Chapter Eleven
The general Business of the World lies, for the most Part, in Rotines and Forms.
He had not appreciated the life of a New College Fellow properly before, he decided, when the dinner bell was rung, and he took his place in the procession of dark coats, breeches, and gowns to the high table.
The morning had passed in the usual activities to open the term—a general assembly of the dons, followed by specific meetings with the undergraduates for whom Benjamin was responsible—but this time these routines were supplemented by the dismay, derision, and felicitation heaped on him in his new married state.
This gauntlet was inevitable, but once it had been run and his involuntary change in situation acknowledged, his colleagues’ attention returned to their own concerns and appetites sooner than he would have expected.
And what a contrast, this feast of stuffed leg of mutton, soup, pickled fish, salads, and pies, all to be washed down with wine and ale, compared to Mrs. Chop’s simple two dishes and penny ale!
And what a contrast the company, steadily eating and growing louder and merrier as more liquors were consumed, compared to one little wife, with whom, it seemed, one either quarreled or was silent.
As he had expected, the meal stretched over two hours, after which he and his companions retired to the senior common room for, according to one’s tastes, further conversation, further drinking, newspaper-reading, or any number of games.
“Well?” asked his brother Austin, tossing his cap in a corner and taking up a billiard cue. “How goes married life? Have you tired of her already?”
“Why would you say that?” Benjamin grumbled.
“Foolish of me, I daresay. But here it is, a handful of days after the ceremony, and despite being away from her today for hours and hours, instead of taking to your heels and shaking the dust of New College off your feet, you choose to linger.”
His older brother shrugged, setting up the ivory balls on the felted surface.
“I grant you, billiards does have its novelty,” Austin continued, “especially considering it is only the thousandth or ten-thousandth time we have played together.”
“Stubble it, you pest.” He didn’t want to go into the particulars of his row with Mrs. Ellsworth and its aftermath, but he knew he must give Austin some kind of sop, if he wanted him to leave the subject.
“If you must know, we aren’t very well acquainted yet, and after devoting all of yesterday to each other’s company, she is probably as glad of a respite as I have been. ”
To his annoyance, Austen studied him a long minute. “A wily stratagem, Ben. If you’re determined to get to know someone, shun him like the plague.”
“I just said we spent all yesterday together!”
“Did you write to my parents yet, to share the good news?”
“Saturday.”
“They’ll know by now, then.”
Benjamin’s cue slipped, sending the cue ball into the pocket without it even hitting Austin’s.
“Make that three for me,” his brother laughed.
They were joined at that point by Patterson, a fellow of perhaps forty years of age, whose generous proportions told of decades of high-table eating. “I’ll challenge the winner, if I may.”
Benjamin’s play did not improve with an audience, especially one as prolix as Patterson. Nor did the man’s choice of topics mend matters.
“So, a married man, are you now, Ellsworth? That’s what I call plunging yourself in hot water.”
“Patterson, I believe you meant to say, ‘Congratulations,’” Austin said dryly.
“I know you had no choice in the matter—caught with a gentlewoman, they say,” the unheeding scholar went on, drawing out a toothpick and beginning to clean his teeth.
“You young men. At least the new Mrs. Ellsworth isn’t without connections, I hear.
Not like what happened to Dodd—remember him?
Had to marry his bedmaker after how many children? ”
“Before our time, Patterson,” Austin reminded him, seeing Benjamin had turned red and couldn’t be trusted to answer prudently.
“Perfect loud-mouth ninny, that one. The bedmaker, I mean. Not that Dodd had a jot more wit to boast of. Warden was so outraged! There was no extra year granted of Dodd’s fellowship, you may be sure.
New College grateful to be shut of him. Lucky for Dodd he had family money and no need to beg in the streets or hold ten curacies. ”
(Austin: “Lucky indeed.”)
“Not that I’ve always been immune to Oxford’s Circes,” Patterson prosed on.
“There was one time, oh, fifteen or twenty years ago now, I thought of getting married myself. She was a charmer, not like Dodd’s old trot.
Golden curls—she wore them powdered, then—and eyes like violets.
She sang, she danced. But ‘caelibatus est vita beata,’ as they say.
You know the phrase? ‘Bachelorhood is a blessed life.’ And that’s been my experience to a T.
And if you saw my beloved now…!” He clicked his tongue regretfully.
“‘Tempus edax rerum’ as Ovid so aptly calls it in the Metamorphoses—yes, Time, that devourer of all things, made quick work of her beauties…My once-darling is now twice the woman she used to be, if you understand me. Twice the woman and six children! A narrow escape, my lads. A narrow escape!”
“Speaking of escapes,” said Benjamin, passing Patterson his billiard stick, “I had better make mine. Before Mrs. Ellsworth—and I—become twice the people we used to be.” With a pointed look at Patterson’s not-unsubstantial girth and an apologetic grimace for his brother, he turned on his heel and left.
Stamping his feet against the cold, he was relieved to see light glowing not only from the ground-floor window in 12 Pembroke Street, but also from the third.
She was home, then, and not away at her sister’s.
With numb fingers, he fumbled with the key, long enough for Rundell to open the door and peer out.
“Mr. Ellsworth!” Her eyes narrowed. “I was making the tea tray for Mrs. Ellsworth.”
Thanking her, he pushed his way inside, holding up a hand to stave off assistance with his coat.
Instead he took the stairs two at a time, aware of his pulse quickening.
Confound Patterson and his Latin quips and his prophecies of doom!
What was done was done, and the Ellsworths must make the best of it.
Doubtless Patterson’s satisfaction in escaping the noose was reciprocated, if his once-youthful charmer ever caught sight of her former would-be sweetheart.
With Patterson in his mind’s eye, what Benjamin found in the parlor could not have been more pleasing.
A cozy fire burned, before which his new wife had drawn her chair.
She must have been propping her feet on the fender, for she sprang up guiltily, a book spilling from her lap.
He realized with a pang that, though she had been alone, she had dressed for dinner, exchanging the morning’s high-necked gown and wrapper for a short gown of blue stuff, a modest linen tucker pinned in the low neck.
With no cap to cover it, her brown hair glowed chestnut, the front portions curled and pinned, while the back was wound in a high, simple knot.
She was—lovely—and he forgot Patterson altogether. Was she also, he wondered, with an irregularity in his pulse, possibly glad to see him?
“Mr. Ellsworth!” she breathed. “Good evening. I did not expect you so soon. It being the first day of term, with your dinner and duties.”
“Good evening, Mrs. Ellsworth. Yes, here I am.” An idiotic comment, if ever there was one, but she did not seem to notice, only bending to retrieve her book, which he ought to have done for her.
Removing his coat, he was about to fling it on the sofa but thought better of it and walked back to hang it in the passage. And then there was the confounded Rundell with the tea tray, and he must open the door for her and follow her rattling progress back to the parlor.
“Tea with sandwiches, as you requested, Mrs. Ellsworth,” said the maid, “and I took the liberty of warming the soup again because you ate so little at dinner.” Benjamin did not think he imagined the accusatory tone of this last remark, after the look Rundell had given him at the door.
Clearly she now added “neglectful” to his earlier supposed faults of quarreling and handling his wife roughly.
Despite Rundell’s disclosure, his wife did not reach for the food when the maid was gone, likely because she did not want to be the only one eating.
To test this theory, Benjamin ignored his own full stomach and helped himself to a sandwich, whispering conspiratorially, “Rundell doesn’t like me very much, I’m afraid.
” Taking a bite, he threw a mock-wary glance over his shoulder, as if afraid the servant might still be lurking, cudgel in hand.
His ruse worked.
Chuckling, Maria reached for her own sandwich. “She would probably poison your food, if it wouldn’t endanger me, her favorite.”
He flashed her a grin. “Unless you, too, bore a part in the scheme and turned the dish just so, positioning the poisoned sandwich where I would reach for it.”
“What nonsense, Mr. Ellsworth, but won’t you take a second bite?”
Just as he had in church, he gave that same stifled snort, and she looked pleased.
The next moment he sadly dispelled the delicate rapport, however, by asking, “Why didn’t you eat any dinner? Were you used to a later hour in Iffley? You have only to tell them.”