Chapter Three
Mr. Tolliver’s funeral was a quiet affair at the Wolvercote Cemetery during the Easter vacation between terms.
A surprising number of students were present besides Ginevra, Sarita, and Iris, a testimony to the librarian’s long tenure at the Bodleian.
Though the vicar’s glowing remarks upon Tolliver’s service to the university filled the chapel with quiet goodwill, Ginevra rubbed at her collarbones, wishing the tight feeling within her chest would ease.
In many ways, the war had hardened her to death, especially when one wing of her home had been temporarily turned into a hospital ward.
But Tolliver’s life had slipped away while she held him, and Gin felt responsible.
It was silly, for a doctor had declared it a heart attack, but perhaps they could have acted more quickly and saved him.
When she spotted Sidney Braithwaite among the graveside crowd, it stirred these feelings further still.
They had bumped into each other at the library all year after the disastrous introduction first term, and every week he pretended not to see her.
The night Tolliver died was only the second time she’d directly addressed him, and it had gone even more poorly.
She’d meant well, trying to warn Mr. Webb away from the Damocles boys, but she and Braithwaite interacted like oil and water, and she feared she had only made things worse.
When she nodded politely at the funeral, he turned away and disappeared into the milling crowd of mourners.
The dawn of a new term—the final term of the year—meant there was little time to wallow in regret. Returning to the Bod after the funeral, however, daunted Gin more than the exams for which she needed to start preparing.
“Are you sure this is appropriate?” she stood before the floor-length mirror in Sarita’s room, twisting back and forth.
The white Swiss dot dress felt far too cheery in comparison with her mood, but Iris had found it in Gin’s wardrobe and insisted she wear it on such a lovely spring day.
It was one Gin hadn’t worn since her debutante season.
“I feel as though mourning crape would be better.”
“Have you ever actually touched the stuff?” Iris shuddered. “I found an old veil of my nan’s once. It was so itchy and stiff, I don’t know how anyone could bear it.”
“If you’re grieving, you probably don’t notice,” Sarita drawled from the bed where she lay on her stomach, picking through a box of chocolates. “And if you’re not grieving, it probably irritates you enough to help fake it.”
Gin smoothed the A-line skirt and sighed. “Well, I am grieving. I can’t imagine the Bod without that dear old man.”
“And Tolliver would tell you don’t you dare grow maudlin over the books, or moisture would ruin them,” Sarita chided.
Iris shifted behind Gin and smoothed her elbow-length sleeves. “You look lovely. Try not to fret about him too much. He’d be horrified if his death ruined your prep for prelims.”
Gin knew her friends were right, though it couldn’t erase the memory of the old librarian’s final breaths in the garden. She pulled Iris into a tight side hug. “Are you sure you two don’t want to join me?”
“No, thank you,” Sarita said. “You turn into a bear while studying.”
“She’s right,” Iris said, patting Gin’s cheek. “I feel like a gooseberry. You only have eyes for your books.”
Gin squeezed her friend’s petite shoulders. “You could never be a gooseberry, darling. You’re more the size of a currant.”
At this, Iris began a defense of her proportions that included a few judiciously placed pinches that sent Gin scampering back to the mirror. She fluffed her hair and checked her red lipstick one last time.
Sarita rolled onto her side, propping up her head on one hand. “Is Braithwaite going to be there?”
Ginevra avoided meeting Sarita’s eyes in the mirror. “I have no idea.”
“You do seem to study at the Bod at the same time,” Iris piped up. “He’s always around when I sneak you biscuits.”
“I knew it,” Sarita breathed. She sat upright and held out her palm. “That’s a bob you owe me, gooseberry.”
Iris shook her head in mock exasperation and grabbed her handbag from the window seat.
Gin whirled around. “What on earth? I assure you, I don’t care where Sidney Braithwaite is.”
Sarita pocketed Iris’s money with a smug smile. “Of course, dear. You always chase after people at parties to check on them.”
Ginevra fumbled with her hat rather than mustering further defense. Braithwaite was the fly in the ointment of an otherwise lovely first year at Oxford. If they did always study at the same time, it was entirely unconscious on her part.
She gave the girls a cool nod. “You’re both very silly, but I love you. Enjoy your chocolates.” She sailed grandly from the room, secure in having put them in their place—until giggles erupted behind the closed door. With an aggrieved sigh, Gin tromped down the stairs and headed for the Bod.
It was both amusing and upsetting that Mr. Tolliver’s replacement at the library was a near copy of the man, albeit a more fragile, rumpled version who seemed to have misplaced his glasses.
She would have preferred to duck past the newcomer before emotion could overtake her, but she’d received notice a book she’d requested had arrived.
Gin stopped at the desk. “Excuse me, but I think you have a book for me—Ginevra Bishop?”
The man trundled to the opposite side of his long desk, returning with a small dictionary with a glossy new cover. “Yes, miss. I’m sorry it took so long to contact you. I found it misplaced on Mr. Tolliver’s personal desk while sorting through everything.”
It was the German dictionary they’d discussed first term—the same awful day she’d met Braithwaite. Gin had forgotten all about it, but Tolliver had not, and it made a lump rise in her throat. Gently, Gin drew the book across the desk. “Thank you,” she said. “I appreciate your diligence.”
She tucked the dictionary under her arm and drifted through the halls toward what had become her usual spot in Duke Humfrey’s Library on quiet days.
The high ceiling of painted panels always made Ginevra feel as though she had stepped inside a Parisian chocolate box, and today the room’s serenity helped focus her anxious mind on the translation due at the end of the week.
It took a great deal of mental effort to string the words together with fluency, rather like swiftly rotating a handful of puzzle pieces until they clicked into position.
How to best express the idea in English required further rumination, for some meaning would always be lost, but Gin loved the inherent imperfection of the translating arts; the challenge kept her on her toes.
She was knee-deep in a German passage, wading through tenses, when the chair beside her pulled away from the table.
Ginevra jerked upright, her pencil skittering across the page, and frowned.
Donald Craddock lounged beside her, one foot pulled over the opposite knee. “Hello, Gin.”
“Donald.” Gin gritted her teeth, carefully erasing the jagged lightning bolt now marring her work. “Can I help you?”
“I want you to marry me.”
“You think the third time shall prove propitious?” Gin dusted away the rubber shavings. “You’re rather optimistic.”
Donald swept a hand through his blond hair, eyelids drooping with an aloof expression. “We’d make an excellent match, and I think you should reconsider. We’re old friends, aren’t we?”
That their families had been long acquainted was true enough, but friends was too strong a word.
An unfortunate snog during the Queen Charlotte’s Ball of ’46 had resulted in his first marriage proposal, but a second kiss in the Chiseldon Park drawing room during said proposal had convinced Gin any fleeting chemistry was the result of too much champagne.
Up close, he reminded her of the taxidermy mount of a meerkat in her father’s office.
Gin rewrote the missing word in her loopy scrawl. “Thank you, but no. If I wanted a loveless marriage, I would have accepted you years ago and spared myself the paternal wrath.”
Ever so slightly, Donald’s nostrils flared. “But I do love you—”
“No, you don’t,” Gin said, “or you’d have stopped pestering me after I declined the first time and the second.
We have very little in common beyond attending the same social functions year after year.
I am very happy with my studies and not ready to form a new household.
You, however, always seemed more interested in parties and gambling than applying yourself during your undergraduate years.
I was rather surprised you returned for another degree. ”
“I’ll have you know I’ve turned over a new leaf and worked hard to impress my tutors this year.
” Donald picked at the mother-of-pearl inlay in his cufflinks and shrugged.
“Besides, one must do something. And if it’s lounge about Oxford versus lounge about the estate office, I’d much rather be here. ”
“You make a compelling case,” Gin said dryly. “Surely, however, I needn’t go on. We have few common interests—”
Donald scoffed. “You think our parents cared about such nonsense?”
“Of course not. Heaven knows why my mother married my father, but I saw firsthand how miserable she was despite trying to conceal it. I will not do the same.” Gin clasped her hands on the table and shrugged.
“I’m sorry, Donald. I really am, for I’m sure the duke is hounding you to tie the knot as much as my father is hounding me.
But I am not suitable for you. If you could kindly relay that to both fathers, I should greatly appreciate it—and I shall do my best to find you someone who is suitable.
” She flashed a wan smile. “Someone with an interest in hosting parties for you, perhaps.”