Sons of Fortune

“Have you thought of playing Feste as a woman?” asked Nat.

“No, to be honest, Nat, I hadn’t, partly because I don’t have the time to rewrite the entire script.”

Nat didn’t notice Rebecca slip behind a pillar, trying to hide her embarrassment as he blundered on. “What about the maidservant in Olivia’s household?”

“What about her?”

“Rebecca would make a wonderful maidservant.”

“I’m sure she would, but she can’t play Olivia and be her maidservant at the same time. Someone in the audience might notice.” Nat opened his mouth but didn’t speak. “Ah, silence at last, but I feel confident that you will be rewriting the play overnight, in order to ensure that Olivia has several new scenes with Sebastian that Mr. Shakespeare hadn’t even considered.” Nat heard a giggle from behind the pillar. “Anyone else you fancy for the maidservant, Nat, or can I carry on with casting the play?”

“Sorry, sir,” said Nat. “Sorry.”

Mr. Thompson leaped onto the stage, smiled at Nat and whispered, “If you were considering playing hard to get, Nat, I’m bound to say I think you’ve blown it. You’ve made yourself more available than a whore in a Las Vegas casino. And I feel sure you’ll be interested to learn that next year’s play will be The Taming of the Shrew, which I feel might have been more appropriate. If only you’d been born a year later, how different your life would have been. However, good luck with Miss Armitage.”

“The boy must be expelled,” said Mr. Fleming. “No other punishment would be appropriate.”

“But, sir,” said Fletcher, “Pearson is only fifteen, and he apologized to Mrs. Appleyard immediately.”

“I would have expected nothing less,” said the chaplain, who until that moment had not offered an opinion.

“And in any case,” said the principal, rising from behind his desk, “can you imagine the effect on school discipline if it became known that you could get away with swearing at a master’s wife?”

“And because of the words, ‘bitchy woman,’ the boy’s entire future is to be determined?”

“That’s the consequence of such ill manners,” said the principal, “and at least, this way, one can be certain he’ll learn from it.”

“But what will he learn?” asked Fletcher. “That you can never afford to make a mistake in life, or that you must never swear?”

“Why are you defending the boy so vehemently?”

“In the first lecture I ever heard you deliver, sir, you told us that not to stand up and be counted when an injustice had been done was the act of a coward.”

Mr. Fleming glanced at the chaplain, who made no comment. He remembered the lecture well. After all he delivered the same text to every new entering class.

“May I be allowed to ask you an impertinent question?” asked Fletcher, turning to face the chaplain.

“Yes,” said Dr. Wade a little defensively.

“Have you ever wanted to swear at Mrs. Appleyard, because I have, several times.”

“But that’s the point, Fletcher, you showed some self-restraint. Pearson didn’t, and therefore he must be punished.”

“If that punishment is to be expulsion, sir, then I must resign as president of the student government, Principal, because the Bible tells us that the thought is as evil as the deed.”

Both men stared at him in disbelief. “But why, Fletcher? Surely you realize that if you were to resign it could even affect your chances of being offered a place at Yale?”

“The type of person who would allow that to influence him isn’t worthy of a place at Yale.”

Both men were so stunned by this remark that neither spoke for some time. “Isn’t that a bit extreme, Fletcher?” the chaplain eventually managed.

“Not for the boy in question it isn’t, Dr. Wade, and I am not willing to stand and watch this student sacrificed on the altar of a woman who gets her kicks from goading pubescent boys.”

“And you would resign as president to prove your point?” asked the principal.

“Not to do it, sir, would be only one step away from what your generation condoned at the time of McCarthy.”

Another long silence followed, before the chaplain said quietly, “Did the boy apologize in person to Mrs. Appleyard?”