“Heisquitelovely,you know,” Rose said, her voice dreamy.
Alex had just left Boar’s Hill in a hired carriage, having called on Rose for the second time in as many days. Before leaving, Alex had slipped her a paper with specific instructions of where they should meet, confirming they would begin their work that evening. Fern pulled at the bodice of her muslin day dress and bit the inside of her cheek, glancing at the clock on the mantle and wondering if she would have the patience to wait until after supper to listen to her sister’s rambling.
Rose was still speaking, her words piercing the veil of Fern’s thoughts. “He’s not a well-bred gentleman like Mama and Papa wanted, but…” She looked up, her emerald eyes soft. “He is so kind and intelligent, and genuine, unlike the other men I’ve met.”
Fern’s teacup rattled in its saucer as she put it down, relief mixing with an odd sense of dread in her mind. “Then you owe it to yourself to give him a chance.”
Her chest tightened as she tried to block out the confusing emotions rattling through her when she thought of Alex. Fern treated feelings the way she did when memorizing the various classifications of animals in the wild, each demonstrating specific characteristics which could be studied and labeled. She learned the symptoms and manifestations of certain emotions, the body language accompanying human reactions in herself and others. She knew anger, happiness, fear… But jealousy was something she had not felt so intensely before. Seeing Alex fawn over Rose made a knot develop in her throat, tears pricking at her eyes and heaviness deep in her gut. But classifying her emotions allowed her to compartmentalize them. She bundled this information and put it aside.
“But I can’t imagine marrying a man like him… He’s a tradesman’s son.”
Fern stiffened. “Does that bother you?”
Rose shook her head. “No, of course not. I only wonder if he would be comfortable here, with our family.”
Fern almost mentioned the masquerade, how Alex had acted as the consummate gentleman, as though he belonged. Up until he kissed her, of course. The thought made her cheeks flare.
“He’s a good man, who works hard and would take care of you,” Fern said, then lowered her voice as she thought about their older sisters’ unhappy marriages. “I don’t know him well, but he doesn’t seem the type to carry on with other women or gamble or drink.”
Rose nodded solemnly. “He wouldn’t. And I wouldn’t be opposed to a quiet life, growing old with a scholar and not a man of leisure.”
For the first time in her life, Fern had a vision of her future not focused on mathematics. She saw herself sitting with Alex in a library, discussing the novels they had read, sitting together in front of a fire and reminiscing about the years they spent together.
Glancing up at her sister, she saw stars dancing in Rose’s eyes.Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad if Alex married Rose, she thought.They would be happy together.
Even if I am not.
When Alex finally dropped his books at her side, Fern checked the clock on the wall. Two past nine. The sky beyond the high half-windows of the basement was already pitch black and the library deserted. “You’re late,” she said as he sat down. Perhaps her jealousy was not as well-compartmentalized as she had thought.
He stared at her, his nose twitching with disdain. “I’ll do better next time,” he said with heavy sarcasm. Fern, however, perked up instantly when he began pulling books and notebooks from his satchel. She grabbed one of the largest texts, Bernard Riemann’s treatise on number theory. Eagerly she began paging through it, jotting notes in her leather notebook as she went. After a time she became aware of Alex watching her, reading what she wrote. Or at least attempting to.
“What have you written?” he asked, head tilted.
She understood his confusion. Fern’s mind moved much faster than her hands, so she developed her own shorthand, quick symbols conveying the meaning of entire words and ideas in a few strokes. Completely incomprehensible to anyone but Fern, she had to admit it made her appear somewhat of a madwoman.
“It’s just my way of writing. It lets me work more quickly.”
Alex looked at her as though she was an animal in the zoo, and her shoulders folded inward. She hated the feeling of having done something wrong, something abnormal. “I’m sorry,” she said, the words flying from her lips. “I’ll stop.”
“No, don’t stop.” Alex hesitated. “It’s quite original, actually. I’ve never seen anything like it.” She smiled at the implied compliment and Alex cleared his throat. “Right. Well. You need to know the type of work you will do on the exam. You won’t see much number theory until later in your studies, but we must spend some time with geometry and sets.”
Over the next two hours, Alex laid out a series of problems for Fern to solve. Fern tackled the first few easily, but as he increased the challenge, she began to falter. She had no real theory or strategies to fall back on when her initial intuition failed, but Alex seemed to know when to push her, the right moment to make a suggestion or point out a method she had not considered. She felt a rush every time she found the solution, basking in the pride in his expression.
“You’re a quick learner,” Alex said, “but you’re going to need to write out your thought process. You can’t keep skipping right to the answer.”
“I see it,” Fern insisted, the adrenaline of learning waning. “I don’t need to write it down.”
“But you do,” Alex retorted. “The examiners won’t care if youseeit, they want to understand how you reached your conclusion.”
Fern snorted in annoyance. “If they’re so smart why can’t they see it too?”
Alex laughed, shaking his head.Blast, she thought.Something wrong again.
“You’re right,” Alex said, and she immediately calmed. “But unfortunately examinations don’t work that way.” He sat back and studied her, brow furrowed. “Mathematics does suit you. But you have an uphill battle. The examiners will not like the idea of a woman sitting for the exam, no matter how brilliant she is.”
Did he just call me brilliant?A thrill ran through Fern’s veins.
“You will need to give them something they have never seen before, something to astound them so much it would be a crime to keep you from studying here.”
