Chapter 4
“Life is never fair … And perhaps it is a good thing for most of us that it is not.”
Oscar Wilde
The sheer amount of work required to get up to academic scratch blew down upon Marigold like the fall winds off the lake, bending the treetops, testing her best intentions to meet the difficulty with discipline and diligent effort.
True to her word, Professor Cleaver had begun Marigold’s tutelage in the science of archaeological conservation by outlining an ambitious plan for Marigold to set up her own experiments in the Student Laboratory and Apparatus Room on the fifth floor.
“I know President Irvine envisioned you working within our museum, but I’m convinced that giving you a dedicated bench in the Student Laboratory, where your experiment will not be subject to the daily comings and goings of curious and often clumsy undergraduates—only those serious science students with ongoing experiments are granted keys to the room—will be better.
It is far better ventilated, which will be a concern for your work. ”
The Student Laboratory and Apparatus Room was located on the very top floor of College Hall, where the mansard roof created echoing, high-ceilinged rooms punctuated by tall, drafty dormer windows.
Other students had clearly marked out territories for their own experiments—Ethyl Rautencranz’s chemistry experiment on the bench next to Marigold’s consisted of an elaborate series of connected vials and flasks, while one whole corner of the room was partitioned off with heavy, dark curtains to shield it from the prying eyes of the curious.
But Marigold had more than enough to worry about without poking her nose into other people’s business, so she set to work, hauling her equipment up the long flights of stairs—the Columbia dry cell battery she requisitioned from the chemical laboratory storeroom, along with the necessary wiring and clips, not to mention the gallons of chemical solutions and deionized water.
Normally, she never shied from such demanding physical labor, but after more than an hour of heavy lifting, even Marigold’s usual positivity was on the wane.
Especially when Ethyl took one look at her and laughed. “I was going to ask if you might be available to try to row for a seat in the senior class barge. But you look as if one more thing might plumb drag you under.”
“One foot on a banana peel and the other in the grave,” Marigold quipped, quoting her friend from Great Misery, Bessie Dove, while at the same time taking a surreptitious glance at her reflection in the window to gauge the extent of her shabitude.
She tucked a stray hair behind her ear. “Haven’t the seats on the boat already been decided by now?
” Most oars won their seats when they were freshwomen and continued with their boats through their senior year.
“Bow oar came down with appendicitis,” Ethyl supplied in her factual but charmingly accented way. “Thought you’d do on short notice—only senior girl with both experience and ready-made calluses on her hands.”
“Yes, well,” Marigold managed, even as she curled her palms into fists behind her skirts. Her time on Great Misery had clearly given her a number of new attributes besides suspicion. “How observant of you.”
But Ethyl meant no harm. “Scientific process,” she explained with an easy, confidential smile. “Teaches you to be observant.”
“Naturally,” Marigold agreed with welcome relief—she really was back amongst her own kind of thinking people, Sarah Appleton notwithstanding.
“But to your first question—yes, I should very much like to row for the seniors.” Regular physical exercise would do her a world of good.
Mens sana in corpore sano, as the ancients would have it. “When might I try out?”
“Frankly, the seat is yours for the asking, though we might have to shift positions to make best use of you. Anybody who knows anything about rowing at Wellesley knows you can row.”
Marigold was chuffed. “Thank you.” That she was even better prepared than they could know—though she had been absent from college, her form had only gotten stronger with all the rowing back and forth to Great Misery Island—would no doubt prove another source of pride.
“Then I will ask instead, when is your next practice?”
“Round about three-thirty, directly after the last class has ended and as soon as everyone can get changed into rowing attire and get down to the lake, so we can get a good hour in before the light starts to fade.”
“Three-thirty at the boathouse it is.” All work and no play would make Jill a dull girl just as surely as all play and no work would make Jill but a toy.
Marigold wanted to be no one’s toy, so she applied herself strictly to memorizing the chemical solutions and pH levels cited in President Irvine’s notebook, until the time came to change into a suitable rowing costume, which was the same sort of sensible, athletic wear she favored for bicycling riding—a well-knit athletic sweater over a stout tweed split skirt, which, like bloomers, were worn so often on campus that their propriety was never questioned.
And while she was lacing up her supple leather boots, she decided she would give herself the pleasure of cycling down to the boathouse instead of walking.
There was nothing like a little wheelwork to clear out the cobwebs from one’s brain—and having her bicycle would bring her back to her work sooner than a walk.
She strode downstairs through the soaring center of College Hall with a renewed sense of purpose. And nearly walked into none other than tall, elegant Sarah Appleton.
“Sarah.” Marigold spoke purposefully, in a quiet, even tone, mindful of her intent to make an ally of the girl.
“Good afternoon. You’re looking well, despite our rendezvous in the night.
I fear too many chemical formulations have left me in need of some exercise.
Perhaps you’d like to join me?” Sarah had always been a keen sportswoman, though they had only occasionally competed against each other, being in different class years.
Sarah drew herself up but did not respond.
Instead, she shifted her Greek grammar to her left hand so she could again sweep her skirts away with her right, lest the illegitimacy Marigold harbored leap across the floor and scratch its way up her skirts like a contagion.
Once she had finished the gesture, she declared loudly to whoever might be within hearing, “Some people don’t know when they are out of their depth. ”
Marigold raised her chin, even as she smiled.
Sarah might have taken over Marigold’s academic place as the top student, but clearly, it had not made her any more secure in her ability.
Or perhaps it made her too sure—so sure she no longer felt the necessity to be fair, even-tempered, or polite.
It gave her leave to be an ambitious shrew.
Despite Marigold’s antipathy for the word and its gendered stereotype, she could think of no other that fit the beautiful but callous Miss Appleton so well.
At least, no other word that was polite.
“Some people have been tested in the currents, Sarah, and know how to swim, no matter how hard the tide might try to turn against them.”
Her riposte given, Marigold took her own dramatic step around Miss Appleton’s skirts and made for the door.
It was only when she reached the drive that Marigold forced herself to take a deep breath and banish her unkind thoughts.
She would be better. She would rise above such pettiness.
The day was too fine to wallow in woefully unnecessary academic rivalry.
There was room enough in such a progressive institution for any number of scholars to pursue their personal dreams. She would simply concentrate on pursuing hers.
Marigold took a turn around the circular drive before cycling down the lane that led to Lake Waban.
It was a bluebird day, with high, clear skies under a warm autumn sun.
She pedaled across the grass edging the water, past the small crescent of beach where the majority of the college’s small pleasure boats were drawn up on the sand, and around the curve of the lake until she came within sight of the boathouse fitted snugly against the shore.
The entrance to the boathouse was marked by a tall rotunda that gave way to more traditional floating docks.
Built in Marigold’s junior year with funds the students themselves had raised, the memories contained within—of the joy of discovering rowing, of gaining prowess and building camaraderie—could not fail to made her soul glad and her heart light.
She had missed this sense of routine and ease, this elegant purpose. Here, within the verdant grounds she had dreamt about last spring and summer, all was peaceful and calm. All was right.
Marigold pushed her machine into the dock, past the meandering ducks and the waving stands of catkin reeds, taking her time, enjoying the afternoon, when some flash of misplaced color caught her eye.
She stopped and looked again, thinking she had seen the dark iridescent feathers of a mallard drake when she realized that dark blue hue was the plush velvet of a hat oscillating back and forth with the quiet movement of the waves.
A plush velvet hat with an elaborately feathered pin. Like Aggie’s.
Her alarm was slow to rise. If Aggie had again lost her hat to the wind and waves she would undoubtedly want it back, for the pin alone—an incised silver base decorated with a brush of deer hair and adorned with three long pheasant feathers—looked properly expensive.