Again Catherine chided herself. If she had looked more closely—not merely stolen glances like a coy schoolgirl—she would have noticed the absence of expression in the brown eyes. What a tragedy, she thought, her pity mixed with admiration that one with such an obstacle as blindness would attempt University.
How fortunate he is, having a friend to watch over him like that. She could imagine the two of them walking down Regent Street. Neville would hold Hugh by the elbow—no, it would be safer if Hugh had a hand up on Neville’s shoulder and walked just a bit behind him. Neville’s image faded in her mind’s picture, and she stepped into his place.
“It’s so kind of you to guide me back to Saint John’s,” Hugh was saying. “I can’t imagine what happened to Neville.”
“I’m happy to be of assistance,” Catherine replied, and slowed her steps a bit. “A delivery cart is blocking the pavement just ahead, so we’ll have to step out on the street when the traffic clears.”
“Just lead the way, Miss Rayborn. I have perfect confidence in you.”
“I feel just wretched, Catherine.”
The scene evaporated and Catherine looked at Peggy, who was leaning close.
“Saying all that rot about shooting people,” Peggy whispered.
“I’m sure he didn’t realize you meant him,” Catherine consoled, albeit with a surge of relief that she had not been the one to speak out.
But now that it was brought to light that he had not behaved rudely, it didn’t seem decent to sit there chatting over him—even though she was certain he couldn’t hear them over the wheels. So to steer the subject in another direction—and because she was curious—she said, “May I see your violin?”
“Yes, of course,” Peggy replied, unfastening the case and raising the lid. She drew out an instrument of polished mellow wood inscribed with a small cross. The other sighted passengers looked on.
“It was made by Giuseppe,” Peggy said, beaming like a doting mother. “They’re very valuable. An earl in reduced circumstances traded it to my great grandfather for a cloak and two suits of—”
“Oh!” she exclaimed, grabbing for the case as the coach made a teeth-jarring lurch. Catherine bounced an inch off her seat. A boater hat sprang from the overhead hook and was snatched in midair by the young man across from Catherine.
All eyes went to him. Sheepishly he balanced the hat upon his knees.
Neville’s chortle pierced the stunned silence. “I’ll take that fiver now, Hugh!”
“It was a wager?” Peggy said with eyes narrowed.
Hugh grimaced. “We meant no disres—”
“Have you both taken leave of your senses?” demanded the woman at the opposite window.
“Or had you any to begin with?” added Peggy.
The older gentleman appeared to be struggling to suppress a smile, causing Catherine to wonder if most males were lacking in sensitivity. Anger pushed aside her shyness, and she frowned. “And have you any idea what it’s like to be blind?”
“I never—”
“My Grandfather Lorimer was stricken blind weeks before he died. He didn’t find it so amusing.”
Both young men shrank in their seats. “It was a spur-of-the-moment thing,” explained the dark-haired one. “You know . . . impulse.”
Hugh nodded remorsefully. “I played Gloucester in a production of King Lear at St. John’s last term, and Neville here wagered I couldn’t pull it off in real life. If we would have taken time to think it over . . .”
“I believe the young ladies would have preferred you had chosen the death scene instead,” the gentleman said.
“There is still time,” Peggy said tightly, putting her violin back in its case.
Neville chuckled, but then glanced at Peggy and turned it into a cough. Hugh just sat wearing a look of misery. For the half hour that followed, Catherine and Peggy studiously ignored the young men, who took to ignoring them just as studiously by passing the magazine back and forth and commenting on various cartoons and articles.
It wasn’t having been deceived that piqued Catherine the most, or even so much the bad taste of pretending to have a disability. Most mortifying was that he had sat there—probably struggling to hold in the laughter—and allowed her to study his face as if he were a portrait in a museum. Was there any approval showing in her expression? Her face burned again at the realization that there probably was.
“It was a hateful thing to do,” Peggy whispered, affirming Catherine’s right to a grudge. “I’ve a good mind to write to the head of—”
A whistle drowned out the rest as the wheels started slowing. When the guard opened the door, Catherine and Peggy hesitated only long enough to bid good-day to their seatmate before stepping onto the platform of Cambridge Station.
“We should keep our eyes out for a porter,” Catherine said, then realized she was taking something for granted. They had gotten on splendidly during the journey. Was it presumptuous of her to assume that meant the beginning of a friendship?
“That is, if you would care to share a cab,” she added.
“But of course.” Peggy’s hazel eyes shone above her wide smile. “We’re going to be good friends, aren’t we?”
Having brothers must make a girl bolder, Catherine thought with a little envy. She smiled back. “Yes, good friends.”
Two
One of the many conveniences of being a fourth-year student, Hugh Sedgwick thought, sidestepping a porter and handcart, was that one could simply leave most of his belongings at college for the duration.
Besides, he needed them during the summer days not devoted to rowing in the Henley Regatta or cheering Cambridge on against Oxford during the cricket matches at Lords. Hugh was of the third or so of Cambridge students who chose to stay in residence at their colleges during most of the long vacation, from mid-June to early October. He convinced himself it was to study ahead for the next year, though he did not open the books as much as he knew he should. Truth was, his father was not overjoyed at his choosing University over coming to work at Sedgwick Tea Company straight out of secondary school, and Hugh knew that his idling summers at home would only serve to irritate him.
“Over here!” Neville called, tossing his gripsack into the first available carriage in queue on Station Road.
Hugh did the same but stopped short of hopping into the seat.
“What is it?” asked Neville.
“Somethin’ the matter, Sir?” asked the driver from the box.
You certainly gave their first year a great start, Hugh told himself, turning toward the station. How would you like someone treating your sisters that way?
He glanced over his shoulder. “Wait, please.”
****
A male voice came from Catherine’s right. “May I beg just a moment of your time?”
She and Peggy turned to face Hugh-from-the-train, who looked even more miserable than when under their tongue-lashings. The brim of the hat that had betrayed him was clutched in his hands. Standing, he was not overly tall, perhaps just four inches above Catherine’s five-feet-four.
“Well, what is it?” Peggy demanded.
“It was beastly of me . . . the way I behaved.”
“Yes, beastly,” Catherine told him, folding her arms. “You should be ashamed.”
“I am, terribly.” The young man’s frown was as asymmetrical as his smile had been. “But have you never done anything that you profoundly regret?”
The question gave Catherine pause. What a sheltered life you’ve lived, she told herself when the most serious recollection that surfaced was of disobeying her mother at age fourteen by slipping out to cycle during a summer rain. The one-inch scar on the underside of her chin was a reminder of that folly.
“Perhaps,” she replied.
“But nothing so tasteless as your performance,” Peggy said.
He winced. “Yes. And I do beg your forgiveness.”
Catherine was moved by the misery in his expression in spite of herself, and more than a li
ttle awed that they possessed the power to increase or lessen it. But she was not quite ready to make him feel better. “My grandfather suffered terribly.”
“If I had only known . . .”
“But you couldn’t have, could you?” Peggy said. “That’s why such subjects are inappropriate for humor.”
“Indeed,” he agreed, the frown deepening. “I know my word means nothing to you, but please be assured I shall never do anything like that again—to anyone.”
He had proved his acting ability on the train. Still, Catherine found herself believing him. “Should we forgive him, Peggy?”
Peggy leaned her head to give him an appraising look. “Yes, I suppose we should.”
Catherine nodded. “Very well.”
“Thank you!” He blew out his cheeks. “Now I’ll be able to sleep tonight.”
“Miss Rayborn?”
Catherine looked off to her right. Through the crowd she caught a glimpse of Miss Scott, the resident assistant lecturer in Mathematics, whom she had met in August. It wouldn’t do to have one of the Girton staff assuming they had come to Cambridge to flirt with young men. She looked at Peggy, who nodded.
“We have to go now,” they said in unison.
“Of course,” he replied. Before turning to blend into the crowd, he smiled crookedly. “Again, I thank you for the absolution.”
Miss Scott was a frazzled-looking woman of about twenty-five, who nonetheless wore a welcoming smile and explained that she and two other assistant lecturers were out there to provide assistance if needed. “We’ve a porter available, and a wagon is just about to leave with luggage. Give me your tags, and we’ll see to your trunks.”
“Thank you,” Catherine said, and handed over hers. As Peggy dug into a faded green reticule, Catherine could not restrain herself from glancing over her shoulder. She saw no sign of Hugh.
He must have made an outstanding Gloucester, she thought.
They followed the porter—just to be sure he had the right trunks on his handcart—then left the platform and exited the station. Cambridge gleamed like a jewel in the noonday sun, a pleasing amalgamation of Saxon, and Norman Romanesque, Gothic, Georgian, and Greek Revival. A cabby waved them over to a hackney hitched to a team of bored-looking dray horses. “Girton or Newnham?” he asked, a smile parted over teeth as grey as the hair overlapping his collar.
“I can see we’re going to be asked that a lot over the next four years,” Peggy murmured.
“Girton, please,” Catherine replied.
“Very good, Misses!” He assisted them inside, then hopped into the box and snapped the reins. The team snorted in unison and set out toward Regent Street with hooves ringing against paving stones.
It was slow going, for the town was an anthill of activity. They passed the yellow neo-classical buildings of Downing and then Emmanuel College, followed by Christ’s College with its mellow tan stone and several connected shops and cafés with flats above. A trio of young men standing under the awning of The Bulldog Pub nudged each other. One broke ranks to trot along Catherine’s side of the carriage.
“Good day, fair damsels!” he called, lifting a boater hat while his companions hooted out encouragements. “Care to join us for lunch?”
“You’ll leave them ladies be, elst I’ll have th’ police on you!” the driver scolded, twisting in his seat.
Laughter rolled from the pub, but the grinning young man gave up his sport. Peggy rolled her eyes at Catherine. “First time away from home, I’d wager my last shilling.”
The pounding against Catherine’s rib cage eased. “And I thought Father was being overprotective when he warned me about University men.”
“My father warned me too. But I believed him.”
“You did? But wouldn’t you assume they would behave more . . .”
“Scholarly?”
Catherine was going to say dignified, but scholarly served just as well. “Yes.”
“The amount of education doesn’t matter,” Peggy said knowingly. “Did you study algebra?”
“Algebra?” Catherine echoed, giving her an odd look.
Peggy smiled. “Young men behave according to an algebraic formula. When they’re together, the quantity of restraint each possesses is inversely proportional to the number of men in the group. Just like Hugh-from-St. John’s. He would have been a perfect gentleman had he traveled alone, but as he was with a male friend, his capacity for restraint was divided by half. Had he two more friends present, there would have been a belching contest or some such nonsense.”
When Catherine finally absorbed all that, she shook her head in awe. “You learned that from having brothers?”
“And from their friends. And five years at Burlington Street Grammar School.”
“I’ve only been to girls’ schools,” Catherine confessed. “And my sister and I shared a governess in Bombay.”
“I don’t think I would have cared for that. Males can be exasperating, but they do make life a lot more colorful.”
“They’ve certainly added color to our trip.”
“And yet you wanted to come to Girton?” Peggy said. “I should think you would be sick of girls.”
“Oh, quite the contrary.” A little shiver went through Catherine. “This is the most exciting day of my life.”
“Yes, mine as well.”
“What will you be reading?” Catherine asked.
“Natural Sciences. I’m particularly interested in chemistry, and have been ever since I first set eyes upon the Periodic Table.”
“My cousin’s husband, William Doyle, is an analytical chemist for the Hassall Commission. They investigate—”
“Adulterated foods and medicines!” Peggy finished for her. “I’ve read all about them. How fulfilling to be involved in something so noble.”
“He does enjoy his work. You can’t imagine what people will put into food to save a penny.”
“I hope I may meet him sometime,” Peggy said. “What will you be studying?”
“Classics,” Catherine replied. But her smile faded at the thought that had nagged at her for weeks. “I only hope I can keep up.”
“But why wouldn’t you?”
“I’m not much of a reader.”
“Really! Not even for pleasure?”
“Well . . . on occasion.” She could become absorbed to the point of shutting out her surroundings with adventures such as Marryat’s The Phantom Ship and Collins’ The Moonstone, and even the occasional “penny dreadful.” But her limited exposure to Greek and Roman myths had left her with no thirst for more.
“You must have done well in other subjects or you wouldn’t be here.”
Catherine gave her an appreciative look. “Yes,” she replied, simply because to say otherwise out of modesty would be to lie. But all one had to do to master Mathematics, Science, and even Grammar was to memorize certain laws, rules, and formulas and apply them. Finding which particular key would unlock each problem was therefore like a game, vastly interesting. But when a subject did not capture her attention, her mind frequently detoured down other paths.
“It may not be too late to sign up for something else,” Peggy advised. “That’s what I appreciate about college—it’s like dining a la francaise. You can put only the foods you like on your plate.”
“But sometimes you have to put broccoli on your plate for your own good. My father says that no academically advanced school will hire a schoolmistress who isn’t well-versed in the Classics.”
Peggy pursed her lips. “I’m sure I don’t know about that. But it seems to me that you ought to study that at which you’re most competent, and which you enjoy. The world is changing from how it was when our mothers were our ages. You can become a scientist, an architect . . . almost anything.”
“But I’ve wanted to teach children ever since I was a little girl. I know I would enjoy it. It’s just the getting there that may be difficult.”
“Then we’ll help each other stay on track. Be account
able to each other. Make sure we spend enough time in the books.”
“I’d like that,” Catherine told her.
“And, if you’ll forgive my immodesty, I’m fairly good at Latin.” Peggy shrugged. “With so much of it used in chemistry. So if you should ever need help . . .”
“God must have led you to my coach.” The sentiment surprised Catherine even as she spoke it, for while her family had faithfully attended church since her earliest memories, they did not speak of God as if He were intimately involved in the goings-on of their days. That was more like Uncle Daniel’s side of the family. Having just spent three weeks with them, she reckoned some of their devoutness had rubbed off on her.
“Why, I think He did,” Peggy returned.
Their shared smiles melded into a companionable silence, just as limestone buildings began melding into neat cottages soon after they crossed the Great Bridge over the River Cam.
The old name for Girton was Gretton, meaning “village on the gravel,” said the college pamphlet Catherine received upon her first visit. It was given the name because the settlement grew up along a gravel ridge. Traffic lightened, and the breeze from the horses’ quickened pace cooled her face. Already she had a friend here. The four years stretching out before her seemed filled with promise.
Presently they stopped several yards short of Girton College’s wooden gates, in queue behind two other carriages. The living and lecture rooms of the seven-year-old terra-cotta brick building in their sights formed an inverted L, leaving room for future growth on a quadrangle plan. Miss Bernard, the mistress, stood with a young woman at the main entrance under the clock.
“Well . . . this is it,” Peggy said, hugging her violin case closer.
“This is it,” Catherine echoed.
“Do go on ahead, Misses,” the driver said, offering an assisting hand. “Miss Bernard there hasn’t bit anybody yet.”
When they put heads together to divide the fare, Catherine resisted the temptation to offer to pay the entire five shillings. She could recall the years when money was tight in her own family, before Grandmother and Grandfather Lorimer finally forgave her mother for marrying a lowly schoolmaster. She would have been mortified to have anyone assume that she needed charity.
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