she had determined that she would survive whatever it was that love had done to her. With a quick backward step she drew away from me and walked into the adjoining bedroom. For a moment she stood beside the bookshelf near her bed, staring down at it with a cold, inflexible glare. Then she plucked a necklace from its top shelf, her fingers clutching it like pale talons as she returned to me. “Get rid of this,” she said.
“But, Miss Channing …”
She grabbed my hand, placed the necklace in its open palm, and closed my fingers around it. “That’s all I want you to do, Henry,” she said.
The rain had stopped when I left Milford Cottage a few minutes later, Miss Channing standing in the door, framed by the interior light. She was still there when I rounded the near bend and, with that turn, swept out of her view.
I walked on in darkness, moving slowly over the wet ground, thinking of what I’d glimpsed in Miss Channing’s face, shaken by what I’d seen, the awful ruin of the passions she’d once shared with Mr. Reed, unable to imagine anything that might return her to its earlier joy save for the one that had always presented itself, the two of them in Mr. Reed’s boat, a high wind sweeping through its white sails, propelling them around Monomoy Point and into the surging, boundless sea.
For a time I was locked in pure fantasy, as if I were with them, sweeping southward, a Caribbean wind whipping the tropical waters off the coast of Cuba, Miss Channing’s face radiantly tanned, her black hair flying free in warm sea breezes, Mr. Reed at the helm, miraculously cured of his limp, the scar erased forever from his face, the winters of New England, with all their frozen vows, unable to reach them now or call them back to anything.
It was the headlights of an approaching car that brought my attention back to Plymouth Road. They came forward slowly, almost stalkingly, like two yellow eyes, covering me in so bright a shaft of blinding light that it was only after the car had come to a halt beside me that I saw Mr. Reed behind the wheel, his eyes hidden beneath the shadows of his hat.
“Get in,” he said.
I got in and he pulled away, continuing down Plymouth Road, but turning to the left at the fork, moving toward his house on the other side of the pond rather than Milford Cottage.
“What are you doing out here, Henry?”
“Just walking.”
He kept his eyes trained on the road, his fingers wrapped tightly around the wheel. “Were you with Miss Channing?”
“Yes,” I told him.
“Why?”
“I was out walking and it started to rain. I went there to get out of the rain.”
The car continued forward, two shafts of yellow light dimly illuminating the glistening road ahead.
“What did she tell you?” Mr. Reed asked.
“Tell me?”
His eyes swept over to me. “About this afternoon. At the lighthouse.”
I shook my head. “Nothing,” I answered.
For a moment he seemed not to believe me. We sped on for a few seconds, his attention held on the road ahead. Then I saw his shoulders fall slightly, as if a great weight had suddenly been pressed down upon them. He lifted his foot from the accelerator and pressed down on the brake, bringing the car to a skidding halt. In the distance I could see the lights of his house glowing softly out of the darkness. “Sometimes I wish that she were dead,” he whispered. Then he turned to me, his face nearly as gray and lifeless as the masks of Miss Channing’s column. “You’d better get home now, Henry” was all he said.
I did as he told me, then watched as he pulled away, the taillights of his car glaring back toward me like small mad eyes.
Mr. Reed did not come to school the next day, but Miss Channing did, her mood very somber, the agitation of the night before now held within the iron grip of her relentless self-control.
It was the Friday before final examinations, and we all knew that since she was leaving Chatham School, it would be the last class we would ever have with her. Other departing teachers, those who had retired or found better posts, even the few whose abilities my father had found unacceptable and sent packing, had always taken a moment to say good-bye to us, usually with a few casual words about how much they had enjoyed being with us and hoped we’d stay in touch. I suppose that as the class neared its final minutes that day, we expected Miss Channing to do something similar, perhaps give a vague indication of what she intended to do after leaving Chatham School.
But Miss Channing didn’t do any of that. Instead, she raced through a review of the major things she’d taught us, her manner brittle, giving only the most dipped answers to our questions, ending it all with a single, lifeless comment. “It’s time to go,” she said only a few seconds before the final bell. Then she strode down the aisle and stationed herself at the entrance to her classroom.
The bell sounded, and as we all rose and filed out of the room, Miss Channing nodded to each of us as we went past, her final word only a quick, barely audible, “Good-bye.”
“We don’t have to say good-bye now,” I told her when I reached the door. “I’ll be coming over with Sarah on Sunday.”
She nodded briskly. “All right,” she said, then swiftly turned her attention to the boy behind me. “Good-bye, William,” she said as he stepped forward and took her hand.
For the rest of the day Miss Channing spent her time cleaning out the small converted shed that had served as her room and studio for the preceding nine months. She put away her materials, stacked the sculpting pedestals, folded up the dropcloth she’d placed over the tables on which she’d fashioned the masks for the column on the front lawn.
By four in the afternoon she’d nearly finished most of the work and was now concentrating upon the final details of the cleanup. Mrs. Benton saw her washing the windows with the frantic wiping motions she later described to Mr. Parsons and Captain Hamilton. Toward evening, the air in the courtyard now a pale blue, Mrs. Abercrombie saw the lights go out in her classroom, then Miss Channing step out of it, closing the door behind her.
