The Chatham School Affair

by Thomas H. Cook

  I’d expected her eyes to shoot toward me at that moment, freeze me in a hideous glare, but she did not shift her attention from my father’s face. “Even so” was all she said.

  We left a few minutes later, and I didn’t say a single word to Miss Channing that morning, but only gazed at her stonily, my demeanor already forming into the hard shell it would assume on the day I testified against her, answering every question with the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth, knowing all the while that there was one question Mr. Parsons would never ask me, nor even remotely suspect that I had the answer to: What really happened on Black Pond that day?

  CHAPTER 30

  Miss Channing came to trial that August. During that interval I never saw her, nor knew of anyone who did. My father was now more or less banned from any further contact with her by my mother’s abject fury.

  As to the charges against her, the evidence was never very great. But bit by bit it was presented to the jury, tales of odd sightings and snatches of conversation, a portrait hung in a boathouse, an old primer curiously inscribed, a nautical map with what Mr. Parsons called an “escape route” already drawn, a boat named Elizabeth, a pile of letters hastily burned in an otherwise empty hearth, a knife, a piece of rope, a bottle of arsenic.

  Against all that, as well as Chatham’s ferocious need to “make someone pay,” Miss Channing stood alone. She listened as the witnesses were called, people who had seen and heard things distantly, as well as the more compelling testimony that I gave, shortly followed by my mother.

  Through it all she sat at the defense table in so deep a stillness, I half expected her not to rise when the time finally came and the bailiff called her to the stand.

  But she did rise, resolutely, her gaze trained on the witness box until she reached it and sat, waiting as Mr. Parsons approached her from across the room, the eyes of the jurors drifting from her face to her white, unmoving fingers, peering at them intently, as if looking for bloodstains on her hands.

  I will always remember that my father watched Miss Channing’s testimony with a tenderness so genuine that I later came to believe that understanding and forgiveness were the deepest passions that he knew.

  My mother’s expression was more severe, of course, less merciful thoughts no doubt playing in her mind—memories of people she had known, a husband’s career now in the balance, a school teetering on the brink of ruin. Her eyes were leveled with an unmistakable contempt upon the woman she held responsible for all that.

  As for me, I found that I glanced away from Miss Channing as she rose and walked toward the witness box, unable to bear the way she looked, so set upon and isolated that she resembled a figure out of ancient drama, Antigone or Medea, a woman headed for a sacrificial doom, and in relation to whom I felt like a shadow crouched behind a tapestry, the secret agent of her fall.

  She wore a long black dress that day, ruffled at the throat and at the ends of the sleeves. But more than her dress, more than the way she’d pulled back her hair and bound it tightly with a slender black ribbon, I noticed how little she resembled the young woman I’d seen get off a Boston bus nearly a year before, how darkly seasoned, as if she’d spent the last few weeks reviewing the very events about which she’d now, at her own insistence, been called to speak.

  I know now that even at that moment, and in the wake of such awesome devastation, some part of me still lingered in the throes of the high romantic purpose that had seized me on Black Pond, driven me to the reckless and destructive act I was still laboring to conceal. And yet, despite all the pain and death that had ensued, I still wanted Miss Channing to speak boldly of love and the right to love, use the same brave and uncompromising words her father had used in his book. I wanted her to rise and take the people of Chatham on like Hypatia had taken on the mobs of Alexandria, standing in her chariot, lashing at them with a long black whip. I wanted her to be as ruthless and determined with Mr. Parsons and all he represented as I had been toward Mrs. Reed, to justify, at least for a brief but towering moment, the dreadful thing that I’d done to her, and through her, to Sarah Doyle. For it seemed the only thing that might yet be salvaged from the wreckage of Black Pond, a fierce, shimmering moment when a woman stood her ground, defied the crowd, sounded the truth with a blazing trumpet. All else, it seemed to me, was death and ruin.

  But Miss Channing did not do what I wanted her to do on the stand that day. Instead, she meekly followed along as Mr. Parsons began to question her about the early stages of her “relationship” with Mr. Reed, convinced, as he was, that everything that had later transpired on Black Pond had begun in the quiet drives she and Mr. Reed had taken back and forth from Milford Cottage to their classes at Chatham School, their leisurely strolls into the village, the idle hours they’d spent together, seated on a bench on the coastal bluff, all of which had flowed like an evil stream toward what he insisted on calling the “murders” on Black Pond.

  Through it all, Miss Channing sat rigidly in place, her hands in her lap, as prim and proper as any maiden, her voice clear and steady, while she did the opposite of what I’d hoped, lied and lied and lied, shocking me with the depths of her lies, claiming that her relationship with Mr. Reed had never gone beyond “the limits of acceptable contact.”

  At those words, I saw myself again at Milford Cottage on a cold January day, her fingers trembling as she pressed them against Mr. Reed’s cheek, then, weeks later, in the cottage, the rain battering against the window, the anguish in her face when she’d said, “I can’t go on.” That she could now deny the depths of her own passion appalled me and filled me with a cold contempt, made everything I’d done, the unspeakably cruel step I’d taken on her behalf, seem like little more than a foolish adolescent act that had gone fatally awry.

  Watching her as she sat like a schoolmarm, politely responding to Mr. Parsons’ increasingly heated questions, I felt the full force of her betrayal. For I knew now how Mrs. Reed must have felt, that I had given love and devotion, and in return received nothing but lies and deception.

  And so I felt a kind of hatred rise in me, a sense that I’d been left to swing from the gallows of my own conscience, while Miss Channing now attempted to dismiss as mere fantasy that wild romantic love I’d so clearly seen and which it seemed her duty to defend, if not for me, then for Mr. Reed, perhaps even her own father.

  In such a mood, I began to root for Mr. Parsons as he worked to expose Miss Channing, ripping at her story even as she labored to tell it, continually interrupting her with harsh, accusatory questions. When you went driving with Mr. Reed, you knew he was married, didn’t you, Miss Channing? You knew he had a child?

  As she’d gone on to give her answers, I recalled the many times I’d seen her in Mr. Reed’s car, growing more animated as the days passed, happy when he dropped by her cottage on that snowy November day when we’d all eaten Sarah’s fruitcake together, happy to sit with him on the bluff, stroll with him along the village streets, chat with him in her classroom at the end of day. If, during all that, the “limits of acceptable contact” had never been breached, then I’d played my fatal card for nothing, worshipped at the altar of a love that had never truly existed, save in my own perfervid imagination.

  And yet, as Miss Channing continued, so self-contained and oddly persuasive, I began to wonder if indeed I had made it all up, seen things that weren’t there, eyes full of yearning, trembling fingers, a romantic agony that was only in my head.

  Because of that, I felt an immense relief sweep over me when Mr. Parsons suddenly asked, “Are you saying, Miss Channing, that you were never in love with Leland Reed?”

  Her answer came without the slightest hesitation:

  Witness: No. I am not saying that. I would never say that. I loved Leland Reed. I have never loved anyone else as I loved him.

  In a voice that seemed to have been hurled from Sinai, Mr. Parsons asked, “But you knew that he was married, didn’t you, Miss Channing? You knew he had a child?”

&nbs
p; Witness: Yes, of course I knew he was married and had a child.

  Mr. Parsons: And each time Mr. Reed left you—whether it was at your cottage or in some grove in the middle of a cemetery, or after you’d strolled along some secluded beach—he returned to the home across the pond that he shared with his wife and daughter, did he not?

  Witness: Yes, he did.

  Mr. Parsons: And what did the existence of a wife and child mean to you, Miss Channing?

  Her answer lifted me like a wild wind.

  Witness: It didn’t mean anything to me, Mr. Parsons. When you love someone the way I loved Leland Reed, nothing matters but that love.

  Heroic as her statement seemed to me, it was the opening Mr. Parsons had no doubt dreamed of, and he seized it.

  Mr. Parsons: But they did exist, didn’t they? Mrs. Reed and little Mary?

  Witness: Yes, they did.

  Mr. Parsons: And had Mr. Reed told you that he and Mrs. Reed had had terrible arguments during the past two weeks, and that his daughter had witnessed these arguments?

  Witness: No, he had not.

  Mr. Parsons: Had he told you that Mrs. Reed had become suspicious of his relationship with you?

  Witness: No.

  Mr. Parsons: That she had even come to suspect that he was plotting her murder?

  Witness: No, he didn’t.

  Mr. Parsons: Well, isn’t it true that Mr. Reed wanted to be rid of his wife?

  Sitting in the courtroom at that moment, I recalled the last time I’d heard Mr. Reed speak of Mrs. Reed, the two of us in his car together, a yellow shaft of light disappearing down the road ahead, his own house in the distance, his eyes upon its small square windows, the coldness of his words: Sometimes I wish that she were dead.

  Because of that, Miss Channing’s answer, coming on the heels of the proud figure she’d only recently begun to assume, utterly astonished me.

  Witness: No, he did not want to be rid of his wife, Mr. Parsons.

  Mr. Parsons: He never spoke ill of Mrs. Reed?

  Witness: No, he never did.

  Mr. Parsons: Nor conspired to murder her?

  Witness: Of course not.

  Mr. Parsons: Well, many people have testified that Mr. Reed was very upset during the last days of the school year. Do you deny that?

  Witness: No, I don’t.

  Mr. Parsons: And in that state he did peculiar things. He named his boat after you, Miss Channing, rather than his wife or daughter.

  Witness: Yes.

  Mr. Parsons: He made some rather ominous purchases as well. He bought a rope and a knife. He bought poison. It would seem that at least during his last Jew weeks at Chatham School, Mr. Reed surely wanted to rid himself of somebody, don’t you think, Miss Channing?

  It was a question Mr. Parsons had asked rhetorically, for its effect upon the jury, knowing that he had no evidence whatever that any of these things had been purchased for the purpose of murdering Abigail Reed. Because of that, I’d expected Miss Channing to give him no more than a quick, dismissive denial. But that was not what she did.

  Witness: Yes, he wanted to be rid of someone, Mr. Parsons. But it was not Mrs. Reed.

  Mr. Parsons: Well, if it wasn’t Mrs. Reed, then who did he want to be rid of, Miss Channing?

  Witness: He wanted to be rid of me.

  Mr. Parsons: You? You’re saying he wanted to be rid of you?

  Witness: Yes, he did. He wanted me to leave him alone. To go away. He told me that in the strongest possible terms.

  Mr. Parsons: When did he tell you these things?

  Witness: The last time I saw him. When we met in the lighthouse. That’s when he told me he wanted to be rid of me. He said that he wished that I were dead.

  When I left the courthouse that afternoon, the final seconds of Miss Channing’s testimony were still playing in my mind:

  Mr. Parsons: Leland Reed said that to you, Miss Channing? He said that he wished that you were dead?

  Witness: Yes.

  Mr. Parsons: And is it also your testimony, Miss Channing, that Mr. Reed never actually loved you?

  Witness: He may have loved me, Mr. Parsons, but not enough.

  Mr. Parsons: Enough for what?

  Witness: Enough to abandon other loves. The love he had for his wife and his daughter.

  Mr. Parsons: You are saying that Mr. Reed had already rejected you and wished to be rid of you and return to his wife and daughter, that he had already come to that decision when Mrs. Reed died?

  Witness: He never really left them. There was never any decision to be made. They were the ones he truly cared about and wished to be with, Mr. Parsons. It was never me.

  In my mind I saw Mrs. Reed rushing up the stairs as she had on that final day, calling to Mary, then back down them again sometime later, dragging her roughly toward the shed. After that it was a swirl of death, a car’s thunderous assault, Sarah’s body twisting in the air, Mrs. Reed staring at me from infinite green depths, Mr. Reed lowering his cane to the bottom of the boat, slipping silently into the engulfing waves. Had all of that come about over a single misunderstood remark? Sometimes I wish that she were dead. Had it really been Miss Channing whom Mr. Reed, rocked by such vastly conflicting loves, had sometimes wanted dead? Had I gotten it all wrong, and in doing that, recklessly done an even greater wrong? I thought of the line I’d so admired in Mr. Channing’s book—Life is best lived at the edge of folly—and suddenly it seemed to me that of all the reckless, ill-considered lies I’d ever heard, this was the deepest, the gravest, the most designed to lead us to destruction.

  CHAPTER 31

  At the end of Miss Channing’s testimony, the prosecution rested its case. The jury began its deliberations. During the next two days, a hush fell over Chatham. The crowds no longer gathered on the front steps of the courthouse. Nor huddled in groups on street corners or on the lawn of the town hall.

  In the house on Myrtle Street we waited in our own glum silence, my mother puttering absently in her garden, my father working unnecessarily extended hours at the school, I reading in my room, or going for long walks along the beach.

  On the following Monday morning, at nine A.M., the jury returned to its place in the courtroom. The foreman handed the verdict to the bailiff, who in turn gave it to Judge Crenshaw. In a voice that was resolutely measured, he delivered the news that Elizabeth Rockbridge Channing had been found not guilty on the first count of the indictment, conspiracy to murder. I remember glancing at my father to see a look of profound relief sweep into his face, then a stillness gather on it as the verdict on the second count was read.

  Court: On the charge of adultery, how do you find the defendant, Elizabeth Rockbridge Channing?

  A smile of grim satisfaction fluttered onto my mother’s lips as the foreman gave his answer: Guilty.

  I glanced at the defense table where Miss Channing stood, facing the judge, her face emotionless, save that her eyes closed briefly and she released a soft, weary breath. Minutes later, as she was led down the stairs to the waiting car, the crowd pressing in around her, I saw her glance toward my father, nod silently. In return, he took off his hat with a kind of reverence, which, given the nature of her testimony, the portrait of herself as little more than a wanton temptress, struck me as the oddest thing he had ever done.

  I don’t think Miss Channing saw me at all, since I’d stationed myself farther from her, the crowd wrapped around me like a thick wool cloak. But I could see her plainly nonetheless, her face once again held in that profound sense of self-containment I’d first glimpsed months before, her eyes staring straight ahead, lips tightly closed, as if determined—perhaps like proud Hypatia—to hold back her cry.

  She was sentenced to three years’ imprisonment, the maximum allowed by Massachusetts law, and I remember that my father greeted the severity of her punishment with absolute amazement, my mother as if it had been handed down from heaven. “It’s finally over,” she said with obvious relief. She didn’t mention the trial again during the r
est of that week, but she did insist upon visiting Sarah’s grave, as well as Mrs. Reed’s, carrying vases of fresh flowers for each of them. Mr. Reed had been buried only a short distance from them, but I never saw my mother give his grave so much as a sideward glance.

  It was not over, of course, despite my mother’s declaration. At least not for my father. For there was still the matter of Chatham School to deal with.

  During the next few weeks its fete hung in the balance. My father labored to restore its reputation, along with that part of his own good name that had been tarnished by the tragedy on Black Pond. A governing board was established to look into the school’s affairs and consider its future prospects. One by one, over the few weeks that remained of that summer, benefactors dropped away and letters came from distant fathers to say that their sons would not be returning to Chatham School next fall.

  At last, all hope for the school’s survival was abandoned, and on a meeting in late September, it was officially closed, my father given two weeks’ severance pay and left to find his way.

  He found it in a teaching job at a public school in neighboring Harwichport, and during that long, rain-swept autumn, he rose early, pulled on his old gray duster, and trudged to the car from our new, much smaller house to the east of Chatham.

  Others at Chatham School made similar accommodations to their abrupt unemployment. Mrs. Benton took a job as a clerk at Warren’s Sundries, Mrs. Abercrombie as a secretary for Mr. Lloyd, a prominent local banker. Other teachers did other things, of course, although most of them, in the end, drifted away from Chatham to take jobs in Boston or Fall River or other towns along the Cape.