Go in peace, the world is ended.

 Eustace sat at the foot of his bed and looked out of his window on the September twilight. Maybe it was the delicate coloring of the clouds, or the grayish tone that his room had taken on in the dim light, but something about that moment turned a key in Eustace's mind and caused him to wander down memory lane. 

“Long ago and faraway,” Eustace said, barely above a whisper. Here he was in his room —or rather cell, to borrow a monastic term— several years and hundreds of miles lie between the English evenings of his boyhood and this one. He had often contrasted the similarities and differences of his old boarding school with the Roman seminary he was currently attending. It felt strange to realize that you had more supervision and less freedom as a twenty-four year old priest-in-training than as a fourteen year old public schoolboy. The proscribed, orderly way of life made sense, given what you were here to become; but it was strange in the light of what his whole public school life was intended to prepare him for. Even if he had become a priest in the Church of England, he would still be a gentleman, a man of the world, what a public school aimed to produce.  

 Eustace's thoughts went further back, to before adolescence and his boarding school days and into childhood. It was a sunny afternoon in March, 1861, the year that his cousin Oliver came to St. Anselm’s. He and his mother had gone to a garden party at Yew Grange with a few other mothers and children, mostly girls. The gleam of the sunshine on the silver tea service, the lace-edged tablecloth, the scent of fresh scones, and marmalade, and…  The memory was clear, yet soft. Thinking it over now, Eustace realized that it was on this day that he came to see girls as a distinct class of beings from himself. He had been ten years old at the time, and the realization had been subtle and, as he would say now, ontological. It pertained to the role that they played in the world. 

 A certain image connected to this came into view. Cecil sat beside him in a wicker chair long after all of the other guests had gone home. Cecil Claremont, with his hair lighter than straw, coffee-colored eyes and rosy lips, in a light blue frock with layers and layers of white petticoats and ruffled pantalettes. Although Eustace had always known that Cecil was a boy like himself, who just happened to wear dresses due to some odd whim of Lady Claremont, Eustace could never see him as really male. Cecil seemed to occupy a liminal position in both Eustace’s imagination and the world at large. He could wear any gown but a wedding dress, wear any ring but a wedding ring. He could be a girl but never a woman. Never a wife or mother. 

 Marriage. With that word another boyish idea was recalled. The same afternoon, on the carriage ride home Eustace said to his mother,

“Cecil is so pretty. When I’m grown up, can I marry him?”

 His mother smiled and laughed. “That’s a nice thing to say dear, but you can’t marry Cecil because you’re both boys.”

 “Well why not? I mean he looks like a girl, and he acts awfully like one, too. Couldn’t we get married when we grew up?”

 Still amused, she answered, “Yes, but he isn’t really one. People get married because they love each other and want to spend their lives together, and have children.”

 Curious and persistent, Eustace continued, “Yes, but many years from now if Cecil and I, if we love each other very much and want to be together forever, and– and have children together, couldn’t we?” Eustace asked with a look of childlike seriousness.

 “Well no, because– because– the Church will only marry a man and woman.”

 “Well why does the Church do that?”

 “You’ll have to ask your cousin about it.”

 By now the carriage had stopped at the front of the house. Eustace sprung out of his seat and before his mother could blink was at the door.

• • •

 “Oliver, why can't two boys get married?” Eustace asked his cousin as he sat at the desk in the upstairs study that had once been his father’s, revising the text for next Sunday’s homily. 

 “Well, that's an awfully odd question, ‘why can't two boys get married?’ What makes you wonder that, Stacie?” Despite the inopportune time, Oliver was always willing to answer his young cousin’s questions, no matter how seemingly trivial, and this one was unique, besides.

 Eustace looked Oliver straight in the eye, “I- I really do like Cecil, terribly; and when we're all grown up, like you, I want to ask him to marry me.” Eustace said with all the unconsciousness of puppy love. 

 Oliver's face suddenly clouded. It was a slightly pained look, like the nerves of one's heart being unexpectedly touched. A look of seeing the past again. He looked around the room for a few seconds, his expression softening.

 Oliver took his cousin by the shoulders. “Eustace, there are many things in life that do not make an awful lot of sense to us. Sometimes, those things may be painful or even cruel… even if- if  they seem to involve holy things. There are, I think, certain people in the world who love each other very much but cannot be together in that kind of way. I don't know why some loves—themselves good, even sacred— seem to be barred from that specific joy. I honestly don't know why, Stacie.” A look of grave compassion was on his face as he spoke. It was a look that Eustace wouldn't ever forget. 

• • •

 Many springs had come and gone since the chilly evening of March 9th, 1861. Each one found Eustace a bit older and a bit more knowledgeable than the last. The early love that he had had for Cecil Claremont, the “little baronet” of Yew Grange, had undergone some changes. Adolescence and the changes accompanying it mainly came for Eustace while he was at boarding school. During those years they only kept in touch via letter, save for when Eustace was home at the holidays. Puberty had shattered Eustace's naive fantasy of one day somehow making Cecil his bride; even if he could have he no longer wished to. He now knew that there was a good deal more that made girls girls than crinolines and petticoats. A lot more if what he heard in the dormitory after lights out was true. Another thing that changed was Cecil himself. When Eustace came home from school for the first time at the Christmastide of ‘64, he was greeted at the train station by his mother and Cecil, as he had never seen him before, he was dressed like a boy! Cecil's desire to be a “real” boy just like Eustace and his seeming imitation of him whenever they were together did much to erode the sense of difference between the two that previously made them so romantic to each other.

 School. Love. Schoolboy loves. As Eustace went back to thinking of his teenage years a few particular episodes stood out. One ordinary November evening when he was a schoolboy. Yes, here he was in his study and here was a faintly burning fire. Here were the sights and sounds and smells of an English autumn coming in through the little open window. Here was Harry Orville, trying to open up some stubborn walnuts with a pocketknife by the light of a dim fire. The scene was a simple one which had probably occurred several times in his five years at Elmwood College, but this particular instance had been etched into his mind, not because of what did happen (which was nothing remarkable), but because of what didn't. Old unsaid thoughts came along with the memory, “I love you…” At the time the words he couldn’t say. It wasn't that he thought it sentimental, he now realized, but that he thought it sort of sacrilegious to say such a thing where others might hear the two of you. To schoolboys of the mid ‘sixties private sentiment with your closest friends was acceptable, but if it was seen by those it didn't concern it was maudlin.

 Contrasted with the way he had once felt about Cecil, the way Eustace felt about Harry was different. He had loved Cecil so much because he was “different”— Cecil was a romantic figure to him as a child because of his circumstances and mannerisms. Sure, Cecil had a far different personality from his, but the chief things that drew him to him were mainly external. Harry, on the other hand, was quite like Eustace, save for matters of family and station. Harry was what young Eustace wished to be. If Cecil had once been his princess, then Harry was his idol. Different enough to be an object of hero-worship but similar enough to hope that someday you could be like him.

• • •

 Looking again around his sober whitewashed room, tinted purple by the sunset, a few last almost forgotten words from his past darted back into Eustace’s mind. They were what he said on that March evening all those years ago in response to Oliver's answer.

“If I can't marry Cecil, then I'll never marry at all!” The words were spoken impulsively by a disappointed child years ago, and yet—

The bell soon rang for vespers.