Chapter 3 #2
“Yes, Professor.”
The woman walked away, and if Marigold had expected Sarah to follow, she was surprised to find all signs of obedient meekness had vanished from the girl’s long, patrician face.
“You don’t belong here,” she all but hissed.
“I know all the vulgar”—Sarah emphasized the word to echo Marigold’s use of the adjective at dinner—“details of your tawdry, scandalous parentage. You’re a …
bastardess!” Her pleasure at her own cleverness painted smudges of color on her high cheekbones.
“That you even dare to continue to call yourself a Manners—your audacity astonishes the family.”
Marigold refused to let her own astonishment, or her sudden hot embarrassment at the bold-faced airing of her somewhat-soiled-despite-repeated-washings laundry, show. She might doubt her newfound sense of self all she wanted, but it was beyond the pale for this prig of a girl to do so.
“My audacity? At being born? But not my father’s audacity at fathering illegitimate children?
Which, by the way, is none of your business—nor mine—if my father did commit the so-called sin of sowing his wild oats before his marriage to dear blameless Esmé.
” Marigold would not allow any slander against her near-sainted mother—although mother wasn’t exactly the right appellation for sweet Esmé.
Not that it particularly fit Sophronia, either—though that lady had at least attempted to enjoin a correspondence with Marigold.
Her letters, full of eerie, queer goings-on and recipes for healthful tonics, arrived with delightful regularity.
But they were not the point—Marigold’s self-worth was.
“How intellectual and forward-thinking of you.”
“You don’t belong here,” Sarah repeated one last time, sweeping her nightgown aside, as if any proximity to Marigold would sully its snowy white frills, before she paraded herself away.
Marigold forbade herself from retorting—she was too choked with the acidic admixture of pride and shame to say anything more.
While she had learned that the easiest way to rid oneself of an enemy was to turn them into an ally, she had neither a plan nor any real inclination to turn Sarah Appleton to her benefit.
Instead, she simply wrapped the rat in one of her least favorite handkerchiefs and disposed of it in her wastepaper bin.
“How childish. And ab-so-lutely vile” was the quiet comment from the stalwart girl directly across the hall. “Not to mention atrociously rude.”
“Yes, I’m terribly sorry.” Marigold misunderstood her on purpose, for as much as she agreed with her, Marigold herself was the one who had woken everybody up. “I shouldn’t have created such a commotion. My apologies.”
“You’ve nothing to apologize for,” the girl responded staunchly. “Such a podsnapper that Appleton is, all nose up in the air, as if sharing oxygen with the rest of us were a con-dee-scension.” Her vaguely southern accent added a charming flavor to her outrage.
“You don’t say,” Marigold encouraged.
“I do say. And leaving the dead Rattus norvegicus,” the girl observed, eyeing the rotting rodent over her spectacles. “Well, I’m all for a fun prank, but that’s just all too skilamalink for me.”
Marigold was charmed by the young woman’s easy usage of old-fashioned slang that Marigold had only ever heard from her grandmother’s maids. “It’s a bit too skilamalink for me too,” she agreed. “But is that really a Norway rat? You must be a biologist or zoologist?”
“Chemist, although I’ve done many hours of biology and zoology, so I like plain old ‘scientist’ well enough,” the girl corrected with a smile and a hand extended. “Ethyl’s the name. Ethyl, spelt like the chemical, with a ‘y.’ Rautencranz, Ethyl Christine.”
“Manners, Marigold Dianthus.” She enjoined the handshake. “A pleasure to meet you.”
“Likewise. Although I’ve known of you, of course. ‘The Inimitable Miss Manners,’ they called you. Thought you’d be an awful old stinker like Appleton and her herd of erudite effetes, looking down their noses at the tradesman-like sciences—their words, not mine.”
“Nor mine,” Marigold assured her. “I’m taking an independent study in chemistry, with the aim of conserving artifacts from archaeological sites.”
“Aha! That’s you then.” Ethyl beamed her approval.
“You’ll be the last empty bench in the Student Laboratory and Apparatus Room, up in the attics, where we seniors have our experiments.
Which means you’ll be working with Professor Cleaver too.
You’ll be in good, if mighty stern, hands,” Ethyl confirmed with a laugh, nodding up the hall to indicate that the faculty member who had come to investigate had been none other than Professor Judith Cleaver herself.
“Danged clever woman, excellent instructor.”
“I am glad to hear your good opinion. But I’m slated to work in the Art Museum, on museum artifact conservation. I don’t think I’ve ever had reason to visit this Apparatus Room—it sounds positively arcane.”
“Lights out!” Professor Cleaver reappeared out of the hallway’s gloom. “Miss Manners, Miss Rautencranz. Any further hobnobbing at this time of night will not do. Back to bed, please.”
“Yes, Professor Cleaver,” Ethyl answered immediately and retreated to her door.
“And Miss Manners? I have noted your shuttered lantern.” Professor Cleaver inclined her head toward Marigold’s sitting room.
“I am aware of the fact that you have, at the moment, a greater portion of study because of your late start this semester. But know that I will have my eye on you, to make sure your flouting of the rules becomes neither a habit nor a bad example to the other undergraduates. I’ll see you in my chemical lecture room on the fourth floor bright and early tomorrow morning. ”
“Yes, ma’am.”
“Hadn’t thought of that,” Ethyl whispered, venturing out only after the professor had retreated. “Nearly five weeks of classes behind. You have my sympathies.”
“Thank you,” Marigold acknowledged ruefully. “President Irvine said she had confidence in me to get the work done, but tonight I begin to have my doubts.”
“Don’t we all?” Ethyl laughed silently. “Lordy, don’t we all.”