Miss Grimsleys Oxford Career (35 page)

“Oh, Becky!”

Rapid walking, and a pause in a darkened alley as the night watchman passed, brought them to All Souls’ door. Holding her breath, Ellen turned the handle. Locked. She looked back at Becky in dismay. They ran around to the side door. Locked.

Ellen looked up at the wall surrounding the quad. The ivy that climbed it was only beginning to flourish again, but maybe with a little help … She turned to Becky.

“Help me up on your shoulders,” she commanded. Becky crouched and Ellen climbed onto her back, clutching the ivy on the wall as she stood upright on the maid's shoulders. She grasped the ivy more firmly and pulled herself up and over, dropping down into a muddy patch of daffodils.

“Gordon, you had better appreciate what I am doing for you,” she muttered as she scraped off the worst of the mud and crept around the perimeter of the quad, careful to stay out of the moonlight.

She tried the handle to the hall door, sighing in audible relief when it creaked and turned. She peeked in. The porter still sat at his tall desk, his eyes closed, his head drooping. She opened the door an inch at a time, holding her breath, and then crept on her hands and knees across the stone floor to the stairway, which was shrouded in welcome darkness.

The upstairs hall was dark. Ellen removed her shoes and padded quietly along the floor, pausing at each door to squint at the name-plate.

There it was, third door from the stairwell. Taking a deep breath, and wishing herself anywhere but at James Gatewood's door, she knocked.

No one answered. She knocked louder. To her ears, the sound seemed to reverberate like a bass drum across the fellows hall, over the quad, and down to the High Street itself. “Gordon, the things I must do for you,” she muttered through clenched teeth as she knocked again.

She was about to consider the possibility of going outside and trying to climb in a window when she heard slow steps on the other side of the door.

“This better be really good, Lambeth,” she heard as she pressed her ear to the door.

The door swung open. James Gatewood, clad in a nightshirt, stared at her.

“You're definitely not Lord Lambeth,” he murmured finally and grabbed her by the arm, pulling her inside and then looking up and down the hall before he quietly closed the door. “Ellen, what on earth …”

He looked down and rolled his eyes. “One moment,” he said and disappeared into the next room.

Ellen looked around the chamber, lit as it was by the remnants of a fire in the grate. Her heart sank as she took in the crates of books already packed and the half-empty shelves.

Gatewood returned wearing a robe and carrying a lamp, which he held in front of her face. “Just wanted to make sure I wasn't dreaming,” he explained.

“I wish you were,” she said, grateful that the shadowy room covered her own embarrassment. “I swore I would never plague you again, and I know you are busy …” she began. “Oh, Jim, it's the worst thing!”

He sighed and scratched his head. “Can't be, my dear. We've already been through the worst thing.”

She looked up at his words, her eyes hopeful, but he was making himself comfortable in his armchair. He motioned to the other one.

“How bad can it be?” he asked, a slight smile on his face as she seated herself on the edge of the chair.

“Gordon is involved in a duel tomorrow morning, Jim,” she said, keeping her voice low to mask her own agitation. “You've got to find out where and stop him, please.”

“What?” he shouted, leaping to his feet. He pulled her up by the shoulders until her feet were off the ground. “He couldn't possibly do anything that harebrained at Oxford, not even Gordon!”

She opened her mouth to insist that he set her down, when there was a banging on the wall. A faint voice, “Go to blazes, Gatewood,” came through the wall.

He set her down and pounded the wall with his fist. “Eat rocks, Lambeth,” Gatewood yelled back. “That should stop him. Now, what is this?”

“It is Gordon,” she repeated. “Becky heard one of Miss Dignam's students say that her brother was going to fight a duel tomorrow—oh, my, this morning—with someone named Grimsley who owed him a gambling debt.” She burst into tears. “And I would not let him have any money when he came to me.”

Without a word, he picked her up more gently this time and sat her on his lap. “Neither would I,” he muttered into her hair as he kissed the top of her head. “Now, dry your tears, my dear. I'll go find your dratted brother.” He rubbed her arm. “With any luck at all, this will not get to the ears of the warden or, heaven help us, the Vice Chancellor.”

She sat up in his lap.
I could propose now
, she thought as she put her hands against his chest.
Oh, but this is decidedly the wrong time. Drat Gordon, anyway.

“Yes, by all means, please do what you can.”

He put her off his lap and stood up. “You stay here while I get dressed.” He hurried to the other room and then looked back. “How did you get in here in the first place?”

“I climbed the wall, Jim,” she said.

He burst into laughter, which precipitated another bang on the wall. “Ellen, you need someone to take care of you,” he said as he ran across the room and banged back. “For someone who can't matriculate at good old Ox U, you certainly have performed a time-honored custom.” He ruffled her hair as he hurried past to his bedroom. “Did you land in the daffodils or the shrubbery?”

She laughed and then put her band over her mouth and waited for Lambeth to object. When he did not, she came closer to the bed-chamber. “I should be going, Jim,” she whispered.

In a moment, Gatewood stood before her in his buckskins and a half-buttoned shirt. “Indeed you should, but unless you are a prodigious climber, you will need some help getting back over the wall.” He tucked in his shirt, ran his fingers through his hair, and grabbed up his student's cloak.

“Surely you could just open the gate from the inside?” she asked.

“And how are we to convince the porter to hand over his keys?” He grinned. “Ellen, you really don't look like a man. By the way, how did you get past the porter in the first place, or dare I ask?”

Ellen's chin went up. “I crawled on my hands and knees. Oh, the things I have done for Gordon this night!”

Gatewood reached for her hand and blew out the lamp. “Come, my dear, and let us save your witless brother.”

The hall was still deserted. They crept down the stairs and peered into the main hall. The porter, very much awake, was reading his paper.

“This will be a bit tricky,” Gatewood said, his arm tight around Ellen. “Let me go first. I will engage him in some idle chatter while you creep out the way you came in, right up against the desk where he cannot see you.”

“I hope you have a brilliant explanation if he sees me,” she said, getting down on all fours again.

Gatewood flashed his lazy smile. “Oh, I will let you think of something. You're a creative person.”

As unconcerned as if it were midday, Gatewood sauntered up to the desk and leaned his elbow on the high counter. “Can't sleep, Wilson,” he said. “I do believe I'll take a turn about the quad.”

“Certainly, my lord. Would you wish me to unlock the gate?”

The picture of casual unconcern, Gatewood shrugged and shuffled his feet as Ellen crawled past him. “I think not. If a walk about the quad doesn't wear me out, then I'll reconsider. Good evening to you, Wilson.” He chuckled. “Or should I say, ‘Good morning?’ ”

“Aye, my lord.”

He strolled through the doorway into the dark and grabbed up Ellen by the back of her cloak as she crouched in the shadows. “Now let us stay in the shadows and casually stroll toward the daffodils. Ellen, did you do all this damage?”

She looked in dismay at the flower bed. “Surely not!” she declared. “I expect that others have sneaked in after me.”

He shook his head. “Nay, my love, most of us go over the back, where there are no flowers.” He nudged her shoulder. “You can store that bit of All Souls wisdom for future reference.”

“I doubt I'll ever come this way again,” she replied, her voice crisp.

He laughed, cutting it short as he glanced back at the porter's light. He cupped his hands and knelt down in the flowerbed. “Up you get, Ellen.”

In another moment she had scrambled to the top of the wall.

Becky, her face upturned and anxious, watched from the other side. Ellen looked down at Lord Chesney. “Thank you, Jim. Do please find Gordon.”

“It will be my total duty tonight,” he replied, his tone affable, as though he had all the time in the world. “Now I will stroll back to the porter and ask him to let me out the main gate. Scram now, before someone sees you.”

Still she balanced on top of the wall. “You will let me know the outcome?”

“I'll let you know.” He chuckled. “I don't think that even the long-suffering and vastly tolerant Miss Medford would applaud this excursion of yours.”

He blew a kiss to her and started back to the porter's hall. “Jim, wait!” she whispered.

He turned around.

I love you
, she wanted to shout, but Becky was calling to her from the other side of the wall. “Just … thank you.”

He bowed. Ellen let herself down until she was dangling by her hands and then dropped quietly to the pavement.

Becky grabbed her hand and they started at a fast trot for St. Hilda's. Quietly they crept into the servant's entrance again, where the door still hung slightly ajar. Becky released her hand.

“I have to hurry back to Miss Dignam's.” She hesitated, then leaned closer. “Did he propose tonight, Miss Grimsley?”

Ellen stared at her in surprise. “Why, no, he did not, Becky,” she said slowly. “And I don't think he's going to.”

“I just wondered. What a pity,” the maid said as she let herself out the door.

Wearily, Ellen climbed the stairs. She stuffed the student's cloak under her bed and pulled on her nightgown again.
No, he did not propose, nor would he ever. Drat you, James Gatewood
, she thought as she tied on her sleeping cap again.
You're going to be noble and spare me from a lifetime of inanity at the hands of your ignorant relatives.
She sighed and threw herself back on the pillow, pulling the blankets up to her chin.
And I am so practiced in dealing with inane relatives!

She rooted about for a comfortable spot and tucked her hand under her cheek.
You'll choose some brainless wonder who will fit right into your family, like Horry did. What a dreadful waste of you and me.

She was beyond tears. She thought about Jim, and then about Gordon, and still was wondering which of them was more irritating when her eyes closed.

She was awake just after dawn and standing at the open window, listening with her whole heart for the sound of gunfire. All she heard were the bells of Oxford, reminding scholars of another day. Likely Jim had found Gordon and talked him out of this infantile silliness. They were probably eating breakfast together right now in one of the old inns that flanked the Isis.

Ellen dressed slowly, wondering how long it would be before her thoughtless brother remembered to send a message that all was well. Probably Gatewood would relieve his financial difficulties and sent Gordon Grimsley on his way rejoicing.
What my brother really wants is one of Papa's canings
, she thought, her lips set in a mutinous pout that lasted all the way to the breakfast table.

Ellen had scarcely filled her plate and seated herself at the table when the footman approached her chair. “There is a young person outside to see you,” he announced, his face impassive.

Her mind alive with sudden worry, she nodded her apologies to Miss Medford and forced herself to walk slowly into the hall.

Becky pounced on her as soon as the door was shut. The maid grabbed Ellen's hand, tugging her toward the outside door.

“Miss Grimsley, you must come quick. Gordon has shot Lord Chesney!”

ITHOUT A WORD
, E
LLEN GATHERED UP HER
skirts and ran out the door, close on Becky's heels. Her mind was a blank as they raced toward the river, where the morning mist was just beginning to clear.