The Friend of Women and Other Stories (10 page)

It was tiring work, for Lockwood was always unpredictable. I never knew when he was going to be gravely impassive, as if I were not even present, or when he would shout at me and call me an ass, or when, if my little daughter was ailing, he would be wonderfully sympathetic, almost paternal. It was again the repertory: Tamburlaine one day, Falstaff the next.

One thing, however, was certain. He was always observant; he missed nothing. He spotted all my vulnerabilities, and he could play with me as a cat does with a mouse. There must have been a touch of sadism in his makeup. Why should he, a great man, take any notice at all of such a microbe as myself? Because he couldn't keep his hands off anything within his reach. He always had to be creating something of something.

My real trouble was with Hilda. She was soon disillusioned with the life of a master's wife, particularly a master so low in the faculty ratings at Averhill. She found the other wives, all considerably older than she, both dull and condescending, and there was little for her to do. In my parish she had had the sick and senile to call upon, and others in for tea, but Averhill operated perfectly without her, and she had no duties but to sit on my right at a long table of boys in the big dining hall for Sunday lunch. But worst of all were the constant inroads into our domestic life made by the ever demanding headmaster. He would telephone at all hours, usually with some peremptory demand that I come straight over to him, and not hesitate to make hash of any little plans Hilda and I might have had for our theoretical free time, such as playing bridge with neighbors or going to a movie. And it galled poor Hilda that I was so submissive; she accused me of lying supine before him, which I'm afraid I did. But then it has never been in my nature to assert myself; I have always bowed to authority.

“You're under his spell!” she warned me. “The devil himself is in that man! I actually believe he's trying to take you from me!”

“Why would he want such a poor thing as myself?”

“Do devils need motives? They collect souls. Even poor souls!”

Of course, Hilda didn't really mean what she said, but the unfortunate (or fortunate?) result of her colorful imagery was that it stirred up all my old divinity school speculations on early Christian heresies and, in particular, the stubborn clinging of some dissidents to the notion that if good is real, so must be evil. They had argued that, as it seems impossible that a benevolent deity could have created evil, it must have come into being on its own, and it must therefore oppose God with an independent identity. If we posit God, must we not do the same for Satan? Did I really believe this? Do I now? How much of the truth, anyway, do we know?

As it happened, the day after Hilda had put the idea of the devil in my turbid mind, I was standing behind the headmaster after the Sunday service in the garth by the chapel, where he received the visiting alumni and parents who had lined up to greet him and compliment him on his sermon. But when he spied a little old brown-clad woman in the crowd, a humble contrast to the smartly dressed mothers, he hurried over to her with outstretched arms, exclaiming, “Oh, Mrs. Tomkins, I'm so happy to see you up and around after your bout with flu. Come, let me introduce you to some of our illustrious trustees who have come up for a board meeting.”

Now, I knew that Mrs. Tomkins, a simple farmer's widow of small means, happened to be one of the handful of members of the tiny parish comprising the Averhill grounds, and that she was not connected in any way with the school. Lockwood was demonstrating to the crowd that he was not above giving to the few poor and lowly under his care the same attendon that, as a headmaster, he accorded to those of his institution. Poor Mrs. Tomkins, who wanted only to take herself home, had to have her thin fingers squeezed in the firm grasp of stalwart moguls. It was Lockwood the repertory actor again. I was put in mind of the scene in
Richard III
where the duke of Gloucester, anxious to impress upon the visiting mayor of London and his suite that he has no wicked designs on the crown, parades piously before them, arm in arm with two bishops, an open prayer book in one hand, apparently oblivious to everything but his contemplation of God.

I was startled, the following Monday, as I was preparing in my classroom for the approaching hour of sacred studies, to receive a visit from Lockwood, who wanted to discuss the very heresies that had recurred to my mind. I had even forgotten that I had once asked his opinion on Gnosticism. Needless to say, he never forgot anything.

“I think, Goodheart, that you might share some of your expertise on the early church with your students.”

“But am I not to confine myself to
sacred
studies, sir?”

“Early divisions in the flock can be a part of that. No boy can fully understand the history of Christianity by reading only of martyrs consumed by lions. He should see it from different points of view. Like Renan's or Strauss's. They saw Jesus as a barely educated thaumaturge with a remarkable gift for words and a high standard of ethics, who urged his followers to submit to the harshness of Roman rule and all the injustices of life in order to prepare themselves for the Judgment Day that would, in a few years' time, put an end to the world. What was the point of fussing about anything else in view of the imminent dissolution? But when the early church was faced not only with the fact that the Day of Judgment seemed indefinitely postponed, but that the faith was being rent by dissention, it had to unite the sects under a new set of dogmas and prepare to rule the world!”

“But Renan and Strauss, sir, denied the divinity of Christ!”

“Of course I know that.”

“And isn't that the essence of our faith? Isn't that what I have to teach the boys?”

“Have I said otherwise? But you can also teach them what so many other people have thought. At the least it is interesting, and sacred studies notoriously bores boys. You can see their heads straighten up the moment you mention a controversy.”

“I'll try, sir.”

“See that you do, Goodheart. I'll audit your class in a week or so.”

But could it possibly be right to introduce a topic that might cause a sensitive boy some of the anguished doubt that it had in my own earlier being? What could be the headmaster's motive in directing my teaching down this troublesome course? Was it conceivable that some malign force in the old man's subconscious was working to undermine the very institution that he would have sold his soul to create?

It was all very well for me to try to laugh myself out of any such arcane and bizarre theories, but a subsequent discussion with Lockwood in his office brought them back violently to mind. He had asked me to draft a letter to a trustee explaining why he could not honor the latter's request that a Jewish boy be admitted to the school.

“The boy has a first-class record in his high school,” I felt obliged, however timidly, to point out.

“But he's Jewish, Goodheart! What are you talking about? Are we a church school or are we not?”

“But exposed to our church, sir, might he not come to see the light? It's odd enough that his orthodox parents should be willing to send him here. Mightn't that be a sign that it's our mission to help the boy?”

“A sign that you're an ass, my dear fellow!”

“But we have the Kramer boys and the Streyers.”

“They're Episcopalians!”

“They're still Jewish, sir.”

“Racially, of course. But a converted Jew is a Christian, is he not? I know we have parents who insist that he's not, that is, if he converted for reasons of social advancement. But why are many Christians Christians, but for social advancement or, at least, social acceptance? We don't have to go into that. We might not like what we find. I can't blame a Jew who abandons his old faith. The god of the Old Testament is a terrible deity who slays all who fail to worship him and many who don't. Even if our Christian faith is an illusion, I still cling to it.”

“Surely you don't ever believe it's an illusion, sir?”

His answer was a roar. “Don't tell me what I believe or don't believe, Goodheart!”

His anger at last stirred whatever bit of man there was in me. Had I not the cross of Christ behind me? “No, sir. But you have Catholic boys in the school. And Catholic boys who have no idea of converting.”

“But their god is close to ours. Perhaps the same. And we all might still be Catholics if Anne Boleyn hadn't refused to spread her legs until the lecherous Harry promised her a wedding ring.”

I was visibly shocked. “Oh, sir!”

“Oh, sir!” he repeated mockingly. “Listen to me, my boy, for you're not a bad preacher, and I may make something of you yet. This thing we're discussing is an excellent example of how a headmaster can keep a school both successful in a worldly sense and decent, to boot. How, if you want to put it that way, he can have his cake and eat it. To begin with, I cannot afford totally to ignore the prejudice that many of our parents have about not wishing their sons to be brought up cheek by jowl with Jewish boys. So I compromise. I rule that there will be no place for an orthodox Jew in a church school. But if he's converted, I take him. Oh, yes, there are some parents who will still growl, but they know, fundamentally, that they don't have a leg to stand on, and I have shown myself a consistent man of principle. Do you get it now?”

“But the Catholic boys don't have to convert.”

“Ah, you spy an inconsistency. Life is full of them. Let me point out that our parents and alumni may have a prejudice against Catholicism but not against Catholics themselves. They have no objection to having their sons raised with Catholic boys so long as Catholicism is not taught or advocated in the school. So what do I do? I require that Catholic students attend all our chapel services but send them to Mass in the village in a bus.”

“Mightn't an orthodox Jewish boy accept the same treatment? And go to the temple in a bus?”

“As Lewis Carroll's Father William put it, I have answered three questions, and that is enough. Be off or I'll kick you downstairs!”

But I left him wondering if being kicked downstairs was enough. Mightn't it be better if I was kicked out of the school? Hadn't I had a glimpse of the complete amorality of this supposedly devout Christian? Hadn't he sufficiently demonstrated that, if he had no prejudices, neither did he have any convictions, and that he would go to any lengths, perhaps even improper, to promote the worldly prosperity of the academy to which he had dedicated his life? He might fool everyone else, but could he fool God? Or was it that he was sparring with God? Challenging God on seemingly equal terms with sword drawn? Ah, Satan! Wasn't Satan as real as God?

That night I had a grim nightmare. As often takes place in my dreams, I was an anchorite living in a community of mud huts in a North African desert in early Christian times. I was seeking, as usual, peace of the soul, communion with God, and had little difficulty resisting the lewd temptations of the imps who danced around the pious village, hoping to lure one or another of its inmates to the fleshpots of the nearest city. I was wholly intent on the wise and comfortable words of the old abbot who was our self-constituted leader. He appeared as none other than Dr. Lockwood himself, though not the arbitrary and formidable headmaster I saw in the schoolroom, but the gentler cleric I sometimes saw in chapel when his velvet tones swelled to plangent oratory in the pulpit or when he knelt in prayer, his eyes tightly closed, his hands clasped, his voice trembling in a kind of pious ecstasy.

What turned this placid dream into a nightmare was my happening to see, when I was passing his hut at dusk and he was unaware of my proximity, that he was addressing a respectful half-circle of imps seated quietly at his feet and evidently receiving his instruction!

I sat up with a cry that awakened Hilda, to whom I related my dream. Ordinarily I shouldn't have done this, for she had little patience with my nocturnal fantasies, but in my dismay I blurted it all out. She simply laughed.

“So that's how you see him edifying his sacred school! Well, all I can say is that I wouldn't put anything past him.”

A week later Hilda, as with her basic kindness she sometimes did, invited Miss Ethelinda Snyder, a small, giggling, and gossip-loving old maid, to supper with us. She was Dr. Lockwood's secretary and, of course, his awestricken slave. Yet his treatment of her, unlike his of me, was always kind and courteous; he could afford to shed his benignity on creatures in whom the least spark of independence had been effectively quashed. The poor woman had little or no social life, as the faculty wives had no use for her and the local villagers never cultivated the school staff. She was enchanted to come to us when asked and partook a bit too freely of the sherry I offered her.

On one such visit the three of us happened to be discussing the approaching end-of-year departure of a history teacher who had accepted what he evidently considered a better offer to teach at Groton. Miss Snyder hinted darkly that it was just as well that he had decided to go.

“Why is that?” I asked. “Was Mr. Higgins in some kind of trouble here?”

Miss Snyder looked cryptic. “Well, I shouldn't say anything, but...” She paused.

“Oh, come on, Ethelinda,” my wife intervened. “You know how discreet Percy and I are. And we're dying for some juicy tidbit to liven up our dull lives. Don't be stuffy.”

“Well, I happen to know that Dr. Lockwood had a letter from the father of a fifth former complaining that Mr. Higgins had written his son a letter in the summer vacation that the father considered to be couched in rather too affectionate terms.”

“If Lockwood kicks out every master who's done
that,
” Hilda asserted roundly, “he may have to get a new faculty.”

“But that's the way he is,” Miss Snyder said hurriedly. “He's death on that subject. So when the letter from Groton came, he passed it right on to Mr. Higgins.”