Miss Grimsleys Oxford Career (32 page)

“How … how do you know?” she asked.

“He told me.” Gordon smiled and took her hands in his, stopping their agitated motion. “I told him he's crazy to love someone so book-mad and more stubborn than Balaam's ass, but it didn't deter him. Besides, what are you going to do except marry?”

“I … I have plans,” she said.

He got up and went to the window. “Still going to map the world, and write guidebooks, and travel the seven seas? Really, El! Maybe you should grow up. You can't do any of those things, because you are a woman.”

She opened her mouth to protest and then closed it. Gordon, her foolish, spendthrift, care-for-nobody brother, had hit the mark.

He turned to face her. “I know I'm not as smart as you are, sister, but I think there ought to be a purpose for everything, even all this education. What's your purpose? You know you're not going to be a governess, and we don't have any missionary connections, thank goodness, so you can't go toddling off to India and cholera epidemics. What's the reason for all this? Or maybe you don't know.”

She joined him at the window. “I thought perhaps I would start a day school for young girls of the lower classes. If some of them could learn such rudimentary skills as reading, writing, and ciphering, they could find better employment.”

It sounded stupid to her ears. To her relief, Gordon did not laugh. “Wonderful, sister, but how will you finance such a venture, for it will never turn a penny on its own. Even I know that. And you know Papa will never lay down any blunt on a scheme like that.”

There was so much truth in what Gordon said that Ellen could not look at him. She stared out the window, seeing nothing, thinking suddenly of Aunt Shreve's strange words: “You must find your own way through this particular dilemma, as all women must.”

She shivered and rubbed her arms. This was the dilemma that Aunt Shreve meant, this realization that all her plans and ideas meant little in the reality of her female situation. She rested her forehead against the cold windowpane, scarcely feeling Gordon's hand on her arm.

She looked at her brother. “This is not the Middle Ages, is it, Gordon? I mean, I could say no to this marriage scheme that Papa and Lord Chesney have hatched between them, couldn't I?”

He nodded. “You could.” And then he had to look away. “But you know that Mama and Papa both have ways of making you want to change your mind.”

She leaned against his arm, filled with more charity than she would have thought possible for this author of her misery. “Papa would rant and rave and storm about the house. And Mama … Mama would sniff and turn pale and take to her bed, and call me an ungrateful daughter, and prophesy the almshouse for all of us.”

He nodded again, his arm about her shoulders now. “Or call me an ungrateful son because I wanted nothing to do with Oxford.”

Ellen hugged him. He started in surprise and then embraced her.

“Gordon, I am so wicked to think that you were such a fool for not wanting to be here!” She looked up at her brother, tears glistening on her eyelashes. “It never was your style, even though I thought it should be.”

He could only nod his head again in complete agreement. “Poor El! I was the one sentenced to Oxford, when you wanted to go.”

“But you, at least, have only to endure the rest of this term,” she reminded him. There was no bitterness in her voice anymore. “And then you will be where you want to be.”

“Perhaps,” was all he said, his own voice subdued.

She hugged him again and then stepped back to regard him.

“I have neglected you of late, Gordon. How have your studies gone at University College?”

He smiled faintly. “No more standing ovations on Saturday mornings, if that's what you mean. The warden has decided that Shakespeare was a fluke with me, and is willing to suffer my mediocrity on Milton. I have done all right, for all that it's my own work now.” He cleared his throat and studied the pattern in the carpet for a long moment. “Ellen, I'm sorry for the trouble I caused you.”

She only shrugged. “You'll note that I wasn't really dragged into those confounded papers kicking and screaming. It doesn't matter any more, if it ever did. I'll never forget those weeks.” She stopped, not able to bring herself to say anything to Gordon about that wonderful afternoon spent in Gatewood's chambers, discussing Shakespeare like equals, or the December punt on the half-frozen Isis. She would have those private memories to shore her up for years to come.

“Well, what do you think?”

Gordon was still talking, and she hadn't heard a word.

“What?” she asked. “Excuse my vapor on the brain.”

“I was just inquiring politely as to the possibility of your changing your mind about a small loan until the quarter.”

“No! Gordon, you are yet a rascal!”

He grinned and grabbed for his cap as he backed out the door.

He paused. “I thought that since you were mellowing a bit, that I would try. I suppose I will have to come up with my own money-making scheme, won't I?”

“I suppose you will,” she agreed, no anger in her voice, but only an emotion she could not quite put her finger on.

Still he stood in the doorway, turning his cap around and around in his hands. “Ellen, you're a right one. If you really can't stomach a proposal from Lord Chesney, I'll stand by you with our parents.” He clapped the hat on his head. “But I, for one, would like a warm brother-in-law who has elastic purse strings.”

He was gone then, slamming the door behind him. She stood at the window and blew him a kiss.
Gordon, you will always be a rascal
, she thought. She leaned against the window again.
And you, Ralph, are a bit of a Machiavelli where your own interests are paramount. Neither of you have measured up to any of my ideals of what brothers should be, I suppose, but then, no one has measured up lately, not even me.

She returned to her room and her books. Ellen sat down at her desk and thoughtfully fingered the stack of Shakespeare essays she had written in the last few weeks. She walked with them to the fireplace.

“Ellen, you could toss these on the flames right now and be done with them,” she told herself. “Or you could keep them for your own children, or your nieces and nephews to find, yellowing in a trunk someday, or lining mouse nests. Or you could give them to Lord Chesney,” she said out loud. “That may have been all he wanted from you in the first place.”

She stopped. That was unfair. Her face red again, and not from the nearness of the flames, she remembered the look in his eyes when he threw open the door and grabbed her. There was nothing of a calculating scholar in that instant. He was a man desperate with worry for his love.

She wavered in front of the flames, holding out the pages until her fingernails started to hurt. She could not bring herself to drop them.

“No,” she said decisively. “These are mine, at least for the moment.” She put the pages back on her desk and went to the dressing room for her warmest cloak.

A walk will do me good
, she decided as she joined the other students who were setting out for their weekly expedition to Fletcher's Book Shop. On the way downstairs, she stuffed her essays into a box, scrawled “Lord Chesney, All Souls College,” on top and thrust it at the porter, with instructions.

Ellen breathed deep in the brisk air and listened with half an ear to the talk of the others as they hurried along. Soon she did not listen at all, because the talk centered on end-of-term plans. Susan was cajoled into stripping off her glove to give them a glimpse of the ring her missionary-fiancé had sent from India. Millicent and Augusta compared notes on the great houses they had already contracted to teach in and speculated on the probability of finding eligible vicars in the district.

“What about you, Ellen?” one of them was saying as they walked along companionably, arm in arm. “We hear rumors …”

There was a pause, and smiles all around. Ellen could only shake her head.
Have we no conversation that does not revolve around men?
she wanted to ask.
Is everything we do dependent upon their good will?

The questions remained unasked because she already knew the answers.

It was an easy matter to see the other girls inside Fletcher's and then duck over to the next block and knock on a low door. As she waited for it to open, she noted a new window box and earth freshly turned, as if lying in wait for a long-promised spring.

The door opened; Becky Speed stood there, dishcloth in hand, her mouth open in surprise.

“Miss Grimsley!” she managed at last and took hold of Ellen's arm. “Do come in! How glad I am this is my half-day! Mama, you cannot guess who has come to visit us.”

In a few minutes, Ellen was seated before a respectable fire, with a cup of strong tea in her hand.

“None of that hot water now, Miss,” Mrs. Speed was saying. “It's real tea, and I even have sugar, should you want it.”

Ellen shook her head. Her eyes took in the new coat of whitewash in the room and two sagging, comfortable armchairs close to Mr. Speed's daybed.

Becky followed Ellen's gaze with her own eyes and raised her chin. “We were able to redeem them from the moneylender's,” she said. “Papa loves to have us close by. I think he even knows we are there,” she added and took her mother's hand in her own. “And there is tea.”

Ellen sipped her tea, her eyes on Mrs. Speed, who had lost that pinched look.

Becky brought her mother's hand to her cheek. “And doesn't my mum look fine as fivepence?” she asked, her eyes sparkling. “Since Papa now has that pension from the university, Mama has given herself permission to eat something besides bread and hot water.”

“Is he better?” Ellen asked quietly.

Becky sat down beside her father. “Nay, Miss Grimsley, and he will likely not improve. But think on this: we have had a doctor in to tell us that himself, so now at least we don't have to wonder if there was something else we could have done.”

Mrs. Speed touched Ellen's arm. “Cheer up, miss. There's some comfort in knowing that.”

“I suppose there is,” Ellen replied.
I refuse to embarrass these good women by tears
, she told herself.
They don't pity themselves, and I should not.

She sat back in the chair and watched Becky hovering about the inert form of her father, wiping his face, arranging his hands more comfortably on the blanket.
Without a complaint, they have taken their lot in life and made it something whole and dignified. I think there is a lesson in this for me.

She leaned forward suddenly, nearly spilling her tea. “Tell me, Becky. If you could, would you attend a school—let us say an evening school—where you could learn to read, write, and cipher?”

“I am sure I could not afford such a wonder,” Becky replied.

“But if you could, Becky, would you?”

Becky straightened the blankets around her father slowly, carefully. “I … I suppose I would.”

“And what would you do with your education?”

Becky sat down in the chair across from her. “It's all wild speculation, miss,” she protested.

“Perhaps now it is, but tell me, what would you do?”

Becky closed her eyes, a dreamy smile on her face. “I would get a position in a little shop, someplace where the master wants a bit of clerking, and tidying up, and bookkeeping.” She opened her eyes and shook out the dishcloth. “And I'd never darken Miss Dignam's door again!”

“What an admirable course,” Ellen agreed.

But Becky wasn't through. “And with a position like that, I could probably find myself a fellow, maybe a tradesman or journeyman who could use a little of the money I saved to help himself into his own business.” She blushed. “Stranger things have happened, miss, stranger things.”

Ellen set her cup down with a decisive click. “How right you are, Becky.” She rose and held out her hand to Mrs. Speed. “Thank you for your hospitality.”

Mrs. Speed clung to her hand. “If I'm not too brash and all, will you be seeing Lord Chesney?” she asked, her eyes anxious.

Here it comes
, thought Ellen,
here is the petition that everyone, me and my brother included, wants.
“Yes, I probably will,” she replied.

Mrs. Speed kissed her cheek. “Don't mean to be forward, but that's for Lord Chesney, miss. Tell him ‘thank you from the Speeds.’

“Anything more?” she asked, her heart lifting.

Mrs. Speed shook her head. “We can't think of anything we need. Lord Chesney has thought of it all. Just tell him ‘thank you.’ ”

“And I shall,” Ellen whispered as she quietly let herself out of the house and hurried around the corner to the bookshop.
Oh, I shall
, she thought as she joined the others.
And when he proposes, I will say yes this time, and Becky will have her school.

And what will I have?
she asked herself as she hurried to keep up with the others.
A husband who loves me.
She stopped, and the others bumped into her.
But do I love him?

She shook her head and hurried on, ignoring the questioning looks of the others.
I wish I knew what love really was.