when is that?”

“What the Nazis in Germany are doing to the Jews is one. That must be resisted to the death. But what is not one is the whole question of sexual deviation. There are activities which one can condone if they are decently concealed. I happen, for example, to know that one of the great benefactors of this school is a homosexual. He has a wife and children and leads a life of the utmost respectability, yet I have reason to believe that he is a regular visitor to a male brothel. What's that to me? Nothing!”

“And what is it to God?”

“Oh, Goodheart, get out of here. And bring me your notes for my graduation address at noon.”

It was at this point that I began to understand that Lockwood had built his school as the Christian Church had been built in the age of Constantine. Anything was permissible that would hammer in the nails that were to support the steel edifice that was to dominate the world of believers. The meekness and humility of Jesus's teaching was muted; the simplicity and gentleness of the early fathers was forgotten; a new theology was constructed; dissent was crushed. The warrior priest replaced the martyr. Salvation could be attained only through the church militant.

The foe to be suppressed was no longer Rome. Rome had been taken over, and the Inquisition would one day replace the Praetorian Guard. The real foe was to be found in heresies: in Manichaeism, in Gnosticism, in Arianism. They were the heralds of Antichrist. But didn't the heretics see Antichrist in the church itself? And mightn't I see a devil in Rufus Lockwood?

I do not know what would have emerged from my seething doubts and troubles had it not been for the case of Nicholas Rice. He was an Averhill graduate who had left before my time and whose wealthy father, Lyman Rice, was still the chairman of the school's board of trustees. Nicholas had been known while at Averhill to be a deeply serious and religious boy and one of the headmaster's special favorites, a “disciple,” as he had liked to call himself. But at Harvard he had become a Catholic convert, despite his having surprised his friends by turning into a high-living epicurean, and after graduation he had put the cap on a variegated career by entering a Trappist monastery. This last twist had just happened and was the talk of the Averhill campus. The story that went around was that on the very eve of taking his final vows, he hosted a drunken and raucous party for his bachelor friends in a private dining room at his club.

The headmaster said nothing about it, and my curiosity—for it was impossible that he shouldn't have been concerned—gave me the nerve to make this comment at one of our daily meetings in his office.

“It must be so hard on his father,” I ventured.

“Yes, Lyman has taken it very hard,” Lockwood answered, shaking his head and frowning. “It has almost killed the poor man. He's a loving parent but not one to let his son live his own life. Few fathers do.”

Lockwood had no children himself, and I would not have guaranteed their independence if he had. “Perhaps his son may come back to him yet,” I surmised. “That wild party on the eve of his vow taking doesn't sound like the affair of a man who will submit forever to a monastic regime.”

“Oh, Nick knows what he's doing,” Lockwood affirmed gravely. “He'll stay the course. And I think that farewell party had a certain style to it. You didn't know Nick, but he has style. He could pick up a glass of gin and stare at it and say slowly to himself, ‘This is the last glass of gin I'll ever drink'—and mean it.” Here Lockwood picked up the water glass on his desk and held it in front of him, staring at it intently. After a moment he put it down.

“How tragic, then,” I exclaimed, “that a young man of such spirit should wall himself up in a monastery and be lost to any useful function in life!”

Lockwood's gaze was stern. “Who is to say he's lost? Have you penetrated all the mysteries of life, Goodheart?”

“Hardly. But you yourself, sir, must regret that so promising a graduate of yours should be lost to his family and friends. And lost to the great career he might have had and to the woman he might have married. And to our church, sir. Lost to our church!”

“He made the decision that, after long consideration, he thought best for himself. I know how deeply he thought about it, for he honored me by consulting me over each step that he took.”

“But surely, sir, you never encouraged him to become a Catholic? And you could never have gone along with his idea of becoming a Trappist!”

“You're being very free with your conclusions, Goodheart. What do you know of what I may or may not have gone along with?”

“Oh, sir!” But then I was speechless.

“As the French say,
Pour les grands maux les grands remedès.
Nick was a deeply troubled soul. He needed the kind of support that the Roman Church offers to some of its converts. And I think he even needed the bulwark of the Trappist discipline. There are different ways of coming to God. I believe he may have chosen the right one. For him, anyway. I pray for him. Do likewise, Percy.”

I hardly knew that morning in my sacred studies class what I was saying to my students in our discussion of Saint Luke as the author not only of his gospel but of the Acts. My head was aswirl over the revelation that one of our foremost priests had actually recommended to a man his conversion to Rome and his submission to the Trappists! It would have defied my imagination had I not been prepared for a new insight into the insidious danger of evil. If Satan was working in the soul of the bewitched headmaster, was not God working in mine?

I had always in mind a talk I had, one Sunday morning after chapel, when Mr. Lyman Rice, visiting the school for a meeting of the trustees, had taken me firmly by the elbow and guided me into the garth for a brief stroll and a confidential chat.

“I know, Goodheart, that your duties take you closer to the headmaster than any other teacher at the school, which is why I am saying what I have to say to you. You are in a unique position to observe Dr. Lockwood in the performance of his multiple duties. The board is aware, of course, of his advanced age, and although we fully appreciate his continued fine physical strength and mental capacity, we wish to know if he shows any sign of strain or weakness. We are in a position to come to his assistance with any aid that he needs, like expert medical attention, extra stenographic or administrative help, even a limousine and driver, anything to lighten his load. He, I know, would never ask for these things, so I'm going to count on you to give me the word.”

On Mr. Rice's next visit, I requested a private interview, and he took me for another walk in the garth. I shall never forget how his features turned to stone when I told him what Lockwood had advised his son.

***

When it was announced that the headmaster would retire at the end of the current school year, no reason was given, nor was one necessary, as his departure date coincided with his eightieth birthday, which was a time for even the greatest head to step down. There were rumors that Mrs. Lockwood had intervened to persuade him to give up his post, and I could well imagine that Mr. Rice had perhaps not even consulted his board, but had simply, in personal converse with the great lady, whose influence on her husband, if rarely exercised, was still paramount, convinced her that a silent withdrawal would eliminate the furor that might well be aroused by any public airing of the facts.