Clair De Lune (26 page)

The respite was over, and for the second time in five minutes, dread bit into her like the snap of a steel trap.

The dean folded his arms on the desk and looked across at her. “I'm sorry—” he said, and at that moment the moth fluttered down from the shelf, brushing the top of his bald head. “Mercy me!” he said, fanning it away. “Restless creature. If I could catch him—” The moth flitted across the desk, the dean chasing it with light slaps of his cupped hand. “Don't want to squash him.... There! If he'll sit still—no, missed him again.”

She watched dumbly, without moving. He was sorry. Mr. Frawley had lost. And he was sorry.

“Ah, maybe this time. He's on your hair. If you could just—no, there he goes, on the barometer. Maybe he'll stay up there now for a while and stop bothering.”

Nothing he said now could matter.

“Well, as I was starting to say, I'm sorry I couldn't get back to you sooner. I had hoped to see Mrs. Medgar right after we talked. But something happened—she had to be out of town—and it wasn't until last Thursday that I was finally able to meet with her. We had quite a long talk.” He picked up the crystal paperweight and turned it so that the snow would fall. “I told her about our meeting and my opinion of the matter after talking with you. She wanted to think it over for a few days.”

“Yes,” Allen said faintly.

“We met again yesterday afternoon. And I believe”—he set the paperweight down carefully and looked up—“that Mrs. Medgar is satisfied with your explanation.”

She hung for a moment longer.

“She accepts my judgment. And you will be with us again next year.”

Still she hung. The rope had not yet been cut.

“We're not going to call in the board or carry it any further. So the matter is closed. No more need be said about it.”

Then she let her breath out slowly and her feet touch ground. “Thank you,” she murmured, half afraid to say it, afraid to believe.

But the dean, looking pleased, tipped back in his chair and swiveled toward the window, looking out at the sunny afternoon as he went on talking. Though her posture was attentive, she picked up only bits of what he was saying. She was afraid to let go of the dread. But the voice was comforting, reassuring, and she began cautiously to believe that this might indeed be acquittal.

“And so we can look forward,” he said, turning to face her, “to having you with us another year. As many years, I'm sure, as you choose to stay here. Though you'll want to move on, in time. You'll grow in the profession.”

“I shall try.”

“It's a worthy profession, and a good life, if one addresses oneself to it … with devotion.” He was talking to the window again, in his fashion. “You work at it, as one does, say, at a marriage … not only for personal satisfaction, but for the ideal of what a school should be, what education means. A dry word, education. There's much more to it than meets the ear. I'm sure you're aware of that,” he said over his shoulder. “You seem to comprehend it better than some. I'm glad I could say that to Mrs. Medgar.”

She smiled.

“My only regret is”—he turned to face her—“that I'll not have the privilege of working with you again.”

“Oh?” she said.

“Some weeks ago—maybe you'll say nothing about it, it won't be announced officially for a few days yet. Early in the spring I offered my resignation.”

She stared blankly for a moment before the words struck. “You're
resigning
?”

“It seems I am, at last.”

So they had done it, Pickering and his gang. “But Mr. Frawley!”

“There comes a time,” he said, “to step down.”

“Surely the board won't let you!”

He smiled. “They very kindly protested.”

“I should think they would! After all you've done—” She paused, openmouthed. “What'll we do without you?”

The dean turned pink, looked pleased and embarrassed. “Oh, you'll do very well.”

“I shan't.”

The old man smiled again. “You'll get along nicely, you'll see.”

“But it won't be the same,” she said, knowing how little would stay the same if Pick had his way about things. “Things will change. And it's a fine school the way it is. If it weren't for you—”

“Well, you mustn't give me too much credit for it. I've done what I could, but we've built it together, all of us, teachers and regents and the students together, and the townspeople. We're here because the people of the community wanted us. We have a special responsibility to them in all we do. Even to stepping down when the time comes.”

“Maybe it hasn't come yet.”

“I think I have served my purpose,” he said. “It's time for someone new.” He looked up cheerfully. “And time for me to go fishing.”

“Like the president,” she said, attempting a laugh. “I can't quite see that you'd be happy—”

“Oh, I'm quite a good fisherman. And I'd like to travel some, if the situation permits. Though I'm afraid”—he paused and picked up the crystal globe—“it doesn't look encouraging. Maybe another year. Maybe we have that long.”

“No more than that?” she said.

“And less, I fear.”

“But surely if we send supplies to Britain—”

“I'm afraid that won't be enough, things as they are. And all of Western Europe fallen, North Africa…”

She said, fearful of asking, “Do you think the United States will be—? Will our boys be sent overseas? Into battle?”

There was a pause as the snow fell. “Yes,” he said and set the round globe down.

For a moment neither of them spoke.

“But,” he said, “we'll face it as well as we can, if it comes to that. Meanwhile, we have our work to do.”

“But you're leaving.”

“I'll find plenty to do, never fear. There's so much to read, new books and old ones again. My education may just be beginning.”

“We'll miss you, sir.”

“Well, thank you. And I'll miss all of you, teachers and students, the environment. I've been at it a long time. But we'll adjust, all of us. We have a new man coming in, young man from Springfield, from the college over there. Nice family, two children. And well qualified. More experience than I've got in administration. I'm a teacher, primarily.”

“Can't you stay on and just teach, without the other responsibilities?”

“I think not,” he said slowly, his arms on the desk.

She knew, of course. He was no longer wanted. They had pushed him out. And the school as Mr. Frawley envisioned it would take another direction. The old man seemed to droop as he looked out the window. She tried to think of something to say, some way to restore him to his rightful place. “There must be something we can do!”

He tilted back, facing the window again. He seemed not to have heard her. And then he said something she had not expected to hear. He said, “I never wanted to teach.” Quite simply, as if it had just slipped out. “Nor to be part of the educational system. It was not what I would have chosen.” He said, “There was something else....”

She waited for the rest of the sentence. She could see him as nothing except what he was, for he was so excellently that. What was it that held him so contemplative as he gazed out at the sun-spattered leaves? What had he wanted to do? Be a writer? Paint a mural? Go to sea, like Conrad? She glanced up at the sailing ship locked in ice, and around the wall at the gleaming instruments of weather. What
was
it he wanted to do—her gaze swept back to the Arctic map—see the top of the world?

“We fall into conditions,” he said, “one way or another. And it was all right. It's only that ‘there was a road not taken'—” He glanced at her over his shoulder. “Robert Frost, is it? Yes. And I suppose we never stop wondering what lay down the other road.”

He said it serenely, as casually, almost, as if he were remarking on the weather. But there was a touch of wistfulness in his tone, and regret.

Her compassion for him, already brimming, spilled over. Oh, she knew! And she found herself, with her own longings imposed on his, weeping for Mr. Frawley that he had not danced in Spain.

“Goodness gracious!” The old man swiveled around, half rose, flustered and looking contrite, as if it were all his fault. “My goodness, now! You've been working too hard, Miss Liles. The end of school, so much to do. A stressful time.”

“I'm sorry,” she said, tears rolling down her face. “I don't know why I should do this.” The tension had been enormous, but it was more than that. She dabbed at her eyes with a soggy Kleenex and fumbled in her pocket for another. The dean came around the desk with the wastebasket, like an old deacon with the collection plate. She dropped the wet tissues and looked up expectantly. “I guess it was what you said about something else. Something you'd rather have done?”

But the old man had allowed himself one lapse, and he turned aside from it now. “Yes,” he said, putting the basket back in place. “There's always something else we think we want to do, at some stage in our lives. But we get over it, we outgrow it. And after a while we realize that where we are is where we are meant to be.”

“With no regrets?” she said, reluctant to give up Spain.

“Oh no,” he said cheerfully, “there are regrets.” He batted at the moth, which had come down from somewhere to flit around them again. “Can't help a few regrets now and then. They're natural. But we have to keep in mind that early ambitions are sometimes deceiving, and make the best of what comes. Although you never forget the other, quite. Goodness me,” he said as the moth grazed his ear, “he's getting to be a nuisance. I wish he'd find his way out.” The moth landed on the desk. Cupping his hand, the dean brushed it toward the window. The creature hit the floor, rose, and fluttered to the windowsill. “Ah!” said the dean. He pulled open a drawer, took out a swatter and, advancing on the moth, cautiously raised his hand. Then with a quick flick he flipped the moth out the window. “There now,” he said with satisfaction, “he landed in the vines. He'll be all right now. For such time as he has. Some of them live no more than a day. Well, Miss Liles,” he said as he put the swatter away, “I'm very happy that you're going to be here another year.”

“So am I. And I thank you for your help. Without it—”

“I was glad to do what I could. I wouldn't want you to have any mark on your record that could be troublesome.”

“I'm very grateful, sir.”

“You've been a conscientious member of our staff, an asset to us, I should say. I wouldn't want to see your career destroyed by misstep or misunderstanding. You bring a freshness and enthusiasm to your work. Maybe a little too much at times, but that will temper. You're young yet, with time and experience you'll develop in judgment. I've observed you through the year, the way you conduct your classes, the ideas you bring out in the students. You have a good sense of the direction our school has been going, the way I felt was right for us. There are a few who would like to change it.”

And they would, if they had their way.

“What they want to offer is what I call training, not enlightenment. I believe in the classical education. History and the arts, all the richness and moral truth of great literature and philosophy. They may not seem relevant to times such as these. In a time of war there will be a need for the practical skills. But I think such training will be available and very quickly. It's the classical values that will fall by the wayside unless we prevent it. It is this that we must hold out to the young. Whether they accept it or not, we must hold it out.”

She listened, sitting very still.

“Of course, we're limited, a small college such as ours. But we can point the way. We can place the emphasis where it belongs. Now that I'm leaving, I have to trust to those of you who believe in the classic values, as I do. You are among them, I think. From all I can tell, you lean more than others toward the same goals I have striven for. I'm glad you'll be here to defend them.”

“For your sake—” she said.

“I have great faith in you, Miss Liles. It pleases me to leave you as … earnest, so to speak, to carry on what we believe in.”

It was a moment before the full import of his speech took hold. “Thank you,” she said then and felt the mantle settle on her shoulders.

Twenty-four

S
he walked out of the office in a daze. Not an hour ago she had gone up this hall on the way to execution. Now here she was—acquitted, her head, addled though it was, still on her shoulders and filled with the old dean's praise.

Could it be that the ordeal was over? She did not have to face Mrs. Medgar, she did not have to go before the board, and she had not lost her job. It was more than she could take in.

She stood at her desk in wonderment, gazing at the room. It was hers again. These chairs would be filled again with her students. She would guide them again through the beauty and complexities of grammar and poetry. (And she wouldn't let them come near her after hours.) On winter afternoons she would conduct her seminars. One on the Greeks, for Mr. Frawley. (Although, she would have to work hard learning about them this summer, if she were to know enough to impart anything to anyone.) She would try to be worthy of Mr. Frawley, and of her professors at the university, three or four of the best, whom she thought of now: scholarly and persuasive, able to communicate with wit and wisdom and without pedantry. She would have to work very hard.