The Education of Bet Read online

  Even I could see the futility in such a course of action. If we tried doing that, no doubt the tailor would report the peculiarity to Will's great-uncle.

  "No, of course not," I admitted.

  "So that's it, then." Will looked so smug, I could almost see him mentally washing his hands of the whole affair as he made to leave the room.

  "No, it is not," I said, my words stopping him as he put his hand on the doorknob.

  "It isn't?" He looked puzzled.

  What did he think, that I was going to give up so easily? That I was going to simply quit at the very first obstacle?

  "Get me my sewing kit," I commanded him.

  "Your—?"

  "My sewing kit," I said impatiently. "You know, that thing with threads and needles?"

  "I know what a sewing kit is."

  "Well then?" I prodded him. "I can't very well traipse through the house looking like this, can I? You'll find it in the basket near the fireplace down in the drawing room."

  Perhaps too stunned by my authoritarian manner to offer any rebuttal, Will obeyed.

  "Thank you," I said imperiously when he returned with the requested item. I opened the kit and removed a box of straight pins. "Here." I placed the box in Will's hand. Then I dragged a chair to the center of the room and proceeded to climb up on top of it.

  "What am I supposed to do with these?" Will asked, shaking the box of pins at me.

  "I can't do everything myself! And I certainly can't pin up clothes properly when I'm wearing them. The hems would come out all uneven."

  "You want me to pretend to be a dressmaker's assistant and pin up the hems for you?"

  "Nooo. I want you to pretend to be a tailor's assistant and pin up the hems for me. Is that too much to ask? Once you accomplish that, I'll do all the rest."

  "You're impossible," he muttered, but at least he got down on his knees and, squinting at the fabric, folded up the hems of the trousers so he could begin placing pins at regular intervals.

  "Thank you," I said.

  "I'm only doing this to shut you up."

  "You shouldn't talk with pins in your mouth. And anyway, I wasn't thanking you for doing what I asked."

  Will stopped for a moment, looked up at me. "What, then?"

  "I was thanking you for calling me impossible." I smiled down at him. "I rather like the idea of being impossible."

  "Girls."

  "Boys. Now get back to work."

  But when Will finished pinning the material at my wrists and ankles so that I could properly hem them later, my reflection still looked wrong. And not just because of my breasts.

  "I still need to fix the waistband," I said, "so it doesn't hang so low on my hips. Here." I handed him a couple of pins. Then I took off the jacket and, turning away from him, lifted up the waistband of the trousers to a level that looked about right. "If you place a few of these in the back so that the whole is tighter, I can sew darts there later."

  I was just beginning to think that Will was getting rather good at obeying instructions when I felt a pin stab me.

  "Ouch!" I shouted, whirling on him. "You did that on purpose!"

  "Would I do that to you?" His expression was innocent. Too innocent.

  "Well, hurry up," I grumbled. "We have a lot more to do."

  "More?"

  "Of course, more! You don't expect me to go off to school with just one suit, do you?"

  ***

  "Can you write out the alphabet for me, Will?" I asked one night, having followed Will out to the back garden after dinner.

  "If you can't even make your letters," Will said with a snort, "how do you ever expect to go away to school?"

  "I know how to make my letters, Will Gardener! And you know that I know. But my hand is a girl's hand. When you send me notes from school, your hand is less florid than mine. If I am to convince people that I am—"

  "Fine." Will made no effort to hide his exasperation. "Get me paper and pen."

  "Uppercase and lowercase," I directed as he began to write.

  "You take this all so seriously," he muttered. "One would think you actually believe you're going to get your way."

  Normally, I would have responded with heat to a remark like that. But I was too busy being shocked at what I was seeing.

  "Do you always hold your hand like that when you make your letters?" I asked.

  Will looked up. "How do you mean?"

  "Like that." I gestured with my hand. "Your fingers are all cramped down tight together near the nib. It looks most uncomfortable." A thought occurred to me. "No wonder the writing in your notes always looks so crabbed!"

  "My handwriting is not crabbed!"

  I ignored him.

  Without asking permission, I took the pen from his hand. Then, forcing my fingers into the impossible death grip I'd seen him use a moment ago, I put pen to paper. The result of my efforts was something that didn't look even remotely like my usual pretty hand.

  "Huh," I said, pleased with myself. "Well, that was easy."

  ***

  "It may be easy enough to imitate a boy's handwriting," Will pointed out the next day as we played croquet, "although I don't see why you seem to feel that girls write so much better than boys, but talking is different. It's a lot harder to fake what people hear than what they read."

  "Oh, really?"

  "Yes. As a matter of fact, I will wager money on it."

  "Too bad I haven't got any."

  "No, of course not. I'm sorry." Will at least had the good grace to look embarrassed. But not for long. "Very well, then," he went on, brightening, "if I win, you give up your harebrained scheme and admit it can never work."

  That would be a hard bet to make, I thought. If I wagered and lost, my sense of honor would force me to hold up my end of the bargain. But I hated seeing him look so cocky, and he would look even cockier if I did not accept the bet.

  "Fine," I said. "But if I win, you need to throw your wholehearted support behind me and you have to read to your great-uncle at least once a week."

  "Wait a second! Why do you get two things to my one?"

  "Because I'm smart enough to ask for more? Because the old man might as well get something out of this too? Because if you're so sure you're going to win, it shouldn't matter to you how many things I ask for?"

  His mouth tightened, but at last he put out his hand. "Fine," he said through clenched teeth.

  I shook his hand, hard. "Fine," I returned with a smile.

  ***

  That night after dinner, the master asked me to read to him for a little while, as was his habit. Perhaps obsessed with his advancing years and how little of life remained ahead of him, he wanted me to read from King Lear again.

  "'Meantime we shall express our darker purpose.'" I began the passage where Lear talks about dividing his kingdom in three.

  "Doesn't she read beautifully?" The old man turned toward Will.

  "Yes, she does." Will was practically sputtering. "But whose voice was that? She sounded like ... you!"

  "Isn't it marvelous? She can do all sorts of voices: male, female, old, young, rich, poor. I suppose it comes from years of reading to me. Why, there are times I feel as though I will never need to attend the theater again, since having Elizabeth here is like having a live performance every night!" His expression grew puzzled. "Have you never noticed what a talent she has for this?"

  "No." Will was practically seething now. "I have not."

  "With your permission, sir," I asked the old man, "might I be allowed to read a little from Macbeth instead?" Before he could question why I wanted to do this, I added, "I feel that that play might best show off to Will my range of voices."

  "Of course, child."

  "'When shall we three meet again / In thunder, lightning, or in rain?'"

  "You see?" the old man said to his great-nephew. "That's the first of the three Witches. And listen to Elizabeth: she sounds just like a crone!"

  "Yes," Will observed dryly. "She does." />
  I took the liberty of skipping ahead to the third scene and Macbeth's entrance.

  "'So foul and fair a day I have not seen.'" I read the words of one of the most hated and misunderstood men in all of literature.

  "And now she sounds like a young man!" the old man crowed proudly, as though he were responsible for my talent.

  "Yes, she does." Will stared at me as something struck him. "She sounds like me."

  "That's funny," the old man said. "I never noticed that before, but you are right. When Elizabeth does young men's voices, she does sound like you."

  "Perhaps," I said, smiling at Will, "I am so good at it because I have spent so many years listening to you talk and talk and talk."

  Will had never hit me, but I got the feeling he would have liked to do nothing more right then.

  "Here you go," I said, rising from my seat and carrying the book over to Will. "Perhaps you would like to read to your great-uncle tonight? If you practice a bit, you can become equally adept at imitating other people's voices."

  Before he could reply, I sauntered from the room.

  ***

  "You walk like a girl!" Will shouted at me.

  "That's probably because I am a girl!" I shouted right back at him.

  "Yes, I do know that, Bet. But you sway too much when you walk."

  "I sway?"

  "Yes, sway! Those ... hips of yours. They swish back and forth. It is fine for a girl but—"

  "Not for a boy. Very well." I gave a firm nod of my head. "Show me, then."

  "Well, it's like this." Will demonstrated as we stood on the lawn. "You must walk—no, you must stride as though you have some great purpose in mind."

  "You look ridiculous," I said, watching him walk back and forth. "You look like you're off to execute somebody."

  "Exactly. That's what I mean about purpose. But there are other times when you need to adopt a more casual approach, as though you're out for a stroll without a care in the world."

  This he demonstrated as well.

  "What are you doing with your hands in your pockets?" I asked.

  "I'm jangling my change, counting it sometimes. It's what men do when they stroll."

  "If you haven't a care in the world," I said with a snort, "I don't see why you'd be worrying about how much money you have."

  "Laugh all you want to, but while you're laughing, practice, practice, practice."

  I obeyed. At least he was finally getting into the spirit of the thing.

  "And no swishing!" he shouted after me as I paraded up and down the lawn, seeking to adopt a more masculine stride.

  When he felt I'd done enough swishless walking for one day, he called for a maid.

  "Lemonade?" I asked, hoping that was what he was going to request. It was hot out.

  "No," he said to me. "Cutting shears, please," he said to the maid.

  "Cutting shears?" I wanted to know what he was up to.

  After the maid had brought the requested item and safely departed, Will reached out and, with one quick motion, snipped off a lock of my hair.

  "Hey! What did you do that for?" I demanded, my hand instinctively reaching to protect the rest of my hair.

  "I'm going to need this," Will said, "in order to have the wig maker fashion you a wig to use after you cut the rest of your hair off." Will smiled. "After all, there will still be times when you'll need to look like a girl, won't there?"

  ***

  Allowing my hair to be cut was one of the hardest things I'd ever had to do.

  Funny, I usually thought of being a girl as something that had mostly just gotten in my way all my life. And yet, watching my hair grow progressively shorter as lock after lock fell to the bathroom floor, I felt as though I were losing a part of myself that I hadn't previously recognized as precious.

  Somehow, it made me feel slightly better that, although I had to lose my hair, Will was the one doing the cutting.

  "Tell me about school," I said to Will, hoping to take my mind off what was happening as tears of loss sprang to my eyes. "What's it like?"

  "Probably a lot more boring than you imagine," Will said, concentrating on his task. Snip, snip. "A bunch of high-spirited boys." Snip, snip. "A handful of stern masters." Snip, snip. "Lousy food."

  "Do you think I'm smart enough?"

  The shears ceased their snipping and Will's eyes met mine in the mirror. He did not comment on how rare it was for me to show such insecurity, and for this I was grateful. He did not comment on the tears in my eyes, and I was grateful for this too.

  "You're smarter than any boy I've ever known, Bet," he said, looking wholly serious for once.

  "Right, then." I closed my eyes briefly to stop the tears. When I opened them again and spoke, my voice was stern. "Keep cutting."

  Snip, snip. Snip, snip, snip.

  Before I knew it, it was done. My long hair was all gone.

  Will bent down so that his head was beside mine in the mirror.

  "We used to look so much alike," I said, "that we could have been taken for brother and sister."

  "But now," Will said, "we look like brother and brother."

  Then Will produced the wig he'd had made for me and dropped it on my head at a skewed angle. "Good thing you've got this."

  I straightened the wig so it sat properly on my head.

  "And now"—I smiled at myself—"I'm a girl again."

  "Must be nice to be able to go back and forth like that," Will said.

  ***

  "Are you going to let me in or aren't you?" Will shouted through the locked door of my bedroom.

  "Hold on! Hold on!" I shouted back. "Almost ready!"

  A moment later, I let him in. "Voilà!" I said, taking a step backward.

  I studied his amazed expression as he regarded me in my black suit, the black suit that used to be his black suit.

  He blushed as he gestured vaguely at the part of my body where my breasts used to be. "How did you make ... those disappear?"

  "I need to maintain some mysteries, don't I?" I answered saucily.

  It would have been awkward talking to Will about what I'd done to my breasts. In truth, I'd used fabric to bind them. It was uncomfortable, but no more so than the corset I'd had to wear.

  "And ... that." Will blushed more furiously still as he gestured at the bulge I'd created in the front of my trousers. "It shouldn't look so big ... that."

  "Oh!" It was my turn to blush. "Sorry!" Then I commanded him to leave the room again so I could remove one of the two pairs of stockings I'd shoved down my trousers. I should have known that just one pair would do.

  "Is that better?" I asked, letting him in again.

  "Much," he said, looking relieved. "But that tie..."

  "Tie?" My hand went to my throat. "What's the matter with my tie? It's the one you gave me."

  "But it's all wrong." Will approached me. "May I?"

  "Please."

  Will undid the tie I'd so carefully knotted. "The thing you need to remember at all times," Will said, as he folded one end over the other, "is that a balance must always be struck. Tie it too loosely, and the masters will have your head, but tie it too tightly, as you had it, and you'll be a laughingstock."

  He led me to the mirror. "Do you see what I mean?"

  Will was right. His way made a huge difference, all the difference in the world: it was the perfect balance between studious and rakish. At last, I looked as though I might belong ... somewhere.

  "Can you show me how to tie it like you just did?" I asked him.

  He stood behind me so I could watch what he was doing in the mirror. He seemed so patient now, and he remained so as I practiced.

  "Have I got it?" I asked, this time using my boy voice when I spoke.

  "Yes," he said. "You're perfect now, Will Gardener."

  ***

  Later on that night, we were out in the back garden, enjoying the August moon.

  "In all your planning, Bet," Will said into the lazy silence, "you've lef
t out one important item."

  "I have?"

  "Yes. If I go off to the military, and you take my place at school so that Uncle continues believing I am at school, what sort of excuse will you give for your own absence from here?"

  Chapter four

  "The Better Man Academy? Are you joking, Uncle?"

  The old man appeared to be puzzled by this query.

  "Joking?" he echoed. "Have you ever known me to joke about anything in my life?"

  Will was forced to concede that he had not.

  "At any rate," the old man continued, "it is not the Better Man Academy. It is the Betterman Academy."

  "It still sounds to me like a joke," Will said, "a name that someone has made up." Will altered his voice to sound as though he were reading an advertisement for hair tonic from one of the newspapers: "'Send your boy to us here at the Betterman Academy, and we will send you back a Better Man!'"

  "Perhaps Betterman is the name of the gentleman who founded the academy?" I interjected—helpfully, I thought.

  "Whatever it is named for, it still sounds nutty to me," Will muttered.

  I wondered at his aggression toward the mere name of the school. After all, he wasn't the one who was going to be attending there. I was.

  "Well," the old man said, "then you should have thought about that before you got yourself sent down from every reputable school within a reasonable radius of home."

  "Is that why you chose it, then?" Will wondered. "For its proximity to home?"

  "Hardly." The old man snorted. "It is still two days' journey from here. I chose it"—and here he paused, and then commenced to thunder—"because it was the only place I could find that would take you!"

  ***

  August 7, 18—

  Dear Miss Smith,

  I write to you on behalf of my mother, Mrs. Henry Larwood. Having reviewed your application along with the many we have received, it is our decision that you would make the most fit companion for her as my husband and I commence our yearlong tour of the Orient. It is a great comfort for me to think that Mother will be tended to by such a caring girl. Mr. Gardener's letter of reference impressed us all greatly, and I must confess, Mother is particularly charmed that not only can you read to her daily, but you can do so using voices!