The Education of Bet Read online

  The compensation for your duties will be generous. You will have every other Sunday off. We realize that a single day will not be sufficient time for you to journey back to Grangefield Hall, and so, as you requested, you will be permitted a week's leave at the Christmas holidays and another week later in the spring. We will need you here no later than the first week of September. Should these terms meet with your approval, please reply with all speed to the above address.

  "Is this woman mad?" the old man said after I'd read the letter to him, my hands shaking nervously all the while. In truth, I could have read the letter without looking at the page, since I'd written every word myself. "She talks about a letter of reference from Mr. Gardener. Well, I certainly never wrote to her!"

  "No, sir," Will answered, using rare formality in addressing his great-uncle. Then he cleared his throat, his own nerves taking over. "The Mr. Gardener in the letter would be me."

  "You? But I don't understand..."

  "I wrote it," Will said. "Bet needed a letter of reference and I provided her with one."

  "Yes, but I still don't understand any of this. Why—?"

  Will opened his mouth to explain, but I stopped him. This had all been my idea, after all. Any grief that might come of it was my responsibility.

  "I am sixteen years old now, sir," I said boldly. "Isn't it high time I made my way in the world?"

  I would never have guessed, not in a million years, that the old man would look so crestfallen at the idea of my leave-taking.

  "But I thought you were happy here, Elizabeth," he said. "Haven't we been good to you?"

  "Of course!" I said brightly, hoping to erase any damage I'd caused. I tried on a happy laugh. "But I could not stay here forever, could I?" I sobered. "After all, I am not family. At some point, I will need to earn my own living. Is it not best that I start now, when I have an opportunity with someone who wants to employ me?"

  "If it is about money ... yes, I see where perhaps we have taken advantage of you all these years, not paying you. Perhaps we could—"

  "It is not about money, sir," I said gently. "And I could never take yours. You have already given me so much."

  "It is just simply time for Bet to become independent," Will interjected.

  "You helped her in this," the old man accused Will.

  "Yes," Will said, straightening his back, "and I would do it again. People need, Uncle, to follow where their hearts and minds lead them." Will softened. "And as Mrs. Larwood's daughter's letter indicates, Bet will be home for the holidays. So it is not as though you will never see her again."

  "And I will write to you, sir," I added. "I will write every week to tell you how I am getting on."

  "But who will read those letters to me, Elizabeth, if you are busy somewhere else, reading to someone else?"

  That hurt.

  "I'm sure one of the servants would be happy to do so," Will said, stepping in to save me. "I'm sure they all would rather read letters to you than, oh, I don't know, polish the silver one more time."

  The old man smiled weakly at this attempt at humor.

  "And isn't it fortunate," Will pressed on, encouraged by that weak smile, "why, look at the address on the letter!" Will blushed. "Well, no, of course you can't actually see it. But it is not far from the Betterman Academy, and they want Bet there very close to the day that I am due at school. Why, she and I can share a carriage out! I can see to it that she is safely settled!"

  "Yes," the old man said dryly, "I suppose that is a most fortunate coincidence."

  ***

  When Will was much smaller, he sometimes used to kneel at his great-uncle's feet, when he was in trouble or when he wanted something from him or when he was simply in need of some affection. I used to laugh at Will for this, saying that he looked no better than a well-trained puppy. In truth, I was jealous; jealous that he still had a relative in the world who would lay hands on his head with such obvious love.

  Will's words of a few hours ago echoed in my ears as I entered the drawing room now, late in the evening before the morning of our departure. "Sure, I think you look fine in your suit," he'd said. "But remember: I am predisposed to think you look fine because you have dragged me along in your ... insanity. But I do think that before you try your ... costume out on the greater world, you should test it here at home first. After all, if you cannot fool one old man—and a blind one at that!—then how do you imagine you'll ever fool anyone else?" Here Will had heaved a heavy sigh. "Besides, Bet, I cannot bring myself to say goodbye to him, not under these circumstances. Who knows if I shall ever see him again? You be me for tonight."

  An hour ago, I'd said goodbye to the old man as myself, wearing my wig and my usual dress. Our leave-taking had been a little formal, a little stiff, with me thanking the old man for everything he had done for me while he hemmed and hawed and asked if I needed anything else. But now, as I entered the drawing room in my suit and without the wig, for the first time I was Will Gardener.

  "Who's that?" the old man said, cocking his head toward the doorway.

  "It's me, Uncle," I said, hoping to God that I sounded enough like Will.

  "Oh." He looked puzzled. "Your tread sounded slightly ... different somehow."

  Drat! I cursed my inability to exactly imitate Will's stride. But then I brightened. My tread might have sounded slightly off to the old man but clearly not off enough to make him immediately realize I was an impostor. Ever since I'd first come up with my plan, I'd behaved as though wholly convinced that I could succeed. I'd even told myself I could, repeatedly. In reality, all along there had been doubts plaguing me beneath the surface, fears that somehow I would be exposed before I even got the chance to start. But now I saw that those doubts had been unwarranted, and it was like the sun breaking through on a February day. Perhaps I really could pull this off!

  I approached where the old man sat in his chair in front of the fire, taking care now to move with more of the hands-in-the-pockets casualness Will had taught me was the acceptable alternative to the other male form of walking, purposeful striding.

  The old man cleared his throat. "When you and Elizabeth depart in the morning, I will still be in bed. Have you completed your packing yet?"

  "Of course," I started, then, remembering that I was supposed to be Will—Will, who would never do anything now if he could do it later—I hastily added, "not."

  The old man was silent for a moment, his mouth a round o of shock at Will's—my—insolence. And then he did a startling thing. He laughed.

  "Oh, Will," he said, making a great effort to recover himself after his outburst of mirth, "in a strange way it is good to know that your unwillingness to toe the line is as reliable as death and taxes." He paused as a coughing fit overtook him. Then: "I suppose that you, being you, will not let the Betterman Academy get the better of you? And that after a fortnight or, at most, a whole term, you will arrange to have yourself sent down once more?"

  A part of me understood that to successfully impersonate Will, I had to imitate what he would do in both word and deed. But another part of me, a part that was far stronger in that moment, could not allow the notion of myself as one who disappoints to continue—no matter who that self was supposed to be at the time.

  I knelt at the old man's feet.

  "You are wrong, Uncle," I vowed. "This time, things will be different. This time, I will distinguish myself."

  He laughed once more. "Well, that should be easy enough."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Surely, you must have surmised by now that the Betterman Academy is a last ditch, a place where parents and guardians stow their charges when no one else in the world will have them; a place for misfits, miscreants, and ne'er-do-wells—you realize that, do you not?"

  I felt my cheeks color at this, and when I spoke, it was with conviction. "Then it should be easy for me to distinguish myself, should it not? I shall be first among equals."

  "You are serious, aren't you?" He was shocked; amaze
d, really.

  "I am, sir. I mean, Uncle. What's more, I will write you every week to inform you of my progress. You will no doubt need something to occupy you, since I will be gone and that ... girl will no longer be underfoot."

  "I shall miss having the girl underfoot," the old man said softly, surprising me. "And, of course, I will miss you, boy."

  And that's when he touched me. He placed his gnarled hand on my head like a benediction, and then, with great effort, he heaved himself forward enough in his chair so that he might kiss my brow.

  "I love you, Will," he said gruffly.

  "I love you too, Uncle," I responded clearly, not caring in the moment if Will would say that or not, only caring that the old man should hear those words from at least one of us, someone, before we left him behind.

  ***

  Unlike Will, I had long since finished my packing. Indeed, I had been ready to go for days; the trunk Will had purchased for me was crammed full of the male clothing Will had given me, as well as one dress and my wig.

  "You never know when you might need to be a girl again at a moment's notice" had been his mocking advice.

  "And why would I need that?" I'd asked.

  That's when he added details to my original plan. He said that in order to perpetuate the fiction that he was at school while I was companion to Mrs. Larwood, we'd need to arrange for things like visits home. Since Michaelmas half at the Betterman Academy ran from early September through the middle of December, I was to arrive home, as Will, in mid-December. Right before Christmas week, I, as Will, would announce that I was spending the holiday with a classmate's family. Then I would appear as myself, as the letter from Mrs. Larwood's daughter had indicated I would be given that week off. Once that week had passed, I would become Will again for the final week before returning to school. In this way, the old man would still be able to receive visits from both of us, even if he never saw us at the same time.

  The machinations involved in what we were doing were enough to make my head spin!

  I looked around the familiar bedroom, the room I had slept in for so long, the only such room I could remember clearly, my early childhood now being such a dim and distant dream. No one moved or spoke in the house around me, but I could not sleep, even though the only sound was the clock in the hallway ticking me toward morning and my new life. I lay with my head on the pillow.

  Where would I lay my head the next night? I wondered. And where the night after that?

  ***

  We departed in the still-dark hours of early morning. This worked well for our plan, since no one else in the house had yet risen. If they had been up, I would have had to put on a dress; the driver of the hired carriage would have been confused when I later changed and continued my journey as a young man. As it was, the man who drove us knew only that he had two young men to convey.

  We left early so that we could reach our first destination, the inn where we would lodge at the halfway mark, by nightfall. As a result, I saw little. But then the sky began to lighten in minor increments as the horses clip-clopped their way along, and as we made our way out of the city, I began to catch glimpses of things I'd never seen before. It occurred to me then how small my world had been all my life. Why, I had never ventured any farther than church on Sundays! I had seen so little!

  "What is that?" I would ask as we passed a particular building. "What kind of business do they do in there?"

  "What is the name of this village?" I would ask. "Do you know what kind of work that farmer is doing?"

  At first, Will was very patient in answering my many questions. But as the miles passed along with the hours, he grew somewhat less so. I realized this was because none of what we were seeing was new to him, but I didn't care.

  "What?" he said. "Are you going to spend the whole day with your head hanging out the window, staring at cows?"

  "Yes," I said. "Cows are new to me. It's all new to me."

  "God," he said, not even bothering to hide his exasperation, "it's like traveling with a dog."

  I took the briefest of moments to stick my tongue out at him before hanging my head back out the window.

  ***

  "So what will the inn be like?" I asked with some excitement as the sky began to darken and we neared our first destination.

  "Just like one cow is the same as the next, one inn is pretty much the same as the next." Will yawned. "There will be lots of wooden beams. There will be lots of fireplaces, but the fires will never be big enough to warm the rooms, and the lighting will be dim so you cannot see all the imperfections about you, or because the innkeeper is too cheap to spend more on oil, or perhaps both. There will be small bedrooms, with a bath down the hall, and a small dining room for taking meals. You will be glad then of the poor lighting because at least you won't have to see the wretched food."

  The inn where we stopped for the night proved to be exactly as Will had predicted.

  He registered us as Will Gardener and Will Smith.

  "You were right that the room is small," I whispered to Will after we'd been shown up a narrow flight of stairs. "Now where is the second one?"

  "The second what?"

  "The second bedroom, of course," I said. "You know, one for me and one for you?"

  "We are just getting the one room, Bet." Then he corrected himself. "Or I suppose I should say Will. After all, you will need to get used to answering to that name."

  "Just one room?" I was shocked.

  "Of course," he said, unpacking some items, "because one, it is cheaper, thereby leaving you with more spending money once you get to school; and two, you will need to get used to sharing a room with another boy."

  "Another...?"

  "Of course," he said again. "What—did you think the Betterman Academy would treat you like a prince, granting you a room all to yourself?"

  "You mean that at school I will be sleeping in the same room every night with a boy?"

  "I take it you hadn't thought of that, then?"

  If I hadn't been ready to faint at the prospect of what lay before me, I would have been tempted to slap that smile right off his face.

  "Do not worry," Will said, removing one of the impossibly thin blankets from the bed and spreading it on the floor. "You can have the bed here. I suspect that I will have a few things to get used to myself and that once I am in the military there will be no comfy pillows for me. Now then." He clapped his hands together. "Dinner? I must say, I am famished!"

  ***

  "You are not eating?" Will said, attacking his own meal with relish as we sat in the small dining room, the lighting turned so low one could barely see what one was eating.

  "Mutton is not my favorite," I allowed.

  "That is too bad, then." Will tore off a chunk of bread. "You will find that mutton is as omnipresent at school as cold water in the baths there ... when there is water."

  To say that I was growing increasingly nervous would be a gross understatement. And so, in order to disguise my nervousness, I bluffed like mad.

  "That sounds wonderful!" I said brightly. "I am sure that I will find all of these challenges to be rather, um, character-building. No doubt it will make a man out of me!"

  "You are an odd girl, Bet."

  "I thought you were going to call me Will now," I countered.

  "Very well, Will. You say you are ready for the challenges, but you have never been at school before. How do you propose to approach the actual lessons?"

  "Lessons?"

  "Yes, you know, that thing you are supposed to be there for—an education? You have never been in a classroom, have never taken any formal subjects in your life."

  "Oh, that part will be easy," I said, and this time I wasn't bluffing. "Why, I can read anything, and I know a lot of history and literature, same as you. The difference is, I will work hard at those subjects and I will excel at them, since I will apply myself where you have not." I nervously twisted my napkin. "So, what other subjects will there be?"

 
"I would have thought you'd have asked about such things sooner, Bet, in terms of what to expect," Will said, eyeing my napkin-twisting. "You know, you can still change your mind..."

  "Never," I said firmly, putting down the napkin with some force. "And stop calling me Bet."

  "What about mathematics, then? How is your Latin?"

  "Does it matter?" I shrugged. "You have never done well at those subjects because they bore you." I shrugged again. "I could hardly do worse."

  "You are maddening." He wiped his mouth hastily with his napkin before tossing it on the table and rising to his feet. "Come on. Let's go."

  "Where are we going?" I wondered, rising just the same.

  "To show you a little bit more of what you can expect at school." Will took me hard by the elbow, steering me toward the door. "I don't know why I didn't think of this sooner."

  ***

  The night air was crisp as Will led me down the street. There were several small houses scattered along the way, a cheery light here, a welcoming wisp of smoke from a chimney there.

  "Where are we going?" I demanded this time, seeking to extricate my elbow from Will's grasp, but he held firm.

  "I will show you," he said. Then he muttered to himself, "Every small village has one. I should have been paying more attention as we rode in."

  "One what?"

  But Will wouldn't answer.

  At last, we drew up to a squat building, the front of which had lots of small panes of glass, each pane its own small world shedding golden light outward onto the street. The door was open, and the sound of loud merrymaking poured out. I had never stood in front of a building such as this before, but I had read about these places in books.

  "A pub? I can't go in there!"

  I also knew from reading books that no lady—or at least, no lady who cared about her reputation—ever set foot in a pub.

  "Of course you can," Will said, steering me toward the doorway. "You're Will Gardener now, aren't you? And this is the sort of thing Will Gardener does. It's what all boys who go off to school do: we squirrel away our money, and, whenever possible, we sneak out at night and go to the local pub to smoke and drink. Come on, then."