Miss Grimsleys Oxford Career (31 page)

She did. Ellen put her arm around him, thinking of the strange charity she had felt for her father the night of the wedding rehearsal as they walked down the aisle together, and her despair the next day when he informed her that she would go to St. Hilda's.
Why do those we love the most put us out so much?
she asked herself as she threw caution downwind and hugged her brother.

“Perhaps Lord Chesney will think of something, Ralph.” A few minutes later, she closed the door to her dressing room. The maids, all smiles, had set up the tin tub, pouring in cans and cans of hot water, and left a liberal offering of soap there for Ralph, who was noisily splashing. She sat down at her desk and pulled back the curtains on a still Oxford morning.

Although she missed her intimate view of the High Street, she was growing fonder of the sight outside her windows here at St. Hilda's, overlooking as it did the river and the deer park of Magdalen College. The trees were yet bare, but she was patient with nature. In a few weeks’ time, there would be the temptation of lime green cascading from the willows along the river. Even if it snowed again, those vanguards of spring would exhibit their early bravery and be followed by wisteria and then hawthorn hedges in bloom. Flowers would poke up from every window box at Oxford.

But now it was still winter and too early for many to be about except the farmers, bringing produce from nearby farms for the great markets of Oxford. And there, coming toward St. Hilda's, was a student running.

She looked closer and rose to her feet. It was James Gatewood, his student's robe thrown over his shoulders, his shirt open-throated without benefit of neckcloth.

I wonder why he is in such a hurry
, she thought as she patted her hair and wished she had found time for more than a robe pulled on over her nightdress.

As she wondered, she heard the front door flung open, hurried voices, and then Gatewood on the stairs. In another moment, her door burst open and he threw himself into the room.

Before she could assure him that there wasn't any real emergency, he had pulled her off her feet and had gathered her close. His heart beat rapidly from his exertions and he could do little else except hold her tight and try to catch his breath.

When he could speak, all he did was bury his face in her neck and murmur “Ellen,” over and over until she began to wonder what she had written in that hasty note that could have led him to this fevered response.

She thought that when he caught his breath he would set her on her feet again, but he carried her to the armchair and held her close on his lap, his arms tight around her. While her first instinct was to push away, she relaxed in his arms, struck by the same feeling of total absorption that had so preoccupied her when he kissed her at Miss Dignam's. It was a wonderful feeling of complete safety; she did not want it ever to end.

And then, when she felt almost limp with well-being, he took her by the shoulders and held her off from him a little.

“Ellen, are you all right? You appear sound. Was it bad news from home? I came as quickly as I could. Please tell me.”

She touched his cheek, moved beyond words. He must have been in the middle of shaving when the note came, for he had shaved half of his face and merely wiped the lather off the other side. Surely nothing in her note had indicated great trouble, but he had come immediately to her side. In wordless amazement at his love, she could only touch her forehead to his and then pull back a little to regard him seriously.

He smoothed down her hair. “When I receive notes at 6:30 that read, ‘Please help me,’ I am most attentive,” he said at last.

“Now when have you ever received a note like that before?” she quizzed, to cover her own embarrassment.

“This is the first, and I pray the last, at least from you. You gave me a turn, Ellen. Now, what is the matter? You appear sound of wind and limb.” He straightened the lace around her robe's collar, which he had rumpled. “I don't know when I have seen flannel show to such advantage before.”

She got off his lap and seated herself at the chair to her desk.

“It is Ralph. He arrived on my doorstep this morning.”

“Ralph!” he exclaimed and then laughed softly, almost to himself. “I am relieved it is no worse than that. And what, pray tell, precipitated what I assume is a clandestine flight from the home fires?”

“Papa told him that he is to go to Uncle Breezly's counting house in the City.” She spread her hands out, palms up, in her lap. “Said he has come to me for help, I who am helpless to give it.” She blushed. “He asked most urgently that I petition you.”

Gatewood leaned back in the armchair, stretching his long legs out in front of him. “And you didn't want to, did you?”

“You know I did not, Lord Chesney,” she said, her voice even.

“Jim.”

“Jim then,” she said impatiently. “You might recall my recent plea to be left alone to make my own blunders.”

“I seem to recall something of the sort,” he admitted, a slight smile on his face. “Where is this rascal?”

She pointed toward the dressing room. “He spent the night in Papa's pig wagon and was a bit ripe. I thought him overdue for a bath.”

He went to the door of the dressing room and knocked before sticking his head in. He closed the door behind him. In a few minutes he emerged with Ralph in tow. Ralph was clad in another of her robes, the look of wounded pride on his face daring her to make a single comment. He held a sheaf of papers, creased many times, which he handed to Lord Chesney.

“Sorry it smells like pigs,” he said, seating himself on Ellen's bed. “I had no idea that pigs could be such nasty customers in close quarters.”

Ellen laughed for the first time. “Ralph! And I suppose you will tell me that you brought no change of clothing.”

He shook his head. “I … I'm afraid I just bolted.” Lord Chesney looked up from the papers in his hand. “So now you have tackled
Macbeth
,” he said, holding a page out at arm's length and wrinkling his nose. “‘A drum, a drum, the pigs doth come.’ ”

Ralph laughed out loud. “No, it doesn't say that! But yes, I have written about
Macbeth
. And I have other papers. Oh, sir, I don't want to go to a counting house! Please say that I will not have to.”

Gatewood held up his hands as if to ward off an invasion. “Whoa, lad! How can what I say have any bearing?”

Ralph gave him a pitying look, such as a bright lad would give one whose wits had gone wandering. “My lord, let me tell you plainly. My papa will always dance to your tune, and it happens I need your help.”

“Ralph!” Ellen exclaimed, her face fiery.

“You know it, El. I know it,” Ralph replied calmly. “I cannot bear a counting house. I would rather study. My lord,” he added with a gasp, as if finally amazed at his own temerity.

“Lad, your sister is rather at outs with me. I think my stock is not so high with her.”

“It is my father, my lord, and he is the one who matters.”

Ellen stared at her little brother and felt a chill ripple down her spine. “How calculating you are, Ralph,” she said slowly, as her heart began to break. “And yet I am sure you are right. From father to son and on down through the generations. I wonder that women are not put upon hillsides to die at birth.” She stood up. “You two must obviously decide this for yourselves.”

“Ellen …” Gatewood began.

She cut him off, close to tears. “Ralph is right. A little blunt, I vow, but his plain speaking is what I need.” She stalked into the dressing room and pulled out the student's gown, breeches, and shirt she had cleaned and pressed and saved to look at. “Ralph, you had better change into these. Take him with you, Lord Chesney. He will be welcome where I am not. I am sure you have a lecture to attend, or to deliver.”

“In Latin, for a fact,” he said with a wry face, as if trying to cover up for a blunder of huge proportions. “Ellen …”

She continued, her face wooden. “I am sure that the two of you will think of something. Ralph will be a charge upon you, but then, I could have thought of no solution, could I?” She choked back her tears. “Go on, Ralph. I am sure that Lord Chesney will make all things right and tight with Papa. Good day to both of you.”

She held the door open and they left, but not without a long backward glance from James Gatewood.

“Ellen, my dear, it can't rest here,” he said, his face more serious than she had ever seen it.

“No, I think it cannot,” she replied. She managed a smile. “Thank you for your help, sir. And you, Ralph, I owe you more than I can say, for your plain speaking.”

She closed the door on them. There was no sound in the hallway for the longest moment, and then she heard slow footsteps on the stairs, descending.

LLEN SAT AT HER DESK, WATCHING THEM MOVE
slowly down the street, Gatewood's hand clapped on her brother's shoulder, their heads together. Miss Medford must have allowed Ralph to change in one of the other rooms, because he wore the student's clothing she had thrust at him so angrily.
Oh, Ralph!
she thought as the tears began to fall.
How could I be so hateful to you for only speaking the truth? What is the matter with me?

She sobbed, hating herself. All her short life, she had known it was a man's world, and now, suddenly, it mattered. Ralph would get his school, Gordon his cavalry regiment. She would likely be bullocked into a marriage with the marquess.
I think I love him
, she thought through her tears,
but that doesn't matter. I will likely marry him anyway, because I am a woman and my opinion counts for nothing.

The unfairness of it smote her like a blow from a fist. She rested her head on her desk and cried until she was dry of tears. She ignored the summons to class and then to luncheon, and continued at her desk, wondering why she had been so foolish as to object to matriculation at St. Hilda's, or to scold Lord Chesney for pressing so hard. It didn't matter what she thought. He would get what he wanted.

She took out her math book and stared at the equations on the page before her. Soon it would be time for algebra. She could not waste this entire day.

After an hour of staring at the numbers that had no meaning for her, she looked up from the book and rested her chin on her hand.
The dratted fact is that I love him
, she thought. She sighed.
Perhaps I only think I do. I feel none of that deference that Horry feels for Edwin Blockhead, and none of the fear that Mama shows to Papa. If Jim Gatewood were in the wrong I would never hesitate to tell him so. And I could never hang on his words like Horry. I suppose what I feel is not love after all.

She paced the room in real dissatisfaction with herself.
All this wretched day wants is a visit from Gordon to make it complete
, she thought.
He will ask for money again, or some little favor to smooth his path here. Perhaps he, too, will demand that I petition the marquess for something or other.
“‘El, you need only ask,’ ” she said in bitter imitation of her older brother. “‘He will dance to your tune.’ ” It seemed only fitting that Gordon would constitute another of the plagues of Egypt that seemed to be dropping on her doorstep in unwelcome heaps. With that thought as consolation, she was not surprised when Miss Medford stopped her after class and said that she had a visitor in the sitting room.

Gordon rose with an easy smile at her entrance. He looked at her face and frowned. “The bloom off the roses today, Ellen?”

She sat down and faced him. “What is it you want, Gordon?” she asked, her voice controlled.

“Why, nothing,” he replied, surprised in his reply. “I merely wanted to tell you that I had a visit this morning from Ralph and Lord Chesney, who thought that as head of the family here in Oxford, I ought to know.” He laughed. “I can't imagine what good he thought that would do, but so he came. They've gone home.”

Ellen clapped her hands together in exasperation. “I wish Ralph would not have dragged him into this! Don't you find it embarrassing that Lord Chesney has to help us out of muddles?”

Gordon shrugged, as though he had not considered the matter before. “I expect he will be my brother-in-law before too long. Might as well put the man to good use. After all, he loves you.”