And so, as he had so many times in the past, my father demanded that I come with him to Milford Cottage that evening, the two of us driving through a soft blue twilight to retrieve her. On the way, I remember that he had a certain agitated look in his eyes, like someone pressed into a service he’d rather have avoided but felt it his duty to perform. By then, of course, he must have known that something very grave had begun to darken the atmosphere of Chatham School, something he found it difficult to confront, or simply knew no way of confronting. I have often wondered what I might have said had he turned to me that evening and asked me bluntly what I knew about Miss Channing and Mr. Reed. Perhaps I would have lied to him, as I later did, claiming an innocence I did not deserve
But he talked of the party instead, the long tables that had been placed on the back lawn, the Chinese lanterns he’d hung over them, how festive everything looked.
It was not until we neared Milford Cottage that he grew silent.
Miss Channing came out immediately, dressed in a long black skirt and a dark red blouse, her hair bound tightly in a bun. Her eyes seemed feverish and her skin was very pale.
I got out of the car, and held the door open for her. “Thank you, Henry,” she said as she got into the front seat beside my father.
“Good evening, Miss Channing,” my father said.
She nodded softly. “Good evening, Mr. Griswald.”
They hardly spoke for the first few minutes of the drive back toward Chatham. Then, out of nowhere, my father suddenly blurted out, “I was thinking of offering you a commission, Miss Channing. A private commission, that is. A portrait of myself.” He glanced toward her, then back to the road. “Do you do portraits?”
“Yes,” she said. “I’ve done a few. My uncle. His wife. When I was in Africa.”
“So, do you think you’d like to take a crack at it?”
She smiled slightly. “Yes, I would.”
My father seemed pleased. “Splendid.”
They went on to arrange various times when my father would be available to sit for her, and during the next few weeks I saw them often in his office together, the door always open, of course, Miss Channing in her gray smock, standing behind her easel, my father posed beside the window, looking out onto the courtyard, his body caught in a shaft of light.
During the rest of the drive, my father talked rather absently about the spring term, how brief it always seemed compared to fall and winter, warning Miss Channing that the boys would become “increasingly rambunctious” as the end of the school year approached. “So keep a firm hand on them,” he told her, “because they’ll certainly need it.” It was not until we’d turned onto the main road back to Chatham that he suddenly said, “By the way, Mr. Reed may not be able to join us this evening.”
My attention sprang to Miss Channing, and I saw her body grow tense at the mention of Mr. Reed’s name.
“It seems that Mrs. Reed has taken ill,” my father went on. “Something to do with her stomach.”
Miss Channing turned away from my father and toward the window at her side, a quick reflexive gesture made, or so it seemed to me at the time, in order to shield her face from his view. Watching her, I recalled the way she’d sat so stiffly in the boat as we’d made our way down the Bass River only a week or so before, her manner now even more enclosed than it had appeared that day, so that she seemed oddly frightened of the very movement her life had taken, as if it were a blade swinging above her head.
It was warm enough for my father to have rolled the window down on the driver’s side, and as we made our way along the coastal road he peered out over the fields of sea grass that rose from the marshes and the bogs. “I love the spring on Cape Cod. Summer, too, of course. Do you plan to stay here on the Cape for the summer, Miss Channing?”
“I haven’t really thought about the summer,” she murmured as if such a possibility had not occurred to her.
“Well, there’s still plenty of time to think about it,” my father told her, then let the subject drop.
We pulled into the driveway of our house seconds later. I got out and opened the door for Miss Channing. “Thank you, Henry,” she said as she stepped out of the car.
Some of the other teachers had already arrived, the rest coming only a few minutes later, everyone serving themselves from the plentiful buffet my mother and Sarah had arranged on a long table in the backyard, then sitting in small groups on chairs my father and I had placed throughout the grounds earlier that afternoon.
It was my job to help Sarah serve the guests at the buffet table, and from that position I could see Miss Channing as she sat with a group not far away, my mother facing her directly, Mr. Corbett to her right, Mrs. Benton, the Latin teacher, to her left, and finally Mrs. Abercrombie, my father’s assistant, just a bit outside the circle, her long, thin legs requiring somewhat more room.
My mother was doing her best to be sociable that evening, talking in that slightly rapid way of hers about whatever matter she thought might interest the people gathered around her.
At one point I heard her say, “Well, Chatham is small, but I think there must be quite a few eligible young men.” Then she turned to Miss Channing, the only unmarried woman in the group, and asked, “Don’t you think so, Elizabeth?”
I remember that Miss Channing seemed unable to answer my mother’s question, perhaps suspecting that she had some ulterior motive in asking it.
In that brief silence, I saw my mother’s eyes narrow slightly as she added, “I mean to say, I was wondering what your experience had been.”
Still, Miss Channing did not answer, and in that interval of silence I noticed Mrs. Benton glance knowingly at Mrs. Abercrombie.
