Chapter 7
I enrolled in Oxford under the name of Edward Fairfax. His name was Edward Fairfax Rochester; and if anyone saw a resemblance to him – my hair being lighter, but there being a distinct similarity to the profile – let him wallow in anguish over not having had the rearing of a base-born son. I was in Burbage College[1] founded by one Sir Xenophilus Tiberius Burbage, whose statue resided in the quad to remind us that he might be a benefactor, but that the thought made him look as if he was chewing on lemons
I had not given a second thought to what had happened when I had left my past behind me; and it was many years before I found out. But perhaps the reader is curious about how matters proceeded once I vanished off the face of the earth, as you might say.
Mrs. Fielding received the letter telling her that I was not to return, and waxed irritable over the lack of consideration on the part of my guardians, as she might have offered my place to another girl. However, she did not bother to query it, nor did she write a stiff letter deploring such bad manners, as she decided that if Jane could not be bothered to let her know about withdrawing me, she could not be bothered to react.
It was a situation which was quite fortuitous, but I knew Mrs. Fielding, and was well aware that she was more likely to sulk than to complain.
Therefore, nobody missed me until I did not return ‘home’ for the Easter holidays; and Jane wrote to Mrs. Fielding, asking what day I was to be collected from the Stagecoach.
Here followed several wrathful letters, Mrs. Fielding wanting to know what Jane meant, since she had, herself, withdrawn me; and Jane wrote back denying this. He was very angry, and took it out on Jane, shaking her for having lost control of me. Jane miscarried her child as a result, and almost died. She wrote to her cousins, and Mary and Diana Rivers turned up and swept off Jane, Ned, and Jenny into their protection. Jane might choose passion over security for herself, but she had, at least, the sense to recognise that Ned and Jenny would suffer Mr. Rochester’s smouldering temper if she left them with him. He could, in law, demand to have Ned back, but in the meantime, he was smarting under having driven his doormat away by, as she managed to phrase it, murdering his own child in her womb. Her cousins knew enough to hold the threat of having him charged with abortion if he made trouble.
The three of them set up a school together, which was, as far as I am aware, as successful as any such ventures ever are; but it was financed by St. John Rivers, from India, once he became aware of what had occurred, who was still fond of Jane, even though he could now no longer ever marry her whilst Rochester lived. I always thought he sounded a bit of a cold fish; alas for Jane, that she found herself between two extremes.
Me, I would have refused them both, and relied on Providence to give me a good husband if that was His will; or to give me the strength to provide for myself if it was not.
And I was quite happy to provide for myself, dressed as a man in a man’s world.
I was struck within the first few days of getting to university by how childish young men are.
I was also struck by how easily they might be parted from their money, and some of them had plenty to be parted from.
I had been very good at arithmetic at school, and the theorems of monsieurs Pascal and Fermi had no mysteries for me. Add to this my ability with legedemain, learned as a pickpocket, and I had another excellent means of income, in terms of playing cards. I did not need to mark cards; my excellent memory meant that I was well aware where the cards might be, but I did shuffle judiciously to give myself an edge. I did not see why I should not; these young men would deny me an education if they knew I was a woman, and such young men were what created the sort of woman my mother had been, impregnated by one of them on the Grand Tour. That it was probably Edward Fairfax Rochester in no way mitigated the guilt of all these young men, gilded youths in my French idiom, who spoke of their mistresses, the wenches, and their pleasures so freely, that they were all that I despised.
Save two of them.
Anthony Rawlins was one, dubbed, for obvious reasons, I fear, by his raucous fellows ‘Anthony Rowley.’ He was a solemn youth, short, slightly pudgy, the butt of the jokes of the more sporting fellows for his unsportsmanlike frame, and his terror of sports, being myopic, and sporting thick spectacles. Added to his figure, I fear it did make him look a bit like the frog of the nursery rhyme! He was the second son of a man well enough off to provide for his heir, and to send Tony to university, but Tony was going to have to make his way in the world. I felt sorry for him, and did my best to make sure he had a haven to study without being pressured into joining the young fools who wasted their opportunities. His father did something in the foreign office and as a baronet, with enough to support that position but glad not to have to provide for daughters.
Our other friend was Luke Bissett, as tall, thin, and blond as Tony was short, dark, and chubby, the son of a parson of modest means, but desirous of entering law rather than the church. He was as opposed to sport as Tony, having had rheumatic fever in his youth, and having been left with a heart murmur; but he walked to keep his heart healthy, and persuaded Tony and me to join him.
I confess, I did enjoy walking with my friends, putting the world to rights, enjoying the scenery, even when it was somewhat inclement.
“You are bright enough, this morning, Ned, despite sitting up with those dissipated card players,” said Luke.
“Peste! Me, I am a better mathematician than any of them will ever be, and I know to a flea’s whisker how much I can bet, when, and my chances,” I said, with an airy wave of the hand. I had not hidden that my mother was French, and I think my mix of French and English idiom amused both Luke and Tony.
“I just worry about you,” said Luke. “You look so innocent.”
“Indeed; my looks are a great asset when being targeted by the so-unscrupulous card sharp, like Mr. Devonill, at whose club we play,” said I. “He marks the cards, of course, so when I am holding them, I erase the marks he has made on them, so, enfin, I can read his cards by the backs and he cannot read mine. It is very amusing.”
“You have no scruples,” said Luke, amused.
“Scruples are a luxury I cannot afford; I must make my way in the world, but I like the finer things in life, and the idiots who think gambling a thrill pay for my fine soap, soft underlinen, and cakes for tea,” I said.
Tony chuckled.
Not being the son of a parson, like Luke, Tony could afford to be broader minded. Also, his family dated back to the 16th century, so were probably a load of rogues who did something dodgy to gain their baronetcy from, presumably, James the first and sixth, who invented the title as a way to make money. I have a certain amount of time for a man who can invent a new scam, but he also believed in witches and witchcraft. I mean, seriously, he had two hundred women tortured to death because a storm blew up when he was out in a boat in storm season. The man was seriously insane. But venal. And like every Stuart who has ever ruled us, deeply unpopular. No wonder he had to bribe some people to support him by inventing a baronetcy. Tony’s father was, if I recall, Sir Alexander Rawlins, thirteenth Baronet Carrheale, the name of the tiny village from which he came; and Tony’s brother, Alexander, was currently on the Grand Tour, making a nuisance of himself on the continent. Tony hoped to enter the Civil Service as a secretary to someone expected to rise in Parliament, as he had no interest in law, became quite queasy at the sight of blood, and considered parsons to be divided into those who were the greatest rogues unhung and a bunch of canting humourless fools.
Even Luke could not dispute that, though he claimed a smaller, third category of righteous men.
“They have to exist, I suppose, by the laws of averages,” said Tony; but was ready to allow that Luke’s father was one.
Luke looked up to his father, and it was not worth causing him distress by arguing over the failures of so many men of the cloth.
I was in the habit of working hard at school, and found the pace no hardship. Indeed, we had more leisure than I was accustomed to have, a source of many pranks amongst our fellows.
I did laugh over the jape of disassembling the Dean’s carriage and reassembling it on the roof of the library; but it seemed a senseless waste of time to me.
If it had been Old Prosy Nosy, our Classics tutor, I might have seen some point, for when he laid into a chap unfairly; his name was Wellington, hence the appellation ‘Nosy,’ and also ‘Old Beef,’ and ‘The Iron Classicist.’ He was not popular, but he knew his stuff, and I had been well grounded by Mrs. Bridges, who had also taught us Latin, and touched on Greek and Classical studies for those who were interested. He liked me, because although I wrote rude epigrams about him, I did so in Latin.
My favourite translated as,
“Though iron sword takes hero to the grave,
Yet Iron Tongue makes even youths behave.”
He cuffed me across the back of the head – which was scarcely a blow at all, and came close to being little more than ruffling my curls. But he was filled with much prolix in a variety of languages for those who failed to put in any effort in his classes. And, I fear, for those who were merely poor at languages or downright stupid.
And I cashed in on coaching those who were prepared to pay me for it. Why not?
I did not burn the candle at both ends every night, but unlike most of these golden youths, including those who despised me for my lack of the spirit sportive, I was used to work a full day, some of which was quite hard physical labour. If I wanted to burgle nowadays, I had to go in upper storey windows, not squeeze in small gaps in the servants’ quarters. I had trained my body to it, and could climb like a cat.
It was to come in useful, when one of the beefier sportier bullies, one James Abercrombie by name, knocked off Tony’s best hat – his only beaver – and then threw it high in the air, where an errant breeze took it, and lodged it on a piece of excrescent decorative masonry.
“Oh, very gentlemanly,” I said, in scorn. “And having put it up there, are you going to fetch it back?”
I had no objection to buying my friend a new hat, and would do so if need be, but his pride would take a shaking, and I wanted to avoid that. Me, I am happy to accept such largesse as comes my way without scruple, but it is the English way to be embarrassed about being bailed out by one’s friends.
Abercrombie looked taken aback.
“Don’t be ridiculous; it’s gone, accept it. Nobody could climb that tower to get it.”
“Coward,” I said.
He went red.
“I’m not a coward! It would be foolishness! You wouldn’t do it, cissy-boy.”
I handed my hat and cane to Tony, and my jacket, which I peeled off, to Luke. I pulled my boots off, and my cravat, and fished in my pockets for string to tie my sleeves tighter to my arms, to have no excess fabric to catch on snags.
“He won’t do it,” sneered Abercrombie.
How I hated him and his set.
They never lost any opportunity to jostle the ‘three swots,’ as they called us, or splash us down by the river, or set juvenile pranks like deadfalls, most of which I managed to dismantle before they went off, save the one I left for Irontongue, who retained his dignity covered in flour, and set Abercrombie and his two apes, Leman and Cotteridge, essays in Latin on the production of flour.
I ignored Abercrombie, and flexed my fingers, changing my cotton gloves for the very fine leather fingerless gloves I use for climbing, which were fortunately in my pocket.
I stalked like a cat to the chapel, on the spire of which the hat rested, having assessed a good route up as I prepared, and began to climb.
The quad fell quiet. I was around thirty feet up when I heard Abercrombie’s voice, shrill and frightened.
“Come down! I didn’t mean it! I never thought you’d get more than a couple of feet!”
I found a gargoyle to hang on to, and raised two fingers to him, in time-honoured fashion. It was a good place to pause for a breather.
All that tree climbing at school, and wall climbing as a burglar was helping me now, and the rough stone of the chapel as almost like walking up stairs.
Not that I had ever climbed as high as a chapel steeple before. It was gruelling, and when I made the mistake of glancing down, I had to hang on tight for a moment to stop my head going round.
There is a difference in climbing three or four storeys in the dark, when you can’t see the ground, and going up well above the fifth storey most houses have when you can look down and see how small the white blobs of human faces are.
But I was closer to Tony’s hat than to the ground now; and I worked my way around to it.
I took a hold of it with my teeth, and headed for a gutter to the roof, where I might rest, and maybe drop the hat with a stone in, if I could pry one loose.
A shutter in the spire opened; it was the sounding board for the bells on the roof side, and, I suspect, used by workmen to clean the roof.
“Mr. Fairfax, can you work your way towards me?”
It was Irontongue.
“Yes, sir,” I said. “I should have climbed up inside and come out of here.”
“Yes, of course you should, but I heard that Abercrombie taunted you.”
“Alas, that I had a moment of being purely English to be so foolhardy, instead of being French and practical, and using the stairs for four fifths of the climb,” I mourned.
He laughed.
“He won’t touch you again,” he predicted. He held out his hand for Tony’s hat, and stood by in case I needed aid to slither in the shutter. “All that for a hat?”
“It’s the only good hat Tony has,” I said. I sat down hard on the floor as my legs seemed to turn to jelly, and my head spun. Irontongue shoved my head between my knees.
“You can tell them that the delay was me ripping you a new one for foolhardiness,” he said.
“Are you going to?” I asked.
“You don’t need me to, do you?” he said. “After all, is there anything I can say which you have not said to yourself?”
“No,” I said. “But you’d probably do it with more erudition and orotund periods, which is a delight to listen to when it’s someone else being ripped into shreds, but still a thing of beauty even when cringing under the stinging lash of beautifully weighted excoriation.”
He laughed.
“It’s nice to be appreciated,” he said. “Ready to go down?”
I nodded.
Those twisting wooden staircases felt further than the climb up, but I walked out of there steadily and handed the hat to Tony as Irontongue stalked out behind me.
“Show’s over and the circus clown has not smeared himself all over the quad, small thanks to those egging him on,” he sneered.
“Oh, Ned!” said Tony, looking upset. “I was terrified!”
“I shut my eyes and prayed,” said Luke.
“I wasn’t displeased to go down the stairs,” I confided.
“Abercrombie almost fell apart in terror that you’d fall, and he’d be accused of murder by encouraging you,” gloated Tony, recovering his colour at the thought.
It had never occurred to me that I might fall, even with the spiteful breeze flirting around the spire.
“I knew I could do it,” I said.
No comments:
Post a Comment