by Joy Callaway
“Beth. I was serious,” she continued. “Don’t tell Will. Leave it alone. This is the only way I can bear to continue here, do you understand? I will have my diploma.”
Her jaw locked for a moment and the resolute, strong woman I knew came back into view. I wanted to argue for vengeance, but stopped my thoughts knowing she’d already decided, and began to undress.
“Fine,” I said, smoothing my corset cover and fashioning my skirt around my waist. “But the moment he threatens you again . . .” I trailed off and the edges of her lips turned up.
“That’s fair. But he won’t. Come May I’ll be finished with his class. I’ll never speak to him again.”
I did up my bodice quickly, hurriedly doing up the buttons down the middle.
“I wish I could have him fired or strung up and beaten.”
“I know. I do too.” She rubbed the skin at the corner of her left eye, burned pink from crying. “But if you wouldn’t mind, I’d like to be left alone.”
I crossed to the door, having no idea how to contain the rage and melancholy and revulsion I felt.
“Would you do me one more favor before dinner?” she asked. “Find Mary. Katherine too. Call a meeting for this evening directly after dinner. I think I’d like to tell them what’s happened to me. To be entirely honest, I was managing quite well until I realized I could be with child. I need you—all of you—especially until I know for certain.” She mustered a smile.
“And if one of them slips and tells someone? You said that if Helms finds out you told, he’ll fail you.”
“No. They won’t. They’re my sisters and I trust them.” Snapping the book shut, she pivoted off the bed and opened the top drawer of our night stand. Withdrawing a bottle of clear liquid, she uncorked it and took a long draw, nose wrinkling as she swallowed the fizz. “It’s sparkling water. Mary had them fill a bottle at the soda counter in town. It’s supposed to settle the stomach,” she explained, holding the bottle toward me.
“No, thank you.” I’d had a carbonated water only once, with my friend Sarah before a meeting of her mother’s suffrage group. The bubbles had itched my nostrils so intensely that I’d sneezed for the next thirty minutes.
“In the meantime, have you learned of any tests in your classes, any way to tell pregnancy for certain?” Lily asked.
“No. I’m sorry. Well, actually,” I said, recalling an article I’d read in the Boston Medical and Surgical Journal, “there’s one strange test that they say is fairly accurate.”
“Good. What is it?”
“You have to urinate on wheat and barley seeds over the course of a few days. If the wheat sprouts, it’s a girl, if the barley sprouts, it’s a boy, and if neither of them sprout, you’re not expecting.”
Lily huffed.
“That’s ridiculous.”
“But it might work. If you want to try it, I can sneak around in the kitchen tonight. The dining hall will probably have both and—”
“Absolutely not,” she said, interrupting me. “I’ve already lost enough dignity. I’ll not subject myself to some nonsensical experiment, expressing myself on crops.”
“I understand,” I said, stepping into the hallway, and away from the pain etched on her face. “I’ll go speak to the girls and I’ll see you tonight.”
7
Will had been waiting for nearly half an hour by the time I’d tracked down Katherine and Mary and made my way to meet him. I took a deep breath as I passed under the arch, wishing I hadn’t made plans for dinner. I wasn’t in the mood, even if it was my birthday. I glanced across the circular quad to the whitewashed wooden dining hall—the original building first used for instruction at the college’s inception in 1853. It now looked terribly out of place in the midst of the newer red brick and limestone buildings. Even though one of the lanterns on either side of the door had been extinguished, I spotted Will immediately. He was a head taller than the other three unfortunate men waiting outside for a lady. He was also the only one who’d deemed a meal at the dining hall a formal enough occasion to wear a top hat. Leaning against the iron railing along the stone steps, he fiddled with his overcoat and then looked toward Everett Hall on the hill, no doubt wondering if I’d show up.
A rotund man standing beside Will began to shift his feet from side to side, blowing breath into his gloved hands. His discomfort made me want to tell him to get inside, but I knew that even if I did, none of them would listen. It was a known fact that the founding men of Whitsitt had always lingered outside of the dining hall, waiting to open the door for the ladies they were meeting. The tradition had stuck. The gesture was nice, but absurd in this frigid January.
Will removed his hat and smoothed his blond hair. An unremarkable man on the other side of the doorway scuffed the toe of his boot against the rail, clearly irritated by the wait. As I approached, I heard Will attempt to engage the man in some light conversation.
“First time courting a lady?”
The man glared, but Will smiled, not bothering to straighten from his position against the rail. “They’re not always the most punctual and—”
“No,” the man snapped. “It’s not my first time.” He kicked at a bit of ice on the edge of the step. “And I’m not courting her. I simply asked her to dinner. She’s a friend. There’s a difference, you know.”
“I’m aware,” Will said. “I hope she comes.” Will knew full well why the man was being so short with him. He was worried he’d been forgotten. But Will enjoyed getting under people’s skin. He found it entertaining. “Ah, here’s mine now.” He swung down from the steps to take my arm. “Miss Carrington, good evening.”
“What’re you doing?” I said under my breath. I wasn’t in the frame of mind to play along tonight. Will didn’t answer, but escorted me past the man to open the door and practically shoved me inside. I jerked away from him. “Stop it.”
“I apologize, m’lady,” he said with a smirk. “I suppose I was overzealous in my desire to get away from him as quickly as possible. That was one of the gentlemen I’m to shadow for Iota Gamma. Don’t mention it to anyone. I’m not supposed to tip anyone off as to who the prospective pledges are, but I’m sorry to say that that one isn’t going to work.”
“How do you know?” I asked as we made our way down the narrow hallway, past several framed maps of Illinois on the wall. “You don’t even know him.” I knew I was projecting my anger on Will and took a breath, trying to contain it. The building smelled of buttery pastry and roast turkey, and though I wasn’t hungry in the least, my stomach rumbled.
“He’s too smug.” Will stopped at the cloak closet, edging out of his overcoat before reaching to my shoulders to help me out of mine. “And pompous,” he whispered behind me, leaning into my ear as the man in question suddenly appeared without his date. Will tipped his hat at him before handing our coats to the attendant. I gave Lily’s dinner order to the maître d’, and started toward the dining room at the end of the building, not bothering to wait for Will. He’d hardly given the man a chance. He’d made a snap judgment. The same treatment Mr. Richardson had bestowed upon me. The manner was all too familiar, reminding me of my father, and I didn’t wish to associate with men like him.
“Wait, Beth, I—”
“That makes sense,” I snapped when he caught up, “because none of you are either smug or pompous.”
Will’s eyes narrowed.
“I didn’t say that we didn’t already have brothers with those unfortunate qualities,” he said, lingering on “unfortunate.” “Sometimes people deceive you at the beginning, you know. It’s just that we’d prefer to keep the pretentious out, if we can help it.”
“And these guidelines come from the most imperious of them all, I’m sure. The pot calling the kettle black, is it not?”
Will let a ragged sigh escape his lungs. He turned into the dining room, glanced across the heads of at least one hundred others eating and talking, and pointed to a small table in the corner beneath a window.
I did as he said and started toward the table, wracking my brain for a reason other than Lily’s calamity to excuse my mood. Lost in thought, I struck the edge of a chair at the end of one of two long banquet tables with my leg. I winced.
“Are you all right, miss?” A thin man with flaxen hair and doe eyes looked up at me from his chair among a group of what appeared to be freshmen men. He looked strangely familiar, though I couldn’t place him.
“Yes. Thank you. I apologize for the interruption,” I said.
“It’s not a problem. Enjoy your meal.” I tipped my head at him and settled into my chair a few feet away. Stretching my hands toward the fireplace, I glanced out of the window at the ice and snow piled up on the sill.
“Here.” Will plopped down in his chair and set the steaming pastry in front of me with a clatter. The scent of rosemary and thyme seeped into my nostrils and I plucked my fork from the tablecloth in front of me and grinned.
“A smile. Did you have a change of heart in the two minutes it took me to retrieve your dinner from the kitchen?” he said before shoveling a substantial bite of his own pie into his mouth.
“Not quite.”
“All right. Then, out with it. What happened?” He balled his napkin and set it on the table next to his pie, as though he wouldn’t take another bite until I told him. I’d seen his father make the same gesture; he had done it the night he’d convinced my father to allow me to attend Whitsitt. He’d asked my father if he didn’t think me important and then he’d ceased eating until my father found the silence too uncomfortable and mumbled that of course he did.
I stared at Will, wracking my brain for a response, but none came, so I was silent.
“Is it me?” he asked. “Are you still angry with me for this morning? I’m sorry, Beth. I truly am.”
“It’s not you,” I began, then stopped abruptly as the one excuse I could use dawned on me. “I was denied an apprenticeship with Cook County Hospital, my fourth rejection.”
“I’m sorry, Beth, but you’ll find a position. You’re smarter than all of us, not to mention more ambitious. I haven’t even written a request letter yet.” He smiled and reached out to pat my hand. Will was planning to be a family physician like his grandfather—a man who, despite his age, was still caring for nearly two hundred households in Newark. With his connections, it would be easy for Will to secure an apprenticeship. “I know it’s frustrating, but don’t let it ruin your birthday.”
I nodded, but stabbed my fork into my pie a bit too forcefully.
“That’s not it, though,” he said. “Tell me the truth.” I swallowed, the lumpy peas squeezing past the knot in my throat. I’d run out of anything I could tell him—and then, I remembered the ball.
“When you left me with Mr. Richardson earlier, he asked me to the ball, and I—”
“I shouldn’t have done that. Did he force you to accept his proposition because of what you shared with him this morning?” Will’s eyes flashed. “Beth, if he did, tell me now.”
The thought of force made my skin crawl. My face must’ve paled because Will rose from his seat, sending its wooden legs tipping back to land with a clack on the floor.
“No,” I said quickly, my words stopping him. Will took a moment, but he sat down. “You keep saying that about him. Is he in the habit of compelling women to do things for him?” I continued.
He scratched at a sideburn and shook his head.
“Well, no. Not directly at least. He’s got money, and with it comes power, but no.” He dug into his pie again. “He must be rather fond of you.” Will shot me a humorless smile. I figured he was wondering about Mr. Richardson and me, about what I’d shared with him that I hadn’t told Will. Surely Will wasn’t jealous.
“I assure you, he’s not,” I said, turning the ring on my right pinkie. My mind wandered back to Lily and her tear-streaked face, and I swirled my fork in the creamy center of the pie, watching the carrots rise to the top and then sink to the bottom. “I think he feels bad for the way he treated me earlier. I can’t figure why he’d ask otherwise . . . then again, I can’t figure how or why I accepted either.”
Will dabbed the napkin to his lips.
“Perhaps, as much as you want to act as though you despise him, there’s an attraction.”
“No,” I said. I loathed that anyone, especially Will, could assume I’d melted in Mr. Richardson’s gaze.
“Or perhaps the reason you refuse to tell me the reason for your midnight visit is because the two of you are having a secret affair,” he laughed. His words felt like worms twisting in my gut. All I could see, though my eyes were directed at Will’s face, was Professor Helms pinning Lily to his desk. My palms started to tingle and I clenched the stem of my fork.
“I’ve-I’ve got to go,” I said under my breath. I had to get back to Lily. I shouldn’t have left her alone in the first place.
“No,” Will declared. He stood, grasped my shoulders, and gently guided me back into the chair. He held me there for a moment, his gaze boring into mine. “You’re going to tell me if he’s harmed you, do you understand me? Otherwise, I’ll have no other choice but to hurt him. I live under the same roof as the man. He can’t hide from me.”
“I’m telling you the truth. I have no idea why he’d ask me. We’re not having an affair.” My voice was shaking and I tripped over the last word. I’d never even kissed a man. I could feel the heat of my anger rising in a warm blush from the base of my neck. “Please sit down.”
Will did as I asked and glanced at my fingers clutched hard around the silver. He reached over and forced my hand open, plucking the fork from my grasp.
“You’re not all right, and I need to know why. I promised I’d be there for you from the start, and I meant it.”
“I suppose it’s not anything in particular,” I said slowly. “It’s everything today—Professor Pearson’s comments, your response, my apprenticeship rejection, the whole thing with Mr. Richardson. It’s just been difficult, that’s all.” Sitting back in my chair, I stared at the fire, knowing if I looked at him long enough he’d still see through me.
Will adjusted his white bow tie that had somehow become lopsided. “I’m so sorry for my contribution and I wish I could make it better.”
“Tomorrow is another day,” I said. I sighed, hoping to dispel a bit of the tension across my chest.
“That it is,” he said. “And if it would help to settle a bit of your troubles, I’ll say that being invited to the Iota Gamma winter ball isn’t the worst fortune you could have. It’s quite an affair.” He took a sip of his water, and his brow furrowed for a moment. He’d taken Miss Cable last year and I knew that the memory of such a happy time with her had to be an unwelcome intrusion.
“Perhaps. Though I would rather go with you,” I said. “I’m afraid I’ll be rather lonely with Mr. Richardson. We have nothing in common and it’s almost certain that I won’t know any of the other girls.”
“Strawberries and cream? I heard it was your birthday.” The cook, Mrs. Perry, appeared at my side holding a small bowl.
“I would love some. Thank you,” I smiled at her before she quickly set the bowl in front of me and disappeared.
I pushed the bowl into the middle of the table and gestured to Will to share, but he was toying with one of his cufflinks—an Iota Gamma rose.
“What would you think about me asking your roommate Miss Johnston to the ball? I’ll do it gladly if it would make the evening more enjoyable for you.”
“I would love that. But isn’t there another girl you’re thinking of asking?” I thought of Lily’s distress. Attending a ball wouldn’t award her the calm she needed right now, but I knew she’d feel pressured to accept Will’s invitation for my sake. Not to mention, Lily and Will were only mildly acquainted and they weren’t a match by any means. While Will
was light-hearted and carefree, Lily was serious most of the time and as straight as a nail when it came to her ambitions.
He took a bite of the strawberries and cleared his throat.
“There was, in fact, a girl I thought to ask, but she’s already committed.” He winked at me and settled back in his chair. “I’d be honored to take Miss Johnston if you think she’d accept my invitation.”
“I suppose there would be no harm in asking,” I said. After all, her attendance would mean we’d be at the ball together when I approached President Wilson about Beta Xi Beta.
“I’ll write her a letter first thing tomorrow.” He stood and held his hand out to me. “Feign surprise when it arrives.”
* * *
I waited for a few minutes until I knew he’d disappeared through the wall on the other side of campus before I set out across the quad myself. I couldn’t afford to risk him seeing me walking toward our chapter room. My eyes trailed the path to Everett Hall, wondering if I’d see any of the girls making their way toward Old Main, but I didn’t. Pulling my hood over my hair, I balled my freezing fingers into the warmth of my palms. Even the heavy wool pockets couldn’t keep the cold out.
The lanterns on either side of the chapel door flicked light on the clock just below the steeple. I gasped. Seven-thirty-five. No wonder I hadn’t seen anyone coming down from the hill. Once again, I’d lost track of time and was late. I snaked diagonally across the quad toward Old Main. I glanced under the arch leading out of campus to the Iota Gamma house, finding the entire place dark. Where were they? I knew Will had mentioned that they were starting recruitment, but as they hadn’t chosen anyone yet, it was too early for their initiation traditions . . . whatever they were. What was it then that would merit the entire chapter’s absence? My eyes scanned the brick base of the white house, stopping when I spotted a bit of light coming from a tiny window in the cellar. But as interested as I was, I couldn’t delay tonight’s meeting any longer.