The Chatham School Affair

I know now that even at that moment, and in the wake of such awesome devastation, some part of me still lingered in the throes of the high romantic purpose that had seized me on Black Pond, driven me to the reckless and destructive act I was still laboring to conceal. And yet, despite all the pain and death that had ensued, I still wanted Miss Channing to speak boldly of love and the right to love, use the same brave and uncompromising words her father had used in his book. I wanted her to rise and take the people of Chatham on like Hypatia had taken on the mobs of Alexandria, standing in her chariot, lashing at them with a long black whip. I wanted her to be as ruthless and determined with Mr. Parsons and all he represented as I had been toward Mrs. Reed, to justify, at least for a brief but towering moment, the dreadful thing that I’d done to her, and through her, to Sarah Doyle. For it seemed the only thing that might yet be salvaged from the wreckage of Black Pond, a fierce, shimmering moment when a woman stood her ground, defied the crowd, sounded the truth with a blazing trumpet. All else, it seemed to me, was death and ruin.

But Miss Channing did not do what I wanted her to do on the stand that day. Instead, she meekly followed along as Mr. Parsons began to question her about the early stages of her “relationship” with Mr. Reed, convinced, as he was, that everything that had later transpired on Black Pond had begun in the quiet drives she and Mr. Reed had taken back and forth from Milford Cottage to their classes at Chatham School, their leisurely strolls into the village, the idle hours they’d spent together, seated on a bench on the coastal bluff, all of which had flowed like an evil stream toward what he insisted on calling the “murders” on Black Pond.

Through it all, Miss Channing sat rigidly in place, her hands in her lap, as prim and proper as any maiden, her voice clear and steady, while she did the opposite of what I’d hoped, lied and lied and lied, shocking me with the depths of her lies, claiming that her relationship with Mr. Reed had never gone beyond “the limits of acceptable contact.”

At those words, I saw myself again at Milford Cottage on a cold January day, her fingers trembling as she pressed them against Mr. Reed’s cheek, then, weeks later, in the cottage, the rain battering against the window, the anguish in her face when she’d said, “I can’t go on.” That she could now deny the depths of her own passion appalled me and filled me with a cold contempt, made everything I’d done, the unspeakably cruel step I’d taken on her behalf, seem like little more than a foolish adolescent act that had gone fatally awry.

Watching her as she sat like a schoolmarm, politely responding to Mr. Parsons’ increasingly heated questions, I felt the full force of her betrayal. For I knew now how Mrs. Reed must have felt, that I had given love and devotion, and in return received nothing but lies and deception.

And so I felt a kind of hatred rise in me, a sense that I’d been left to swing from the gallows of my own conscience, while Miss Channing now attempted to dismiss as mere fantasy that wild romantic love I’d so clearly seen and which it seemed her duty to defend, if not for me, then for Mr. Reed, perhaps even her own father.

In such a mood, I began to root for Mr. Parsons as he worked to expose Miss Channing, ripping at her story even as she labored to tell it, continually interrupting her with harsh, accusatory questions. When you went driving with Mr. Reed, you knew he was married, didn’t you, Miss Channing? You knew he had a child?

As she’d gone on to give her answers, I recalled the many times I’d seen her in Mr. Reed’s car, growing more animated as the days passed, happy when he dropped by her cottage on that snowy November day when we’d all eaten Sarah’s fruitcake together, happy to sit with him on the bluff, stroll with him along the village streets, chat with him in her classroom at the end of day. If, during all that, the “limits of acceptable contact” had never been breached, then I’d played my fatal card for nothing, worshipped at the altar of a love that had never truly existed, save in my own perfervid imagination.

And yet, as Miss Channing continued, so self-contained and oddly persuasive, I began to wonder if indeed I had made it all up, seen things that weren’t there, eyes full of yearning, trembling fingers, a romantic agony that was only in my head.

Because of that, I felt an immense relief sweep over me when Mr. Parsons suddenly asked, “Are you saying, Miss Channing, that you were never in love with Leland Reed?”

Her answer came without the slightest hesitation:Witness: No. I am not saying that. I would never say that. I loved Leland Reed. I have never loved anyone else as I loved him.

In a voice that seemed to have been hurled from Sinai, Mr. Parsons asked, “But you knew that he was married, didn’t you, Miss Channing? You knew he had a child?”Witness: Yes, of course I knew he was married and had a child.Mr. Parsons: And each time Mr. Reed left you—whether it was at your cottage or in some grove in the middle of a cemetery, or after you’d strolled along some secluded beach—he returned to the home across the pond that he shared with his wife and daughter, did he not? Witness: Yes, he did.Mr. Parsons: And what did the existence of a wife and child mean to you, Miss Channing?

Her answer lifted me like a wild wind.Witness: It didn’t mean anything to me, Mr. Parsons. When you love someone the way I loved Leland Reed, nothing matters but that love.

Heroic as her statement seemed to me, it was the opening Mr. Parsons had no doubt dreamed of, and he seized it.Mr. Parsons: But they did exist, didn’t they? Mrs. Reed and little Mary? Witness: Yes, they did.Mr. Parsons: And had Mr. Reed told you that he and Mrs. Reed had had terrible arguments during the past two weeks, and that his daughter had witnessed these arguments?Witness: No, he had not.Mr. Parsons: Had he told you that Mrs. Reed had become suspicious of his relationship with you?Witness: No.Mr. Parsons: That she had even come to suspect that he was plotting her murder? Witness: No, he didn’t.Mr. Parsons: Well, isn’t it true that Mr. Reed wanted to be rid of his wife?

Sitting in the courtroom at that moment, I recalled the last time I’d heard Mr. Reed speak of Mrs. Reed, the two of us in his car together, a yellow shaft of light disappearing down the road ahead, his own house in the distance, his eyes upon its small square windows, the coldness of his words: Sometimes I wish that she were dead.

Because of that, Miss Channing’s answer, coming on the heels of the proud figure she’d only recently begun to assume, utterly astonished me.Witness: No, he did not want to be rid of his wife, Mr. Parsons.Mr. Parsons: He never spoke ill of Mrs. Reed?Witness: No, he never did.Mr. Parsons: Nor conspired to murder her? Witness: Of course not.Mr. Parsons: Well, many people have testified that Mr. Reed was very upset during the last days of the school year. Do you deny that? Witness: No, I don’t.Mr. Parsons: And in that state he did peculiar things. He named his boat after you, Miss Channing, rather than his wife or daughter.Witness: Yes.Mr. Parsons: He made some rather ominous purchases as well. He bought a rope and a knife. He bought poison. It would seem that at least during his last Jew weeks at Chatham School, Mr. Reed surely wanted to rid himself of somebody, don’t you think, Miss Channing?