Clair De Lune (19 page)

She murmured something in appreciation.

“Mrs. Medgar did bring up the matter of your credentials, your lack of credits in education. But you'll take more hours through the summer and you have an excellent record, otherwise. We have no problem there. But then later this other matter came up. It was only yesterday that Mrs. Medgar came to me with these … rumors. I'll do what I can to reassure the good lady.”

“Thank you,” she said.

“However,” he ran a hand over his bald head, “I must tell you frankly that Mrs. Medgar is asking for a reevaluation. She wants a thorough explanation. In short,” he said, summoning his courage, “she has requested that you appear before the school board and clear yourself of these allegations.”

She had turned to salt. She stared for a moment, then looked down at her clenched hands. “I see.” Then, briskly, she raised her head. “Well, if that's what is necessary—”

With his arms on the desk, the dean studied her thoughtfully. “I just don't believe it is,” he said and leaned back in the chair. “I see no real need to call in the board or involve them in any way. I see no reason to carry it that far. A hearing, in itself, could put a black mark on your record.”

“Yes,” she said, knowing just how black.

“Leave a shadow that could be damaging in the future, make it difficult to advance. A suspicion of guilt…” He again contemplated the snowfall in the crystal globe. “In my experience, it is ill-advised to let these things get out of hand. It causes exaggeration, distortion. I, for one, do not care for witch hunts, and I shouldn't like to see you let go on mere suspicion.”

“Thank you,” she said in a whisper.

“Mrs. Medgar hasn't spoken to anyone else about this, and I've asked her not to. It's all confidential so far. I don't see that it needs to go any further. After I've met with her again, now that I've talked with you … and perhaps if you were to meet with her yourself—”

She hesitated. “If that would help—”

“—she would be satisfied. But let me speak to her first. Maybe that will be sufficient. Meanwhile,” he said, standing up, “it might be well, these last few days, to be especially careful.”

“Indeed,” she said.

“Maybe a little added precaution—”

“By all means.”

“I'll speak to Mrs. Medgar as soon as possible.”

“Thank you, Mr. Frawley. I appreciate your concern.” She went on in a low voice, “I'm sorry to have done anything that could be misconstrued. I'm sorry to cause you worry. You've been very kind.”

“Well…” he said, with his distracted smile, and opened the door for her.

All the way down the hall the dean's words, and all their implications, drummed in her head. She was about to lose her job and with it any chance of another. She would be cast out, in disgrace and in debt—because for a time it had slipped her mind that she was no longer a schoolgirl. Unthinking, she had gambled it all. And all that stood between her and ruin was this pink, troubled, trusting old man who would not believe what she'd done was true.

Seventeen

R
eaching the safety of her room, she closed the door quietly, put her back against it, said
Oh God
, and slid down to her heels.

Moral character, lapses of dignity, the delinquency of minors—was it
that bad
? She knew it wasn't altogether right, but was it so altogether wrong? Except for Toby—“Oh God!” she said again. The only comfort was that they had not made love. They came close but they hadn't done it. But they might have if Toby hadn't left when he did. Maybe he knew better than she did when wrong was wrong.

She sat with her head on her knees, too wretched to cry. But that was one thing, at least, that they couldn't know. No one could know except her and Toby, because Toby would not have talked, not even to George. It was not his way.

She pulled herself up and went across to the desk. But those other rumors, the part Mrs. Medgar knew about (where had she got her information?)—those were the public sins and they alone could ruin her. Being seen at the movies, eating sugar buns on the curb in front of the bakery—all that could look very bad. And was she seen at Sutt's Corner with them? That would be much worse. And then George and Toby coming up the stairs to her door in the late afternoons and the evenings! She was a
teacher
—all such things were forbidden to her. No wonder she was facing a firing squad!

But she had explained it all. She thought back, reconstructing the dialogue in the office, what she had said, the expressions on Mr. Frawley's face. She had explained all that. He believed her. And it was true. No harm had been done, none that she could think of. They had done exactly what she said—gone to the movies together, talked about books and listened to music and held their own seminars. It was no more than graduate students did as a matter of course. Mr. Frawley understood.

What they did in addition was harmless enough. For the most part. Sutt's Corner—well, that was a mistake, even if she wasn't the one who led them there. The boys knew where it was long before they knew her. And they had had a beer or two before she knew them. Anyway, who could have seen them there? Nobody, except railroad men and stockyard workers and a few sociable ladies of the evening. No one who knew or gave a damn. And though it was always only the three of them, who knew that for sure? As for those informal “seminars,” Maggie had been there for the first two and there could have been other girls as well. How did Mrs. Medgar know whether there were or weren't? The only thing Mrs. Medgar knew was that Miss Liles had been seen at the movies and students sometimes came to her house in the evening.

And all that had been explained. Well enough too. Mr. Frawley believed it, he could explain to Mrs. Medgar, and things would be all right. She might have to go on the carpet first and let Mrs. Medgar pick her liver. But she could do it if she had to. With Mr. Frawley behind her, the whole affair would blow over. And she would still have a job. She pulled her chair up to the desk and opened the book to Act IV.

But what if it didn't?

She looked up, staring across the empty chairs. What if it did not blow over? Suppose Mrs. Medgar would not give in? Mrs. Medgar was a bitter woman. And what if—she put her hand to her mouth in horror—what if, in spite of Mr. Frawley, she had to appear before the board?
Tell us, Miss Liles, is there any truth to the rumors … we have it on good authority … a saloon down near the stockyards at odd hours.... Do you realize, Miss Liles … the moral character of students … ethical code … the privacy of your rooms … young men … would you give us their names, please … their names, Miss Liles—

What would she do? Grovel for mercy or stand there barefaced and lie?

She would lie through her teeth. She had to. She had obligations, loans to repay, a living to make. She had Toby and George to protect. The truth at this point was a luxury she could not afford.

She realized tardily that the class bell had rung, and rose and opened the door. Maybe she wouldn't have to lie. Maybe Mr. Frawley would take care of it and Mrs. Medgar would be outmaneuvered. She sat down at the desk, erect and teacherly, and began hastily to review her notes.

The students came in promptly, settled themselves with a light scraping of chairs. She bent over the notes, making a few additions. In the stillness of her kitchen one recent evening she had thought of some rather perceptive things to say about Caliban, a question or two that would set off a good discussion. She waited until the room was quiet and looked up.

“Well now,” she said, “after these several weeks with
The Tempest
, I think it's clear to all of us that this is one of the world's great fairy tales. It has all the standard ingredients—love and virtue, which triumph, of course; and wickedness, which is punished; and we can assume that everybody who deserves to lives happily ever after. So far, this follows the formula. It's the same formula that applies to old melodramas, where the villain is thoroughly evil and the hero is thoroughly good and neither one is true to real life.

“But how much truth do we want it in a fairy tale or a melodrama? Not much, I'd say. It's that suspension of reality, of truth to real life, that allows us to live for a while in an ideal world where storms are safely ordered, and in the end everything comes right. So it is in
The Tempest
. But Shakespeare doesn't stick strictly to the formula. Throughout the play he gives us overtones of reality, of humanity and growth of character, which make the play more complicated than your run-of-the-mill fairy tale, and more satisfying. Now, along this line of fantasy and reality and good and evil, I'd like us to take another look at a couple of the symbols—Ariel and Caliban. Let's begin with Caliban and to refresh ourselves, let's turn back to Act Three.”

There was a rustle of pages. Lindsey, in the front row—he was always in the front row—smiled tenderly.

She looked down and quickly up again. “Now about halfway through the scene, you remember—” She glanced at the book, but the train of thought had come uncoupled. Flustered, she picked up her notes, laid them down, and turned a page of the text. “Let's start at the beginning of Scene … Three. Would you read to yourselves, please, the whole scene, before we start the discussion.” She added lamely, for no reason, “Pay particular attention to the choice of words.”

The heads went down.

It was not at all what she intended. Caliban wasn't even in that scene. Somehow she would have to wrench it around to make a point about him. Where the hell was he? She scanned the page for a clue. Old Gonzales, Alonso, Prospero… What if Mrs. Medgar did not give in?

She pulled the book closer and tried again. Again the mind went its own way. Her thoughts darted from Medgar to Mr. Frawley to Toby and George and back. Visions of the board, mitred and robed, rose between her and the page—
Tell us, Miss Liles
…
can you explain—
and mobs of outraged parents behind them. She stared hard at the page. It was no use. The horrors of inquisition beat kettles in her head.

But what could they know? she asked herself again. How could they pass sentence of guilt with so little to go on? Rumors. A movie or two, the boys on her stairs.
It was not what you think it was, not that at all. If I could explain… No, it would not happen again.... I am sorry, I never intended—

They would boil her in oil.

For she was guilty as charged. And who had she thought she was that she could get away with all that? All over town under cover of darkness, careless as blown trash, dancing in the moonlight and drinking beer, prowling through churches, up and down the streets with a hoot and a holler and then the night of the fog and she and Toby and any way you sliced it, it was Immoral Conduct.
Had she thought nobody would know?

“Miss Liles?” A small voice from the front row.

They were waiting for her, patient and courteous.

“I finished that whole scene.”

Eighteen smooth attentive faces turned upon her, waiting.

“Are we supposed to keep on reading?”

“No…” she said, and looked down before she turned to stone.

The fact was, she realized, all of them knew. Knew some part of the story. And the other fact was that she had been glad they knew. For Toby and George were good to look at, and bright and coveted, and hers. She had been proud of that. Her illegal, undersize catch. And there was in those faces—all except one—something she recognized. She had seen it before, elsewhere and close up and not too long ago: a haughtiness, sweetly unconscious, and a cool, young pity. The look that children turn on their elders, that says,
You are not one of us
.

Head down over the open book, she searched in frenzy for a clue to Caliban. Her face was hot with shame. She was Lindsey Homeier in reverse, and everybody knew—most of all, Toby and George.

Eighteen

O
ver and over in the next days, the whole spring flashed before her, not the spring she had thought it was, but as the others would see it—Mrs. Medgar and the school board and Mr. Frawley, and as the children saw it. She looked at herself through all those eyes, and the sight appalled her.

And how would her mother see it?

She knew very well how Mother would see it, and she would be right. Little Allen was guilty of misconduct and there was no getting around it. It would be a few days yet before error would be analyzed and absolution handed out right and left. As it was, she could see no way to forgive herself, and no way either, for anyone else to forgive her.

It was an ordeal for her, appearing at school each morning. As she stood before her classes, sober and correct, every face seemed to accuse her. As for the teachers, they might as well have known to the letter what had gone on in the dean's office. It was deduction from hints and symptoms studiously observed. A particular talent of the academic breed. And inevitably, she must have given herself away. Chastened as she was, it was difficult not to show it and impossible for the others, especially the Ladies, to ignore it. In the lounge, when she was present, the chatter was conspicuously idle. Busier was what went on behind her back. It was not malicious; they were kindly women. But they were curious. Whatever was happening with Allen, and
something
was happening, had them mightily intrigued. And it gave Gladys something to comment on in her own brand of wit. Allen was always appearing in the lounge in the wake of the punch line, catching Mae Dell in spasms and Gladys still sizzling between her teeth. Both of which expressions of merriment stopped abruptly as she walked in.