She wasn’t sure she was up to the task. Nicky’s passing had left a gaping wound in her heart that was yet to heal. She dared not examine and prod it while she was in company. It was toopainful — too raw. Remembering Nicky was something she only dared to do when she was alone and no one could hear her cry. She thought of Drake. She had spoken to Drake about him, but he was different from everyone else.
‘I think it will be good for you to write about your brother,’ insisted Mr Burrows.
Perhaps Mr Burrows was right. Not wishing to displease him, Evelyn slowly lifted the lid of her desk and withdrew a sheet of paper, an inkpot and her pen. She placed them carefully on the closed lid and looked at them. Yes, perhaps he was right. She would think of all the good times they had together and how much she missed him. She dipped her pen in the inkpot, aware of an aching sadness in her chest that threatened to rise up to claw at her throat. Evelyn swallowed it down. She would write about the time they found a sickly bird and Nicky had taken it to the stables to nurse it back to health.
‘I want you to write about the times you hated your brother,’ interrupted her tutor. ‘I want you to list all those bad memories so you can cleanse yourself of such feelings.’
Evelyn paused and looked up. Had she heard him right? ‘But I didn’t hate him, Mr Burrows. I don’t want to write bad things about him.’
‘Are you refusing?’ he asked evenly.
His tone was ambiguous, his mood unclear, but Evelyn saw a steely hardness to his pale grey eyes, which she had not seen before. She must have displeased him.
‘No, Mr Burrows. It just feels wrong.’
He did not answer as he considered her reply. Suddenly his expression softened as he eased himself off the desk.
‘It will help you in your time of grief. I understand you are suffering. You do well not to show it, but I can see that Nicholas’s death has come as a blow to you. Nicholas was an exceptional child. You must miss him greatly, but I truly believe that if youvent your anger and express your hatred for him . . .’ he saw Evelyn’s horrified expression ‘. . . you will feel better for it. There is no need to feel ashamed. We all feel hatred, Evelyn. Some people more than others.’
Tears threatened. Again Evelyn swallowed them down. Mr Burrows had acknowledged her grief, something her own parents had difficulty doing. Perhaps he was right. Perhaps doing as he said would help — somehow. Evelyn hesitantly took up her pen. There was the time he had hidden her doll. He had given it back to her, but it had upset her greatly at the time. She began to write, her pen moving haltingly across the paper. She looked up, anxious to see if her tutor was content. Mr Burrows gave a rigid nod for more. Evelyn refocused her thoughts on her memories. Then there was the time they had rowed. She couldn’t remember what it was about, but they had rowed — once or twice. She began to write again.
If writing about such memories were meant to help her, she did not feel the benefit of it. With each word her wretchedness grew, with each thought her loss felt more raw and during the entire ordeal she felt Nicky was watching over her and feeling more and more betrayed with each stroke of her pen. Finally it was over and Evelyn waited in glum silence as Mr Burrows collected her work and returned to his desk. Even her natural desire for his good opinion had deserted her and she was unable to look as he put on his spectacles to examine her work. When he had finished, he lowered the paper and carefully removed them.
‘Well, Miss Evelyn. I am surprised by this,’ he said, indicating to the paper in his hand with a wave of the other. ‘I knew Nicholas well. This is nothing short of a character assassination.’
Evelyn felt terrible. She had gone too far when all the time she had been fearful Mr Burrows would expect more from her than she could bring herself to write. She had confided too muchand now he was appalled by her thoughts. She was a very bad sister to say such things. An invisible blanket of shame quickly settled over Evelyn. Her shoulders rounded as she felt its heavy weight and sunk lower in her chair.
Mr Burrows approached her desk and lent over it. She could feel his warm breath on her face as he reproached her. ‘These accusations are made out of jealousy and envy, not grief! You are a sinful child.’
Hair rose on the back of her neck, like a wave of fine needles pricking at her skin. Jealousy? Envy? At the time, perhaps, she had felt such emotions during their petty, although infrequent, arguments. Sins she had been warned about at every Sunday Service she had attended. She must be very wicked. Evelyn wanted the lesson to end.
Abruptly, Mr Burrows straightened and returned to his desk. ‘We will not discuss this again,’ he remarked, settling himself behind the desk, ‘other than to say, you have disappointed me, Evelyn. Disappointed me very much indeed.’
Mr Burrows did not speak of it again and the lesson subject seamlessly changed to mathematics. The remainder of the day went by without incident, but Evelyn found it difficult to shake off the sadness that she felt. Later, she reflected on the task Mr Burrows had set her. Mr Burrows had only been trying to help her, she concluded, but she had misunderstood and taken his direction too literally. She had done the task poorly and been too sensitive to his criticism and she must try harder to not let him down next time. However, Evelyn did not know it, but Mr Burrows’ challenging tasks had only just begun.
* * *
Mr Burrows was a clever man for he had carefully set the landscape on which to play his twisted games. Just like a boy who is entertained by pulling the legs from a spider, there wasno reason for his cruelty other than his own enjoyment at seeing Evelyn suffer.
In the first few months of educating Evelyn, he had secured her parents trust and gratitude, so should any future changes in his manner be reported, it would be hard to understand the reason unless there was a just cause. And as Evelyn was his only pupil, the just cause would naturally point to Evelyn herself.
The writing lesson was the beginning of his game, which gained momentum with well-practiced, insidious moves on his part. At first he increased her workload, by the amount, then difficulty and then the time given to complete it. Initially she was able to keep up, but eventually she began to struggle. Mistakes were made, tidiness suffered and each time Mr Burrows compared her to her beloved brother and found her wanting.
‘Nicholas would never make such a silly mistake,’ he would remark as he examined her work. ‘Nicholas knew this answer.’ ‘I can see Nicholas was the one gifted with the brains.’
His scornful remarks were cloaked in a tone full of pity, and Evelyn began to believe him, for he was the teacher with far more experience of the abilities of others than she. She was failing and her failure was seen by the servants, for Mr Burrows did not refrain from making his comments in their presence. She began to believe herself stupid, but dared not confess it to her parents. Her confidence was whittled away by each mistake and each comment and, worst of all, she even began to resent dear Nicholas himself.
At the beginning of the third month she was introduced to ‘The Master’. It entered her life suddenly, cracking the air and slamming down on her desk to mark the end of a test, narrowly missing her fingers in the process. From then on it was used frequently, whether on her desk, on her chair, on her palms or the backs of her legs, it made no difference. Each and every time surprised her, frightened her, hurt her and set her frazzlednerves even more on edge. ‘If only you would make more effort,’ she was told, ‘I would not have to discipline you in this way.’
By the fourth month she was made to march on the spot, ‘in order to improve your health’. He drilled her daily, for an hour, beating a rhythm out on his shoe with his cane as he sat with one leg hitched over the corner of his desk. Although it was now summer, she still wore her half-mourning which had been made in the colder months. He knew this and appeared to enjoy her discomfort, as she marched to his tune and grew hotter with each step.
By the time she finally found the courage to tell her parents, Mr Burrows had made his mark upon her. She became tongue-tied, expressed herself badly and her complaints even sounded lame to her own ears. It was difficult to convey the fear she felt, when the actual words her teacher spoke were harmless and not untrue.
Her parents listened with the knowledge that Nicholas had excelled in Mr Burrows care, but their daughter was not. Her father, fearful that she was not up to the task, suggested she should try harder. ‘There is nothing wrong with a flick of the cane, if it is used sparingly,’ he reassured her. ‘The threat of punishment is commonly used. Did we not both experience it at some point in our life?’ he said, turning to his wife. ‘And for the marching, if it helped to improve one’s fitness, that was all to the good.’
The opportunity to seek help was soon over and she returned to her room. And when Mr Burrows heard of her complaints the next day, he took out ‘The Master’and with each swipe on her calves, warned her never to tell lies again.
* * *
