After the War Is Over (5 page)

“Edward,” she whispered.

He heaved himself to his feet and walked away, his limp achingly pronounced, and though
his mother caught at his arm, he shrugged free of her grasp and continued on, leaving
the reception behind, it seemed, for good.

If she had thought herself uncomfortable before, it was as nothing compared to now,
when every last pair of eyes in the room was focused accusingly on her. She knew what
they were thinking. Who was that drab little nobody in the corner? And what had she
said to upset Lord Cumberland so thoroughly?

Lilly came to her then, took her arm, and, with Robbie, led her away. Soon they were
in a carriage and en route to Mrs. Collins’s boardinghouse in Camden Town.

Her friend tried to be reassuring. “Don’t look so upset. Edward has been like this
for months. I’ve lost track of the number of times we’ve been speaking about something
and he takes offense and stalks off.”

“I did upset him. That’s the problem. I pressed at him about the war—it was so crass
of me, so unfeeling. I ought not to have said anything.”

“If none of us says a thing, though, how will we get to the bottom of what’s troubling
him?” asked Robbie. “If we care about him at all we have to press on.”

“I suppose you’re right. Although I won’t be here to help. Perhaps if I were to write
to him . . . ?”

“Let him stew,” Lilly insisted. “In the meantime, we have ever so much to talk about.
I want to hear all about your new friends at the Misses Macleods’, and all about work,
and your parents, too. And especially I want to hear what it was like when you cast
your vote. I’m terribly envious, you know.”

Robbie had to return to work, so it was just Lilly and Charlotte and Mrs. Collins
at table that evening. Though it was
heavenly to be with her friend again, and to hear of her wedding plans and her hopes
for university and her happiness with Robbie, Charlotte’s thoughts were never far
from Edward. The brother and friend they loved, the man who had been returned to them,
but whose soul, she feared, still walked among the dead, the millions of dead, who
haunted the battlefields and charnel houses of Flanders and France.

Somerville College, Oxford

May 1907

A
t first, Charlotte didn’t notice the advertisement that had been pinned to the message
board in the porter’s lodge. The afternoon post had just arrived, and so she was preoccupied
by the disappointing contents of her pigeonhole.

“Any good news?” asked her friend Celia, who was engaged to be married and daily expressed
her relief at having her future settled.

“Nothing so far,” Charlotte answered, tearing open the last of the four envelopes
waiting for her. “‘Thank you for your interest, but at present we have no suitable
vacancies, although we would happily welcome you in a volunteer capacity,’ et cetera,
et cetera. There’s also a letter from my mother, keen as ever to have me return home.
So I’ve
that
to look forward to, I suppose.”

“Sorry ’bout that. Makes me ever so glad that Rupert and I are getting married in
July.”

Charlotte longed to ask Celia why on earth she had spent three years at university
if her highest aim was to become
someone’s wife, though she knew it was unfair. Her friend had done well, had learned
for learning’s sake, and who was she to criticize Celia’s decision to marry? All the
same, it wasn’t the path she had chosen, or intended to choose for a number of years
to come. Marriage meant the end of work, and she had plans. She was going to make
a difference in the world, and she couldn’t do it by sitting at home and arranging
her life to suit the ambitions and desires of a man.

If ever she were to marry, her husband would have to be an exceptional man. Right-minded,
interested in the sort of things that really mattered, and supportive of her views
and ambitions. The sort of man who would consider her his equal.

Charlotte was fairly certain that no such man existed, not anywhere on the face of
the earth.

She saw it then. A smallish piece of paper, tacked in the exact middle of the notice
board, and typewritten in the blackest ink.

Governess Required
Gentleman requires a governess
for the education of his sister.
Applicant must have or shortly expect
to obtain a diploma in Modern Languages,
English, or History as well as
first- or upper-second-class results
in Final Honors Schools. Liberal salary.
One month paid vacation
p.a.
Apply to E. Ashford, Merton College.


It wasn’t what she wanted; wasn’t even remotely close to what she dreamed of doing
with her life. And yet it might serve,
might do as a stopgap of sorts, if only until she found something else.

Celia had wandered off, likely in search of a quiet spot where she might read the
latest letter from her fiancé, who was at St. John’s College only a stone’s throw
away. Why he wrote to her every day was a mystery Charlotte couldn’t begin to fathom.
Somerville students were allowed to socialize with male undergraduates, so wouldn’t
it have been simpler to meet at a tea shop?

She returned to her room on the top floor of Walton House and, by shifting several
armfuls of books and papers to her bed, was able to clear a space on her desk. With
her best pen in hand, she wrote out a reply to Mr. Ashford that outlined her qualifications
and expectations, and found an envelope.

She wasn’t likely to meet him, not today, but it wouldn’t do to enter one of the men’s
colleges looking anything but polished. So she took down her hair, brushed it smooth,
secured it in the same low chignon she always wore, and pinned her best hat, her Sunday
hat, to her head. Then she put on her smartest coat, the one she had hoped to wear
when being interviewed by dozens of prospective employers, and set out for Merton
College.

Crossing Woodstock Road, she headed south along St. Giles, veering east at Broad Street
and turning onto the Turl to avoid the crowds along Cornmarket, then across the High
Street and down Magpie Lane to Merton, which she’d always thought the prettiest of
the Oxford colleges. Not that she’d seen much of it; women weren’t welcome inside
its hallowed walls, charladies and cooks excepted.

She presented herself at the porter’s window, just inside the college gate, and waited
for him to look up from his newspaper.
He’d seen her coming, so she resigned herself to waiting until he could be moved to
acknowledge her presence. It was always this way at the older colleges.

“Yes, miss?” he asked after she’d silently counted to a hundred. He didn’t even look
up from his paper.

“Good afternoon. My name is Charlotte Brown, and I should like to leave this for Mr.
Ashford.”

“Lord Ashford to you.”

“I beg your pardon? The notice he posted gave his name as E. Ashford. I had assumed
he was a don at the—”

“Lord Edward Ashford. Undergraduate here.”

“Ah,” she said, thoroughly flustered. “Well, then, may I leave this letter for Lord
Ashford?”

“You may. Good day to you, miss.”

“Good afternoon.” With that, she turned on her heel and retreated, back through the
gate, into the late-afternoon sun and away from the surly porter with his red face
and too-tight collar and silly bowler hat. Away from yet another man who made no effort
to hide his disapproval of women at his university. Never mind that she wasn’t even
a true member of the university, having been barred—like all women—from matriculating,
and wouldn’t receive a degree for the work she had done. Never mind that she sat the
same examinations as the male students and had worked every bit as hard. Never mind—

Head down, she rounded the corner onto Oriel Street and promptly collided with a young
man in cricket flannels. Stumbling badly, she would have fallen but for the steadying
arm he extended toward her.

“So sorry—”

“Beg your pardon—”

He straightened up, collected his cricket bat from the
ground, and disappeared around the corner. And Charlotte, her heart racing, continued
on her way.

A MESSAGE WAS
sitting in her pigeonhole when she returned to Somerville an hour later, having allowed
herself a restorative browse through Blackwell’s Bookshop. It wasn’t a letter as such—simply
a sheet of paper, folded in four, with a few scribbled lines within.

           
Dear Miss Brown,

                
Sorry to have missed you earlier. Are you free tomorrow morning for a cup of tea at
Boffin’s? Let me know and I’ll collect you from the Somerville lodge at ten o’clock.

Regards,

E. Ashford

T
HE EVENING POST
brought no offers of employment, nor did the first post of the following morning.
There was nothing for it but to meet Lord Ashford and do her best to impress him.
She wouldn’t have to stay on in the position for terribly long, really only until
she received a more suitable offer of employment, and in the meantime she would be
earning her way, living independently of her parents, and possibly even establishing
some useful connections.

It wasn’t ideal, but things could always be worse—she could be facing a future with
nothing more exciting than a fiancé to recommend it.

Arrayed in her best, just as she’d been the day before, she placed herself outside
the front gate of Somerville at five minutes
before the hour. At five minutes past ten o’clock she began to wonder if her reply
to Lord Ashford had gone astray. At ten minutes past she was certain something was
amiss.

At a quarter past ten, she admitted defeat. Likely he had found someone else for the
position, or perhaps—it hadn’t occurred to her before but it now seemed a likely explanation—it
was a practical joke at her expense. She wouldn’t be the first female student to be
so duped.

She went back inside the college, stopping at the lodge for a moment to check her
pigeonhole once more, and as she left, empty-handed, she came face-to-face with the
same man she’d bumped into the day before, only this time he wore a wrinkled undergraduate’s
gown on top of his coat. He was perspiring and out of breath, though no less handsome
for it.

Recognizing her, he smiled and moved out of her way. “My apologies once again. I’m
very late to meet someone, I’m afraid.”

Could it be? “You aren’t Lord Ashford, are you? Because I’m—”

“Miss Brown,” he said, his smile widening. “I ought to have known. I do beg your pardon—I
overslept, and for some reason my scout didn’t come to wake me early, as I’d asked.
I shouldn’t be at all offended if you decided to walk away and wash your hands of
me.”

She couldn’t help but grin back at him. “I’m quite all right, Lord Ashford. Shall
we walk down to Boffin’s now?”

“Yes, please. I’ll need at least one enormous mug of coffee before I can speak intelligibly.”

It was a fine morning, as was often the case in Oxford in late May, with a sky so
clear and blue it made her eyes ache. They walked side by side, Lord Ashford matching
his pace to
hers, and after a few hundred yards he looked at her and asked, “What course are you
taking?”

“English. My finals are in a fortnight.”

“Nervous?”

“A little. I did well in Honor Mods, though, so if that’s any indication of what’s
to come, I should be fine. What about you?”

“I’m taking Greats. I sat my Honor Mods a few weeks back and scraped by, so I’m hoping
they’ll let me continue on.”

“Do you like classics?”

“I do, oddly enough. Wasn’t at all keen when I began—more a case of taking the degree
because I couldn’t think of what else to do—but I’ve warmed to it over the past two
years. Though Greek still gives me nightmares,” he added, and shuddered theatrically.

“Your notice said you were looking for a governess for your sister.”

“Yes. Her name is Lilly. She’s thirteen. Very intelligent girl, but her previous tutors
have been hopeless. My other sisters are thick as mud—unkind of me, but true—and they’d
have been fine with nothing more than the bare essentials. But Lilly needs more.”

They were at Carfax now. Crossing the High Street, they walked east to the Oxford
Restaurant, known locally as Boffin’s, and found an empty table at the very back.
Lord Ashford ordered them a plate of scones, a pot of tea for Charlotte, and a mug
of coffee for himself, and then he continued to tell Charlotte about his sister.

“As I said, Lilly is bright. My parents, though, are as antediluvian as Noah himself.
Won’t allow her to go away to school, nor will they let her attend any of the good
day schools for
girls in London. I have managed to persuade them to take on a better class of tutor
for her alone, and to let my sisters continue on with the idiot they have at present.
That’s what the notice was about.”

“Why aren’t your parents conducting the interviews, then?”

“To be bald about it, I don’t think they care. I mean, they care about the final candidate,
but they’re profoundly uninterested in the search itself. So I volunteered, which
is for the best, really. Left to themselves, they’d surely dig up someone even worse
than the woman teaching the girls now.”

“Your sister is fortunate to have such a caring brother,” Charlotte said, deciding
it was best to avoid any commentary on the relative idiocy of previous governesses.

“Nonsense. I simply can’t stand the thought of her turning into a feather head like
the other two.”

“Would you like to see my references? I have one from my English tutor, as well as
from Miss Penrose, our new principal at Somerville.”

“I will look at them at one point, thank you. Right now I’d rather talk about you.
Where did you grow up?”

“In Somerset. In Wells, that is.”

“Do you have any brothers or sisters?”

“No, it’s only me. I was, ah . . . I was adopted. So it’s only the three of us.”

What had just come over her? She could so easily have said she was an only child,
and left it at that. Her closest friends knew the truth, of course, though she’d never
discussed the precise circumstances of her adoption with anyone other than her parents.
Some stories were simply not meant to be shared.

“And what does your father do?”

“He’s a prebendary at Wells Cathedral.”

“That sounds ecclesiastical.”

“It is. He’s one of the canons there.”

“Why not stay in Wells? Find some charming young cleric to marry?”

“I—I . . .” she stammered, taken aback by the directness of his question.

“Forgive me. I shouldn’t have asked.”

“No, it’s a sound enough question. I went to quite a good school in Bath, and Father
tutored me as well. When my headmistress suggested I sit the entrance exams for Somerville,
we were all rather surprised. But once I had the idea in my head, I couldn’t let go
of it.”

“Have you liked being here?”

“I’ve loved it.”

“So why apply for this position? Surely you can aspire to something higher. Be honest—I
won’t fault you for it.”

She folded and refolded her napkin and tried to think of how to respond. “I . . .
well, I can’t find anything else, to be perfectly honest. I’ve been looking for a
position for months now.”

“Would you mind working as a clerk or typist? Surely you could find a position of
that sort without too much difficulty.”

“I wouldn’t, but it seems rather a waste. I had hoped to, well, to
do
something with my education. Silly as it may sound, I thought I could help to right
wrongs. To make a better world.”

“That doesn’t seem especially silly to me. Do you honestly think teaching a thirteen-year-old
girl is something you’ll enjoy?”

“I do. Would I make the sort of governess she wants to have?”

“You would. Likely because you’re the sort of woman she hopes to become.”

“You don’t need to flatter—”

“Not a bit of it. You’re intelligent, educated, and independent. That’s what she wants
for herself. And that’s what I’d like to show her she can become, providing of course
you decide to take on the position.”