Once Upon a Wardrobe(21)

*

George looks at his sister and smiles at her. It’s sweet how she wants it all to make sense, but all he wants is for her to begin the next tale.

“It’s about school,” she says. “He told me about going away, and it wasn’t a very nice school.”

“Go on,” he says to her. “Tell me.”

“Once upon a wardrobe, not very long ago,” she says with a sly smile.

“And not very far away,” he says.

Then it happens: George leaves the small room where he sits in a wardrobe and enters the kind of library he’s always wished for, full of books and woodsmoke and soft leather chairs.

The whole library was overflowing with books. They rested on tables, shelves, the floor, and even a chair. Leather-bound and clothbound, old and new. In that library in Little Lea, nine-year-old Jack sat at a desk, one too large for such a young boy, and his head was bent over a huge and old atlas of the world. It was bound in soft cloth, and the edges were smooth from use. Jack was flipping the pages and smiling as if painted sea and earth rose from the book itself.

On a middle page he stopped: Italy.

Jack traced his finger along the squiggly edges of the borders of a town called Narni. He spoke the word out loud in the empty library: “Narni.” He paused and then tried the word on his tongue again, liking the feel of it. “Narni.”

He flipped the page again. “Jacksie.” His father’s voice startled him.

Jack twisted in the chair to see his tall father, grief fading the man’s countenance in a way that made him seem smaller, less vital, even less frightening. In a room that had often given Jack comfort, Mr. Albert Lewis spoke to his son in a stern tone.

“It is time for you to join your brother at the Wynyard School.”

Jack had known this was coming, but panic ran through him. “No,” he said, sitting as straight as his father and matching his tone, holding up his chin as if the library were a courtroom.

“Yes, you will. It’s what’s best for you.”

Jack’s resolve faded and his lower lip shook. “I have Annie and Lizzie. I can learn here. I don’t need to leave. I do not want to leave.”

“It was already decided. Even before we lost your mother, it was decided.” Jack’s father walked out swiftly, leaving Jack in the soft leather chair. Jack closed his eyes as his life barreled along without him, taking him quickly to a place he did not want to go.

With both his mother and the fight gone from him, Jack packed his trunk and valise and set off on a journey to a new life. He had no idea what awaited him besides his brother.

That must be enough.

For the journey to England, Jack wore a suit that itched him enough to be nearly unbearable, an armor of a completely different kind than the ones he wore dashing about the house and garden. In the back of a coach with his white Eton collar nearly choking him, Jack sat next to Father as they bumped over the roads to Belfast Wharf, where they boarded a broad and fast ferry.

The boat sped across the waves of the Irish Sea to Lancashire, rising and falling while Jack thought of the many times he’d sat at the attic window and watched this harbor, imagining boarding one of the great-masted ships himself and leaving on a grand adventure. Now he imagined that boy still sitting in the window watching this boy leave on a ferry. The English accents, the clipped sounds without the Irish lilt, formed a hollow loneliness inside him; the strange voices were alienating already.

From Lancashire, Jack boarded a train with his father, then stared out the grimy window until they transferred at Seven Sisters station in London, and then there was yet another train to the town of Watford. Barreling along the tracks, Jack sat quietly, his heart a stone. The countryside changed from rolling hills to industrial and back again as his world that once held his mother’s comfort faded quickly. With each train transfer, with each town they passed, Jack left his childhood behind.

Only motherless days lay ahead of him. This journey to school felt like an exile.

*

Jack held his valise in his hand, glowering at the Wynyard School, which squatted on rolling fields in the town of Watford. It was a boring and drab brick building with nine windows unevenly placed on either side of the front door and two chimneys that weren’t puffing one bit. Right off he knew he’d find no comfort here. Jack reached the front gates with his heart in this throat. Even the gray clouds seemed ominous, pressing down.

Soon, with his father gone, Jack unpacked his bag in the frigid residence hall, where everything reeked of a toilet, rank and old. He shuddered and then donned his uniform, which had been starched to the stiffness of slate. Within the hour he found himself in the headmaster’s office. Reverend Capron, an Anglican priest—nicknamed Oldie behind his back—sat behind a wooden desk in a sparse and cold room. His white hair was combed back from a high forehead and his thin lips were nearly colorless. His broad and thick hands rested on the desk like slabs of meat.

“You are Warren Lewis’s brother, am I right?” His voice was uneven, climbing up and down the steps of each word.

“Yes, sir.” Jack held his hands behind his back to hide their shaking. Where was Warnie?

Oldie stood and his doughy face jiggled. “Another Lewis boy.” He shook his head. “Understand that I will have none of your Irish wit, do you hear me?”

“Yes, sir.”

And that was how it all started.