Chapter One #2
Gin dipped her chin in a demure nod, swept past Braithwaite, and collected her things.
She had no intention of mentioning the news to her father, nor speaking to him at all unless he called to grouse about her allowance again.
She was going back to her rooms to brew a pot of tea, listen to music, and try to forget about this entire conversation until it was time for dinner.
On the way out, Gin returned the unread books to Mr. Tolliver. “I’m so sorry,” she said, “I shouldn’t have taken so many. Today proved a disaster, and my concentration was ruined.”
“No trouble at all, Miss Bishop. I should like a distraction from cataloging damaged books.” The librarian peered at her over his spectacles. “Is there anything else with which I can assist you?”
Gin’s tumultuous emotions were too much to divulge at the inquiry desk on a Monday afternoon, and she forced a smile.
“No. I think German might be the bane of my existence. I studied Latin for ages and thought it would be nice to broaden my horizons beyond Romance languages.” She pinched her browbone.
“Never again. Narrower horizons in future, I think.”
Mr. Tolliver smiled. “I have always found German exceedingly tedious, Miss Bishop, but I have great faith in your linguistic capabilities. Dr. Radcliffe has requested I order a new dictionary of modern German which might be of use…”
The librarian trailed off, frowning at the books Ginevra had returned. Absently, he picked them up and turned away as though he’d already forgotten their conversation.
“Thank you,” Ginevra called after him. “I should like to see the dictionary when it arrives.”
Mr. Tolliver startled, whirling back toward her. His face was ashen, his expression distant and wild-eyed.
“Mr. Tolliver, are you quite well?” Gin peered into the man’s eyes, trying to remember how one helped someone having a heart attack. “Can I fetch you something?”
The librarian blinked at her. He set down the books and patted at his vest until he withdrew a very small black notebook.
“Please forgive me, Miss Bishop. Something from luncheon must have disagreed with me.” He picked up the pen from his ledger, his brow furrowing at the notebook, but then bestowed a professional, if distant, smile.
“I’ll put your name at the top of the list for the dictionary. Good day, Miss Bishop.”
The trek from the Bod to St. Mildred’s grounds was a brisk twenty-minute walk, but the day’s sunshine proved false.
A swiftly moving shower pelted Gin’s back as she ran down the path to her hall of residence, shielding her head with her bag.
At her approach, a diminutive young woman with bottle-blond curls threw open the front door.
“I told you it was going to rain,” she chided as Gin clattered inside. “You and Rita never listen to me, but I’m part psychic.”
Gin shook the raindrops from her hair. “Part psychic?” she echoed, amused. “Which part, darling?”
“The part that makes sure to crow loudly when it’s right about something.” Iris Finchley smirked and crossed her arms over her yellow cardigan. “I’m making a cuppa. Can I bring it to your room? It’s so much cozier than mine.”
“Perhaps you are psychic,” Gin said, “for tea was next on my agenda.”
Iris made a small salute and ducked away to the buttery, and Gin climbed the southwest staircase to her room on the second floor.
She toed off her damp pumps behind the door and dropped her satchel on the large green wingback by the window.
It was one of the few furniture concessions she’d allowed her stepmother, who had burdened Gin with more decor than one young woman could manage.
Many things had migrated to other St. Mildred’s girls on the sly, and Gin prayed Sylvia never questioned their disappearance.
What remained were Gin’s favorite items from home, including a narrow four-poster with an arched canopy, a record player cabinet, a small Turkish rug woven in peacock blue and crimson, and a tapestry of Lady Godiva that her grandmother had once tried to remove from Chiseldon Park for indecency.
It was a bright, colorful nest of things that made Gin happy—the kind of happy she hadn’t felt in a long time before coming to Oxford.
There was a rap at the door, and Gin picked up two mugs from the windowsill as Iris sailed into the room bearing a Blue Willow teapot and a bottle of milk.
“Grab another mug,” Iris said. “I stole Rita away from her bones.”
“Only for a minute.” A tall woman sauntered in behind Iris, hands deep in her wide-legged trousers’ pockets.
With warm brown skin, an elegant profile, and a loose chignon of inky hair, Sarita DeSilva had the regal self-possession of a movie star.
“Dr. Claymore will scowl if I haven’t memorized these hand bones by tomorrow. ”
“Then practice rattling them off in here and regale us with your brilliance.” Gin sank to the rug and busied herself pouring the tea before it cooled, Iris pulled a packet of biscuits from her pocket, and Sarita selected Roy Fox from Ginevra’s collection of records to serenade their impromptu picnic.
“Thank you,” Iris sighed, lounging in the floor beside Gin. “I had an awful morning with my tutor who spent most of our time searching for my misplaced paper, then had the audacity to say I was careless with my citations.”
“You are careless with citations,” Sarita said, perching by the open window with a cigarette in a delicate holder. “Your papers read like Virginia Woolf’s fever dreams.”
Iris beamed. “I choose to take that as a compliment.”
Sarita rolled her eyes and straightened the cardigan draped over her shoulders.
“Well, I’m pleased to announce my mother finally departed this morning after I began to fear she would take up residence at the Randolph.
Last fall, she complained incessantly about English tea and was eager to return to Panjim. ”
“Your mum loves you, that’s all.” Iris tossed a biscuit, forcing Sarita to catch it before crumbs dusted the carpet. “At least she doesn’t complain about you wasting time and money on a degree like mine.”
“Only because she wishes I was studying in Lisbon.” Sarita pulled a face, tossing the biscuit out the window, and tapped her cigarette ash upon the sill. “But I told my parents I’d only consider transferring if they donated my Oxford tuition to the liberation movement, and that shut them right up.”
Ginevra and Iris exchanged a look of concern. The growing unrest between the people of Goa and the Portuguese administration for which Mr. DeSilva worked had become a consistent source of distraction for their friend.
“Don’t even think of moving,” Iris said, “or I’ll show up in Lisbon and embarrass you proper till you come back.” She rolled onto her side and nudged Gin’s knee. “How was the Bod? As busy as I warned you it would be?”
Gin snorted into her mug. “Yes, your psychic prowess is in top form today. When I finally landed a lovely spot to work in Duke Humfrey’s, a touchy second-year tried to steal it.”
“We are a notoriously self-centered lot,” Iris said, nodding solemnly. “But wait till you get tangled up with third-years. My editor at The Blue acts like he’s running The Times rather than a student rag. I finally badgered him into an advice column, and he puts outrageous limits on my word count.”
Sarita tsked. “How dare he limit your dire warnings about the fish paste sandwiches from St. M’s buttery?”
“They’re terrible!” Iris insisted. “It’s a crime against sandwiches and our stomachs.”
The trio devolved into laughter at this, and Gin rolled onto her back and closed her eyes, basking in the girls’ current of conversation.
She had not expected to make such fast friends her first month at Oxford, being more accustomed to peers who gushed to her face one moment and gossiped behind her back the next.
But when the two second-years on the landing took Gin under their wing, their refreshing candor became a balm to her soul.
Iris was right about some students throwing around too much weight, and Gin resolved not to lose ground again—especially not to one with stormy eyes and a jawline made for rebuttal.
Perhaps she would venture to the Bod armed with a fish paste sandwich to disarm her next opponent.
The thought greatly amused Gin, but with it came the memory of Mr. Tolliver’s peculiar behavior before her departure and his excuse about indigestion.
He had always seemed exceptionally alert for a man of his advanced years and had an excellent memory.
Yet he had been momentarily transported somewhere far beyond the Bodley’s walls, and Ginevra could not shake the curious feeling conjured within her at the alarm upon his face.
Something had deeply unsettled him, and she did not think it was the number of books to be reshelved.