The Education of Bet

by Lauren Baratz-Logsted

  ***

  His lips pressed against mine, the exquisite and almost unbearable sweetness and power of it, the wonder...

  It was almost too much, feeling his arms tighten around me, the imprint of his hands through the impossible thinness of that white nightshirt.

  I think now that if things had progressed between us in the normal way, if there even was such a thing as normal in this world, we would have felt driven, unable to prevent ourselves from pressing further in this new physical journey. As it was, and as I say, even just that one kiss was almost too much.

  Not to mention, I was still not willing to give up my dream of getting a proper education. But now, where before there had been only two people in the world who knew of my dream, Will and myself—unless one counted Mrs. Smithers and Mrs. Hunter, which, for some reason, I did not—there was a third who had entered the picture: James. And so stories needed to be told, explanations needed to be given.

  But before even wanting to know how this had all come to pass, my presence at the Betterman Academy, James wanted to know why I had chosen to reveal myself to him in that moment.

  It was a lot to admit out loud, and I could just barely be brave enough with his forehead pressed to mine, his strong yet elegant hands cradling the sides of my face.

  "Because," I admitted, "you, and my feelings for you, have become more important to me than my original plan."

  I pulled away a bit, looked up in time to see a slight smile spreading over his lips.

  "And that plan was...?" he prompted.

  And so I had told him. I told him everything.

  He was silent for a long time, as though it was taking his mind a while to understand the words his ears had just heard.

  "Although you have had the advantage of knowing what it is like to be the opposite sex," he finally said, "a boy, I have never had the similar advantage of knowing what it is to be a girl. Still, I can well imagine now, based on what you have said, that there are frustrations inherent in your gender—"

  He stopped and laughed. I had the sense that the laugh was at neither me nor our situation but at himself.

  "No," he said, "that is all far too formal. I suppose that what I should say, more simply, is that sometimes it must be just downright awful being a girl."

  For answer, I stretched up on my toes, touched my lips briefly to his again. "It does have some advantages," I allowed.

  "Yes," he agreed, taking a deep steadying breath, as though he were trying to contain something within himself. "I will grant you that. If you were still Will Gardener, I would not feel so free to..."

  He touched his lips to mine again, with more force than I had done. I did not mind it.

  Pulling away, he asked, looking suddenly wounded, "Was there not a moment before tonight when you felt you could trust me with your secret? Was I not a good enough friend to you?"

  Seeing his hurt, I felt hurt at having caused it. But I had to answer honestly.

  "Yes, you were," I said, "but no, there was never such a moment before."

  "I don't understand."

  "It is not a matter of trust, don't trust," I sought to explain. "I always simply assumed that the truth was a burden that I alone must carry."

  "But now you have halved that burden by sharing it with me."

  "Yes. Yes, I have."

  "And the real Will Gardener, of course, he always knew."

  At first I thought I was hearing jealousy in the way he said this. But no, I decided upon reflection. It was merely a slow acceptance of this strange new world he had wandered into.

  And that was perhaps the most amazing thing of all to me: that he accepted everything, my strange story and the implicit lies I had been telling him all these past months, without rancor or blame.

  "Yes, Will always knew."

  "And he has had his own secret life all this time too." Concern altered his expression. "He has gone off to war, and you have not received a letter from him in quite some time."

  "No." I heaved a sigh. "No, I have not."

  Where was Will?

  ***

  Following the night of my revelation, things changed dramatically between James and me, as one might imagine; some of those changes were sudden, while others were more gradual.

  Before, I had not been willing to disrobe in front of James before bed for fear of exposing myself as a girl. Now, I insisted on closing the shutters so he would not see me naked because he knew I was a girl. It would have been too immodest, too much temptation. Still, once I exchanged my daytime disguise for my nighttime reality, I would stretch out with him on his bed, where we would hold each other and talk and kiss, sometimes a little more. Some nights, it was all I could do to tear myself away and return to my own bed lest we go too far. It was such a temptation, but one I could not allow myself. After all, I knew what had befallen my own young mother, having a baby out of wedlock—me—which had nearly resulted in her being put out on the street. Not to mention, if it was hard to hide being a girl at school, it would be that much harder to hide being a pregnant girl. As for James, that amazing boy, he seemed to accept the current limitations on our physical relationship without explanation. Indeed, some nights it was he who had to tell me when it was time for me to go back to my own bed!

  "Really, Bet, I think it is time you—"

  "But couldn't we just...?"

  "No!"

  Let me just say that it was not easy, not for either of us.

  In addition to the change in our bedtime rituals, there were other changes to get used to: the sheer joy we each felt upon waking to look across the room and see the other still there; the giddy feeling of liberation when, following dinner and after having returned to the room as James and Will, we would lock the door behind us and safely transform into James and Bet.

  Then, too, there was James's newfound protectiveness of me.

  When he sought to defend me against Mercy at dinner—Hamish had, of late, become peculiarly and uncharacteristically silent at mealtimes and even on the playing fields—I would try to tell him that he was being silly, but James would counter that I was the one who was being silly.

  "You cannot very well expect me to sit idly by, Bet," he would say once we were back in our room, "and let others cast aspersions on the honor of the girl I love."

  The girl I love—I had to admit, I liked that.

  We had first confessed our love for each other on the night of my revelation. In some ways it had felt sudden, as though we had barely been properly introduced. And yet, somehow, it would have felt dishonest had we not done so, and there had been too much dishonesty between us already, at least on my part. Since that night, we had spoken those words, or words like them, regularly, daily even, and I never grew tired of hearing or saying them, never felt anything but wonder at the glory of it all.

  "I appreciate that, James," I said now, "I really do. And of course it pains me too on those rare occasions when Mercy or Stephens dares to say something rude to you. But I have always fended for myself just fine here, or at least, I haven't gotten myself exposed or killed. If you start leaping to my defense every time someone does something as benign as lob a dinner roll at my head, surely the others will suspect something is amiss."

  "But it is such a pretty head," he said, laying a kiss on the object of our discussion.

  "That may well be," I said, "and I am forever grateful that you think so. But I do not want the others to think me weak or, worse, feminine." I sneered as I spat out the word. "I do not want them to think of me as some sort of girl."

  At this, James threw back his head and roared.

  "No," he said, once he had his laughter under control, "we certainly don't want that. Besides," he added, kissing my mouth this time, "I am finding that I rather like being the only one who knows that particular thing about you, the one who knows you better than anyone else."

  Still, though I was unwilling to let James go out of his way to protect me, he was insistent that I do more to protect myself.<
br />
  "What do you mean?" I demanded one night when he had informed me that my impersonation of a boy was slipping. "I have been doing just fine these last six months. You certainly never guessed the truth. Why, I had to practically disrobe in front of you in order to convince you!"

  "Actually, Bet, you did disrobe in front of me, but you kept your back to me at the time—one of my few regrets in life. But no, I don't think your impersonation has ever been as good as you think it is, and lately, it has gotten worse."

  I narrowed my eyes at him. "How do you mean?"

  Not waiting for an answer, I grabbed a paper upon which I'd been writing a letter from Will to the old man back at Grangefield Hall. "Don't my letters look like a boy makes them?" Casting the paper aside, I strode back and forth along the short length of our room, the first time with great purpose, the second time casually and with hands in pockets as though idly counting my imaginary change. "Don't I walk like a boy?"

  "Yes." He shrugged. "Or enough. But being a boy is more than poor penmanship and walking."

  I barked a short and, I thought, masculine laugh. "Not by much."

  "Oh, no. It really is."

  I put my hands on my hips, feeling it a rather mannish stance. "Like what, exactly?"

  "Like, well, drinking and smoking. I remember your first day here, as we were walking back from dinner, you claimed that both were frequent activities of yours—which, I must say, did strike me as a false claim at the time—and yet I've never seen you do either."

  "Well," I said with a huff, feeling rather put out at this, "nor have I seen you do those things. Let me see..." I tapped a finger to my lower lip, cast my eyes toward the ceiling. "Have I ever seen you puff away like a chimney? Hmm ... no. Have I ever seen you come into our room and fall down drunk? Hmm ... no." I dropped my tapping finger and returned my gaze to him. "See? There you have it. You don't do those things either."

  "Well, but that's me," he said. "Everyone knows I'm odd."

  I had to laugh at this.

  "You also don't make fun of the other boys as everyone else does," he went on.

  "Nor do you," I countered.

  "You never get in fights."

  "Not true. Don't you remember me fencing Hamish into the wall?"

  "Yes," he conceded ruefully. "I had forgotten that one. Be that as it may..."

  In the end, James wore me down. He convinced me that in order to continue my masquerade successfully through the remainder of the school year, which did not end until early July, I needed to become more boy than the boy I had been thus far.

  ***

  "I can't say this is the best idea you've ever had." I hiccupped in James's general direction. Demon beer, I thought.

  It was the following Saturday night; we'd already suffered through the weekly singing in front of the fireplace in the great hall, and now we were all freezing in the woods behind the playing fields, nipping away at the beer bottles Mercy had so thoughtfully provided. I'd smoked more, thanks to James's prompting, than I ever wanted to smoke in my entire life, and my throat was feeling raspy. Honestly, it was a good thing the cold evening air was so bracing; otherwise I was sure I'd have vomited all over the boots that Mrs. Smithers always kept so beautifully shined for me.

  Ah, Mrs. Smithers, I thought fondly in my admittedly pixilated state.

  "Such a pleasure to have you two with us for a change," Mercy said with what struck me as a forced geniality.

  Hamish merely scowled.

  Stephens merely scowled too. I'd gotten the sense that Stephens somehow blamed me for Hamish attacking him over dinner that night. Perhaps because his taunting of Hamish had been about my "sister"?

  "Here, have another," Mercy said, replacing my empty bottle with a full one.

  James tried to take it from me, but I grabbed it tighter and looked up at James beside me. He reminded me so much of Will then, in personality if not in looks, and the beer I was drinking reminded me of the way Will had encouraged me to drink at the pub that night on my first journey to Betterman. Ah, Will. But then I thought how different the two were, really. Yes, they were both boys; yes, they were both handsome; yes, they both wanted the best for me, in ways that no one else on earth did. But I'd never wanted to kiss Will the way I wanted to kiss James right then...

  "My, it is cold out here tonight," James said, rising abruptly and moving away from me. Later on, I would realize what a kindness he had done me, for if he'd stayed right there next to me, in my drunken state I would have kissed him in front of God and everybody, as the saying goes. As it happened, I teetered and fell face forward into the cold dirt.

  Poor Mrs. Smithers. She was going to have a devil of a time cleaning the dirt stains out of all our trousers. Didn't these boys ever drink indoors?

  I pushed myself up to a sitting position. I was freezing.

  "It is cold, isn't it?" Mercy allowed cheerfully.

  I realized then that I must have spoken my thoughts aloud. I would have to watch that, I cautioned myself. Demon beer.

  "And it would be a nice night," Mercy went on, "to have some female companionship to keep a boy warm, wouldn't it?"

  "Too bad there aren't any around," James said. But as he spoke, I saw him spare me a smile.

  Ah, James.

  "Now, if Gardener's sister was here," Mercy said. "You remember—his twin? Now, there's a girl that could keep a boy right warm enough, I'd wager."

  James's anger was instant. "Lay off Gardener's sister," he said, moving to stand in front of Mercy in a challenging position.

  I was dimly amazed he could move so fast, given how much we'd all had to drink. Perhaps he'd drunk more in his life than I had? But I also felt a lazy smile touch my lips: James was standing up for me.

  "Yesh," I slurred, stumbling to my feet to join James, "lay off my shishter."

  I looked up at Mercy. Oddly, he didn't look as though he felt threatened by the situation he'd gotten himself in.

  "You really are an odd one, Gardener, aren't you," he said, as if it were a new observation.

  "Well, you know." I hiccupped. "I suppose I have my moments when I might appear different."

  "The night of the dance," Mercy said consideringly. "That illness came on you so suddenly. If one didn't know better, one would think you were scared of being around girls."

  "Scared of girls?" I hiccupped again. "That's rich. I'm just what you might call particular about who I spend time, er, getting warmed up by."

  "Oh?" Mercy raised his eyebrows. "And what sort of girls do appeal to you?"

  Suddenly I remembered what James had said in an earlier discussion. In addition to pointing out that I was not like the others because I did not smoke or drink or regularly get into fights, he'd also said I didn't insult the others enough. Well, I was ready now.

  "Well, I'll tell you one thing," I said, my own words striking me as incredibly funny. "If I ever wanted to get warmed up by a girl, it would never be one of Hamish's sisters."

  And then I really did vomit.

  ***

  "Well, that went well," James said a half-hour later as he helped me get ready for bed.

  "Do you really think so?" I mulled this over as he pulled my nightshirt over my head. "Yes," I answered for him, "I think so."

  "The look on Hamish's face." He chuckled.

  "Too bad I never saw it." I yawned. "Too busy vomiting."

  Gently, James lowered me down onto my bed and stretched me out.

  "I did all right, though, didn't I?" I asked, half sitting again. "I did well at being a boy?"

  "Let's see..." He considered. "You got drunk. You smoked until it hurt. You got belligerent. Why, yes. I'd say you did perfectly."

  I smiled. Then I draped my arms around his neck and attempted to pull him toward me.

  "Would you like to kiss me?" I asked saucily.

  James waved a hand in front of his nose. Oh, right. I hadn't done anything about my teeth yet. "Not tonight, I'm afraid. But I do love you, Bet."

  Then he
eased me under the sheets and tucked the crisp linen under my chin.

  "I love you too, James." I sighed a happy sigh.

  "Night."

  "Night."

  The next day, despite my pounding head, we laughed. We laughed a lot.

  And so we continued, in our stumblingly awkward and yet blissful way, for a week, then another, and another, until spring came and with it the budding trees of late March and the end of Lent half. Soon we would break as we had for the Christmas holidays, this time until the end of April, at which point we would reconvene again for Summer half, which would last until early July.

  ***

  It's amazing how long someone can hold a grudge, seething in silence, and how patiently a person can wait to eke out his revenge. Wait long enough, and the mark doesn't even see it coming.

  They came for me in the night.

  It was two hours after James and I had finished dinner at Marchand Hall. We were in our room, the door locked, which was a rarity at the Betterman Academy, when the jiggling started, followed by a loud pounding. Thank God, I thought, for that locked door, as James had just been kissing me. Thank God also that I still had on my day clothes, or at least my shirt and tie and trousers, for it would have been awkward to explain away the length of time it took for me to tear out of my nightshirt, bind my breasts with cloth, and get changed again before I answered the door. I laughed at the picture in my mind, stopped laughing when James unlocked the door and I saw Hamish standing there, fists clenched at his sides. Behind him I saw Mercy, Stephens, about a half a dozen others, and—was that Little in the back?

  James faked an elaborate yawn. "Really, Hamish," he said, "it's just a few days till end of term. Isn't it a bit late in the season to be staging yet another tossing? And anyway, don't you ever get tired of that sort of thing?"

  As it turned out, Hamish had another sort of tossing in mind, quite different from putting a boy in a blanket and throwing him in the air to make him squeal.

  Hamish pushed his way into the room and commenced ripping the sheets off first my and then James's bed. He looked underneath the beds. He dumped the water out of our washbasins.

  "Can we help you locate something?" James yawned again. "Preferably before you destroy the whole place?"