James yelled, from fright and desperation, but then Percival’s head emerged. My nephew grabbed the end of the rope, now no longer attached to Percival’s belt, and threw it to him. But when Percival tried to pull himself out, the hole in the ice split further, and his head once again slipped beneath the surface. By now, of course, James was frantic, but Percival, he recounted, was very calm. “James,” he said, “go back to the house and tell them to send help. Rosie”—one of the dogs—“will stay with me. Take Rufus and tell them what happened.” And, when James hesitated, “Go! Hurry!”
So James left, turning to watch Rosie pick her way across the ice toward Percival, and Percival reaching toward her.
They’d not gotten more than a few meters when they heard a dull sound behind them; the wind was so loud that it muffled all noise, but James turned, and he and Rufus returned to the pond, scarcely able to see through the snow. There, they saw Rosie running in circles on the ice, barking and barking, and then Rufus ran to her, and the two stood there together, whimpering. Through the snow, James could see Percival’s red glove clutching at the surface, though not Percival’s head. But he could see a thrashing from the water, a kind of violence. And then the red glove slipped, and Percival was gone. James hurried to the pond, but when he stepped atop the surface, it broke into plates, soaking his feet, and he only managed to scrabble up to the shore again before it split once more. He shouted for the dogs, but Rosie, no matter how much he called for her, wouldn’t move from her floe of ice. It was Rufus who guided him back to the house, but for many minutes, he could hear Rosie’s whining, her cries carried by the wind.
He had been crying as he told this story, but now he began to sob, gulping for breath. “I’m sorry, Uncle Charles!” he said. “I’m so sorry, Mister Delacroix!”
“He didn’t even have time to sink,” Marcel said in a strange, faint, strangled voice. “Not if the dogs were able to rescue him.”
“He couldn’t swim,” Olivier added, in a low voice. “We tried to teach him, but he never learned.”
As you can imagine, it was another dreadful night, and I spent it with James, holding him against me and murmuring to him until he at last fell asleep again. The snow and wind stopped the next day, and the skies turned brilliant and blue, and the weather even colder. I and some of Percival’s cousins shoveled a path to the ice house, where Marcel and Julien would keep Percival’s body until the ground had thawed enough for them to bury him properly. The day after, James and I left, detouring to Bangor to send word of what had happened to my sister.
Since then, as you can imagine, things have been much changed. I do not even mean from a business perspective, about which I dare not ask—I have sent the Delacroix our deep condolences, and my father ordered they be given the monies for a smokehouse they’d intended to build. But we have heard nothing from them in response.
James is very different now. He has spent the holiday season in his room, hardly eating, rarely speaking. He sits and stares, and sometimes he cries, but mostly he is silent, and nothing his brothers or mother or I can do seems able to bring him back to us. It is apparent he blames himself for the tragedy of Percival’s passing, no matter how many times I tell him he is not at fault. My brother has temporarily assumed control of the business while my sister and I spend every moment we can with him, hoping we might be able to puncture his fog of grief, hoping we might once again hear his dear laugh. I fear for him, and for my beloved sister.
I know it will sound terrible, and selfish, to say this, but as I sit with him these days and weeks, I find myself returning repeatedly to our conversation, which I left feeling embarrassed—of how much I had said, of how emotional I let myself become, of how much I burdened you—and wondering what you must think of me. I say this not as a rebuke, but I wonder if this is why you’ve not chosen to write me, though of course you might have mistaken my silence for lack of interest and been offended, which I would understand.
Percival’s death has made me think more often as well of William, of how wild with misery I was when he died, and of how, in my brief time spent with you, I began to imagine that I might be able to live again with a companion, someone with whom I might share the joys of life, but also its sorrows.
I hope you can forgive me for my poor communication, and that this very long letter might go some way in assuring you of my continued interest and affection. I will be back in your city in a fortnight and do hope I may be allowed to call on you again, if only to ask your forgiveness in person.
I wish you and your family all good health and belated holiday greetings. I await your reply.
Yours very sincerely,
Charles Griffith
VIII
For a few moments, David merely sat, stunned by the story that Charles had related, a story that had the effect of abruptly deflating his own giddy happiness, but also any annoyance he may have felt for his grandfather. He thought with pity of poor young James, whose life was now, as Charles had said, transformed, and who would be haunted by this event forever—he was not to blame, but he would never quite believe that fact. He would spend his adulthood either trying to apologize for what he thought he had done or denying it. One path would make him feeble; the other, bitter. And poor Charles, to have once again brushed against death, to once again be associated with the loss of someone so young!
But he was also aware of a shame of his own, for until his grandfather had handed him the letter, he had quite forgotten about Charles Griffith.
Or—not forgotten, perhaps, but ceased to be curious about him. The idea of marriage itself had similarly lost any of the sense of intrigue it had once had, even if that intrigue had been tempered by wariness. It seemed, suddenly, a declaration of timidity to allow oneself to be shuttled into a marriage, to surrender the idea of love for stability, or respectability, or dependability. And why would he resign himself to a dun-colored life when he could have another? He pictured himself—unfairly, he knew, for he had never seen Charles Griffith’s house—in a spacious but plain white clapboard structure, prettily bordered with hydrangea bushes, sitting in a rocking chair, a book in his lap, staring at the sea like an old lady, waiting for his husband’s heavy tread on the front porch. In that instant, he was again furious at his grandfather and his grandfather’s desire to condemn him to a colorless existence. Did his grandfather think that was the best he might imagine for himself? Did he, despite his protestations to the contrary, believe that the best place for him was an institution, if not a literal one, then a domestic one?
It was with these confused thoughts that he entered his grandfather’s drawing room, shutting the door behind him a touch too forcefully, which caused his grandfather to look up at him, surprised. “I apologize,” he mumbled, to which his grandfather said only, “What had he to say?”