by Carla Kelly
She stuck out her tongue at him, and he laughed and leaped out of his chair in pretend fear. He dashed to the door, ignoring the quelling look Miss Dignam cast in his direction as she smacked down her playing cards.
Ellen hurried to his side. “At least let me know how it goes when you read the paper, you beast! You owe me that.”
He tweaked another curl. “I will report promptly. El, did you do all those curls for me, or do you have a beau already? Someone stuffy and studious?”
“Of course not,” she denied, her face rosy. “I did them for … for Lord Chesney!” She laughed at the look on his face and pushed him. “I am beginning to wonder if my benefactor really exists. Well, go on, if you must.”
He left, after a kiss in the air by her cheek and a wave in her general direction. Ellen walked slowly back to her room. I will never compose another page for so ungrateful a brother, she thought, as she ran her hand along the stair railing. I wonder how many other select females have felt so full of the dismals.
She would never attempt the Bodleian again, as much as it beckoned. She sat at her desk, chin in hand, and gazed across the street to the spires of Oxford.
It might as well be on the moon, she thought, for all the good it does me.
LLEN STEELED HERSELF FOR ANOTHER DREADFUL weekend. She lay in bed and watched Fanny primping in front of the mirror, raving on about the treat in store for her. “Really, Ellen, if you had paid more attention to your embroidery this week, I am sure that Miss Dignam would have permitted you a stroll down the High Street with an unexceptionable beau.”
She paused and turned around, her smile arch. “Provided you could find an unexceptionable beau, Ellen. I have my doubts.”
She turned back to the mirror and Ellen stuck her tongue out. “I am not sure that it is to my taste to be shepherded about in the company of a beau and a servant, not to mention the other couples in attendance,” Ellen replied, keeping her voice light.
Fanny refused to be ruffled. She shook her head and clucked her tongue at her reflection. “Ellen, you are a faster little piece than I ever thought. Countenance, Ellen, countenance.”
With a wave of her gloved hand, she was gone. Ellen threw her pillow at Fanny as the door closed and then pulled the covers over her head. She thought about home and even about Thomas Cornwell. At least if she were home, they could stroll about the gardens or play cards in the library without the ubiquitous presence of a maid or footman. And if he was poor company, well, at least he was company, and she knew his faults.
She could ride when she chose and walk to the village with Ralph, talking about Great Ideas. Here there was nothing but the prospect of another day spent at the embroidery hoop.
She was almost asleep again when Becky Speed knocked and stuck her head inside the room. “Miss Grimsley, come quick! You have a visitor.”
“Go away,” Ellen said, her voice muffled under the bed clothes.
“It is Mr. James Gatewood, and he has never looked so good,” Becky said. She ran into the room and pulled the covers off Ellen, who sat up in surprise.
“You mean his hair is combed?” she asked and then laughed. “Well, I suppose such a momentous event calls for my presence, if for no other reason than to verify it.”
She dressed quickly, running a comb through her tousled curls, grateful for once for naturally curly hair. She patted on her lavender cologne while Becky buttoned her up the back. “He said he didn't have much time,” the servant said.
Ellen hurried down the stairs and threw herself into the sitting room.
James Gatewood whirled around from his contemplation of the view out the front window and put up a hand to stop her. “Whoa, fair Hermia! Where is the fire?”
Ellen twinkled her eyes at him. “Becky said you did not have much time, and I wanted to see how you looked with your hair combed.”
He threw back his head and laughed until Ellen blushed. He turned around slowly, for her benefit. “Every hair in place, my dear. Note that the gown is pressed and I have on a starched collar.” He put his hand over his heart. “I promised my mother that I would go to such exertions occasionally. It was one of the terms of the agreement.”
“Agreement?” she asked.
It was Gatewood's turn to blush. “I did not really mean to mention that, but here it is: I promised Mama a year only at All Souls, and then I would go into the …” He paused and frowned, as if searching for the right words. He brightened. “… into the family business.”
Ellen sat down and patted the seat beside her. Gatewood joined her, and she noticed that he smelled quite pleasantly of French cologne. “And what, sir, is the family business?”
“Horse trading,” he replied, not batting an eye. “And window dressing,” he added.
“Such odd occupations,” she said.
“Someone must do them,” he replied. “It is my lot in life to be a horse trader and a window dresser.”
He regarded her for a moment, and she was aware how patchedup was her own hurried appearance. “I slept late,” she said in self-defense.
But there was nothing in his eyes of complaint. It was a warm expression he fixed on her, one that made her stomach jump a little.
“I think you are charming,” he said, “even with the wrong shoes on, and the marks of the bedspread still on your face.” Ellen gasped and looked down at her feet, where one brown shoe and one black one peeked out from under her dress. She touched her cheek. “Oh, dear!”
He leaned back on the couch, stretching out his legs, enjoying the moment. Without thinking, Ellen socked him in the stomach. “You are no gentleman!” she protested, laughing. “You remind me more of my brothers, and I will treat you that way.”
“Brothers, eh?” he teased, when he could breathe again. “I don't know who to pity more: you or them.”
The bells of Oxford sounded the hour. Gatewood glanced out the window. “I would love to discuss your family, but I am late. Do you have a copy of your Midsummer Night's Dream paper? I would love to read it.”
“I did not have time to make another copy.”
Gatewood shook his head. “My dear Miss Grimsley, always keep a copy. That is the first rule of the writer.”
“It is only a paper for Gordon,” she protested.
“Still and all, madam, scholarship demands it, and there is no telling who might try to gyp you.” He rose and put on his gloves again. “I shall be forced to attend Gordon's University College reading this morning then, won't I?”
Ellen stood up too careful to keep her shoes under her dress. “I wish I could accompany you.”
He looked down at her, a lazy smile playing about his face. “I wish you could too.” The smile vanished. “It seems unfair.”
He took her hand and squeezed it. She looked up at him in surprise and then smiled her sunniest smile.
“It doesn't matter.” She let him hold her hand. “I am going to cry uncle soon and ask Papa to come and get me.” Unexpected tears filled her eyes, replacing the smile. “Oxford is not what I thought it was, and I was a silly nod to harbor expectations.”
“You are leaving?” he said, his voice as serious as hers. He only tightened his grip on her hand. “Do reconsider, Hermia. The Bodleian will be so dull with only the mice to entertain me.”
She smiled then and turned loose his hand, which she was gripping just as tight. “Still, sir, it has made me wiser.”
He was standing so close that she could have kissed him. The thought made her blush again, even as she wondered where such an idea had come from. She stepped back and clasped her hands behind her.
“You'll be late to the lecture, Jim,” she said, her voice soft.
“So I shall be.” He kissed her cheek. “Courage, fair Hermia,” he said, and quoted, “‘Do not doubt that saints attend thee.’ ”
“Hamlet,” she said, “and badly altered, I might add.”
He laughed and touched her cheek where he had kissed her. And then he was gone. She stood in the doorw
ay until he vanished down the alley that led to the interior of Oxford and University College.
Fanny and the other students returned before noon from their stroll about Oxford, rosy from the cold and glowing with news. Ellen looked up from her embroidery as Fanny entered the room. Fanny removed her hat and unbuttoned her pelisse. She went to the fireplace to warm her hands.
“Guess who we saw, running and jumping about on Cornmarket Street like a rabid dog?” she said at last.
“The Duke of Wellington,” Ellen said promptly, her eyes on her embroidery.
“Silly! It was your brother!” Fanny shook her head in disapproval at the memory. “He accosted me, Ellen, and grabbed me by the shoulders and said he had news for you. Imagine.” She looked down her long nose at Ellen. “Perhaps someone taught him how to write his own name or tally beyond his fingers.”
Ellen tightened her lips, counted to ten, and then smiled sweetly into her roommate's smug face. “Capital! Perhaps we should recommend Oxford to your brother Edwin, so he can learn these skills too. It must be grievous indeed for Edwin to have to take off his shoes to do higher math at the Grain Exchange.”
Fanny turned white about the mouth. “You're going to wish you hadn't said that,” she exclaimed and then cast about for something else. She raised her chin. “At least I, unlike you, am to be a bridesmaid for my dear Edwin and your featherbrain of a sister. Too bad such ignorance seems to run in your family!” She grabbed up her own embroidery and flounced from the room, slamming the door after her.
“Sticks and stones may break my bones,” Ellen muttered. She refused to let her mind dwell on Fanny's rudeness. “Or my own,” she said out loud, grinning to herself. “That was a repartee worthy of Ralph.”
She looked out the window, wondering when Gordon would appear, wondering if her paper had really been such a success.
In a few moments she saw him meandering along, hands shoved deep into his pockets, whistling. She tapped on the window to get his attention. When he looked up, he pointed down the street. Ellen shook her head, but he only shrugged his shoulders and grinned at her, pantomiming a pint of ale in one hand.
“Drat you, Gordon,” she said as she ran down the stairs and out the front door. She took him by the arm. “Not one step farther until you tell me how it went,” she said, out of breath.
Gordon looked around him. “Really, El, how does this look?” he complained. “I was merely going to celebrate the successful outcome of this morning's work,” he said. “And then I was going to come back to Miss Dragon's Female Hothouse and tell all.”
Ellen tugged him back to the academy. “That won't do, Gordon. I know you too well. Tell me first, and then go to the Cock and Hen.”
He gave her a look of compounded suspicion, surprise, and hurt feelings. “Really, El. How did you know it was the Cock and Hen?” he accused, assuming that exalted air he used on occasion when he wanted to remind her that she was the younger sibling. “El, one would think you had been there yourself. You're not keeping low company here in Oxford, are you?” he asked on the attack. “On the sly from Miss Dignam?”
Even though his dart hit home, she refused to acknowledge it to him. “The lowest company I keep is yours, brother,” she said. “Now come in here. You owe me that.”
When she released her grip on his gown, Gordon Grimsley carefully shook out its folds and followed her into the school, muttering something about little sisters who haven't a penny's worth of dignity to their name.
He followed her into the parlor, head high. When she closed the door behind them, he grabbed her and whirled her about, setting her down again and kissing her cheek with a loud smack. “We did it, El. My paper was a smashing success!”
“Whose paper?” she asked quietly, but he did not hear her as he continued to dance about the room with her. He stopped finally and flopped down on the settee.
“El, you should have been there. I rose to read my paper, and everyone was rummaging around and making vulgar noises. You know, the usual bits of nonsense at the Saturday readings.”
She didn't know, but she nodded. “Go on.”
He rose to his feet and struck a pose by the fireplace. “By the second page, everyone was silent,” he said, his eyes bright. “Even the dons and fellows were hanging on my every word.”
Ellen sighed with pleasure. “Magnificent, Gordon,” she said.
He bowed. “It was, rather.” He hurried forward then and grasped her hands. “But the best part was the end, El. When the last word died away, the room was dead silent. And then everyone began to applaud.”
“No!” she gasped, her eyes wide, the color rushing to her cheeks.
“Yes! And they stood up!” He threw himself in the chair across from her. “I never knew I could do so well!”
She frowned at her brother, who lolled in the chair, head back, eyes closed, a silly smile on his face. “I am the one who wrote the paper, Gordon,” she reminded him.
He opened his eyes. “Oh, yes, quite,” he said. “Wish you could have been there, dear, to see my triumph.”
She chose to overlook his enthusiasm and wondered for only a moment about the depression that settled over her.
It lasted only long enough for Gordon to sit upright and leap to his feet again. “El, here's the best part! Lord Chesney was there, and he singled me out for a conversation!”
“No!” she exclaimed again, her hands to her face. “Gordon, for heaven's sake, tell me what he looks like. What did he say?”
Gordon looked at her and shrugged. “Well, he was tall and had brown hair.”
Ellen pounded the armchair. “Can't you be more specific? That could be almost anyone in England!”
“I suppose you are right,” he said and smiled. “He really looked like a lord.”
Ellen sighed and took a turn about the room. “Gordon, you have never met a lord. How would you know?”
“Well, he had a certain air about him.”
“So does the village tannery back home, Gordon.”
He tried to stare her into capitulation, but he blinked first. “He had a Londoner's accent, I think. Sounded like a real aristo.” He frowned and tried to think. “Black robe … what else is there?” He brightened. “He did have a rather magnificent gold watch fob.”
Ellen sat down beside him. “So does James Gatewood, Gordon, and he is nothing out of the ordinary. Far from it, in fact.”
Gordon grinned and tweaked her curls before she could draw away. “Silly! What do you expect here at Oxford? That Lord Chesney will wear his House of Lords getup or employ slave girls to dance in front of him and toss out rose petals? Ellen, sometimes you are almost as ridiculous as Horatia. Or me,” he added, to soften the blow.
She took his words in good grace and considered their merit. What did she expect, after all? “And I suppose you will tell me that he puts his trousers on one leg at a time.”
“He probably does, El,” he said and put his arm around her. He leaned closer. “I think he must tie his own neckcloths too. Between you and me, it didn't look so expert.”
He glanced toward the door that led to freedom and the tavern, and ran his tongue over his lips. Ellen tugged on his arm. “One thing more, Gordon, before you abandon yourself to the Cock and Hen—or whatever that place is called—you said he had some conversation with you.”
He slapped his forehead. “Oh, my, did he ever!” He took both of her bands in his. “El, you need to write me another paper.”
She withdrew her hands from his grasp as though they burned.
“Not this sister, Gordon! I swore I would not do that again.” She eyed him until he blinked again. “Particularly since you seem to forget who wrote that first paper.”
She might as well not have bothered to speak. “El, he told me I should write a paper on Measure for Measure.” Gordon rose and took his stand by the fireplace again. “He wants to know what I think about it! El, is it a play?”
“Yes, you block, it is a play,” she said quietly. �
��Perhaps it is time you learned to write your own papers at University College.”
His eyes grew round as he stared at her in horror. “Ellen! Don't abandon me now! It's just one more paper, and soon the winter vacation will be upon us and maybe, just maybe, Papa will change his mind and buy me a pair of colors.”
When she made no reply, he fell on both knees and clasped his hands together. “Sister, have a heart!” He thought a moment and sidled closer to her on his knees. “Didn't you just tell me that you owed Lord Chesney for your own improved treatment here?”
“I suppose I did, Gordon,” she said at last. “Although what that has to do with …”
Gordon Grimsley had no time for sisterly riders. He let go of her hands and leaped to his feet. “I knew you would not fail me! I promise to attend my tutorial and take exemplary notes this time.”
She nodded, already regretting her decision. “At the very least, you can give me back my Midsummer Night's Dream paper.”
He shook his head. “I wish that I could, but Lord Chesney asked me for it, and what could I do?”
“What indeed?” she asked. “Gordon, you are the biggest flat that ever drew breath. Yes, I will write your stupid paper for the honor of the Grimsleys, and you had better hang on to the original this time.”
He kissed her cheek. “Ellen, you are a great goer! Remind me to do something nice for you sometime.”
The look she gave him sent him backing toward the door. He had almost escaped into the hall when she called to him.
“Gordon, I want you to take a note to James Gatewood at All Souls,” she said, hurrying to the escritoire. She wrote quickly. “Tell him that I will return that one book that he loaned me, and tell him that I have a few questions about Measure for Measure. Maybe he will help me.”
“I don't know, El,” he said doubtfully, the letter between his fingers. “Gatewood doesn't sound at all the thing. Didn't you tell me that he comes from a long line of horse traders? I know that Papa is horse-mad, but I am not sure he would approve.”
