Chapter Three
There art thou happy:
A pack of blessings light upon thy back;
Happiness courts thee in her best array;
But, like a misbehaved and sullen wench,
Thou pout'st upon thy fortune and thy love:
Take heed, take heed, for such die miserable.
—Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet (c. 1594)
Benjamin Ellsworth had always considered himself the luckiest unlucky man in Christendom.
Unlucky, in that he was born to a family of very modest means.
Lucky, in that he considered it his sole misfortune.
And then unlucky again, in that, as sole misfortunes went, this one affected his entire existence more than any other possibly could.
For was there any other lack a man might suffer, which the possession of money would not have overcome?
Deficiencies of looks, education, connection, virtue—money would supply the want.
Money opened every door, won every heart.
All bowed before it.
When Benjamin compared himself, for example, to his cousin and former schoolmate Tyrone Ellsworth, he did not think he fell short in any category or by any degree, save in wealth.
If Tyrone had a pleasing appearance, so did he.
If Tyrone was clever, well, Benjamin was no dunce.
If Tyrone had a Winchester and New College education, the same applied to his cousin.
If Tyrone boasted a respectable, albeit not flawless, character, why, so too did Benjamin!
And in one respect, Benjamin even had an advantage over his cousin, possessing still two living, happily-married parents, while both of Tyrone’s were no more.
But, alas, what a difference a little money made!
Backed by the superior wealth of his family branch, Tyrone had several years earlier married the young lady of his choosing, an heiress in her own right, and everyone rejoiced for him.
No such fate seemed possible for Benjamin, however.
No, indeed. He must look upon the Married State as a mythical island, a speck flickering upon the horizon, possibly never to be reached, though he row toward it with all his might.
Such a fate had not troubled him overmuch—not until he met the alluring Miss Verity Allen.
Indeed, when the honey-haired niece to the President of St. John’s College appeared on the horizon, everything changed.
That she had conquered him no one knew, unless Miss Allen guessed by intuition, drawing conclusions from sundry glances and conversations at the assemblies in St. Aldate’s Street or in passing each other in the popular college gardens.
Benjamin had told neither his younger brother Austin nor his cousin Tyrone, his closest friends in the world, because they would have begun by teasing him without mercy and—harder to bear—ended in pitying him.
Yet, where many in his circumstances would resign themselves to a bachelorhood of hopeless longing, Benjamin was not so quick to admit defeat. He had no money to marry on? Very well then, money must be made. Made through the combination of his otherwise-good luck and the gifts he had been given.
He had always been thrifty (his mother would have murdered him if he ran up debt) and always had an eye to the main chance, but now his work and savings had a greater purpose and a greater urgency.
He began to tutor hapless undergraduates.
He wrote essays and translated passages for those who had procrastinated too long.
For a fee, he smuggled contraband visitors, pets, and once even livestock into New College.
He curried favor with Warden Gauntlett, in case an appointment or curacy should become available (uphill labor, considering how the warden often, and often justifiably, suspected the Ellsworths of mischief).
He sat for would-be artists and once even allowed himself to be encased in plaster, as Maria Barstow discovered.
To date his most lucrative ventures had come from his cousin’s writings.
The enterprise began as Benjamin’s brain-child, when he learned fellow Oxonians would pay Tyrone to do their epistolary courting for them.
Tyrone composed the poems, letters and proposals, while Benjamin and Austin secured the customers and exacted the payments.
Ah, those had been flush times! Brief, but flush.
When Tyrone retired from his labors, Benjamin refused to let the well run dry, instead collecting and publishing his cousin’s works in a volume, the profits of which Tyrone insisted his cousins keep.
And it had indeed been profitable. Letters to Ladies: a Gentleman’s Style and Form Manual had been published on commission, the cousins sharing the costs with the publishers (Hartrow-Keith, Whitehall), but its success ensured it would not end there.
He had come to London, in fact, to see about printing a second edition, but by the time of this trip, his confidence had suffered a blow which had nothing to do with Letters to Ladies or the still-beyond-the-reach-of-his-purse prices at Gray’s.
No, it had to do with Miss Verity Allen.
Or, rather, with his mother’s opinion of that young lady.
Benjamin’s parents, Charles and Jeanne Ellsworth, had come to Oxford the week before to celebrate Austin’s election to a fellowship, lodging at the King’s Arms because it lay nearest the college.
“My talented sons,” beamed Mrs. Ellsworth with a shake of her silver curls as they sat in the coffee room, enjoying the inn’s bustle and well-stored larder. “How proud I am of both of you.”
“Two fine ‘fellows,’” said their father with a wink. “Now if only you both might net yourselves a pair of heiresses, your mother and I would die happy.”
“Bah,” his wife scoffed, giving him a playful slap on the arm. “We have never had much money, Charles, and only see how happy we have been.”
“Speak for yourself” was his grinning retort, and both boys chuckled to see their mother’s eyes flash in pretended indignation.
But it had always been central to the Charles Ellsworths’ lore that, though they might be the poorer branch of the family, Charles Ellsworth had met with far greater success than his older brother in everything that truly mattered.
For Charles had married only once, where his older brother William counted four wives before his death.
Charles’ one wife adored him, where, of William Ellsworth’s four, only the first had chosen him for himself and not for his late wife’s fortune.
And lastly, in her youth, Jeanne Ellsworth had outshone all of her successive sisters-in-law in beauty and charm, and she was still a winning woman.
She was a keen one as well, however, and even as the little family enjoyed their time together, and even as she asked her sons eager questions and encouraged them to order more food, her eyes missed nothing, giving her much to ponder.
“Charles, you must go with Austin to supply his new quarters,” she announced when their meal was finished, “because Benjamin and I must talk.”
All three men raised identical eyebrows, but not one of them bothered to object or even ask questions. They merely shrugged and did as they were bid.
“Are you planning a surprise for Austin?” Benjamin asked when he and his mother were alone, crossing Holywell to walk along Broad Street.
Tucking her hand more firmly under his arm, she leaned her head briefly against his shoulder. “Non. Je m'inquiétais pour toi.”
“What do you mean?” he asked with his first twitch of uneasiness. “Why should you be concerned for me?”
“It was something in your eyes, when your papa joked about finding an heiress to marry.”
Benjamin stiffened, glancing up and down the street. As ever, it thronged with people, but he saw no familiar faces outside the Clarendon Building or Sheldonian Theatre.
“Mm. Just as I thought,” murmured his mother. “My Benjamin is in love.”
“Hush, Maman!” he gasped. “I have told no one.”
“Not even the young lady?”
“Especially not her! Not until I have the money to do something about my feelings.”
“But she knows? She has guessed?”
“I—don’t know. Possibly.”
“Then she must love you in return, I am certain.”
He shook his head in fond exasperation. “How could you possibly be certain? You know nothing of her!”
“I know you are my handsome, clever boy and bien charmant,” Mrs. Ellsworth said incorrigibly, “so if she does not care for you, her opinion is worth this much.” She snapped her fingers, frowning in annoyance when her gloves muffled the sound. “Bah. You know what I mean.”
They continued walking, Benjamin’s spirits lifting, though he recognized it was only his mother’s belief in him.
If he was truly so wonderful, ought he to speak to Miss Allen so soon?
Would she wait for him, if it took five years?
It might take less. One never knew what windfall might fall in one’s lap.
“Tell me about her,” his mother commanded, when they paused at the corner of Magdalen Street outside the walls of Balliol, and Benjamin colored to think he had unwittingly led them in the direction of Miss Allen’s home.
Because there was no denying Jeanne Ellsworth, Benjamin drew a deep breath and told her what he had not yet shared with any other person: how he had seen Miss Verity Allen across the assembly room several months earlier, honey-colored hair gleaming in the candlelight, chin ducked in a demure smile.
How he had, casually as he could, circled, eavesdropped, racked his brain at everyone who approached her, in hopes of discovering a mutual acquaintance.
How, at last, he had lunged at the friend of a friend of a friend and managed the introduction.
How he had then known the bliss of leading Miss Allen to the floor and admiring her swan-like grace.
“Lovely,” said his mother. “Magical. And then what?”