Miss Grimsleys Oxford Career (23 page)

QUIRE
G
RIMSLEY, EVEN MORE RED-FACED
and pop-eyed than usual, was there by morning. He was standing over her bed, his riding crop twitching against his leg, when she woke.

White-faced, Ellen sat up. The squire pulled a chair to the bed and sank into it as he unbuttoned his mud-flecked coat. He looked over his shoulder at Fanny Bland, who sat at her desk, studiously ignoring them both.

“Fanny, find someplace else to sit,” he said and stared at her until she gathered up her embroidery and swept out of the room, shutting the door with a decisive click that bordered on the insolent.

The squire turned back to his daughter. He said nothing for several minutes, until Ellen wanted to dig her toes into the mattress.

He sighed finally and leaned back in the chair. “I can be grateful, I suppose, that you did not tease me with one of those ‘But Papa, you don't understand,’ arguments that Horatia favors.”

“I really don't have anything to say, Papa,” Ellen managed at last. Her tongue felt too large for her mouth, as though it would impede her very speech and breath.

“Well, I do, Ellen,” he replied and glanced around to make sure that the door was shut.

When he finished a half hour later, his face was as white as hers. He was looking out the window at the view she had renounced the day before, and from the way his knuckles were stretched so tight against the draperies, it obviously brought him little pleasure.

“A scandal like this could ruin a family, Ellen,” he was saying, almost more to himself than to her. “A man's daughter parades herself around a university in breeches? What does this tell about her parents, her upbringing?”

Ellen could only stare, dry-eyed at last, at his broad back.
Why is it so wrong to want to learn
, she wanted to cry out.
Why must I sneak around to study? Why can I not use the library and the study halls, listen to the lectures and ask questions of dons and fellows?

“Well, what do you think of that?” Papa was asking her.

“I am sorry, I was not listening,” she stammered.

The riding crop crashed on the desk. “Have you even heard a word I have said, daughter?” he raged.

Ellen burst into tears again.

Papa snorted in frustration and dragged his damp handkerchief back out of his pocket.

“Come on, Ellen, perhaps in time Thomas will get over this unfortunate bit of high spirits,” he said. “Goodness knows he would still be in the dark, if someone had not send an anonymous letter from Oxford.”

“What!” Ellen gasped, clutching the handkerchief. She sank back down in the bed, resisting the urge to pull the blankets over her head and retreat. “Who could have done that?” she asked, only to know the answer already. Fanny must have told him—meddling, jealous Fanny.

But Papa was talking. She forced herself to listen.

“… and he almost insisted that I let him come along, daughter. I told him it was still a family matter.” The squire sat down again, this time not meeting her eyes. “He said, ‘All the more reason I should be there.’ ”

Ellen was silent, digesting this oblique bit of information. “What has Thomas Cornwell to do with our family?” she asked finally, knowing the squire's answer before he spoke and dreading it.

“Well, we have been talking, these past few weeks,” was all he said, his voice unsure for the first time since their grueling interview began.

“Did you tell him I would marry him?” she asked quietly.

The squire nodded, taking in the distress on her face that she did not try to hide. “Ah, daughter, we all have to do things in life that we don't relish!” he burst out, when she did not speak.

“Not marriage!” she exclaimed, sitting up straight. “You don't need the money, do you, Papa?”

He shook his head and then looked at her. “Think of the land, Ellen! He may not have a title like Horry's future father-in-law, or that Bland prestige, but he has land.” He threw up his hands. “We can join the farms for twice the profit, and I'll get that little parcel of land over by Lowerby that I have had my eyes on for years.”

“You would do that to me?” was all she said. “Papa, I don't love Thomas Cornwell. I don't even like him.”

“What does love have to do with our discussion?” the squire said after several long moments dragged by in silence. “What indeed? Get your clothes on, Ellen. We're going home.”

“How could you, Papa?” she whispered.

“Because it is my right!” he raged.

He left the room, but she lay where she was, contemplating the ruin of her life, and all because she had written a few paltry papers.

A moment's reflection convinced her that the papers had nothing to do with it. While she had been away at Oxford, Papa had schemed and meddled with the Cornwells until all she had to do was return home and in a few weeks slide into Horatia's wedding gown, still warm from the Bland wedding. Papa would likely exchange a few acres of his own for those acres of the Cornwell's he had been coveting, and the deed would be done.

It had nothing to do with Oxford, except that her sojourn there, if only for a few weeks, had let Papa wheel and deal to his heart's content.

She thought of the papers, particularly the unread paper on
Romeo and Juliet
, wondering again if Gordon still kept it, or if Lord Chesney has appropriated it in all the excitement yesterday in University College Hall, or if Lord Chesney had even been there. She closed her eyes against the humiliation still so fresh in her mind. Pray that Lord Chesney was not there.

“I did so want you to see that paper, Jim Gatewood,” she said softly as she pulled on her clothes and checked the room one last time to see if she had forgotten anything. “I wish I could have said good-bye, and thank you.”

The books lay on the desk. She picked up the Hakluyt book, turning its old and mellow pages, breathing deep of the fragrance of worn leather, ink, and rag paper from an earlier century or two. She wrote a hasty note to the footman, asking him to see that this was returned to its owner, and then crammed the complete words of Shakespeare into her little trunk, along with Chesney's
Commentary and Notes on A Midsummer Night's Dream
. She could give Gatewood's gifts to Ralph. Better he should have them than she should see them mock her from her bookshelf.

If Cornwell's house even had a bookshelf.

She was dressed and downstairs in a matter of minutes. No one was in the halls and she tiptoed along them, but she heard doors open as she passed and knew that the other inmates of the academy were staring at her. The knowledge burned, but she did not turn around to confront their rudeness.

The door to Miss Dignam's office was closed. She regarded it for a moment, then sat in the straight-backed chair against the wall. She gazed across the hall at the art Miss Dignam chose to hang where students awaiting reprimand could see it. The print was an old one of Hogarth's illustrating the course of life open to young ladies who choose to be disobedient, fractious, and disagreeable.

Hogarth had limned his topic well, but as Ellen stared at it, she couldn't help suspecting that A Fate Worse Than Death might be more tolerable than waking up each morning for the rest of her life and seeing Thomas Cornwell snoring beside her.

She listened to the low murmur of voices inside Miss Dignam's sanctum sanctorum and was startled to hear the sound of laughter.

“Sadists,” she muttered under her breath and then sighed with weariness. She had slept only after a night of tossing about. All she wanted now was to endure one final scold from Miss Dignam, pull her cloak up about her ears, and go home to her own bed. It couldn't come soon enough.

The door opened. She jumped in spite of herself as Miss Dignam stepped into the hall, her face wreathed in smiles. Ellen blinked in surprise and slowly rose to her feet.

“Good morning, my dear,” Miss Dignam said, her smile at its toothiest as she closed the door behind her. “I trust you slept well.”

“Quite badly, actually,” Ellen said, her eyes wide with wonder at the spectacle before her.

“Very good, my dear, very good. Come along inside, if you will.”

This is worse and worse
, Ellen thought. Only a case-hardened veteran of the French Revolution could smile that way as the blade dropped. She put up her hand as Miss Dignam started to open the door again. “Miss Dignam, were you in France during the Revolution?”

It was Miss Dignam's turn to stare and then laugh indulgently. “Ellen, what won't you say?”

Ellen shook her head to clear it and followed Miss Dignam into her office. Her father, all rage and animosity vanished, looked back at her. Her jaw dropped in amazement as she glanced at the occupant in the easy chair by the window, who sat so carelessly with his legs crossed.

“Jim!” she exclaimed. “How did you get dragged into this?”

Miss Dignam tittered behind her hand. “It appears you two
have
already met. My lord, you are a naughty, naughty boy! Ellen, let me introduce James Gatewood, Lord Chesney, of Chesney, Hertfordshire, and Chesney Hall, London.”

Ellen could only stare in stupefied silence.

Gatewood stirred himself. “I think I am a bit of a surprise to her,” he commented to the squire, who nodded and laughed in appreciation, goodwill written all over his florid face.

“Ah, that you are, your worship!” Squire Grimsley said. “One hardly ever finds Ellen at a loss for words.” He paused, and then stumbled into the conversation again as Gatewood opened his mouth to speak. “Not that she is a chatterbox, or a gossip monger, my lord. Oh, no! She's the soul of circumspection and the delight of her mother and me.”

Ellen stared at her father. Less than fifteen minutes ago he had given her the scold of her life, and so much as sentenced her to endless matrimony with the worst bore in the county. Now he was all smiles and good cheer.

Miss Dignam was no better. She nodded and bobbed her head until Ellen grew almost dizzy with watching. “My best pupil ever,” she declared, even as she dabbed at her eyes. “I will miss her more than I can say, my lord.”

“You … you never told me,” she began and stopped, plopping into the chair by the door because her legs would not hold her up.

“No, I didn't, did I?” Gatewood began. He blushed and stared down at his hands. “I really owe you an explanation but would prefer to reserve it for some more private moment.”

“Oh, la, my lord, we can arrange that in a moment,” simpered Miss Dignam.

She cleared her throat and then poked the squire, who scrambled to his feet, giving Ellen a broad wink. “Miss Dignam, we can easily retreat to the sitting room and you can tell me again your theories on education.”

Ellen stared at her father, who had never once, in all the years of their acquaintance, come within a ten-foot pole of theories of any kind. Here he was, bowing and scraping and making a perfect cake of himself, where only minutes before he had been hard as nails.

And then she understood and was filled with the greatest humiliation she had ever known. The misery she had inflicted upon herself yesterday in University College's lecture hall held no candle to this new agony that washed over her and left her drained. It was the humiliation of being ashamed of her family.

As they watched her, Gatewood's eyes hopeful, Miss Dignam and her father eager to please, Ellen felt the bile rise in her throat. All her life she had known the security of being the daughter of a prosperous squire from a prosperous county. There was comfort in knowing that no matter how she personally regarded each family member's silliness and vanities, they were unknown to others. The Grimsley's name in Oxfordshire was enough.

And now, here was this new squire she had never seen before, twittering about Lord Chesney like a moth to a flame. In one introduction to Lord Chesney, Papa had gone from respected man in his own little sphere to a very small frog in a very large pond. The knowledge caused her unspeakable embarrassment.

She looked at Lord Chesney, who was on his feet by now, running his fingers through his tousled hair. His face was agitated; unlike the others, Gatewood had seen the look in her eyes and understood what it meant.

“See here, Ellen, I am sorry,” he began, only to be interrupted by the squire.

“No, lad, no! I mean, your worship. It was only a high-spirited prank on your part!” The squire laughed, showing all his teeth. “Ellen doesn't mind, do you, my dear?”

“I mind greatly,” she said, her voice low. “Why didn't you tell me who you were? Why did you lead me on down a path that you must have known would end as it did yesterday?”

“I …”

The squire could see that the tide was not turning in Lord Chesney's favor. He chucked his daughter under the chin, choosing not to notice when she drew back from him and made herself smaller in the chair. “Ellen! It's all right and tight! Lord Chesney has explained that you wrote those silly papers that Gordon read! Miss Dignam and I would never tell a soul, so your secret is safe.”

Ellen noted that, to his credit, Lord Chesney winced at her father's artless confession.

“You are wrong, Papa,” she said, her voice rising slightly. “Gordon should be expelled from university for what he did, and there is no censure great enough for my part in it. We did a disservice to this great university.” She turned her fine eyes on James Gatewood, who by now was at the window again and chewing on his fingernails. “I do not know why you took such an interest in my scholarship, sir …”