Chapter 6
News of Mr. Mott’s disappearance shattered the peace of San Ireneo with the abrupt violence of a punch in the solar plexus.
Miss Prim heard about it at the butcher’s.
She was buying an enormous turkey which she intended to roast for Christmas dinner—behind the cook’s back, though she wasn’t quite sure yet how she would accomplish this.
“I never liked him,” declared the butcher. “I said as much when I saw the way he served his customers. He always seemed to be looking past you, like a caged lion dying to escape. Poor Miss Mott, men like that never change.”
The librarian dashed out of the shop and ran to the schoolhouse.
Reaching the front door, she stopped short, out of breath, not daring to ring the bell.
She just stood, in silence, the huge turkey in her arms. Movements behind the net curtains, slow and furtive, raised her hopes that someone had seen she was there.
A few minutes later the door opened and the Man in the Wing Chair, looking grave, asked if she would like to come in.
“So he’s gone?” she said, still breathless from running with the heavy turkey.
The classroom was deserted. There were no children, no overalls, or pencil boxes, or chalk at the blackboard, or maps, or wooden models for geometry. A shiver ran down the librarian’s spine. Who had left? Mr. or Mrs. Mott?
“They’ve both gone,” said the Man in the Wing Chair slowly as the two of them each sank into a diminutive classroom chair, “but not together, I’m afraid. Maybe my mother was right, after all. I’m so sorry for Eugenia. She didn’t deserve this.”
Miss Prim felt pity for the schoolteacher, though she still didn’t understand what had gone on.
“Where has Miss Mott gone? What’s happened?”
“Mr. Mott has done it again. He didn’t come home last night. He left her a note saying that he’d tried, but he felt trapped. She’s packed her bags and gone to her sister’s. I don’t think she’ll come back.”
The librarian looked at her employer sympathetically. She slid out of her seat and went to sit beside him.
“I think you’re too intelligent to feel guilty.”
He looked up at her and smiled absently.
“I don’t feel guilty, I feel responsible. Eugenia is a very romantic, fragile woman. She’s so sensitive. I should have been more cautious and given her better advice.”
On hearing the word sensitive, Miss Prim flinched.
“What’s wrong with sensitivity?”
“Absolutely nothing. It’s a wonderful quality, but it’s not ideal for thinking.”
“Do you mean that we sensitive people don’t know how to think?”
The Man in the Wing Chair looked at her again, this time with curiosity.
“Ah, so we’re talking about you, are we?”
Prudencia reddened and began to rise from her chair, but he stopped her.
“Of course we’re not talking about me,” she said, head held high, “it’s just that I don’t understand what sensitivity’s got to do with imprudence, naìveté, or lack of judgment, which is what I think you mean when speaking about poor Miss Mott.”
“Sensitivity is a gift, Prudencia, I’m perfectly well aware of that.
But it’s not a suitable tool for guiding thought, when it can be disastrous.
It’s the same with ears and food. A wonderful organ, the ear.
A miracle of design, intended down to its last cell to facilitate hearing, but try using it to eat with and see how you get on. ”
She laughed, causing her companion to give a genuine smile for the first time.
“So you think that Eugenia Mott was trying to eat with her ears and you weren’t strong, or skillful, or responsible enough to tell her so? Is that it?”
“It doesn’t sound very flattering, but I suppose that is it.”
After a few moments’ reflection, Miss Prim suddenly rose and turned to face her employer.
“Well, let me tell you, you’re incredibly arrogant.”
He looked up, shocked by this outburst and the triumphant grin on her face.
“Are you trying to start an argument?” he asked in disbelief. “Because if you are, I have to warn you, this is the wrong day for it.”
“Not at all,” she replied. “I’m just trying to help.
You should know that the world doesn’t run on your advice.
It might seem strange, but that’s the way it is.
Yes, you may impress some and dazzle others with your learning and those good manners, even when you’re being self-important, but don’t delude yourself.
The people around you listen but that doesn’t mean they always do what you say. ”
The Man in the Wing Chair now looked confused. Taking advantage of this, she went on.
“There’s no point denying it. This morning you got up convinced that Eugenia Mott’s unhappiness was entirely down to you and your supposed irresponsibility.
This not only places a huge, unwarranted burden on your shoulders but also shows an excessive regard for your own opinion, if you don’t mind my saying so. ”
“Would it make any difference if I did mind?”
Miss Prim paused, apparently pleased with the effect of her words.
She realized she’d managed to change his mood.
Miss Mott’s plight was very sad and Miss Prim felt profoundly sorry.
But she was sure that he had acted loyally and properly in advising the teacher as he had, and Miss Prim wasn’t prepared to let him berate himself.
Now he was slightly angry with her, but at least he no longer appeared dejected and his voice had recovered the beat of war drums that had so alarmed her when they’d first met.
But this wasn’t enough. She had to continue the attack. And she knew exactly how to do it.
“Why have you kept Louisa May Alcott out of Teseris’s and Eksi’s lives?” she demanded out of the blue.
“What?” His tone was quite different. “Prudencia, what is the matter with you? Did you have enough breakfast?”
“Quite enough, thank you. So tell me, why?”
He stared at her for a moment in silence.
“If I weren’t a gentleman, I’d take your temperature right now. What on earth are you talking about?”
“I’m talking about Little Women, of course.”
“Little Women? What the hell has Little Women got to do with it?”
The librarian cleared her throat, to buy herself some time.
“It’s got nothing to do with it directly.”
He stared at her in growing disbelief.
“I’m waiting for you to explain.”
“Let me see,” Miss Prim summoned all her powers of improvisation and looked gravely at the Man in the Wing Chair. “In a way, we are what we read.”
“I’m sorry?”
“I’m saying that in a way we are the product of our reading.”
“Really? That’s very interesting, and it gives me some ideas about you.”
She drew herself up, determined not to be browbeaten.
“We’re not talking about me, we’re talking about Miss Mott.”
“I was under the impression we were talking about Louisa May Alcott.”
“You don’t see any connection between what’s happened to Eugenia and what she’s read, is that right?”
“That’s right, I don’t.” The Man in the Wing Chair looked at the floor, a grin playing across his lips.
“Prudencia, if you’re trying to distract me with a deliberately preposterous argument so that I stop regretting my part in Eugenia’s misfortune, believe me I’m grateful.
But don’t try to make me accept this nonsense about our being what we read. It’s not worthy of you.”
She began pacing around the classroom in an agitated fashion.
“I don’t think it’s nonsense. I can’t speak for you, but for myself I can say that my personality has been molded to a large extent by the books I’ve read.
That’s why,” she said, wringing her hands, “it concerns me to find gaps in the girls’ literary education.
I’m not saying they’re deliberate gaps—maybe I was too hasty—but they are gaps nonetheless.
And they’re no doubt due to the fact that, hard as you might try, you are not a woman. ”
“Hard as I might try?”
Miss Prim made a face.
“What I mean is—”
“I know perfectly well what you mean. My dear Prudencia,” the Man in the Wing Chair laughed as he noticed the turkey for the first time, “if anyone’s concerned about the role of literature in the children’s lives, it’s me.
I’ve carefully chosen not only which books, but when and how they become part of my nieces’ and nephews’ existence. ”
The librarian was about to speak, but he stopped her with a decisive glance.
“Despite the chaos you see in my library and in my house in general—the mess that bothers you so greatly—there’s not so much as a single improvised comma in the children’s education.
Every book that passes through their hands has passed through mine first. It’s no coincidence that they read Lewis Carroll before Dickens, and Dickens before Homer.
There was nothing fortuitous in the fact that they learned to rhyme with Robert Louis Stevenson before getting to Tennyson, and that they were introduced to Tennyson before Virgil.
They met Snow White, Peter Rabbit, and the Lost Boys before Oliver Twist, Gulliver, and Robinson Crusoe, and those before Ulysses, Don Quixote, Faust, and King Lear.
They read things in that order because that’s what I wanted.
They’re being brought up with good books so that later they can absorb great books.
And, by the way, before you start expounding your annoying, cerebral educational theories, I know perfectly well that every child is different.
That’s why they set the pace, not me. But the rungs on the ladder they’re climbing have been put there by me, using the experience accumulated over centuries by others before me.
Others to whom I’m profoundly grateful.”
Miss Prim, who’d listened carefully, cleared her throat gently before speaking.
“And Little Women? Where does it fit into this plan? I’m sure it doesn’t count as a great book, but I hope there’s room for it in the good books category.”
“No, I have to admit that there isn’t.”