The Headmaster's Wife(23)
The following afternoon I have a most curious conversation with Mrs. LaForge. Mrs. LaForge is not someone to offer her opinion, and this has always been a part of her utility: She keeps her head down and does her work. She is most capable, and in all the years she has served a Winthrop in this grand old office, I cannot remember one time when she offered unsolicited advice.
But on this snowy afternoon, she comes into my office and says, “Can I see you for a moment?”
I put the papers I was reading down on my desk. “Of course, Mrs. LaForge. Please come in.”
She walks toward the desk and to the leather wingback chairs in front of it. She says, “Do you mind if I sit down?”
This is most unusual indeed, but I nod. “Of course.” I sweep my hand toward a chair. “Sit.”
She sits down. She looks weary and old to me, and I realize it has been a long time since I paid her any attention. She removes her glasses. Her eyes are dark and deep set among her wrinkles. “Mr. Winthrop,” she begins. “You know I have always been loyal to you. And your father before you.”
“Of course, Mrs. LaForge,” I say, wondering where this is going.
“And you know I never get involved in matters that are not my concern.”
“Yes, yes,” I say. “I know this.”
“So Mr. Winthrop—Arthur,” she says. She has not called me Arthur since I was a student and she was a young woman newly arrived in the office of the headmaster. I cock my head and look at her with puzzlement at her use of my given name.
“Arthur,” she says again, “this is hard for me. I do not know how to say this.”
“Speak freely, Mrs. LaForge,” I say, wanting her to be done with it.
“I hear you in here sometimes,” she says.
“What do you mean? You hear me?”
She looks away, toward the window and the snow, then back to me for a moment before resting her eyes on the carpet at her feet. “I hear you talking.”
“I do not follow you, Mrs. LaForge. You eavesdrop on my conversations? Is this what you are saying?”
“No, I do not. What I mean to say is that I hear you talking in here sometimes when you are alone. No one is with you.”
I shake my head. “Well, surely I am on the phone.”
“No,” she says, “you are not. I can tell when you are on the phone. My phone lights up red, remember?”
“Perhaps it’s broken,” I say, and now I am getting annoyed. “What are you implying? That I am talking to myself?”
“No, sir, not that. I mean, not really. You are talking with Betsy.”
So this is what this is about. “Mrs. LaForge,” I say, “I don’t think you know what you are saying. Whatever conversations I have with Betsy Pappas are between me and her, do you understand?”
“I am just trying to help, Arthur,” she says. “You know that, right? I mean, your calling her Betsy Pappas alone worries me greatly. Can’t you see? It is part of my job. Part of my job is to protect you. I hope you understand that.”
“What I understand is that this conversation is over,” I say sharply. I do not need to say anything else. I spin in my chair and put my feet up on the desk and face the wall. I stare at a portrait of my grandfather, at his broad forehead, the peak of his hair, his long nose. On the other side of the office, I hear the door open and then close again.
In the open fields of campus the winter wind sweeps across with great fury, and small cyclones of snow get picked up by it and spin in the air for a moment before settling back down. The wind in this part of Vermont starts all the way up on the plains of Quebec and marches south with the river until it reaches the mountains and blows back onto itself. The students pull their coats tight on days like this, and walk from building to building with their heads down. It is a cruel wind, and on this day, the day after Russell Hurley has left school, I brace against it, but not nearly as much as I brace against the coming of Betsy Pappas, which is as inevitable as winter. She will come. I just do not know when.
I am thinking about what I will tell her. I do not have much to say, other than to plead with her, to give her logic. Russell Hurley determined his own fate, I will say. You have to understand, the powers of head of school are not fully what you imagine. There are things I control and then things I do not. I do not expect you to comprehend all of this, but sometimes events are beyond even my control. They enter the vast stream that is the history of Lancaster, and in those cases, it is precedent that matters.
I consider all these arguments, though, when she finally shows up, outside my house after dinner and before study hall, there is no argument for me to make. Betsy, as is her wont, creates the terms.
I am on the front walk. A yellowish light comes off the porch of the white house and shines on the snow. The night has lifted, and the sky is bright and star-flecked. The air is cold, and I have come outside as if anticipating her arrival, and sure enough, here she is. She marches up my walk with that sense of ownership I have grown to love about her. When she reaches me, she lets me have it, as I knew she would.
If she finds it odd that I am outside wearing only my dress shirt and chinos, she does not comment, and I do not offer anything. The chilly air feels good, to tell you the truth. What she says is that she knows what I have done to Russell Hurley, that I planted the alcohol, which is true, and that she will expose me. That she will shout high into the air that this has nothing to do with good-hearted Russell and everything to do with my venality, that I am evil incarnate and so on. That she will take me down, and the whole world will know that I have been f*cking her. She will, in short, ruin me.