Chapter 2 #2
“Thank you.” Marigold knew at this point in the semester, she was lucky to get anything bigger than a broom closet. “I am most sincerely obliged.”
“I should hope so,” President Irvine laughed. “And I will expect you to discharge your debt of gratitude by excelling at your studies.”
It was a strange feeling for Marigold to have less confidence in herself than those around her, but she had always risen to whatever challenges had come. And she was desperately determined to rise to this one. “Thank you.”
“Miss Burke will have your keys, and the porters should have delivered your trunks to your room by now.” The president extended her hand. “Welcome back, Marigold.”
“Thank you, ma’am.” Marigold shook her hand warmly. “It is so very good to be back.”
She collected her keys from the brisk Miss Burke, waving off any further assistance. “I know my way.”
Marigold set off at a leisurely pace, taking her time, savoring the sense of familiarity and excited ease at being back in these hallowed halls.
College Hall was the exact antidote to the malaise she had felt just a week ago in Boston—a place where nothing bad could happen.
Wellesley had been designed to nurture young women, mind, body, and soul.
The huge building seemed to be full of life—conversation and laughter mixed with footfalls on the floors and the clatter of steps on the stairways echoed up the open stairwells to the rafters soaring above.
One could not help but be inspired to excellence in such a place.
She took the central stairway upward to the second floor, when she heard her name. “Miss Manners?” a voice called as she passed an open dormitory room. “Is that you?”
“It is.” Marigold paused while the student, dressed in a shirtwaist and long wooly cardigan belted over her skirt, came to the door with a hat in her hand, as if she had been in the process of trying on the velvet tam when she had noticed Marigold’s passing in the mirror. “You may not remember me—”
“Miss Newton, isn’t it? First year Greek translation, two years ago, was it?
Of course, I remember.” The college was a little like a cloister—a closed community of dedicated souls where, after a short while, everyone was known to everyone else.
While Marigold assumed she would have a great many new faces and names to learn, there were plenty of girls who remained well remembered.
Tall, athletic, auburn-haired Aggie Newton had seemed more suited to the sweep of the golf course than the classroom.
She had scrambled her way through Introduction to Greek, persevering through grit and determination to realize her own ambition to become an archaeologist. Fortunately, the young woman had shown great aptitude in other areas of study, namely history, and that indefinable quality Marigold thought of as puzzle-solving.
Marigold extended her hand. “It is good to see you.”
“And to see you as well,” the young woman stammered with pleasure. “We were quite disappointed when you left last year.”
“As was I, Miss Newton.” It was a lovely thing to be remembered.
“Aggie, please. It’s Agnetta, but everyone calls me Aggie.”
“And I am Marigold.” She held out her hand again. “For I am no longer your teaching assistant.”
“More’s the pity!” Aggie exclaimed as she shook Marigold’s hand. “The girl who took your place has nothing of your generosity—” she stopped herself with a hand over her mouth. “Oh, I oughtn’t have said that.”
Marigold was forced to choose between what she knew was right—not engaging in the vulgar habit of gossip—and what she knew was expedient—engaging in gossip to gauge the atmosphere of the place.
She settled for something both nonvulgar and informative. “And who is the new teaching assistant for Greek?”
“Miss Appleton. Sarah Appleton.”
“Naturally.” Marigold should have anticipated that her former rival from both boarding school and the Department of Classics would have swiftly stepped in to fill Marigold’s vacated shoes.
Miss Sarah Sedgwick Appleton—of the Lenox Appletons—was a very distant relation of Marigold’s through the Sedgwick line.
But any trace of familial feeling for the girl had long been lost to her disagreeably superior personality—she had always been the sort of person who peppered her conversation with half-whispered phrases like “entre nous” and “not our kind” to elevate herself at others’ expense.
“I oughtn’t say—” Aggie hesitated but clearly wanted to unburden herself.
“But she’s just so—you know the type, the sort of girl who seems so …
lofty and elegant and effortless. As if she never gets anything so mortifying and ignominious as pills on her sweaters.
” Aggie held up the arm of her rather well-worn sweater.
“Or lose their buttons. Or hats. I lost this one just yesterday—Mable Benkins retrieved it from the library for me.”
“I am a great appreciator of hats,” Marigold conceded. Isabella had taught her that a hat was essential to balance an outfit. “And that is a very stylish hat, well worth retrieving.”
“Thank you.” Aggie’s smile was a charming mix of gratitude and relief. “It was meant to give me a bit of splash on the golf course. I spent a whole eight dollars for it at Jordan Marsh—which was a vast deal of my summer earning at the Concord Public Library, where I worked.”
“Worth every penny.” Marigold also understood that the value of clothing went beyond its cost. She was more grateful than ever for Isabella’s generosity in the matter of wardrobe.
“But things will change now that you’re back with us, I hope,” Aggie suggested quietly.
“Naturally,” Marigold agreed, while also intuiting that she needed to tread carefully. “I hope you’ll find a friend in me, no matter who is officially the teaching assistant in the Department of Classics.”
“Oh, thank you.” Aggie said with open relief. “Plato has been giving me pure conniptions. So much more complicated than the Greek New Testament translations we worked through first year. And you know how much trouble those gave me!”
“You know,” Marigold advised, “B’s and C’s get degrees too—not everyone needs to be a linguistic scholar. You have innumerable other talents that are just as important to an archaeologist as translation.”
“Oh, thank you, again.” Aggie’s natural cheerfulness rose to the fore. “To heck with being a stickler! I just need to pass the danged course!”
“Just so.” Marigold agreed with a smile.
What a joy it was to be so wholly consumed by collegiate concerns, so removed from the more visceral cares of the rest of the world. How nice it would be to confine her focus solely to academic concerns. If she could.
Because she had changed. She felt older, wiser. Tested.
For all its wickedness, murder had somehow made her more worldly.
And, if she was honest, far more weary.