“Oh, no!” said the boy. “We’venevergone to school.”
This, said as if it were perfectly natural, fell like a stone into the librarian’s already agitated mind. Children who didn’t go to school? It couldn’t be true. A group of children who seemed half wild and didn’t go to school—where had she ended up? Miss Prim recalled her first impression of the man who had hired her. A strange individual, no doubt about it. An outlandish character, a hermit; who knows, perhaps even a madman.
“Miss Prim.” Just then, the deep, cultured voice of the Man in the Wing Chair himself floated up to her from the staircase. “When you’ve finished unpacking, I’d like to see you in the library, please.”
She secretly prided herself on the tenacity with which she strove to do the correct thing at all times. And in the present situation, she reflected, the correct course of action was to make her excuses and leave immediately. Heartened by this conclusion, she quickly shut her suitcases, tidied her hair in the mirror, shot a final glance at the Rublev icon, and prepared to do her duty.
“Of course,” she called out. “I’ll be straight down.”
The Man in the Wing Chair was standing in the middle of the room, hands clasped behind his back. While the librarian had been unpacking, he’d been rehearsing how best to explain her duties to her. It wasn’t an easy task, because what he required wasn’t a librarian in the usual sense. Following the previous incumbent’s departure, his library needed to be completely recatalogued and reorganized. The volumes of fiction, essays, and history were thick with dust, and those on theology had colonized all the rooms in the house to a greater or lesser extent. The day before, he’d found the homilies of St. John Chrysostom in the pantry, between jars of jam and packets of lentils. How had they got there? It was difficult to know. It could have been the children—they treated books as if they were notebooks or boxes of pencils; but it could just as easily have been him. It wouldn’t be the first time, and it probably wouldn’t be the last. And he had to admit that these were the consequences of his own rules.
He vividly recalled his father’s prohibition on the removal of books from the library. This had meant that he and his siblings had had to choose between fresh air and reading. Thus, he had spent the afternoons of his childhood with Jules Verne, Alexandre Dumas, Robert Louis Stevenson, Homer, Walter Scott. Outside, in the sunshine, the other children yelled and ran around, but he was always indoors, reading, immersed in worlds of which the others had barely an inkling. Years later, returning home after a long absence, he had abolished this rule. He loved to watch the children reading in the sun, stretched out on the lawn, perched in the comfortable old branches of a tree, munching on apples, devouring buttered toast, leaving sticky fingerprints on his beloved books.
“I hope you’ve settled in comfortably,” he said politely, to break the ice.
“Very comfortably, thank you,” she replied. “But I’m afraid I won’t be staying.”
“Not staying?”
“There are too many questions in the air,” said Miss Prim, raising her chin slightly.
“I don’t understand,” he said amiably. “But if I can satisfy your curiosity, I’m at your disposal. I thought we’d come to an agreement.”
At the wordcuriosity,her expression hardened.
“It’s not curiosity. I just don’t know what kind of family this is. I’ve seen several children not in school. Generally, several children would be a major challenge for anyone, but several children in a wild state is, I believe, sheer folly.”
“So you’ve been struck by the lack of schooling,” he muttered, frowning slightly. “Very well, Miss Prim, you’re right: if you’re going to work here you’re entitled to know what kind of household this is, though I must remind you that the children will not be in your charge. Their care is not part of your duties.”
“I know, sir, but the children—how can I put it?—exist.”
“Indeed they exist and, as the days pass, you’ll grow increasingly aware of their existence.”
“Do you mean they’re ill mannered?”
“I mean that the children are my life.”
His reply caught her off guard. Despite her first impressions, there seemed to be a glimmer of delicacy in the man, much more so than she could have imagined—a strange, austere, intense delicacy.
“Are... are the children yours? I mean, some of them?”
“Are you asking if I’m their father? No, I’m not. Four of them are my sister’s children, but I’ve been their guardian since she died about five years ago. The rest are from the village, and they come here for lessons two or three times a week.”
Miss Prim looked down tactfully: now she understood everything. Now she could see why the children were being educated at home instead of at school. This was clearly a case of what modern psychology called prolonged grief disorder. A sad situation, undoubtedly, but absolutely no excuse for such behavior. Homeschooling wasn’t good for children and, though it might be difficult or even embarrassing to talk about it, she knew it was her duty to do so.
“I’m terribly sorry for your loss,” she said as if addressing a wounded animal, “but you shouldn’t shut yourself away with your grief. You have to think of your nephews and nieces, of them and their future. You can’t let your own sorrow lock them up inside this house and deprive them of a decent education.”
He stared at her for a moment uncomprehendingly. Then he looked down and shook his head, smiling briefly.
Prudencia, who wasn’t given to romanticizing, surprised herself by reflecting how an unexpected smile could light up a dark room.
“A decent education? You think I’m a sad man who’s holding on to his nephews and nieces, not letting them go to school so as not to feel lonely, is that so?”
“Is it?” she replied with a note of caution.
“No, it isn’t.”
The man went to the drinks cabinet by the window, in which a dozen fine crystal flutes and six heavy whiskey tumblers stood alongside an array of wines and liqueurs.
