Miss Grimsleys Oxford Career (28 page)

With a snort of her own, Ellen pulled on her sturdiest boots and cloak and headed for the shrubbery. Her head throbbed with the odor of burned pudding and the quarrels of fractious relatives. Soon Fanny and the others would be there for a final fitting. She did not think she could bear either Fanny's gloom or her malice. “And I do not know which is worse,” she muttered to herself as she set out for a brisk walk.

She was scarcely out of sight of the house when a familiar figure came toward her, wrapped in overcoat and muffler, but with his untidy hair blowing in the wind.

“You should wear a hat,” she scolded as James Gatewood approached her, bowed, and linked his arm through hers.

“I only lose them. The warden at All Souls thinks that I should sit on them, and then I would know where they are.”

He stopped and looked her in the eye. “I have not yet proposed for the day, madam.” He went down on one knee. “My dear, would you make me the happiest man alive and consent to share my bed and board?”

“Never,” she replied.

He grinned. “Oh, well. Failing that, will you marry me?”

She gasped and then laughed in spite of herself. She tugged on his arm, looking about to make sure that no one saw them. “Now, get up before the moisture soaks through your buckskins and you come down with a dreadful cold, and I am forced to nurse you long after the wedding is over.”

“Very well,” he replied, rising and taking her arm again. “Now where was I?”

“I refuse to remind you.”

He laughed, and Ellen was forced to smile.

“Do you really intend to propose every day?” she asked.

“Perhaps not every day,” he said. “Who knows but that some day the element of surprise might prosper my wooing?” He touched her hand. “But yes, that is my intention.”

They walked in silence, arm in arm through the shrubbery.

“This is not good weather for lovemaking,” he commented. “Think how much better it will be in Oxford this spring.”

“I am not returning to Oxford,” she insisted.

“Oh?” he said in that irritating way of his. “Which reminds me somehow. This would be a good time to puff up my consequence with you a little. Do you know what the Genuine Article Lord Chesney has gone and done? He's such a good fellow.”

“What has that eccentric man done now?” she asked in mock seriousness. “Dare you repeat it?”

“I do believe he has established a trust fund at Oxford University covering all the workers injured on college property. The idea has caught on amongst all the colleges, and soon there will be a sizable endowment. I believe Adam Speed's family will be the first to benefit.”

Ellen stood still and took hold of Gatewood's other hand too. She could not speak for a moment, and even then, she could not look him in the eye. “What would England be without her eccentrics?”

He raised her gloved hand to his lips. “Merely a stodgy little island with indifferent food.” He continued on, kindly overlooking her sniffles. “Who knows what he will do next?”

“I wouldn't even hazard a guess.”

They walked in companionable silence through the woods, Ellen lost in thought. Without realizing it, she leaned her head against Lord Chesney's arm as they walked along, wondering how she could face the house again. There was the wedding rehearsal tonight, full of unexplored peril.

She stopped walking. “Why do weddings have to be such uncomfortable events?” she asked the sky. “Oh, beg pardon,” she said. “I didn't mean to hang about you like that.”

“I didn't mind.”

He led her to a fallen tree and sat her down. “Wedding giving you the blue devils?”

Ellen nodded. “I wonder that anyone does it.” She brightened. “Perhaps Papa will pay me to elope some day.”

“You wouldn't!” the marquess declared.

“Of course not, silly,” she said. “What, would I deprive all my relatives of food and high drama?” She scuffed her boots in the spongy soil. “And now Horry is impossible, just as you predicted. I made some offhand remark about Edwin this morning, and she turned ten shades of pale and bolted to her room like a rabbit. She definitely has cold feet.” She blushed. “But this is hardly a subject to discuss with you.”

He nudged her shoulder when she appeared disinclined to continue. “There was a time when we could talk about anything.”

“And I was pretty foolish in Oxford,” she replied. She rose. “I must go back and enter the lists again. Come at your own risk. Oh, I shall be so grateful when this wedding is over and …”

“… and I go away?” he concluded.

She considered him, sitting there on the log. “Yes, Lord Chesney. You don't belong here. I come from a family of toadies, fools, and mushrooms. We really don't improve upon further acquaintance.”

She started to walk, leaving him behind.
There
, she thought as she hurried to the house,
if that doesn't tell James Gatewood the time of day, I do not know what will.

It was a simple matter to avoid him for the rest of the day. Ralph emerged from the library only long enough to beg Cook for two sandwiches, milk for him and ale for Lord Chesney, and plague Ellen for more paper.

“It is famous, sister,” he said, fairly jumping up and down in his excitement. “I am writing another scene for Act V. Lord Chesney has such incredible ideas.”

“Yes, he does,” she said quietly. As Ralph almost danced away, she wanted to call after him, to tell him not to build up his hopes.
It's the counting house for you, Ralph, and country obscurity for me. And Gordon will squander one last term at Oxford, and then didn't Lord Chesney promise him a cavalry regiment? Heaven knows why. Life is decidedly unfair.

Icy rain was falling that evening as the wedding party adjourned to the chapel in the village for the rehearsal. Mama had insisted that the bridesmaids wear their gowns so she could take one last look at the hems. The girls shivered in their low-cut dresses with the skimpy sleeves. Martha ran in and out of the door with her basket of flower petals until the back of the chapel was quite damp with icy rain. Horry observed the chaos in perfect misery, staying far away from Edwin, who looked like a puppy without a home.

Sir Reginald Bland was there, splendidly overdressed as usual, and looking about him with disdain at all the others who did not preface their names with “sir.” Ellen experienced one moment of pleasure when her father introduced the august Sir Reginald to Lord Chesney. She felt mean enough to relish the way he wilted and sat down in the chapel, quiet for the rest of the evening. She sat down too, grateful to be a mere onlooker.

“Ellen, Ellen, we need you right now,” Mama was saying. She looked around. Mama was motioning furiously to her from the back of the church.

“See here, Ellen, you must stand in for Horatia,” Mama said. “It is a tradition that the bride not participate in the rehearsal.” She pushed Ellen closer to Papa, who was gazing wearily at his pocket watch.

There was a commotion from the front of the church. The relatives who had come to watch ceased their chatter and looked up with interest. Mama sank into the nearest pew and began to fan herself, even though she could see her breath when she spoke.

“Edwin has fainted, depend upon it,” she said in a toneless voice.

So he had, right among the potted plants. Best man Thomas Cornwell, his ears as red as his face, grasped him under the armpits and draped him across the choir seats closer to the altar. Horry charged down the aisle in tears, waving her smelling salts in one hand.

“Well, thank goodness for that,” Ellen said to Papa as Horry passed them. “I was beginning to wonder if she was going to avoid Edwin for the rest of their engagement.”

Papa only chuckled. “I seem to recall a scene like this some twenty years ago,” he said.

“Papa, not you!” Ellen exclaimed, her eyes bright.

He nodded and tucked her arm closer in his. “Ah, well, Ellen, somehow these things are accomplished. Are you ready for a stroll down the aisle?”

In perfect charity with her father, Ellen watched Martha romp down the aisle in front of them, swinging her empty flower basket like a censer. The bridesmaids, sneezing in earnest now, followed slowly. She started next, minding her steps in time with the music and Papa's dreadful sense of rhythm. They lurched down the aisle together, ignoring the snickers of the cousins in the front pews.

And there by the altar was the Marquess of Chesney, standing in for Edwin, who by now was sitting up in the choir seats, an expression of complete befuddlement on his already vacuous face. Horry chafed his wrists and uttered little cries of concern.

Ellen rolled her eyes and the marquess winked at her. She turned her attention to Thomas Cornwell, the best man, who gazed with something close to rapture upon Fanny Bland, even though her eyes were red and her nose ran.

With only a minimum of confusion, Papa gave her away to the greatest rascal in the peerage, and they knelt together in front of the altar.

“I only hope I am not wearing the shoes with the holes in the sole,” he whispered in her ear.

“You really should take better care of yourself, Jim,” she hissed back.

“Ellen, make me the happiest man alive and marry me,” he whispered.

“Not on your life,” she whispered back. “And don't you think for one minute that this charade gives you any special privileges. We are mere stand-ins.”

“Do you mean I cannot ravish you in front of all these guests? You can certainly put a damper on a wedding rehearsal, Ellen.”

She burst into laughter as the priest glared at her. “Sorry, Father Mackey,” she said and choked down her merriment.

“That's better,” the marquess said. “Have a little countenance, Ellen, on this serious occasion. Gracious, but my knees ache! Sorry, Father.”

The priest stood there with his book, glaring down at the happy couple, while Mama inspected all the bridesmaids, and scrutinized Thomas Cornwell, the best man, until his ears turned scarlet again. In a voice that made the priest wince, she ordered Martha to stop her fidgeting and pronounced the tableau before her acceptable.

The organist wheezed into the recessional. Martha bolted down the aisle, followed by the bridesmaids, coughing and sneezing. Ellen Grimsley and James Gatewood turned and started down the aisle. In another moment they stood in the freezing vestibule.

“Thank heaven that is over,” said the marquess to Cornwell.

He snatched up a shawl from the back bench and thrust it at the best man. “Here. Put this around Miss Bland before she freezes solid.”

Thomas did as he was bid and then scampered back to Lord Chesney's side. “You don't think it would be monstrous improper if I cuddled her a little?” he asked. “After all, she is so cold.”

“I think it an admirable stroke, Thomas.”

Cornwell drew himself up to his full height and started back toward the bridesmaids, a man with a mission. Ellen watched his stately progress and tugged Fanny aside. “Fanny, let him take you home in his carriage,” she whispered, her eyes on the approaching farmer, who had stopped to straighten his neckcloth and gird his loins. “And if you should happen to lean up against him, or … or put your hand on his knee, all the better.”

“Ellen! That is so improper!” Fanny declared. “My mother would be mortified!”

“Your mother is not here,” Ellen reminded her. “Now blow your nose.” She gave Fanny a little shove into Thomas's arms, crossed her fingers, and hoped for the best.

She was still smiling as she buttoned up Martha and led her to the waiting carriage. She handed her up to the Marquess of Chesney, who sat Martha on his lap and made room for Ellen.

The carriage filled up with relatives and there was no opportunity to talk, much to Ellen's relief. She longed for her bed, and the peace and quiet of an empty house in which to think about her own future. But she was to share her bed with one of Mama's interminable nieces, and aunts and uncles fairly hung from the rafters. She leaned against the marquess again.

“Ellen,” he began, his voice low, gentle.

She put her finger to her lips. “Don't say anything now. “He nodded and stared out the window, his eyes serious. He said nothing to her in the house beyond a formal good night.

She thought of him as she climbed into bed and curled up against her cousin who was already asleep.
This wedding can't be over soon enough
, she thought as her eyelids drooped.
When the house is empty, and Gordon back at Oxford, I should make some plans of my own.

Aunt Shreve had talked of spending the spring at Royal Tunbridge Wells.
Perhaps if I tease her enough, she will allow me to accompany her
, Ellen thought. Tunbridge Wells was in the opposite direction from Oxford.
I must not think of Oxford again
, she told herself.

The wedding day dawned bitter cold, but mercifully clear.

Ellen hopped on bare feet by the icy window, gazing out at the beautiful morning until Mama stuck her head in the door and scolded her to hurry up and dress.

She did as she was told, grateful to pull on her favorite dark blue wool dress.
And to think I wanted to be a bridesmaid
, she recalled.
I think I would rather be warm.

She sat at the dressing table for a longer minute than usual, staring into her own face.
It is a pretty face
, she decided, after a careful scrutiny.
I have excellent pores and all my teeth. My mouth is a trifle large, but it's the only one I have.
She brushed her blonde hair until it stood in little curls all over her head.
Seriously, what does he see in me?

Horatia was a ravishingly lovely bride, with her blonde hair, elegant height, and enormous brown eyes. Ellen smiled at her sister as she twirled around in her satin dress with the net overskirt and the bodice studded with seed pearls. So what if she was not over bright, and Edwin Bland equally dense? They loved each other, and that seemed to be enough for them.
I wonder if it would be enough for me
, Ellen thought as she attached Horry's train and gave her a last hug.

The church was no warmer, but it was full of relatives and village friends, all come to see Horatia Grimsley married to Edwin Bland. Even the flowers that only last night had looked so sorely put upon by the cold had taken on new bloom for the occasion.