CHAPTER 2 #2
The door swung shut, leaving Emma alone in the corridor. She unclenched her fingers and muttered her way through her opening paragraph once more.
But before she reached the second sentence, she realized the glass door was not soundproof. She could hear every syllable of the girls’ conversation. And—if she twisted in her chair at just the right angle—she could see them.
On the other side of the door, Julia sat in the central interviewer’s chair, sipping a sparkling water. Venetia had propped her feet on the table. Imogen Baldock was pacing in front of them, red curls bouncing, breathless with news.
“You will not believe who’s here.”
“Who?”
“Three clues. St. Dunstan’s College. Supposed to be racing his family’s yacht around the world this year. Most beautiful boy in the University. Come on, darlings.”
“Not Jasper Balfour?” Julia sat bolt upright. “Back?”
Imogen chuckled. “Oh, he’ll be sure to scandalize half the University before term’s out. But you have to admit, things would have been dull without the divine Jasper.” She perched on the table and swung her legs. “Perhaps I’ll have a crack at him myself this year.”
She added, under Julia’s wry glance, “Well, the demigod will have to fall in love one day. And why not with me?” She grinned. “Or the thousand others in the queue, yes.”
“That’s old news, surely.” Venetia half closed her eyes. “Apparently, his father wasn’t overjoyed about his only son taking a year off from the University to go yachting around the world—”
“—or maybe he wanted the yacht for himself,” Imogen cut in, “to impress that film actress he’s been seeing on the side. My dad’s friends with him. He let that slip.”
Venetia Kent rolled her eyes. Imogen’s father owned a stable of the country’s most slanderous scandal sheets. Gossip ran in the family.
“Don’t try to be clever, Imogen dearest,” she purred. “It doesn’t suit you.”
“So, Jasper’s back at St. Dunstan’s?”
“Yes, he seemed very disappointed when I spoke to him.” Venetia shook back her moonlight hair.
“You’ve seen him already?”
“Did he say anything about you-know-what?”
“Oh, about”—Venetia looked up, the tiniest smile playing across her doll features—“being president of the Society?”
Julia spat a mouthful of water into her cream silk lap.
“What?” Venetia crossed one long, leather-clad leg over the other luxuriantly.
Some people only feel truly at ease surrounded by discomfort.
Particularly other people’s. Venetia Kent was one such.
“We’re not five years old. This supersecret society nonsense is idiotic.
But Jasper did tell me, actually. Now he’s back—”
At this point, Emma’s chair let out a loud scraping noise. She hastily rearranged herself. By the time Julia opened the door, she was facing innocently to the front, her hands clasped over the folder in her lap.
“Oh.” The disappointment in Julia’s voice was hard to miss. She was looking over Emma’s head to the row of empty chairs. “Well—why don’t you come in.”
Emma scurried past her to the seat facing the panel.
“But aren’t we seeing Arabella Lennox and that girl from Jules’ dressage club?”
“They were supposed to be here,” Julia murmured fretfully. “I suppose the rain—”
“What, Tilly Harper-Graveney?” Imogen added. “Or that other one? Daughter of the Sotheby’s chairman. Came to Eddie’s birthday in Antibes—”
“Daisy Cadogan,” muttered Julia, shuffling the papers in front of her.
“That’s the one,” said Imogen. “I thought it was all sorted that she’d get the Natural Sciences Fellowship and Arabella would—”
Julia had the grace to look embarrassed. “Nothing’s decided. That’s why we’re interviewing candidates like, er—”
“Emma. Emma Curran.”
Julia dove back through her pile of papers. “That’s right, I saw my father’s assistant had added an application. I hadn’t read it yet. For the Science and Environment endowment? Let’s see.”
Emma knotted her fingers in her lap. Julia’s delicate nose was buried deep in her binder.
“Application—conserving and renewing river habitats,” she muttered.
“Tracking population balances, find where to invest to make the most difference versus climate change—two-year trial here in the city. This is—” She looked up, a little wrinkle of surprise between her brows.
“Well, it’s exactly what we were looking for.
Practical and academic. Local, but the end product is a model that could be applied anywhere. ”
She tapped her forefingers together, lost in thought. Then her gaze snapped back to Emma. “But it says here that you study law. Not natural sciences. An odd fit for a science endowment, surely?”
“Technically. But I’ve spent a lot of time around field research. I’ve had hands-on experience. There’s a summary in my proposal—”
Emma slid it across the table. The shaking in her hands eased as she opened to the page on her methodology. The hours she had spent working on the tables and figures showed. What did it matter if her last three law essays had been handed in late?
“Emma, the Colefax-Lee Foundation Fellowships will support ten female students,” Julia said.
“With projects that will change the world, from the arts to the sciences. It is a significant investment in significant women.” Her voice was beautiful, low and modulated.
Emma couldn’t imagine speaking with such poise.
“So. Why do you think you deserve one of those ten fellowships?” Julia asked.
Firm, Emma reminded herself. Firmness suits me.
She began her rehearsed speech. “Rivers. They are key—”
“What year is she in?” Venetia rocked back in her chair. “You can’t have another fresher, Jules. The first one was ghastly.”
“Well, I’m a second-year,” Emma answered. “Undergraduate, at Gabriel College.”
“Second-year at Gabriel?” Julia leaned forward. “But that’s the same as me. How have I never seen you before?”
“I’m not… out much.” Emma hurried on. “But it is that dedication I would apply to this project, which could bring significant insight into the wildlife of—”
“Did you go to a state school?” Imogen broke in.
“Well—yes, when we were in England—”
“There.” Imogen grinned at Julia. “She’s diversity. You needed one of those.”
Julia opened her mouth to speak, but nothing came out.
“It’s not as though you have any other options.” Venetia lunged to her feet. “For once, I agree with Imogen. Why waste our time? If Arabella or Daisy had really wanted it, they should have shown up.”
She swept past Emma to the door, Imogen jostling behind her.
“Come on, Jules.” Venetia tossed her hair over one shoulder. “Pick-me-up at Boddington’s? I kept the taxi waiting.”
“You go ahead.”
The footsteps faded away. Julia stayed in her chair, cool gaze appraising Emma.
“This foundation is important to my family, and to me. Do you know why?”
Perplexed at this turn in the conversation, Emma shook her head.
“My father started it, back when the University wasn’t so sure that someone who looked like him belonged here.
The Lees are as old money as any family in England, don’t get me wrong.
But their currency was still a little too—Chinese—for the University.
” Her voice turned sharp. “For the college servants that refused to work for him. For certain lecturers and tutors. And now our name is on their buildings. The Colefax-Lee Foundation funds their key research. The University can no longer politely pretend that we don’t exist, not when we’re so important to its survival. ”
She wasn’t meeting Emma’s eyes. She was looking at something in her binder. Emma’s heart sank. “This program for female students was my idea. My part of our legacy. Its success means more to me than you can know.”
The silence stretched. Then Julia lifted her gaze. “And I think you take this as seriously as I do.” She turned the binder to face Emma. She had placed Emma’s proposal at the top of the applications.
“Nobody else did this. Among our accomplished candidates—and whatever Venetia says about us handing out fellowships to our friends, they are extraordinarily accomplished—not one built this kind of proposal. The detail. The numbers.”
Warmth spread from Emma’s cheeks to her neck.
“A Colefax-Lee science fellowship is open to you. If you want it.”
“I—I do. Of course.” Julia’s outstretched hand was waiting. Emma stumbled up to shake it.
“There is one thing.” Julia’s eyes seemed to snag on Emma’s shirt and trousers. “Being a fellow means being the face of the foundation. My father would expect you to represent us. In front of press, at parties. Could you do that?”
A single party with Nat’s friends had felt impossible just hours ago. Julia’s world would be something else entirely. Emma pictured the cameras, the crush of eyes on her. And amid the fear and doubt was something else, something she was surprised to find. Something like excitement.
“Yes,” Emma said. “I can do that.”
As she led Emma out to the corridor, Julia seemed to permit herself a real smile, very different from her gracious air. “Now that the official bit’s over, I have to ask. How on earth did you get here so dry?”
“These.” Emma pulled her waders from beneath the chair. “You put your legs into them, like so—it’s a tight fit, so you have to wriggle a bit—there. Then you pull them up to—here.”
Julia barked a laugh, quickly smothered in a cough.
“I—I see. Well. There’s a little launch party for the fellows to meet, a few days from now.
At the new conference center in Beaufort College, if you know it?
It’s all architectural angles and glass, and achingly modern.
The perfect backdrop for the program. Press will be arriving at seven thirty—at current count, we have Tatler, The Telegraph, good noises from The Times—oh, and a features writer from Vanity Fair, if we can sort her plane tickets in time.
You won’t have much to do, just answering reporters’ questions. ”
“Right,” said Emma. “An-answering reporters. Absolutely.”
“And for the party. Do try to wear something a little”—Julia paused—“different, perhaps?”
As Emma strolled back down the High Street, she saw that the sun had burned all but a few silvery puddles from the cobbles. She tilted her face to the warmth. The flood was almost gone. And in its place, a world fresh and ready to begin again.