Chapter Text
Cedric is just about to take tea, a cheerful if not impressive spread of scones and jam, when he hears the bustle in the corridor, heading rapidly in the direction of his infirmary.
“Really, boys, I’m perfectly—”
“Oh, no, Sir!”
“Have to be careful, Sir!”
“Dreadful accident, Sir, ought to be safe…”
The children have found another soft target, Cedric thinks with a smile. We’ll see how long this one lasts. Halfway into the spring term, the stern music instructor, a veteran with a short temper and a distasteful reliance on the cane, abruptly quit after an escalating series of pranks left him with damage to more than just his pride. The boys have clearly already discovered they can get away with far more with his replacement as, judging by the class schedule on the wall, they’ve managed to find an excuse to escape their lessons barely a quarter hour in.
“Honestly, you needn’t—”
Cedric opens the door and freezes dead as he finds himself nearly nose-to-nose with the most beautiful man he’s ever seen in his life.
“G...good morning…” he stammers after a foolish silence. One of the boys in the back of the group bunched behind the teacher snickers a little. “Er. What seems to be the trouble?” he continues, standing aside so the music teacher can enter the infirmary.
“Nothing worth mentioning, really, but the children…” the music teacher turns to the boys bunched outside the doorway. “I’ll be fine, I promise. Now go back to the music room and work on memorizing the Handel lyrics until dinner. Lewis, you can take roll afterwards.”
“Yes, Sir!” the boys chorus with a brazen display of false enthusiasm, before taking off down the corridor.
“They’re surely off to play in the field,” Cedric remarks as he closes the door on the boys’ laughter.
The music teacher shrugs a little. “What else was I to do? They seemed so concerned…”
Cedric turns, then takes a quick step back as he realizes the motion would put his arm nearly around the music teacher’s waist. Hoping he hadn’t noticed, he gestures towards one of the infirmary beds from a more decorous distance. “Er. Well, you hardly need that. Just a moment.” He hurries over to pull out the other chair from the tea table. “There.”
He knows he must look like quite the idiot, but the music teacher only smiles a little as he sits down. “Thank you. We haven’t been introduced, I think.” He has a slight accent—French, Cedric thinks. He’s never met anyone from France before. Are they all so beautiful?
“You started today, didn’t you? I missed the morning assembly, fetching the post from town.” He extends a hand. “Cedric Willoughby.”
“Maurice Leblanc.”
As Maurice reaches out in return Cedric can see what the reason for his visit is at once. “What happened here?” He can feel Maurice’s pulse jump a little as he takes his wrist gently in hand to examine the bruising, peeling back the torn cuff a little with his other hand.
“One of the piano lids slipped. It’s fine, really, I’ve had—far worse…” his breath hitches a little and the last words come out very faint.
Cedric makes a quick exploration. “Well, it’s not broken, but it’s clearly not nothing,” he says after a few moments of gentle probing cause a wince or two but no more alarming reactions. “Wait there, I’ll see what I can do for you.”
“You are very kind.”
Once he’s at his desk, looking through his medical things, Cedric is distracted by the realization that this vantage point gives him the perfect view of Maurice in profile. The new music teacher is astonishingly beautiful, with a delicate grace that brings to mind one of the girl Hamlets of the stage. He’s dressed in a white ruffled shirt and soft blue waistcoat and trousers, with his shoulder-length blond hair caught back by a matching blue ribbon. Altogether, he looks like some Pre-Raphaelite muse of music.
Cedric finally gathers his thoughts enough to find some cooling balms and bandages. “Fix you right up,” he says in the brisk cheerful voice he uses on the students, as he lays the things on the tea table.
It takes some effort to keep up the professional bearing once he’s rubbing the balm into Maurice’s delicate wrist. He has slender, skillful fingers—in another life he could easily have been a doctor, and far more suited to the work than Cedric. But the idea of him sitting at a keyboard, or wielding the bow of a violin, is entirely enchanting.
Cedric ties off the wrapping with some reluctance. “There,” he says. “I’m sure you’ll be right as rain in a few days, but I can have a look at it again if it bothers you.”
“Thank you.” Maurice smiles again, though it doesn’t alter the air of gentle sadness about him.
“Tea?” Cedric says abruptly as Maurice starts to rise. His voice cracks a little and he coughs to disguise it. Maurice blinks up at him from behind his small frameless spectacles; his brows and lashes are nearly transparent, like tiny ice particles. “Er. You’ll need to keep up your strength to corral those boys, anyway.”
“Indeed.”
Eager to show himself a good host, Cedric lays out some scones on plates and sets the small tub of lemon jam in front of Maurice. After filling Maurice’s teacup, he’s halfway through pouring his own when he remembers that, not expecting company or patients today, he spiced the tea with medicinal sherry. It’s too late to do anything and Maurice takes a delicate sip, blinks, then downs the rest of the cup at once.
“...More?”
“Please.”
Perhaps it’s the sherry, or the homey scones made by the chaplain’s wife, but Maurice soon warms enough to give more than his previous distant single-phrase responses, though only the tiniest bit of color suffuses his snowy-pale complexion.
“So you’ve never been to England before now?” Cedric asks as he watches Maurice spread butter on one of the scones. “You speak the language so well.”
“My grandmother was English,” Maurice explains. “But I never lived here. We always travelled…” Over the course of several scones, Cedric gathers that after a sudden downturn in the family fortunes meant he could no longer pursue his career as a concert pianist, a great-aunt on the English side offered Maurice references to the school.
A gentle aesthete of Maurice’s type is surely less than well suited to the strict environment of a British boarding school. Cedric decides to look out for him in the future—his professional duty calls for it, after all.
“Thank you very much for the tea,” Maurice says finally, making a small bow as he rises.
“Don’t mention it,” Cedric says. “I’m happy to share any time, if you need an escape from the boys.”
Maurice covers a tiny laugh as Cedric holds the door open for him. “Perhaps I shall. Good day, Dr. Willoughby.”
Cedric stares as Maurice slowly vanishes down the long corridor, watching the way his blond hair rustles gently with his graceful steps, the blue ribbon rippling down his back.