The Devlin Diary

by Christi Phillips

  “Dr. Donovan.” Claire heard the words, but the name didn’t register; she was too busy looking for Andrew.

  “Dr. Donovan.”

  Claire scanned the other side of the room.

  “Dr. Donovan!”

  She turned around. “Oh!” Andrew Kent was standing behind her. “It’s you,” she said.

  “Didn’t you hear me?” he asked.

  “Of course I heard you.”

  “I said your name three times.”

  She reddened slightly. “I’m not used to it.”

  “Your own name?” He looked alarmed, as if he was having immediate regrets about hiring her.

  How did Andrew Kent so easily manage to make her feel idiotic, inept, and irritated simultaneously? Claire took a breath and tried to remain calm; now was not the time to let an instant retort get the better of her. “I’m not accustomed to the Dr. Donovan,” she explained. “For one thing, the ink on my degree is barely dry. For another, only physicians are addressed as ‘doctor’ in the U.S.” She didn’t add that at American universities it was considered pretentious for someone with a PhD to use the title of Doctor, but she figured that Andrew Kent already knew that. At Trinity, everyone with a PhD was known as Doctor: it was de rigueur. After that, only the most accomplished rose to the level of Reader; Professor was reserved for those at the very top of the academic heap.

  Andrew nodded. “Yes, and in England we address surgeons as ‘Mister.’”

  “Why is that, anyway?”

  “I’m not entirely sure. Perhaps we don’t want them to forget that they were once barbers.”

  Claire laughed a little, Andrew smiled, and for one long, golden moment they were the only two people in the room. Perhaps it was the tuxedo, but he was even more handsome than she remembered. His dark, unkempt hair had been cropped and tamed, and his skin had a sun-kissed glow that was quite attractive. No more Scotch tape wrapped around the broken earpiece of his eyeglasses, either. In fact, no glasses at all. His large, inviting brown eyes regarded her warmly. Claire was reminded of a certain evening in Venice, a certain cobbled street, a certain few words that Andrew had said to her. What were they? “You’re the most argumentative, obstinate, infuriating, exciting, and fascinating woman I’ve ever met”? Yes, that’s exactly what he’d said; she hadn’t been able to forget it. She knew he hadn’t intended to say it, but there was no escaping the fact that he had. Her heart beat faster at the memory. Or was it racing because she was finally here, seeing him again?

  “You’re looking well,” Andrew said. He cleared his throat. “That’s a very nice gown.”

  “Thank you.” Claire had paid way too much for the dress, but she liked the way its shimmering, copper-colored satin brought out the gold highlights in her brown hair and hazel eyes. She wondered if he’d noticed; it was impossible to tell. “Very nice” was probably the most effusive compliment she would hear from him. Andrew was English, after all, but she was prepared to make some allowances for that. She only hoped that they didn’t become mired in the awkward small talk that always seemed to precede their real conversations.

  “And how was your journey?” he asked.

  Oh, dear. What could she say about a six-hour flight and a taxicab ride from Heathrow to London? Nothing terribly exciting, that was certain. She assured him it had been fine, though uneventful. “And your book?” Claire asked. “How’s it coming along?”

  This was more than a polite question; in fact it was something she deeply cared about. The subject of Andrew’s book-in-progress was the 1618 Spanish conspiracy against Venice. He had already asked Claire’s permission to quote from her dissertation.

  “Very well, in fact,” he replied, noticeably relaxing. “Ever since I returned from Venice, everything seems to be falling into place. Like it’s writing itself, although I’m hesitant to say that out loud for fear of invoking some kind of jinx. Thank you for sending your dissertation on, by the way. I’ve found it enormously helpful. And very well written.”

  Claire felt herself blushing, just a little.

  Andrew cleared his throat again and looked as though he was about to ask Claire a question. She leaned closer in anticipation. Before he could speak, they were interrupted by an attractive woman who put her hand on Andrew’s arm. “Andy, I’ve saved us a seat right next to Richard and Paula,” she announced. Her manner implied that Andrew’s coming away with her at once was a matter of urgent necessity.

  Not that Andrew appeared to notice this. He calmly thanked the woman and turned back to Claire. “May I introduce Dr. Carolyn Sutcliffe, modern and medieval languages. Carolyn, this is Dr. Claire Donovan, the—”

  “New temporary lecturer from Harvard,” she finished for him in a nasal yet plummy voice that Claire suspected became even plummier when she was speaking to Americans. “Of course I know who she is.” Carolyn Sutcliffe offered her hand for a limp handshake. She was about Andrew’s age, Claire guessed, in her late thirties or thereabouts, petite, with dark auburn hair that curled under at the nape of her neck. She wore a long, scoop-neck black dress and a short strand of pearls. “Andy and Gaby have told me so much about you.”

  Gaby? Who on earth was Gaby? Claire’s confusion must have been evident in her expression, for Carolyn quickly explained.

  “Gabriella Griseri,” she said. “We go way back. She’s one of my dearest friends.”

  Such dear friends, Carolyn seemed to be saying, that she was willing to stand guard on Gabriella’s boyfriend whenever the Italian bombshell was absent, and keep him safe from the clutches of undeserving American women. Carolyn’s hand still hovered over Andrew’s arm like a raptor’s claw, ready to snatch him away at the earliest opportunity.

  Claire decided she’d been much too kind in her first assessment; or perhaps it was Carolyn Sutcliffe’s pushy demeanor that made her seem less attractive. But she was obviously a woman and basically presentable, if one overlooked the slightly manic gleam in her eyes. Which apparently Andrew did, for he didn’t seem to resent Carolyn’s company at all.

  “I suppose we should all sit down,” Andrew said. He looked at Claire. “Would you like to—”

  “There’s an empty seat right next to ours,” Carolyn interrupted, offering Claire her first sincere smile. “Why don’t you join us?”

  “Thank you.” Perhaps, Claire conceded, Dr. Sutcliffe wasn’t so bad after all. They set off in the direction of the long table in the middle of the hall.

  “You’ll sit next to one of our most senior fellows,” Carolyn added. “You’ll have such fun.”

  When they arrived at the table, Claire discovered that the available chair wasn’t “right next” to Carolyn and Andrew but across the table from them. While within view of each other, it would be nearly impossible for Claire and Andrew to carry on a conversation. She took her place next to an elderly gentleman whose name, she soon learned, was Professor Humboldt Residue, natural sciences.

  “Delighted to dine with such a lovely young lass,” Professor Residue said at the top of his lungs. His speckled, age-spotted head lacked hair, but there were healthy tufts of it growing in his ears. He smiled broadly at Claire. How could she rebuff such an enthusiastic welcome? Especially since Hoddy, the only other person at Trinity whom she knew besides Andrew Kent, didn’t seem to be present.

  The empty place at her left was soon filled by another fellow closer to Residue’s advanced age than her own, a Professor Oswald Hammer, law. Unlike his friend, he had retained all of the hair on his head and a good deal more of it on his face, in the form of two mutton-chop sideburns that seemed to Claire colonial in nature, as if Professor Hammer had once served the British Raj. The two men greeted each other genially. As they appeared to have much to say to each other, Claire offered to move to allow them to sit in adjoining seats.

  “Absolutely not,” Professor Hammer protested.

  “Wouldn’t hear of it,” Professor Residue insisted.

  As the food arrived and wine began to flow (a battalion of waiters
delivered and disposed of plates and refilled glasses with fluid ease), and the ambient noise in the hall grew steadily louder, Professors Hammer and Residue began to talk over her, leaning forward over the table and practically knocking their heads together in their desire to communicate. They spoke English, but Claire was thoroughly bewildered by the subject of their discourse. Their lively conversation’s intelligibility was not improved by Professor Residue’s obvious hearing impairment.

  “The First and Third made a good showing in the Bumps last year, did you hear?” Professor Hammer shouted.

  “Of course I heard,” Professor Residue shouted in reply. “Do you think I’m deaf?”

  “I meant, did you hear the news?”

  “Did they win or lose?” Residue repeated. “Are you mad? They won, of course. It’s the First and Third, by God,” he said, banging his fist on the table.

  Claire gazed longingly at Andrew Kent. He appeared to be having a perfectly enjoyable time with Carolyn Sutcliffe. They were probably talking about perfectly normal things in perfectly normal voices in a perfectly normal language. Once or twice she’d seen Andrew glance in her direction, but only briefly and never in any meaningful way. He hadn’t tried to catch her eye or ask how she was doing or make an attempt to rescue her from her present company.

  As Claire looked around, she realized that most of the fellows were not old duffers like Hammer and Residue but colleagues who fell into a broad age category between thirty and sixty-five. The fellows, or members of the college, were not just teachers but also the custodians of Trinity’s past, present, and future, who collectively managed the school’s day-to-day educational operations and its general business, including its various trusts and endowments and its legendary prodigious wealth. She had heard that underneath the college’s stone buildings lay vaults filled with the many gifts—silver tea sets, gold bars, priceless antiquities, and the like—bequeathed to the college over the past four and a half centuries. Secret rooms as rich in treasures as Aladdin’s cave. She wondered if it was true.

  Claire also noticed that there were very few female fellows among this sea of black dinner jackets and bow ties. From where she sat, without craning her neck too noticeably Claire could count only eighteen women, including herself. Granted, there were probably a few more at the table behind her, and a few others who weren’t attending the dinner; still, that meant there were probably no more than thirty female fellows out of a total one hundred and sixty. Even at Harvard, which had not matriculated women until 1972, female faculty were much more numerous than this. She hadn’t known until now that Trinity was still such a predominantly male preserve.

  Claire’s sudden realization made her feel self-conscious. She worried that her strapless gown was showing a bit too much décolletage, and she unobtrusively tried to pull up the top of her dress—an impossible task, it turned out, while sitting down. Not that the gentlemen flanking her appeared to notice her discomfort; they were much too caught up in their discussion.

  “…he was bowled a googly and caught at silly mid-off,” Professor Hammer shouted.

  “No matter what the rest of the world says, cricket’s an exciting game,” Professor Residue passionately agreed, his left hand wildly gesticulating in spite of the full wineglass in it. Claire leaned back as the professor’s drink splashed onto the white tablecloth.

  She suffered through the soup, the appetizer, the palate-cleansing sorbet, the main course, and the salad, a third party to a passionate dialogue about cricket, in which she comprehended very few words except for jolly good, fancy that, and bugger off, the last of which they said with startling frequency.

  Dessert was served along with dessert wines and coffee, and the master, Sir Gerald Liverton, Lord Liverton of Loos, K.B.E., F.R.S., F.B.A., O.M., M.I.5, stood up to address the assembly and introduce the new fellows. Claire had already been informed by the junior bursar that as a temporary lecturer, she would be acknowledged last. She took a sip of sauterne and, with only the slightest twinge of anxiety (she’d already downed three glasses of wine), waited her turn.

  “Whatever happened to old Ossery?” Professor Residue leaned across Claire and inquired of Professor Hammer in a loud whisper.

  “The old bugger’s standing for MP.”

  “And last,” the master said, “please welcome Dr. Claire Donovan, who comes to us from Harvard University, where she has just earned her doctorate in history.”

  “Not old Ossery! The man doesn’t know his arse from his elbow!”

  “We have the great privilege of Dr. Donovan’s company for the next three terms, during which she will supervise and lecture in history in her chosen area of study, early modern Europe…”

  “That’s never prevented anyone from becoming an MP before,” Hammer chuckled. Residue joined in, his hand waving wildly about. This time, the port splashed directly on Claire’s dress: directly on her beautiful, expensive, never-before-worn copper-colored satin gown, dead center between her breasts.

  She looked down at the spreading stain. Should she use her napkin to dab at it? Her hand went to her lap, then froze. It hardly seemed appropriate to dab at one’s own breasts on such an occasion, and in such august company. It was bad enough to be completely paralyzed as to what to do, but then Claire discovered something worse: when she looked up from gazing down at her cold, wet, wine-colored chest, she found that everyone seated nearby was also gawking at it. Andrew Kent’s eyebrows rose with mild shock; Carolyn Sutcliffe’s pursed mouth barely suppressed a smirk.

  As the master’s voice faded away, Claire heard the applause and knew she must stand up to be acknowledged. As she rose from her chair she could feel one hundred and fifty pairs of eyes turn to stare at her; she could feel the wine spreading like a bloodstain across the strapless bodice of her gown, its deep rubicund hue matching the color that must surely be rising in her cheeks. This was the moment she’d been imagining for months now: a dream come true, she thought ruefully.

  Somehow she’d never imagined it quite like this.

  Chapter Five

  First week of Michaelmas term

  “STOP LAUGHING, MEREDITH,” Claire said. The sound that issued from her cell phone was bright, twinkling, and occasionally punctuated by an uncharacteristic snort. Uncharacteristic for Meredith Barnes, anyway. The assistant dean of Forsythe Academy, a preparatory school in Claire’s home town of Harriot, Massachusetts, was tall, slender, glamorous, and almost completely unflappable. A deep, sexy laugh, yes; Claire had heard that plenty of times. Or even a light, lively giggle, bubbly as sparkling wine. But never a snort.

  “It isn’t funny,” Claire added, even though she knew quite well that her protests were having little impact. “It nearly ruined my dress. It would have been ruined except that the first dry cleaner I took it to said they had lots of experience getting wine stains out of expensive fabric. Apparently it happens all the time here.”

  Snort.

  “You’re not making me feel any better.” It wasn’t the first time Claire had provided an occasion for her best friend’s amusement. How come it never happened the other way around? Meredith never seemed to attract the sort of odd and embarrassing situations that Claire did.

  “I’m sorry.” Meredith’s laughter settled down into a few intermittent chuckles and gasps. “And no one said anything?”

  “Not a word. For the rest of the evening, people simply ignored this huge red splotch on my dress.”

  “Maybe they thought it was a fashion statement.”

  “God knows what they thought. I certainly don’t. They’re not at all like Americans, who are so willing to tell secrets to perfect strangers that they seem to enjoy broadcasting the most intimate details of their lives on national television.”

  “That’s a point in England’s favor.”

  “True.”

  “But that woman—”

  “You mean Carolyn Sutcliffe?”

  “I think she deserves another name, one that rhymes with witch,” Meredith said
. “She put you next to that old guy on purpose. She knew what was going to happen to you even before you sat down.”

  “She couldn’t have known that he was going to spill wine on me.”

  “She knew something bad would happen.”

  After the dinner had ended, all of the fellows had gone to the Master’s Lodge for a long-standing tradition of after-dinner brandies and introductions: each older fellow was expected to introduce him or herself to each new fellow. It had been exhilarating in a way—the first time she had ever met one hundred and fifty or so people in one night—but unfortunately it had meant that she and Andrew hadn’t been able to talk, at least no more than the same polite banter she’d exchanged with the other fellows. She had felt frustrated by this, but Andrew hadn’t seemed to mind. “I wish I could read people better,” Claire said. “I can’t tell what they’re thinking. Except for Dr. Sutcliffe, who appears to hate me simply because her friend does.”

  “Do you really care what they’re thinking?”

  “Of course I care.” Well, there was at least one person whose thoughts she would have dearly loved to know, but he was as enigmatic as all the others, perhaps even more so. Why hadn’t Andrew Kent made an effort to sit next to her at the dinner? After all, he was practically the only person at Trinity she knew. Didn’t he feel some responsibility to take her under his wing? “I’m just not so sure I’m going to fit in,” Claire admitted.

  “Why not?”

  “For one thing, I’m not a man. I looked up the roll of fellows, and among the total one hundred and sixty, only twenty-seven are women. That’s approximately sixteen percent—only one woman for every five point nine men.”