by Joy Callaway
“Similarly, when an Iota Gamma finds a woman he loves, he asks her to wear his letters,” Grant continued, reaching into his jacket and removing a gold necklace that he dangled between his fingers. Simultaneously relieved and nervous, I knew what accepting his lavalier meant: that I was serious about him, that I was serious about us.
“It has been rather irritating to my brothers, I’m sure, to hear my constant talk of the woman that has stolen my heart. Miss Beth Carrington, will you come up here and join me? Will you accept my letters as a token of my love?”
A sigh of adoration passed through the women in the crowd. Grant’s declaration was nearly every Whitsitt girl’s dream. He was handsome, wealthy, powerful, and bright; the perfect man. I nodded mechanically as I stepped to the edge of the nest and down the stairs. I paused in the shadows between our nest and the fireplace for a moment, trying to compose myself. Just a look at him made me both weak and furious with want, but did I love him?
“Beth?” Grant’s voice rang out again and I pushed through the crowd, which parted like the Red Sea as I made my way toward the stage. My eyes met Grant’s and a smile came across his lips. My heartbeat quickened. I watched his broad shoulders rise and then fall with a breath, as though he’d thought there was a chance I wouldn’t accept. He extended his hand and I took it, reveling in the warmth of his palm around mine as he helped me onto the stage.
“I love you,” he whispered, as he spun me around and looped the chain around my neck. “I’ve wanted to tell you for a week now, but I . . .” As soon as I felt the clasp catch, I turned to face him, unable to shoulder the collective gaze of the partygoers watching to see how I’d react. Someone whooped and then the rest of the crowd began to cheer as Grant lifted my hand to his lips. He leaned back to look at me, no doubt waiting for me to whisper the confession he’d just made in turn.
“I—”
“Richardson,” a short young man with a disheveled mane of carrot-orange interrupted my reply. Only then did I realize that I had no clue what I’d been about to say. “We forgot a pledge,” he said, and gestured toward a tall man in a blue feathered suit at the edge of the stage. “George Holmes. He was late on the train from Chicago.”
“I’m sorry,” Grant whispered. “We’ve got to introduce one more.” He lifted his hand to my cheek. The simple gesture made my heart flutter. “I want nothing more than to kiss you properly. Wait for me in the nest?”
“Of course.” He kissed my hand once again and released me. I made my way back toward the nest, nervous and confused, as my fingers clutched the letters around my neck.
“Brothers, it seems that we have one more pledge.” Grant’s voice hummed behind the symphony of excited congratulations as I crossed the room. I wished he would have told me for the first time in private, in a place where I could have explained both my affection and reservations. He would tell me that he loved me again later, I felt sure. At least now I had a solitary moment to compose myself, to figure out my reply. I broke free of the crowd and paused in front of the fireplace, staring at the flames.
“Come with me.” A deep voice startled me and a calloused hand materialized on my arm. I caught a glimpse of a white beak and moved away.
“No. Will, I—”
“If you’d like to keep his lavalier after what I have to tell you, I’ll take you back to him myself.” His voice was edged with fury and without another thought I followed him.
Will didn’t speak as he led me out of the back door of the house into the wintry darkness. I shivered and he edged out of his black feather coat and flung it around my shoulders, engulfing me in a cloud of sandalwood cologne. The moonlight danced across his blond hair, lighting his jaw, which was gripped with rage.
“Tell me now,” I said, and I stopped, but he shook his head and beckoned me forward. He glanced back at the door, making sure no one was following us, and then led me down Hideaway Hill, into the thin woods between the house and the stable.
“Walk faster,” he whispered as our silhouettes disappeared into the shadows of leafless oaks and long-needled evergreens. “He’ll be looking for you.”
A strange feeling tingled at the base of my spine, as though we were fleeing from a murderer.
“Is he going to hurt me?” I asked as I ran to keep up with Will’s long stride. He laughed softly, breath puffing outward in a cloud before dissolving.
“Of course not. Not like that,” he said.
Relieved, I took a deep breath of air tinged with the crisp scent of pine needles and the tang of horse manure. Will opened the lid of a small box tacked to the side of the stable door, then struck a match and lowered it to a tiny nub of a candle.
“Come in here. It’s warmer,” Will said, pushing the heavy wooden door open with a creak. His hand drifted to the beak at his forehead and he tossed it into the dirt aisle ahead of us. A horse snorted somewhere and I heard the muted stomp of another’s hooves on the hay.
“This way,” he whispered, as though the loud whine of the door hadn’t already woken the horses. He turned into a tack room and I followed. Saddles lined the walls, engulfing me in the scent of polished leather.
“Please sit down,” he said, gesturing to a bench in the corner.
I sank onto it and tried to steel myself for whatever he was about to say.
“Get on with it,” I said.
Will cleared his throat and ran a hand through his hair, avoiding my eyes.
“I know that . . . I know that you keep some things from me because you think it best I don’t know. I thought at first that I was doing the same by keeping his secret, but I can’t any longer.” He lifted his head. “He made me swear on our brotherhood, as if it meant more to me than you.”
“Will, I wish you would just—”
“Richardson,” Will said, his voice strained and low, “tried to pay the board to deny your fraternity.”
I froze. Will was mistaken. He had to be lying.
“At first, President Wilson refused. He said he couldn’t accept a bribe, and when Richardson realized that Wilson wouldn’t budge, he followed you. He found your chapter room and sent the president to see for himself.”
I couldn’t move, couldn’t even blink. I could barely force the words from my lips.
“Why? I don’t believe you.” Surely Will was only speculating. After all Grant had done for me, it couldn’t have been for nothing.
Will’s eyebrows rose.
“All right then,” he said, and began to walk away. “At least it’s off my conscience. I’ve warned you, Beth.”
My heart churned, feeling as though at any moment the velocity of it would send it shooting from my chest.
“Wait,” I called. “Please. My words were misplaced; I apologize.”
Will stopped at the doorframe and turned back around.
“He loves you, that’s why,” he said, answering my question. “At least that’s what he said when I questioned him about it. It’s clear that he wants you to fit in his future.”
“And I’ve made it clear that my views and ambitions won’t change,” I said, feeling tension clutch my chest.
“I told him as much . . . I know you, Beth. But he heard nothing of it. He thinks that without your fraternity, he has two more years to convince you that you belong with him in his mansion on Fifth Avenue instead of by the bedsides of patients. Without the other ‘bleeding suffragists,’ as he calls them, he’s certain you’ll come around to seeing that your real purpose is family life . . . with him.”
“That’s ridiculous.” I stood from the bench, nearly knocking it over. “Grant’s tattling to President Wilson almost had me expelled.”
“No. You would’ve never been dismissed. That was all part of the charade, don’t you see? He wanted to come off as the hero.”
I raised my hand to my mouth, remembering that just an hour before Grant had been kissing me and I’d been happy. Now, everything was tainted.
“How did you find out? When?”
“Yes
terday. President Wilson paid him a visit in the library downstairs and they didn’t bother to close the door. I suppose he thought they were alone, and they were, until I decided to write a letter to my parents in the great room.” Will stopped and shook his head. “President Wilson kept going on and on about how Richardson was right, how he should have taken his money and trusted that he was doing the right thing. I knew that he’d decided to guilt Richardson into giving him the money anyway, because when Richardson didn’t say anything, he started in on the fact that he really should have expelled you.”
“How dare they,” I said.
My mouth was dry. Will paced toward me and took my hand.
“I’m sorry, Beth. I know how upsetting this must be.”
“Did he give it to him?” I whispered, disregarding Will’s attempt to comfort me.
“I don’t think so,” he said. “At least I didn’t hear him say he would.”
“Why would you ever question whether or not you’d tell me this?”
Will’s face was suddenly stony.
“Don’t act as though I owe you honesty after the way you’ve treated me,” he said.
I’d never seen him this angry, heard him speak this frankly. Even in our early rows, he’d never fully lost his composure.
“I told you I was sorry for everything and I meant it,” I said. “I’m not going to say it again.”
Will sucked his bottom lip into his mouth and let it out, his anger suddenly gone.
“When President Wilson departed, Richardson followed him out and saw me sitting there,” Will said, letting go of my hand and moving his palm to my cheek. “Beth, he said that you loved him and that he loved you . . . that he was only doing what was best for you, for your heart. I have an interest in that too, you know, and I—”
“Damn him.” I pulled away from Will, infuriated at the insinuation that Grant thought I loved him without my saying so, that he thought ruining my dreams was best for me. The vision of him standing on the stage proclaiming his love for me burned in my mind. If he loved me, he would have supported what I loved, or at the very least stood aside while I tried, like he’d been pretending to do all along.
I left Will standing in the shadows and ran out of the barn. The barn door crashed behind me, echoing in my ears as I pitched my skirt and started up Hideaway Hill toward the house. The sharp quills prodded my palm and I relished their feel, clenching my fists harder.
I paused at the back door of the house. Light spilled from every window and I could hear the hum of voices and music. A familiar cascading laugh startled me and I looked toward it to see Katherine embracing her date in the shadows. I cleared my throat loudly and he jerked away from her. Katherine smoothed her skirt and straightened her back.
“Where have you been, Beth?” she asked, as though I hadn’t found her in any sort of compromising position.
“Everyone’s been looking for you,” her date chimed in, his voice nasal. “You should be ashamed—disappearing on Richardson after he declared his love. On Saint Valentine’s Day, no less.”
“Have either of you seen him?” I asked.
“I suppose he might be in the library, the only quiet place in the house,” the man said, pursing his lips at me. “After it was determined that you’d left him, he was rather grieved—”
“I doubt that,” I said. Even if he had been upset, Grant wasn’t the type to cower and lick his wounds, in fact, he’d be much more likely to act as though it didn’t bother him. I started to turn away, but saw Katherine’s date lean in to kiss her.
“Don’t.” Even though Katherine liked to pretend otherwise, I knew her promiscuity wasn’t only a result of her enjoyment. I’d seen heartache masquerading as carelessness for far too long in Will. It would only lead to emptiness and regret.
“Come along now,” she said to her date. “I’d like to dance.”
I followed them through the back door and paused in the solitude. Absent the fragrance of roses, the back hallway smelled rank like it always did. Laughter and the trill of a piano drifted across my ears and light beamed from the great room, the reflection of it illuminating the mural along the wall.
I turned and walked through the dining room. My fury seemed to cool with each step, leaving only sadness by the time I reached the closed library doors. Perhaps I did love him, and that was why I was so melancholy. Because, I couldn’t allow myself to continue seeing him. Not after what he’d done. I would never be able to trust him again.
I rapped my fingers on the door of the library.
“Who is it?” Grant’s voice came from the other side. Rather than answer, I opened the door to find him sitting on a leather settee holding a horrid-smelling cigar in one hand with a red-covered book in the other. He looked up from the book and his eyes widened when he saw me.
Grant set his cigar down in a bronze ashtray detailed with a lion, pulled his glasses off, and stood.
“Beth, I wondered where you . . . what’s the matter?”
I stared at him, at the full lips that had been on mine, at the forehead crinkled in concern—concern that I knew now stemmed only from selfishness.
He reached for me, but I put a hand on his chest, stopping him.
“I need to ask you something.”
“Anything.”
“Is it true?”
He squinted at me.
“What do you mean?”
“Did you sabotage my fraternity?” I said, and waited, feeling the fury rise anew. He didn’t speak. “Answer my question.”
“Beth, you know I wouldn’t do anything to hurt you,” he said. “I love you.” His hand swept mine, but I backed away.
“You bribed President Wilson and had me followed so that he’d deny me. You knew you were hurting me and did it anyway,” I said, my voice shaking. “Don’t deny it. Will told me that—”
“Damn him!” he shouted. He sat down, gripping his head in his hands as though it were the only thing stopping him from overturning the table in front of him. “He swore on our brotherhood. I’ll have him voted out.”
“No, you won’t,” I said. “If you do, I’ll tell the rest of the house what you’ve done.”
“Don’t act as though Buchannan’s your defender,” Grant said. “He’s a jealous fool. He’s so envious of what we have that he’ll go to any length to ruin it.”
I laughed.
“You’ve already done that yourself. He’d never do this to me.”
Grant’s jaw relaxed, and his rage was suddenly replaced by desperation.
“Please, Beth,” he implored. He stood and reached for me, gripping my hand so hard that his fingers went white at the joints. “Beth,” he repeated, searching my eyes as though, in doing so, he could make me speak, could make me understand. “I only did it because I love you. I’ve been waiting my whole life to find someone who understands me, that I could spend the rest of my life loving, and when I met you, the very first time you stole in here that night, I knew.”
My eyes began to burn and I worked my hand free to unclasp the lavalier.
“I thought that you knew me too, that even though you didn’t agree with me, you respected me. You acted as though you were so sorry I’d been denied,” I said. “But it’s clear that that wasn’t the case. I was right about you from the start, but after I got to know you, I didn’t want to believe it. I thought that I’d had a glimpse of who you really were, that deep down, you were someone better.”
I stole a glance at his face and was surprised to find his eyes pooling with tears as I went on. “How could you know me well enough to love me? You were too busy trying to find a way to change me.”
My voice was hoarse and I looked away from him to the window. It wasn’t as though I didn’t understand. I’d wished that he’d come to see how important my ambitions were and agree with them, too, but I hadn’t bribed the school’s president hoping I could dash his dreams and transform his future. The lantern light washed over the front lawn and a group of partygoers saunte
ring back toward campus arm-in-arm, feathers rustling in the wind.
“That’s not true,” Grant said, touching my chin and tilting his face to his. “God knows I love you so much it pains me. I was only trying to make you see that what really matters is us. Not degrees or professions or fraternities, just us, together. Beth, we can be happy.”
I closed my eyes, unable to look at him. I couldn’t stay with a man who’d never support the things that meant the most to me. I knew he believed he was doing the right thing for us, that my ambitions were the only thing standing in the way of a joyful future together, but that didn’t change what I had to do.
I plucked his hand from his side and dropped the lavalier into his palm. “I told you about my mother, about why I wanted to be a physician, about why I wanted to make a difference in the lives of women who didn’t have a voice, but you disregarded all of it.” My voice came out in barely a whisper.
“Please,” he said. “I’ll spend the rest of my life making it up to you if you’ll forgive me this one time, if you can reconcile the fact that the only reason I did it is because you hold my heart in your hand and I would give everything to know that you trust me with yours. Buchannan was right to tell you. I made a mistake, Beth. I’m sorry.”
“I have an interest in that too.” Grant’s mention of Will conjured Will’s words in the stable, silencing Grant’s plea. Will had been telling me he loved me and I hadn’t even heard him.
16
Will was gone. Even though I’d returned immediately after speaking with Grant, the stable was dark and completely silent. I stumbled down the aisle feeling weak. It had been immediately clear, in the seconds after I’d remembered what Will had begun to say, that I needed to come back and find him. I’d never been willing to admit it, but I’d always felt for Will. For years, we’d built a wall around our feelings to protect our greatest friendship, but his words had dissolved it.