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We are in receipt of your letter concerning the unacceptable events of Monday. It was indeed one of our young students whom you saw “with your own eyes” open the gate of the Harrington estate to allow the cows to wander onto neighboring property. The student was adamant that the cows clearly wanted to be set free and she didn’t feel that she was in a position to deny their wishes. How fortunate we are that you were on hand to witness the entire affair! Otherwise we might not have known how the cows came to be in the wrong meadow. Naturally, we offer our apologies that your dog was enticed to join in our student’s bad behavior, but I suppose dogs are happiest when chasing children and animals and balls.
To your question as to whatever happened to the old wisdom, to spare the rod spoils the child, we can offer no explanation, but will observe that perhaps that there are other more effective means of preventing children from being spoiled. Is it possible that parents desire spoiled children? Or has the sheer number of offspring worn them down? To take a single child and mold her into a model of discipline is quite the challenge. To take two or more to mold at the same time must be overwhelming. It therefore stands to reason that spoiling children may be impossible to prevent. A disappointing truth.
We’ve been thinking quite a lot about disappointment of late. Have you ever considered that no matter how hard one might work to avoid disappointment, in the end, it simply cannot be avoided? It’s as if some people come into our lives to astound us, and others to disappoint us. The circumstances of our individual lives might leave us vulnerable to a host of disappointments. A sobering thought and, we will confess, one that has left us feeling a little down at the mouth.
Yours kindly,
The Iddesleigh School for Exceptional Girls
To the Iddesleigh School for Disobedient Girls,
In fairness, I must apologize for the dog’s behavior. I had not anticipated a complete breakdown in discipline.
I read your letter with much interest. We share this thinking, as I, too, have thought quite a lot about disappointment. Especially the sort that comes as a result of one’s choosing. I think the single most abominable crime of our nation is that we present each child with such high hopes for happiness and prosperity. Why do we tell ourselves that life will be grand? Who can promise this? Will not every person encounter sorrow and heartache at some point in life? And yet, we harbor such lofty expectations, which leads to the crushing disappointment at the slightest catastrophe. You may think me cynical, but life has taught me this invaluable lesson. We would do our children a service if we taught them to expect happiness, but to know that they will, at some point, be disappointed. It’s how we persevere that serves us best.
I suppose we ought to take care not to create expectations that lead to such high hopes. I harken back to the wisdom that the only thing we may sway to our will in this world is our own conduct. Life is to be lived moment to moment, day to day, and not in some sunny future of the mind. Joy is found in the everyday part of living, if only we’ll look for it. Perhaps we ought to resolve to live for each day as it comes, and hope for the best.
My sincerest wishes that you are released from the doldrums of your personal disappointments.
In the meantime, I strongly urge you to explain to your students the concept of private property.
A Concerned Resident of Devonshire
CHAPTER TWENTY
MORETHANONCEin the last few days, Joshua had pondered the headmaster’s dismay at life’s disappointments. He felt a certain kinship with him—he imagined they were two men who had expected something different than life had handed them and were struggling to right their little ships.
And then again, he might be reading far too much into a single letter. But he felt their camaraderie and hoped he’d been successful at offering some encouragement.
Then, in hindsight, he wondered if he’d been too pessimistic. Life was not worth living withoutsomehope. He would make a point of that the next time he wrote.
Remarkably, he’d found a glimmer of hope in the last place he would have believed. It had arrived in the form of a kiss and had shocked a budding desire to root in him. He’d felt alive again. He’d felt parts of his body he hadn’t felt in an age. He had the very rusty thought that maybe he could emerge from the misery he’d created.
It was raining today, or he’d be at his wood, chopping away at these unexpected feelings. He glanced at his dogs, the two of them lying on their sides before the hearth, facing each other. Artemis had settled on Joshua’s desk, making himself at home on top of the estate ledger and purring loudly.
At least Joshua had the three of them. And a good horse. He had his three companions, a good horse, an estate, and quite a lot of money. Otherwise, his life would be truly disappointing, wouldn’t it? He couldn’t image a life of poverty on top of his general malaise.
“What are you doing? You haven’t opened the drapes.”
Miles’s entrance into the study disrupted the silence that Joshua and his companions had become accustomed to since his return from the Continent.
The dogs awoke with a start. Bethan began to bark in the direction of the bookcase.
“Bethan!” Joshua scolded, and the dog turned around, saw his favorite person, and loped toward Miles to join Merlin, who had already presented his belly for a rub. Once again, Joshua doubted the utility of his dogs as protectors. Even Artemis was enlivened by Miles’s presence—he rose and stretched, and then, presumably because he was feeling good, batted at an empty candlestick until it toppled off the desk.
Miles went down on one knee, as was his standard greeting to Joshua’s dogs.
“You’re still at Hollyfield, I see,” Joshua drawled.
“You know that I am. We dined here last evening. And again this morning at breakfast.”
“I thought surely after you’d had your opportunity to meet the princess and come up wanting, you’d have gone home.”
“How do you know I came up wanting?” Miles asked as he came to his feet and brushed dog hair from his legs. “I might be at the very top of her list.”
“If you were at the top, Lady Aleksander would be pounding on our door at this very moment.”
Miles laughed. “And did you come up wanting, too, after your dance? I was surprised to see that you’re still a fine dancer. There is an elegance to you that I thought you might have lost. I must commend the tutor your mother hired to teach you and John. It was money well spent.”
