He went back to the King's Head, found Hartley, told him Friday's return was now moved to Saturday, ate a solitary supper in the private dining room, read Thomas Buley's composition book a third time, and did not examine why he was doing this with any more rigor than the situation required.
He came back on Friday, and on Saturday. And on Sunday, he attended the Rothbury church and sat three rows behind Agnes Burch and her Sunday class of children, who sang the psalm responses with the enthusiastic imprecision of children who genuinely wanted to and were not being managed.This was not the plan.The plan had been two days and a closure notice. The plan had been revised in increments by a series of specific things: Thomas Buley's candle, Nell Hartley's arithmetic, 214 children in eleven years, and the specific quality of a woman who had said, "Effective and honest are different things," and meant it from the same place she meant everything else—which was a place that was not managing anything.He was aware that his presence in Rothbury had become a social event. The village was not large, and he was not inconspicuous, and the King's Head's best private dining room was occupied by a Marquis who was supposed to have left on Thursday and had shown no signs of leaving. He was also aware that his extended presence was being interpreted by the village according to the available social script, which contained a limited number of plots, and only one of which accounted for a wealthy nobleman staying five days beyond his stated departure.He was not certain the village was wrong.On Monday morning, he arrived at the foundation at 8:00, not 9:00—not at the civilized hour of an inspection, but at the opening hour: the hour when Agnes arrived, unlocked the building, set the fires, arranged the materials, and did the thirty minutes of work that preceded the children and that no one, as far as he could determine, had ever witnessed.He found her in the act of writing the day's questions on the large slate at the front of the room. She heard him at the door and turned without the start of a woman caught at something private. She had, he had observed, a specific quality of unstartleability: the composure of a person who has arranged their interior life so thoroughly that the exterior rarely produced genuine surprise."My lord," she said."Miss Burch." He came into the room. "I wanted to speak with you before the children arrive.""You have made your decision," she said. It was not a question."I have made my decision," he confirmed.He came to stand near the front of the room, which put him in the position she occupied when she taught: the slates, the benches, and the small flags on the map. And the perspective was different from that position than from the doorway or the desk: it was the view of the room that she had every day—the thirty-seven empty seats about to be filled."The foundation will continue," he said. "The endowment will be increased to cover the current shortfall and the capital repair backlog. I will instruct Hartley to draw up the revised settlement this week." He paused. "I am also, subject to further investigation, considering a permanent endowment revision that would eliminate the annual uncertainty. I want to review the legal structure before I commit to a specific arrangement."He Came to Close Her School — But She Opened His Heart
He Came to Close Her School — But She Opened His Heart
Chapter 7
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