Leading Lady (8 page)

“Mm-hmm.” Muriel reached again for the bell cord.
All this agony over a cook’s daughter.

“I said I don’t want cake!” Douglas snapped.

“It’s for
me!
” she snapped back.

Six

One week progressed and then another, with Douglas Pearce occupying less and less space in Bethia’s mind as she immersed herself into the routine of lecture, study, letters home and to Guy, and forays to Fitzwilliam Museum to fill a new sketchbook with eighteenth-century costumes.
Lady Audley’s Secret
was scheduled at the Royal Court for April, after
Romeo and Juliet
and a four-week run of
The Runaway
by an American touring group. It was not too soon to be thinking about wardrobe, to be prepared to purchase fabrics during Christmas vacation.

On Sunday the seventeenth, Bethia dressed in a skirt and short jacket of camel-colored moss cloth to accompany a group of thirteen students on the short walk up Cambridge Road. Heavy on her mind was the ten-page composition she had completed last night on the British Reformation. Should she have included Poynings’ Law?

How could you have overlooked that?
she admonished herself, for even though the legislative supremacy Henry VII had established in Ireland had nothing
directly
to do with the Reformation, it later enabled his son Henry VIII to impose the Reformation on that country.

But since Henry VII’s actions predated his son’s reign, she could not simply tack the material onto the end. Nor could she insert it at the beginning, for she had already numbered the pages. Not wanting to mark through the page numbers and have Dr. Becker deduct points for sloppiness, she would have to copy again the ten pages sitting on her study table.

Surely it’s good enough as it stands.

Good enough.
Her mind might as well have replaced the words with
inferior,
for the feelings they evoked, and she knew what she would be doing after lunch.

Twelfth-century Saint Andrew’s was a squat, solid structure
of light brown stone, with Gothic perpendicular windows and a handsome clock tower. Lime trees shaded the lane leading through the churchyard to the south entrance. In the nave, Bethia reluctantly pushed aside all thought of the composition. As Father had once said, allowing one’s mind to mull over schoolwork during a worship service was just as irreverent as bringing along textbooks.

The Fisher family filled its usual back pew to the right of the aisle. Anna turned to send a quick smile. Bethia smiled back and moved on up with her schoolmates to fill a pew on the left side. The stanzas of opening hymn, “Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” mingled in soprano and alto, tenor and bass voices, most harmonious, some disharmonious, some high and childish—the blend surely as pleasing to God’s ears as a patch of discordant wildflowers to an artist’s eyes.

Three minutes into the litany, Bethia was gripped with a faint nausea.
My shoes,
she thought, wiggling her toes in the summer doeskin slippers. Because she had lost track of time while reading over her composition this morning, she had dressed in haste, which meant no time for the tedious ordeal of lacing boots with a buttonhook. Had not Mother warned her a dozen times that chilled feet could bring on a cold, or worse? But surely the fifty-degree temperature outside was not enough to cause illness unless she were to pad about barefoot.

“That it may please thee to bless and keep the magistrates, giving them grace to execute justice, and to maintain truth,” Vicar Groves read aloud.

You haven’t time to be ill,
Bethia thought as a chill snaked down her back. But at least this was Sunday, when a simple meal of soup and sandwiches would be available to those students not taking lunch in Cambridge. All her life Bethia had heard their cook, Trudy, declare that no scientist would ever invent a medicine more effective than a bowl of hot soup.

Bethia had to smile. Her mind was so filled with the adages of family and servants that it was a wonder she had room
for any original thoughts. Realizing that the congregation was halfway through the response, she opened her mouth to join in.

“ . . . to hear us, good Lord.”

Another shiver caught her shoulders. That voice, from close behind. Oddly familiar, yet she could not recall ever hearing it in Saint Andrew’s.

She swallowed.
He wouldn’t.

“ . . . to bless and keep all they people,” Vicar Groves was reading.

This time Bethia held her breath, listened.

“We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.”

There could be no mistaking that voice. Bethia pressed the palms of her gloved hands together.

“That it may please thee to give to all nations unity, peace, and concord,” the vicar read on.

At her left Hannah Middleton, a fourth-year student with curly brown hair, looked at her during the congregational response and mouthed
Are you all right?

“We beseech thee to hear us, good Lord.”

Bethia gave a slight nod, but felt Hannah’s eyes linger upon her for another second.

Leave now,
Bethia thought, face rigidly aimed toward the pulpit as she felt a pair of hazel eyes upon her back. But one could not simply slip out from the middle of a pew without disturbing the worship service.

You wouldn’t be the first to leave,
she reminded herself. Nature’s promptings could not always be ignored. A discomforting mental picture came to mind. What would stop Douglas Pearce from leaving as well, from stalking her through the empty churchyard? Not that she feared any physical injury—though she could recall Father’s admonition the first time she left for Girton, that the infamous Jack the Ripper’s victims had probably thought his appearance harmless enough. What she feared most was another scene.

There was safety in numbers. She sat still as Lot’s wife,
listening to her own breathing, while the nerves on the back of her neck threatened to creep out of her skin. For all she could absorb of the sermon, Vicar Groves might as well have been reading Shakespeare. After what seemed like hours, pews creaked and the soles of shoes shuffled as the congregation rose for the benediction.

Center of the group, center of the group.
Bethia’s mind repeated the phrase like a mantra as she filed out of the pew with the rest of the students. Her eyes did not leave the back of Hannah’s herringbone jacket all the way down the aisle. On the churchyard path, and against her better judgment, she glanced to the side and spotted Douglas Pearce’s tormented face as he stood beside a lime tree with bowler hat clutched in hands. She looked away again quickly.

No scene. Please, Father, don’t let him cause a scene.

Conversation swirling about her in reverential tones provided a tenuous element of safety while the group strolled down Cambridge Road. The scene on Cambridge platform notwithstanding, she could only hope that Mr. Pearce would be too intimidated to insinuate himself into her company with so many witnesses about—not only the Girton group, but others making their way home.

She fought the urge to glance over her shoulder as they passed through the safety of Girton’s gates. In the entrance hall, her heart still hammered against her rib cage, but at least she no longer had to fear turning around and seeing him.
Thank you, thank you, thank you, Father!

“Did you finish your history composition?” Hannah asked as they followed the rest of the group toward the water closet past the cloak room to freshen up for lunch.

“I’m not sure,” Bethia replied, grateful to have a subject to distract her mind from Douglas Pearce. “And you?”

“I have to copy a final draft from my notes.” Hannah covered a yawn. “But why aren’t you sure?”

“I thought I was finished last night. But I neglected to mention Poynings’ Law.”

“Hmm. Can’t you tack it onto the end?”

“It wouldn’t fit chronologically.”

“It’s just a composition,” Hannah reminded her. “You’re not painting the Sistine Chapel.”

“That’s a relief. My pen won’t write upside down.”

The quip was not even funny, Bethia realized even as she spoke it, but the fact that it made Hannah laugh lightened her dark mood. “I’ll give it another look,” she said.

But first she would have some soup, even though she suspected now that it was Mr. Pearce’s voice and not her shoes that had caused her chills. She was halfway through a bowl of vegetable beef soup when Miss Fleet, the assistant lecturer on duty, hastened to the table with hands fluttering.

“Long distance, Miss Rayborn! Your brother!”

It’s not Danny.

Bethia knew so even as she pushed out her chair, even as she smiled when one of the girls piped, “Is he very handsome, Bethia?”

But then, there was that minuscule chance that it was indeed Danny. Notorious for hating to write letters, he telephoned her once or twice from Edinburgh every term, and it
was
always on a Sunday afternoon.

“Hello?” she said into the mouthpiece in the reading room.
Please be Danny.

Silence. Every nerve in Bethia’s body bristled.

“Danny, are you there?” she asked, just in case he had become distracted while waiting for her to come to the telephone. She would count to five before hanging up, she decided, then she would ring her brother herself.

“You gave away the roses. Are daisies more to your liking?”

Bethia’s heart lurched.

“Or would you prefer violets? I’m not sure what else is available this time of year.”

Hang up,
she urged herself. But then, would she feel his eyes upon her every Sunday henceforth? Perhaps her letter had not clarified her feelings strongly enough.

“Mr. Pearce . . .” She filled her lungs, grateful to have the reading room to herself, but lowering her voice just in case someone loitered within earshot in the corridor. “I
beg
you to leave me alone.”

“You’re angry because I startled you at church. But I didn’t cause another scene, did I? I just had to see your face. Can you understand? I haven’t even a photograph of—”

Just say it,
Bethia thought.

“Mr. Pearce, I’m very sorry, but my feelings do not extend beyond friendship.” The
friendship
part had to be forced through her lips, but she had to allow him at least some small dignity.

“You hardly know me.” His words rushed out as if he feared she would hang up. “How can you decide against me so rashly, after only an hour at Covent Garden? It takes time to get to know someone.”

Any more time with you and I’ll scream,
she thought. His own logic gave her an idea. “You hardly know
me
as well, Mr. Pearce. You can’t decide you love someone in an hour’s time.”

“I didn’t intend . . .” His voice developed an edge. “I treat you better than your stable boy does. Has
he
ever sent flowers?”

Bethia stepped closer to the mouthpiece. “Mr. Pearce, if you mention Guy again, I will be forced to hang up.”

Another silence, and then his voice softened. “Have you no pity?”

“I do pity you. But . . . I’m afraid that’s all I feel, Mr. Pearce.”

She could hear a sniff.

“I’m so sorry,” she said. “But one day you’ll . . .”

The edge returned to his voice. “Miss Rayborn, please spare me the assurance that I’ll find someone else.”

All she could think to say was another “I’m sorry.”

“Not as sorry as you’ll be if you marry that stable boy! You don’t deserve to be hap—”

She replaced the receiver and leaned against the wall until her pulse ceased racing. When she could walk toward the dining hall again, albeit with knees that felt like rubber, relief and guilt tugged at her from opposite corners. If only she had declined to have tea with him that day! But how could she have known that he would cast her in the lead role of the drama he was constructing in his own mind?

“How was your brother?” asked Eugenia Milner, another fourth-year student.

“It wasn’t him after all,” Bethia replied and filled the brief space of curious silence by lifting her spoon and saying, “The soup’s quite good today, isn’t it?”

When she returned to her sitting room a quarter of an hour later, Cynthia Wood, the school servant who assumed Anna’s duties on Sundays, was pouring coal from a shuttle to her fire. Bethia thanked her and sat down at her study table. The fruit of last night’s labors—ten completed pages—lay in a precise stack beside pen and ink, blotter, and another stack of twenty or so pages of notes. Now she welcomed the task, for it would take her mind off the day’s disturbing events. So effectively did she succeed in pushing Mr. Pearce from her thoughts, that by half past four the twelve pages of her new composition were finished.

Nap,
she thought, rubbing word-weary eyes. But first she would clean off her table. She was dropping her pages of notes, along with the original flawed composition, into the wastepaper basket when someone knocked at her door.

“Come in?”

Bethia’s neighbor on the sitting room side, third-year student Elizabeth Norman, stuck her head into the room. She had accompanied the larger group of students to services
and lunch in Cambridge. “I brought back some éclairs. Come join us!”

Of habit, Bethia opened her mouth to decline gracefully. In Elizabeth’s eyes she caught a disturbing look of resignation.
This is your last year,
Bethia reminded herself.
Will your only college memories be of lectures and books and costume sketches?

“Thank you, that sounds lovely,” she said, stifling a yawn.

Hannah was among the five other students in Elizabeth’s sitting room. “Finished?” she asked, passing the bakery carton.

“Just now.” Bethia scooped out an éclair. “And you?”

“The same.” Hannah covered a yawn. “We’ll sleep like stones tonight, won’t we?”