After Mrs. Hodge was situated up front, next to the driver’s seat, Lawrence closed the door and latched it, and soon they were off, rumbling away from the train station and through the small town of Easton. The main street was flat and well kept, with new buildings in brick and wood cropping up on either side. A large general store sat at the very center of town, a mannequin in a silk, slim-bodiced evening dress in one window and a wheelbarrow in the other. Across the street, the Easton Police Station looked as if it had just been built, its redbrick façade practically gleaming in the sun.
“Oh, I’m so excited,” Alice said, clapping her gloved hands as she looked out the window. “I know it’s wicked of me to say, but I’m so glad to be rid of my family, especially my brothers.”
“I have a brother,” Catherine said. She opened a silver, oval-shaped locket around her neck and held it out for the girls to see. Eliza and Alice leaned in. The sepia photo was of a towheaded boy who looked to be about ten, grinning from ear to ear. “I miss Lincoln already.”
“Pssssh,” Alice said, leaning back again. “I don’t believe that for a moment. I have five of those little urchins in my life, and each is more fiendish than the last. What about you, Eliza?”
“No. No brothers,” Eliza replied. She didn’t want to bring up her
sister just yet. If she did, Catherine would undoubtedly spend the rest of the ride regaling them with a glowing account of May’s illustrious tenure at Billings.
“Well, count yourself lucky,” Alice said, spreading her fingers. “I am just so sick of boys and their grubby hands and their jam-covered faces and their awful habit of bringing spiders and frogs and all manner of creepy crawlies into the house.”
Eliza and Catherine laughed as the carriage came to a stop at an intersection at the end of the main street.
“But I
am
looking forward to meeting the Easton Academy boys,” Alice went on slyly, giving Eliza a nudge with her elbow. “I plan to have a new beau by the night of the welcome dance next week. Do either of you girls have admirers back home pining over you?”
Eliza had a feeling Alice would be shocked by the lack of romance in Eliza’s past. Most of the boys in her social circle had been falling all over themselves for May since she could remember. Two summers back, Eliza had fancied herself in love with Charles Morris, a boy who summered on the Cape. But after two full months of trying to get his attention—challenging him to swim races, digging for clams and checking his crab traps with him—he hadn’t even bothered to say good-bye when his family packed up their Victorian home and went back to Baltimore. When she’d complained to May, her sister had told her that acting like a boy was no way to win one.
“What about you, Cat?” Alice asked. “You seem to be quite the blushing Southern belle. I’ll wager the boys are lined up for you.”
“I’ve never had much interest in romance, to be honest,”
Catherine said, lifting a shoulder. “My mother calls me a late bloomer.”
“So no beaux at all?” Alice exclaimed. “Well, then we’ll have to get you one.”
Catherine blushed and shifted in her seat, clearly discomfited by the subject.
“I’m sure if Catherine wanted a beau, she could get one for herself,” Eliza said.
Catherine shot Eliza a grateful look. “Thank you, Eliza, I appreciate the confidence.”
The coach turned up a steep hill, and Eliza spied a modest sign near the sign of the road that read the billings school for girls.
“Look! We’re here!” she said, sitting forward.
The three girls crowded the small square window on the left side of the coach, looking out at the sun-dappled campus. The buildings were large and imposing, constructed of gray brick and ornate moldings. Stone pathways wound through the neatly clipped grass, and the air smelled of musky lavender, probably from the field of wildflowers just north of campus. Eliza breathed in the heady scent, knowing she would forever associate it with the feeling of possibility.
“That tall building right there is the McKinley building,” Catherine said, pointing to a structure with an arched doorway and several slim French windows, all of them gleaming in the sunlight. “All the classes are held on the second and third floors, except for etiquette, which we have in the parlor at Crenshaw House.”
A shiver of apprehension went through Eliza at the mention of
Crenshaw. What was it that May had wanted to tell her about her new home? But she quickly shoved her worry aside. The buildings may have been a tad austere, but on a gorgeous day like this, it was difficult to imagine anything sinister happening at Billings.
“The instructors’ offices are there, as well as the library,” Catherine continued. “It’s that smaller wing off to the side.”
Eliza eyed the squat annex on the McKinley building. It was obviously a new addition, its gray bricks a darker shade than those of the original structure. The library was unimpressive and nearly windowless, but still she couldn’t wait to peruse the aisles. She hoped they contained all the books she had never been allowed to read inside her mother’s house.
“That long, rectangular building is Prescott,” Catherine continued as the coach drove on. “To the right of the main entrance is the gymnasium, and to the left is the dining hall.”
Alice wrinkled her nose. “Gymnasium? What’s that for?”
“Physical fitness, I believe,” Catherine joked.
“But I hate exercise,” Alice pouted.
“Really? I love it,” Eliza said. “Especially anything played in the outdoors.”
“Ugh,” Alice groaned, rolling her eyes as she leaned into Eliza from behind. “But don’t you hate to perspire? It’s so unladylike.”
“A necessary evil, I’m afraid,” Eliza said, pleased when Catherine laughed.
“Up the hill at the center of the woods is Billings Chapel. You can’t see it from here. But you can see Crenshaw House,” Catherine said,
pointing a finger out the opposite window. “That’s where all the students’ quarters are. It used to be an orphanage, but the school bought it a few years back.”
A lump formed in Eliza’s throat, and she slid to the right side of the coach for a better look. Crenshaw loomed at the top of a grassy hill bordered by the woods, its walls an unattractive brown brick, its façade blunt and flat. It had a foreboding presence; the two large windows just above the door were positioned like glaring eyes.
Suddenly, from the corner of her eye, Eliza saw a flicker of movement in one of the first-floor windows. She looked over just in time to see a shock of blond hair, and then the curtain fell back into place. A shiver of fear ran through her heart, and she hugged her arms to her chest.
“We’re separated by class on each floor, with fourth-years on the top floor and so on down,” Catherine went on. “The headmistress and staff have apartments on the first floor, to keep an eye on us.”
Eliza blinked. “So you can’t come or go without them hearing you?”
“Exactly,” Catherine replied. Then she glanced toward the driver’s bench, as if Mrs. Hodge could hear their voices over the pounding of the hooves and through the thick ceiling of the coach. “But some people find ways,” she added with a mischievous smile.
As the coach turned again, working its way down a slim country lane leading to the base of Crenshaw’s hill, Eliza heard a distinctly male shout. Alice squealed.
“There they are! Eliza! Come see! The Easton boys!” She gasped.
Obligingly, Eliza slid back to the other side of the coach. Several boys in shirtwaists, vests, and ties were horsing around on a green lawn, their sleeves rolled up, their caps tossed on the ground.
“I knew Easton Academy was close to Billings, but I didn’t realize how close,” Alice said excitedly, clasping her hands together under her chin.
“The woods around Billings Chapel border both the Easton campus and the Billings campus,” Catherine explained. “On weekends we’re allowed to visit the Easton grounds, and the boys are allowed to visit the Billings grounds. They often come over here to play games, because we have more open space on this side of the woods.”
“I say we get out and say hello,” Alice suggested.
Eliza laughed.
“It’s a good thing Miss Almay isn’t here right now. She’d mark you for a troublemaker,” Catherine warned.
Alice giggled, but Catherine didn’t crack a smile. “I’m serious, Alice. Don’t let her catch you mooning over the boys. My roommate was expelled last year for sneaking around with an Easton student.”
“Well, she can’t see me now,” Alice said. Then she leaned out the open window and lifted her hand in a wave. “Hello, boys!” she called out merrily.
“Alice!” Catherine scolded, but she couldn’t help laughing anyway.
Eliza leaned forward to get a better look. In the center of the group on the lawn was a tall boy with tanned skin, his dark blond hair gleaming in the sun. He grappled with a couple of other boys and managed to get the tie off one of them, then laughed as his victim gave chase. As
he turned around, he looked up and his eyes met Eliza’s. He stopped running and simply stared.
Eliza suddenly felt warm from her toes all the way up to the tips of her ears. Her heart pounded in a way it never had before. She knew that it was wrong to stare so boldly at a boy, but she couldn’t tear her eyes away. And neither, it seemed, could he.
The owner of the stolen tie rushed him and tackled him right to the ground.
“Oof! Did you see that?” Alice giggled, covering her mouth.
Eliza sat back, her breath coming short and shallow. She had seen. In fact, she could have kept staring all day long.
“Eliza, Catherine, this will be your room.”
Mrs. Hodge opened the door to a bright, sunlit chamber on the fourth floor of Crenshaw House, directly above the entry. They had already dropped off Alice on the floor below, which was reserved for second-years, but Alice’s view had been nothing like Eliza’s and Catherine’s. The windows on the far side of the room looked out over the entire Billings campus and the tree-covered hills beyond. It was the sort of view that was perfect for daydreaming.
“We’re roommates, then,” Catherine said with a smile as Mrs. Hodge bustled away.
“Looks that way,” Eliza said. “And I promise I won’t be getting expelled for looking at boys.”
Even as she said it, though, Eliza recalled the gaze of the boy out on the field, and she warmed from head to toe all over again. But she rolled her shoulders back and resolved not to think about him. She
was not here to meet a boy. She was here to read forbidden books and be free of her mother’s watchful eye.
Catherine unlatched a large wooden trunk near the wall. Down the hall girls called out to one another, chatting about their summer vacations and their day’s journey. Their obvious familiarity made Eliza feel suddenly nervous. What if everyone in her class had been here all along, like Catherine? Would it be difficult to make friends?
Eliza stepped inside the room that was to be her new home. She took a deep breath and looked around, trying to keep her fears at bay. The walls were painted a lovely light blue—no pink in sight, she noted gratefully—and the lace curtains billowed in the warm breeze. Her trunk had already been placed at the foot of the bed nearest the door, and she was happy to see that her father had included a bookshelf among the furniture he had sent ahead for her. She walked over and ran her fingers along the top shelf, thinking of her father with a pang. He was currently off on a business trip in Washington, D.C., but this bookcase proved that he was thinking of her. At least someone in her family endeavored to understand her. She couldn’t wait to dig to the bottom of her trunk and free her novels. They wouldn’t come close to filling the shelves, but that simply meant she had room to acquire more.
“Oh, good. There’s already a hook here,” Catherine said from the other side of the room.
She opened her trunk and took out a wooden carving of a fleurde-lis, which she hung on the nail above her headboard. Eliza envied Catherine’s ability to feel so at home and relaxed. But then, Catherine
had been coming here for years. In a few days’ time, Eliza was sure she would feel just as comfortable. The key was to make the room feel like her own. She, too, had a hook above her bed. Opening her trunk, she took out the framed photograph that had hung in her room since she was little. It was a picture of her and May, taken at the farm the summer of 1907, one of the happiest weeks they had ever spent there. Neither of the girls smiled in this particular photo, as their mother forbade smiling in any pictures or portraits. “It’s unbearably common,” she always said. But Eliza’s feet were bare in the grass beneath her formal dress, and May’s blond hair stuck up a bit in back, from rolling around in the field of daisies just behind the barn. Eliza placed the photo on the wall above her own bed, happy she’d been able to bring the best part of home along with her.
Just to the left of the photograph, she noticed a small carving in the wall. “Was this your room last year as well?” Eliza asked Catherine.
“No, why?”
“Someone carved the initials CW into the wall,” Eliza said, tracing the letters with her finger. “I wondered if it was you.”
“There was a girl who went here a few years ago—Caroline Westwick. Perhaps this was her room.” Catherine shrugged, then removed a few other things from her trunk: a long, flat wooden box, which she slipped under her bed, followed by a stack of hardcover books. Eliza peeked over Catherine’s shoulder to get a glimpse at the titles:
Wuthering Heights. Jane Eyre. Mansfield Park. Evelina.
“I love
Mansfield Park,
” Eliza exclaimed. “Don’t you think it’s one of Miss Austen’s best, yet least appreciated, novels?”
“Oh, yes!” Catherine replied, holding the book to her chest. “I’ve read it at least five times, and each time I applaud Fanny Price’s strength even more.”
Eliza felt as if she had woken under a lucky star. Almost half of Catherine’s large trunk was taken up by books. Mrs. White, it seemed, had no objection to her daughter’s enjoyment of novels.
“I’m so glad you’re a reader,” Catherine said as she began to unpack her things. “Theresa hates when I try to talk to her about books.”