“Are you sure you’re not firing Chip so they’ll like you?”

“I’m firing him because that’s my duty.”

Ruth’s expression was one of perplexity mixed with benevolent concern, as if she had come across a strain of mildly aberrant behavior that was new to her. “Do you think you’d be behaving like this if your knees weren’t painful? You know it’s probably affecting you. As for those meetings—”

“This has nothing to do with my knees and nothing to do with the meetings.” Hawthorne gave each word the same emphasis, creating a staccato effect. “Now what were you saying about candles in the dormitory?”

Ruth was in charge of Smithfield, Jessica’s cottage, and she had come to Hawthorne with a complaint from Helen Selkirk that her roommate was burning candles and using foul language. Because of the danger of fire in the wooden buildings, candles were not allowed. Ruth had already spoken to Jessica about this several times.

“Jessica keeps burning a candle in her lower bunk. Helen’s been very worried. When I speak to Jessica, she’s rude to me as well. We can’t let students use candles. Smithfield would go up like a tinderbox.” Ruth glanced at Hawthorne’s right arm, then looked away.

Hawthorne, following Ruth’s glance, looked at it as well. He flexed his fingers, then relaxed them. Hawthorne’s eyes reminded Ruth of caves of blue water. She tried to see if there was sadness, even fear. But she could see no emotion at all, only resolution. Later, however, she would tell friends that she had seen not only sadness and fear but also something unstable, something that she couldn’t really put a name to but that frightened her.

“Tell the girl to come and see me. Who was it again?”

“Jessica Weaver. She’s new.”

“Oh,” said Hawthorne, “that one.”

—

Clifford Evings tried not to smoke in his office but sometimes he really couldn’t help it. “Do you mind?” he asked Ruth Standish as he reached into his coat pocket. Officially he was Ruth’s superior, but he had always been a little afraid of her. Her very bigness was offputting and she seemed so sure of herself, while he had so many doubts.

“If you have to.” She made a disapproving face.

“I have a little air purifier. Nobody will know.”

Ruth didn’t answer. It was Friday morning and she had come to Evings from the teachers’ lounge, where everyone was talking about Chip’s being fired.

“I must say I was shocked by how fast Jim acted. Most people are given more chances, especially someone with Chip’s history at the school. I’m sure the boy provoked him.”

“And he fired him just like that?” Evings was appalled. “Bennett said something about it at the faculty meeting, but I just didn’t believe it.”

“Technically he’s suspended, but Jim said he’d insist that the board dismiss Chip.”

“I had no idea he disliked him so much.” Evings lit his cigarette, squinting a little and tilting his head to keep the smoke from his eyes. Then he blew the smoke up toward the ceiling. They sat in the two wing chairs before the fireplace. The portrait of Ambrose Stark stared down crossly.

“I don’t believe he has anything against Chip in particular. He probably thought he had to set an example: emphasizing the principle over the person. And of course Chip has missed every single faculty meeting. But I can’t help feeling that Jim’s injury has something to do with it. I saw him go into the infirmary. You know how it is when you’re hurt. Everything gets affected and you’re in a bad mood. And now he has this cane.”

“Roger did it on purpose?”

“No, no, Ted Wrigley swears it was an accident. He was simply clumsy.” Ruth described what she had heard about the basketball game. Her tone suggested that if headmasters were going to play games with students, then they were asking for trouble. “Dr. Pendergast certainly wouldn’t have played basketball,” she concluded. “He wouldn’t play anything. Not that he was perfect, of course.”

“I’m told he’s writing a book about us.”

“That’s what people are saying—he’s doing one of those psychological dissections, the sort of thing I had to read in graduate school.”

Evings thought of Hawthorne’s visit the previous week with dismay. “He came in here last week with some wild story about a hanged cat. I couldn’t make any sense of it. I thought of course that he came in to see what I was doing. And I wasn’t doing anything. I mean, nothing he’d object to. Like smoking, though I’m not the only one. Who smokes, that is. I expect none of us are safe. He’s already talking about hiring another psychologist.”

“Certainly reevaluations will be in order.”

Ruth’s tone was slightly arch and Evings wondered what she meant by it. But even before she mentioned the other counselor, Evings knew it was coming.

“I know he’s spoken to Bobby several times—purely about students, of course. I don’t know if he’s aware of your . . . relationship.”

Evings gently gnawed the back of his thumb and then puffed on his cigarette without pleasure. He went behind his desk and turned on the air purifier. If he was fired, he wouldn’t know what to do.

Robert Newland was the other mental health counselor and had been hired by Evings two years earlier. The men were a couple, although they didn’t live together. Each was in charge of one of the dormitory cottages, where they had rooms. Mostly, however, they were together. Bobby was a tall, gangly man in his forties whose bland round face displayed a small mustache and goatee. He had a B.A. in psychology from Tufts but no graduate degree. Evings felt sure that if he was dismissed Ruth, who had been at the school longer than Bobby and had a master’s, would take over as head of psychological services. This seemed to be her ambition.

Before Bobby came to the school there had been occasional rumors about a romantic connection between Evings and one gay student or another, although it was no more than speculation. He didn’t think anything could be proven. He hadn’t heard from the students for years, and now, obviously, they were adults. But he knew how things could turn up after you thought they were over and done with. He’d had that sort of experience before. And if anything was said against him and one of those old students suddenly reappeared, well, he could be in a difficult situation.

Evings regretted his confession to Hawthorne. Why on earth had he said he was bad at his job? He imagined Hawthorne scurrying back to his office and writing it all down. Perhaps he had a little tape recorder hidden in his pocket. Evings felt sure that his connection with Bishop’s Hill was about to be severed. Roger Bennett had almost said as much, as had others. Certain reevaluations would be in order—what a nice way of putting it. And had it been entirely ethical for Evings to hire Bobby, who had never worked as a counselor before coming to Bishop’s Hill? When Evings had met him on Martha’s Vineyard, Bobby had been a waiter. Not even a headwaiter, at that. But the next summer Bobby had taken two classes at Plymouth State and then joined the staff. Skander had told them that Bobby’s job was safe, but Skander wasn’t in charge anymore.

“I knew this would happen as soon as I heard that Skander wasn’t going to be named headmaster,” said Evings, stubbing out his cigarette.

“Knew what would happen?” asked Ruth, still with her arch expression.

“Knew that our positions weren’t secure. Wasn’t that what people said? That man is going to turn the whole school upside down. I bet it won’t even be a small book—I’ll probably have a chapter all to myself, me and Bobby. With pictures.”

Ruth patted her hair, which was a rich brown and fell to her shoulders in thick waves. “Well, I don’t feel I’m at risk. I put in a full week and I’m busy on weekends as well. Nobody can make a complaint about me that I can’t defend myself against and, unlike some, I don’t fall asleep at faculty meetings.” She gave a little laugh to show the remark was purely collegial.