The Headmaster (5 page)

“He needs a wife,” Laird agreed. “Someone younger than him so she can keep up with him. I caught him reading Shakespeare’s First Folio in the northwest turret last week. He was correcting it.”

“Younger. Definitely. And pretty. But she has to be smart, too,” Christopher said. “He’d go bonkers unless he had a smart wife. He needs someone to lecture to.”

“Pontificate at even,” Laird said.

“Someone who isn’t us,” Christopher said.

“Boys? Can I ask you a question?” Gwen asked.

“Anything, Miss Ashby.”

“Did you cajole Headmaster Yorke into hiring a new literature teacher because you need a new English literature teacher? Or are you all trying to play matchmaker for the headmaster?”

Christopher looked at Laird. Laird looked at Christopher. They both looked at her. This was becoming a habit of theirs.

“Yes.”

Chapter Five

After Gwen kicked the welcoming committee off her porch, she spent all of Friday evening settling into the cottage. On Saturday she had breakfast in the school dining hall—coffee, eggs and an English muffin. The rest of the day she wrote out her lecture notes on
Great Expectations.
It wasn’t until she written ten pages of notes that she realized she hadn’t yet checked to see if they had any copies of the book in stock at the school.

Oops.

She ran to the library in Hawkwood Hall to see what books they had on hand she could teach, and found it well stocked with all the great classics. All the great classics written before 1900, that is. She’d found Mr. Reynolds, a wizened gentleman with a cane, and asked him where all the Hemingway, Faulkner and Fitzgerald books were.

“Headmaster Yorke doesn’t approve of modern literature,” he’d said. “I hide them in the back.”

“Modern literature? Hemingway? Modern?” Gwen laughed. “He’s hardly Franzen or Foer.”

“Who?” Mr. Reynolds asked. He adjusted his eyeglasses. They had thick lenses and black frames. They looked like the sort of glasses her grandfather had worn while in the army. He had a hawk nose and a willowy rasp to his voice. He could have been anywhere between sixty and a hundred years old. Gwen guessed closer to one hundred.

“What about
Great Expectations?
I’ll need thirty copies of it.”

“Of course,” said Mr. Reynolds. “I have them right here.”

He passed a box to her, the books already inside.

“You have them? All of them? Boxed up already?” She was torn between suspicion and delight. Mostly delight.

“We have every book you’ll need,” Mr. Reynolds said with a wink behind his Coke-bottle glasses. “Just ask.”

“Every book I’ll ever need? Sounds like Heaven,” she said with smile.

“It’s a library,” he said. “To me it’s the same thing.”

That was the moment Gwen knew she had to stay at this school the rest of her life. These were her people.

Gwen signed a slip of paper for her books, and Mr. Reynolds peeled off the carbon copy and gave it to her. Carbon copies? Hilarious. One more bit of antiquity that had survived and thrived at Marshal. This school was weird, but it was a good kind of weird. Her kind of weird.

Headmaster Yorke seemed determined to give his students a classical education. No modern technology was in sight. Apart from electricity and one ancient-looking telephone on the third floor of the main building, she’d seen no technology at all. No cell phones, no laptops, no Kindles or iPads or anything. Instead students read leather-bound hardcover books and wrote diligently while hunched over in the library study carrels. From the kitchen window in her cottage, she saw some students out on the lawn playing a stripped-down version of baseball. No catcher, just a pitcher and batter and a few boys scattered around the bases. Their laughter and playful insults kept her entertained for an hour.

That evening she had a quick dinner in the dining hall. She sat with Mr. Price, who told her all about his years at Marshal. He’d been here twenty years, he’d said, and loved every single day here.

“And Headmaster Yorke,” she asked, trying to keep her voice neutral. “How long has he been here?”

“Ten years,” Mr. Price said. “We worried that the new headmaster was an English gentleman when he came. Didn’t know if he’d melt in the heat.”

“Doesn’t look like he did.” Gwen glanced across the room where Headmaster Yorke stood in quiet conversation with another student. The student had a notebook in his hand, and he and Headmaster Yorke appeared to be going over a bit of homework.

“He surprised us all. Took to this place like a duck to water. Never met a more dedicated headmaster in my life. Good man.”

“Good man when he’s not threatening to murder the students, right?” she teased.

Mr. Price chuckled. “My dear, that man would die for these boys and they know it. I can’t tell who’s more loyal to whom—the headmaster to the students, or the students to the headmaster.”

Loyal? What a strange word to use about high school students and their principal. Had she felt any loyalty to her teachers? Not that she recalled. Affection? Yes. But loyalty? It was a military term almost. Patriots were loyal. Soldiers were loyal. Did the students consider themselves squires, young knights-in-training loyal to King Edwin of Yorke? He certainly had a regal bearing to him. Head high, strong jaw, perfect posture, broad shoulders that belonged on a soldier far more than a teacher. And such penetrating eyes. Every few moments he’d glance her way, and she felt his gaze on her as much as she saw it.

What was he trying to see when he looked at her? She didn’t know, but she did love the way he looked at her. She wondered if he was lonely here at the school with all this responsibility and no one to share it with. Maybe she could ease his burdens a bit by taking over the literature classes. He fascinated her. What brought a man all the way from England to become headmaster of a boarding school of only sixty students in the middle of nowhere? And was he divorced, or were Laird and Christopher just guessing? If he was divorced, what happened? Did she come with him to America and hate it here? Did he leave her? Did she leave him? Gwen could certainly sympathize with being left behind. They should talk about it, get to know each other. If he was half as good and noble as Mr. Price said Headmaster Yorke was, she could only benefit by befriending him. If he was a king and the students his knights, surely he could use a lady in his court.

Gwen returned to her cottage after dinner and started to reread
Great Expectations
for the third time in her life. She hadn’t liked the book when she read it during her high school days. But a professor in college had opened the book up to her, showed her its secrets. Now she loved it, and hoped the boys would love it, too.

So engrossed was she in her reading that when a knock sounded on the door, she nearly jumped out of her skin again.

“Stop doing that, Gwen,” she chided herself. She was going to have to get used to how quiet it was out here in the foothills of the mountains. Breathing deep to calm her racing heart, she walked to the door and opened it expecting to find Laird and Christopher standing on her porch again. But no, it was Headmaster Yorke who stood on the other side. So much for calming her down. Her heart raced faster in his presence. She really needed to have a long talk with her heart about that bad habit.

“Why on earth did you do that?” Headmaster Yorke demanded. Even at eight in the evening on a Saturday he had on his three-piece suit, whereas she’d thrown on jeans and a T-shirt.

“Do what?”

“Open the door.”

“You knocked.”

“Yes, but you didn’t enquire first who was outside your door, did you? I could have been a murderer after all.”

Gwen narrowed her eyes at him.

“If there was a murderer standing on my porch, do you think he would volunteer that information to me?” Gwen asked.

“You should still ask before you open the door.”

“Oh, fine,” she said and slammed the door in his face.

The knock sounded again.

“Who is it?” she asked, singing the words in a playful mocking trill.

“Jack the Ripper,” came the reply.

She opened the door.

“Good Lord, young lady. You
are
trying to get murdered,” he said with utter disappointment written all over his face. Utter disappointment looked so handsome on his face she resolved to disappoint him again.

“I think Jack the Ripper is fascinating. I’d love to talk to him.”

“Before or after he murders you?”

“Either. Would you like to come in, Headmaster?”

“That would be highly inappropriate.”

“Mr. Price was in here earlier today helping me with the stove. Mr. Reynolds and I are having tea together tomorrow.”

“Mr. Price and Mr. Reynolds are both widowed and elderly.”

“Whereas you are young, handsome and single, and your students are trying to find you a wife,” Gwen said.

“None of that is true,” he said, standing up straighter.

“I beg to differ,” Gwen said.

“I’m old, ugly and I have been married.”

“You don’t look a day over forty, you’re very attractive and the boys volunteered the information you are divorced. That makes you single whether you like it or not.”

Headmaster Yorke took a deep, steadying breath.

“Miss Ashby.”

“You can call me Gwen,” she said.

“I don’t like that name,” he replied coldly.

“Would you like to change it?”

He narrowed his eyes at her.

“I suppose I could call you Gwendolyn?”

“You can,” she said. “Gwendolyn Anne Ashby, at your service.”

“Miss Ashby it is, then.”

Headmaster Yorke continued to stand on her porch looking handsome and grumpy all at once. She’d probably faint if she ever saw him smile. Such an occasion would be well worth the injury.

“I came here for a reason,” he finally said.

“Did you?”

“Yes. I can’t recall what it was, however.”

“Was it to have tea with me?”

“I would never have tea with you. That would be highly—”

“Inappropriate?”

“Quite.”

“Of course it would. Tea is a well-known cause of inequity and concupiscence.”

The headmaster’s eyes widened.

“I’m an English teacher,” she reminded him. “I know big words. Have you remembered why you came here yet?”

“Not yet.”

“Maybe you’re here to discuss how awkward it is that your students are trying to set us up?”

“No, it wasn’t that.”

“You wanted to do the gentlemanly thing and see how I was settling in? Ask me if I needed assistance or if you could make my stay here more comfortable?” she asked. Maybe make out with her on the sofa in the living room? She’d keep that last question to herself.

“No, that wasn’t it either.”

“Didn’t think so.”

Headmaster Yorke glared at her.

“What?” she asked with feigned innocence. “You weren’t by chance coming to see me just to see me were you?”

“No…no, of course not.”

“What was I thinking?”

“Are you settling in?” he asked, seemingly giving up on remembering his real reason for coming to her cottage. “Can I assist you with anything?”

“No, I’m fine. I really like it here. I thought I’d be bored with no internet and no television. But it’s weird…I feel like I can think more clearly out here.”

“One can hear oneself think out here. Although that’s not always preferable.”

Gwen leaned against the doorway and crossed her arms over her chest.

“I guess as headmaster you have a lot on your mind all the time.”

“I take care of sixty teenage boys.”

Gwen laughed and nodded.

“They’re good kids. I can already tell.”

“Thank you. I’m very proud of them.”

“Do you have any kids of your own?” Gwen asked.

The headmaster shook his head. “No. And the boys are more than enough for me.”

“I would imagine so.”

“I assume you have no children?”

“No, never been married. I love teaching children, so I’ve felt like a parent in a way. Except I get to send them home.”

“No sending them home from here. They have their breaks but they’re here year-round.”

“And they like that? Being here year-round?”

“Many of them don’t have a choice. Half the student body are orphans, like yourself. They’re here on full scholarships. They have nowhere else to go.”

“Half the students are orphans?” Gwen could scarcely believe it. “Even Laird?” She couldn’t believe a boy with such a buoyant spirit had lost his family.

“No. But his situation is equally unfortunate. And entirely confidential. Needless to say he wasn’t safe at his previous home. He’s safe now. I’ve seen to it.”

“Can I say something?”

“I can’t imagine I could stop you if I wanted to.”

“I like you.”

“That’s a terrible thing to say.”

“Why?” Gwen asked, laughing.

“It’s for the best you don’t like me, Miss Ashby. And it’s certainly for the best that I don’t like you.”

“Because you’re the headmaster here? It’s okay. We can be friends, right?”

“The boys very much want you here. But they’re young. Many of them have lost their mothers so they wish to have a woman on campus again. But they don’t quite understand the sort of sacrifice you would have to make to stay here.”

“Look, I know this place is a bit out of the way. And it’s certainly a different kind of school than I’ve ever taught at. But it’s not a sacrifice by any stretch of the imagination. All any teacher wants is a room full of intelligent and eager students and a principal who will trust her teaching methods.”

“I haven’t seen your teaching methods, Miss Ashby. I’m not easily impressed.”

“Do you have any advice?”

“Pardon me?” Headmaster Yorke looked at her as if she’d suddenly grown a second head.

“I said, do you have any advice? You’ve been here ten years. You know all the students personally. Surely you have some advice,” she said, hoping to steer him away from any conversations about her leaving the school.

“I do have advice. A plethora of advice.”

“I’d love it if you shared your overflowing cornucopia of wisdom with me,” Gwen said trying to maintain a straight face. “Perhaps over tea in the kitchen?”