The Devlin Diary

by Christi Phillips

  “Really? What does nine-tenths of a man look like?”

  “Don’t mess with me. Among the students, the split is fairly even, about fifty-fifty. But among the fellows, women are a distinct minority. Minorities are a distinct minority too.”

  “So it’s still an old boy’s club, is it?”

  “Appears that way.”

  “You can’t let that intimidate you. In fact, it should spur you on to greater achievement. Your success isn’t just about you, it’s about all the women who come after you.”

  “That’s occurred to me already. It’s not exactly helping to alleviate my stress.”

  “I know you, Claire,” Meredith said seriously. “And I know that you of all people have what it takes to make a success of this opportunity.”

  “I wish I felt as confident as you.” Claire looked around at her set of rooms, or set, as it was called: a small suite that consisted of a main room with a dining table for four and a cozy armchair and floor lamp; an adjacent office with a desk, bookshelves, and a computer; and a bedroom and bath. The windows of the main room and the office looked over New Court, so called because it was a mere two hundred years old. Her set was larger, more light-filled and generally much more pleasant than she had expected her college living quarters to be. She couldn’t complain. Everything was terrific, really. Except that Trinity College was so different from American colleges, from the architectural design of the school itself (a succession of courtyards where both students and fellows lived and taught) to the curriculum and style of teaching. If she had landed a job at an American university, she would have understood the environment and the people at once; God knows she’d been in school long enough.

  “It isn’t just being a woman and a minority that worries me,” Claire explained. “It’s being an American. It’s being me. I have a habit of saying exactly what I think at the moment that I think it.”

  “Oh, that.” Three thousand miles across the Atlantic, Claire imagined her best friend’s head bobbing in agreement. “Yes, you might want to keep that in check,” Meredith offered.

  “You think?”

  “Don’t be cheeky.”

  Claire quickly learned that supervisions—one-on-one, hour-long teaching sessions held in a fellow’s set of rooms—were the primary mode of instructing students at Cambridge colleges and were considered the cornerstone of Cambridge’s academic environment. In theory, undergraduates were taught by all members of the faculty, even the most senior. In practice, the junior members of a department bore the brunt of the supervisions, some of them carrying a load of twenty students a week or more. Perhaps because she was so new to Cambridge, Claire was assigned a mere twelve, for which she was grateful. They arrived at her set Monday through Thursday afternoons, three students per day, beginning at one o’clock. Claire was required to assign an essay each week, and each week the students were required to turn it in twenty-four hours before their meeting. Claire read and marked them in advance of the supervision, at which time she would go over each student’s paper, offering insights and tips on how to improve it. In addition to the supervisions, once a week she helped a small group of first-and third-year students prepare for their Historical Practice and Argument paper, during which they would discuss questions such as, What is the difference between history and myth? The students weren’t expected to attend any other classes per se, although there were numerous lectures and seminars on constant offer. The first-year undergrads would not have to take a test until the end of their second year.

  It was a system that expected a lot from young students: superior writing skills, the ability to work independently, and, Claire soon realized, a certain maturity that was not always present in eighteen-year-olds. She quickly ascertained that her students could be neatly separated into two camps: those who were inordinately well prepared and those who apparently planned to make no effort at all, except perhaps for the effort involved in making up excuses for missing supervisions or not completing their work on time.

  In addition to the supervisions, Claire was required to lecture once a week in one of the small, nondescript lecture rooms in the history faculty building. Most important of all, she was expected to research and write papers in her field of study, papers that would be published in the appropriate journals, then published in the appropriate anthologies. In time, she would have to write a book of her own. The publish-or-perish sword hung above every academic’s head, but in truth she looked forward to the day when she’d be working on a long, complex project. For the time being, however, Claire concentrated on doing her job and learning her way around the college, the town of Cambridge, and her new life.

  Within a few days she discovered that her new position was accompanied by numerous, often intriguing, perquisites. Two she’d known about before leaving the United States: like the fellows, she was lodged and fed at the college’s expense. But dining in hall at High Table with the fellows, more than a few of whom, like Professors Hammer and Residue, had already achieved an august and tweedy dotage, was an experience slightly more daunting than she’d anticipated. It didn’t help that portraits of Francis Bacon, Isaac Newton, John Dryden, and Lord Tennyson gazed upon her reproachfully, as if they’d known she was an upstart American and suspected that she was way out of her league.

  A couple of Claire’s privileges struck her as whimsical, indicative of the idiosyncratic character of a four-hundred-and-fifty-year-old institution. She had the right to order wine for her own private reserve. It would be kept in Trinity’s extensive wine cellars, rumored to be vast beyond measure. And, unlike students or tourists, she was allowed to walk with impunity on the often patchy but highly regarded grass that grew in the college’s courtyards. Other benefits, however, were rich with promise. The fellows’ key, or F key as it was commonly known, was presented to Claire soon after her arrival by the junior bursar, who informed her that the F key unlocked doors and gates to places that were off-limits to students, such as the Fellows’ Garden and the Fellows’ Bowling Green, and an unknown number of other sites, both interior and exterior, that were hidden amongst the hallowed stone buildings, arched doorways, leaded glass windows, and creeping ivy of Trinity’s medieval environs. Places, he seemed to hint, rendered almost magical by their secret, restricted nature.

  But her most enjoyable perk so far was the simple pleasure of going into the Combination Room—that veritable bastion of school (male) tradition, with its wing-back chairs, dim green-glass lamps, and neatly pressed copies of the Times—to help herself to a cup of tea from the coffee, tea, and sherry service always at the ready. The tea was served in a china cup and saucer, and stirred with a silver spoon; here one would never find modern atrocities such as Styrofoam cups or plastic stirrers. Tea, Claire learned, was one of the more hospitable aspects of an often chilly country and could always be counted on to provide warmth and comfort.

  At present Claire was in need of both, for she had just given her first lecture.

  “Underwhelming,” would be a nice word for it; a “flop” was probably more accurate. There’d been a grand total of one student in the room, and even he had arrived late, mumbling something about Boat Club tryouts as an excuse: hardly a propitious beginning to Claire’s Cambridge career. As soon as she had finished, Claire had fled the lecture room and made her way downstairs to the faculty meeting room on the second floor, where she was dismayed to discover that the hot water dispenser was out of order.

  Behind her, a throat cleared. “You have to strike it,” a woman said.

  Claire turned around. The woman nearest her sat on a sleek leather couch, reading a copy of the latest English Historical Review. More academic journals were stacked on the coffee table: Past & Present, Continuity and Change, Early Science and Medicine. No doubt each one of them contained an article or two by members of the history faculty. On the wall above the woman’s head hung a bold, colorful example of Expressionist art, possibly the only painting in the entire university less than two hundred years old. I
ndeed, the meeting room resembled a spread from an IKEA catalog, incongruous when compared to the rest of Cambridge but in keeping with the architecture of the Sidgwick Site building. In a university town where most college structures were made of stone and dated as far back as the fourteenth century, it seemed a fluke—or perhaps it was purposefully ironic—that the Cambridge history faculty was housed in a modern glass and steel building designed in the 1960s. At the far end of the lounge, floor-to-ceiling windows offered a dizzying view of a small car park and, beyond that, a rather glorious vista of the gently curving River Cam.

  The history fellow seemed so engrossed in the journal that at first Claire wasn’t certain she had spoken. Then the woman raised her right hand and made a fist to demonstrate. “You have to hit it,” she said, briefly glancing over the top of her half-frame reading glasses. Duly instructed, Claire knocked on the dispenser, which spewed forth a measured stream of hot water, precisely enough for one cup of tea. In it she steeped a bag of Earl Grey, then looked for a place to sit down.

  “How did it go?” The woman barely glanced up from her book.

  “How did what go?” Claire asked.

  “Your lecture.” This time she favored Claire with eye contact.

  Claire reckoned she should probably get used to the fact that as a new fish in a fairly small pond, others would recognize her before she recognized them. She certainly didn’t recognize the woman who was speaking to her. She was in her late forties or early fifties, Claire guessed, but blessed with one of those high-browed aristocratic faces, slightly horsey but very appealing, that seemed impervious to time.

  “It was terrible,” Claire confessed. “Only one student showed up.”

  “That’s one more than Isaac,” she responded with a tilt of her head and a raise of her eyebrows. A few gray strands lightly streaked her chestnut brown hair, which was worn in a fashionable, shoulder-length blunt cut. She was fit, as though she walked a great deal, rode a bike daily, or was a yoga fanatic, any of which was possible in Cambridge. Against the tawny, lightly freckled skin exposed above the V-neck of her beige cashmere sweater, a tiny, rose-colored pearl dangled on a thin gold chain. A pair of stylish wool slacks bared trim ankles and new, unscuffed black leather flats. She possessed a no-nonsense elegance, in her simple but expensive clothes, and she radiated intelligence and a brisk self-sufficiency.

  “Isaac?” Claire repeated.

  “Newton, of course,” she replied as if everyone was, or should be, on a first-name basis with the father of modern physics. “He was a Trinity fellow for thirty-three years, and there’s no record that anyone ever attended his lectures. Apparently he just spoke to the walls.” She paused thoughtfully. “Although I doubt that Science and Religion in Early Modern Italy is ever going to have the same impact as the theory of gravity or the invention of calculus.”

  “No, I suppose it wouldn’t,” Claire said.

  The woman removed her reading glasses, folded the earpieces carefully before setting them on top of the journal, and fixed her bright hazel eyes on Claire. “Have any of the students put your bicycle in a tree yet?”

  “No,” Claire answered. She hadn’t even bothered getting a bicycle. She had discovered that the area which encompassed the old colleges and Cambridge’s pedestrian-and-bikes-only town center was relatively small, and she could easily go everywhere she needed to go on foot.

  “Oh.” The woman sounded disappointed. “Well, there’s still time,” she added reassuringly. Her eyes narrowed slightly. “You don’t remember me, do you?”

  “I’m so sorry. There were so many people—”

  “No need to apologize. No one ever remembers what happens during those dinners. The fellows can drink enough wine in one night to launch a battleship.” She held out her hand. “Elizabeth Bennet, social history, Britain, nineteenth century.”

  “Elizabeth Bennet?” Claire repeated. Elizabeth Bennet as in Pride and Prejudice? she wanted to ask but didn’t, suddenly intuiting that this was an obvious and stupid question. Unfortunately it had already been implied in her tone. She could see that at once by the look of annoyance on Elizabeth Bennet’s face.

  The fellow sighed and fiddled a bit with her glasses. “Yes. Elizabeth Bennet as in Pride and Prejudice. If you say she’s your favorite character from literature, I’ll scream.” She shook her head. “The Jane Austen revival of the past fifteen years has made my life a misery.”

  Claire had no idea how to respond. In less than five minutes, she felt as though she had managed to put not one but both feet in her mouth.

  “So tell me,” Elizabeth said, “which was she: proud or prejudiced?”

  “Prejudiced. Darcy was proud.”

  “Well done.”

  A man breezed into the lounge and walked over to join them. “Lizzie, I was wondering if you’d received my note. So who’s this we have here?” he said with an inquisitive glance at Claire.

  “She’s the new lecturer,” Elizabeth replied. A sour expression crossed her face as she put her glasses back on and opened the English Historical Review once more. “She’s filling in for Emily Scott while she’s on maternity leave. If you had been at the dinner you would know this.”

  He turned to Claire. “My deepest apologies. If I’d known that someone as pretty as you was going to be there, I never would have missed it. Derek Goodman,” he said, offering his hand.

  He didn’t add his title or field of study, as he probably knew there was no need. He was Derek Goodman, Claire marveled, the renowned author of Reform and Revolution: The Roots of British Democracy and Heads Will Roll: Capital Punishment during the Reign of the Tudor and Stuart Kings. Derek Goodman, one of the leading lights of the Cambridge history faculty, a reputed genius and a former wunderkind who’d received his PhD at twenty-five. Ever since, he’d been writing books and articles on British history at an extraordinary rate, and he was published in all the best journals and invited to all the best conferences.

  Claire introduced herself, unable to conceal her admiration. As she shook Dr. Goodman’s hand, he looked her up and down in a way that was discreet enough but was also unambiguously sexual, something that most men would know better than to attempt. She suspected that Derek Goodman was accustomed to getting away with it, for not only was he brilliant, he was handsome. Movie-star handsome. Short, curly black hair that contrasted dramatically with his startling, mesmerizing blue eyes. Confident, charming, of above-average height and way-above-average sexiness. His book jacket photos, while stunning, didn’t do him justice. The images Claire recalled must have been taken some years earlier. He now looked to be three or four years short of forty, and a face that had once been a bit too pretty had taken on a craggy masculinity that was accentuated by his two-day-old beard and the striped wool scarf wound around his neck, one end thrown rakishly back over the shoulder of his navy blue blazer. Under that he wore a white Oxford cloth button-down shirt and a pair of well-worn but well-fitting jeans.

  “You’re American,” he said with delight. “A gorgeous American in our midst. Whatever shall we do with you?” His blue eyes twinkled mischievously. Damn if she didn’t feel a bit weak in the knees.

  “Keep your dogs in the kennel, Derek,” Elizabeth said without glancing up. “She hasn’t been here long enough to know that you’re the most unscrupulous man in Cambridge.”

  “I love you too, Dr. Bennet,” he said sarcastically, though he seemed completely unfazed by her criticism. He went on speaking to Claire as if Elizabeth hadn’t said a word. “It must have been you I saw moving in last week. G staircase in New Court?” At Claire’s nod, he looked at her with an even warmer enthusiasm. “My set is right across from yours.”

  “You might want to keep your door locked,” Elizabeth remarked, moistening a fingertip and flipping a page.

  “Don’t mind her,” Derek said. “We had a fling years ago and she’s never gotten over me.”

  “Don’t you wish.”

  “Has anyone taken you on a pub crawl yet?” h
e asked Claire.

  “No.”

  “Then allow me. After dinner in hall tonight. We’ll start out at the Rat and Weasel and make the circuit all the way ’round to the Mad Cow.” In spite of the unpleasant associations that rats, weasels, and mad cows brought to mind, Derek Goodman made the prospect of going on a tour of Cambridge pubs seem immensely enjoyable.

  “You’ve come in too late in the game on this one, Dr. Goodman,” Elizabeth said. “I believe she’s already spoken for.”

  “Is this true?” he asked Claire.

  “I’m not quite sure what she—,” Claire began.

  “Didn’t Andrew Kent hire you?” Elizabeth asked, peering up at her.

  “Yes.”

  “He’s bent over backward to make sure that you’ve got everything you could possibly wish for.”

  Claire felt her face flush. Andrew Kent bent over backward for her? But he’d hardly even talked to her; they’d had only one conversation since she’d arrived. What in the world did Dr. Bennet mean? And why was she so snide about it, as if there was something inherently wrong with being hired by him?

  Perhaps, Claire realized with a sudden, sinking feeling in her stomach, Andrew Kent was known for hiring women in whom he had a personal interest. It occurred to her that she could be the most recent in a long line of research assistants and junior fellows, an appalling thought. One thing was certain: she was already the subject of speculation and gossip. Perhaps it was unavoidable when you were the new fish in the pond. Pond? Ha. More like goldfish bowl.

  “But I hardly know Dr. Kent.” Claire shook her head. “It’s not like that at all.”

  “So sorry,” Elizabeth said in a way that didn’t sound even remotely apologetic. “I guess I’d got completely the wrong idea.”

  “So you’re available tonight after all?” Derek asked.

  “No, not tonight. I have an, um, appointment,” she stammered.

  “An appointment?” he said skeptically.