She’s writing nonsense, her mother said, her voice heavy and brows furrowed. Her father knew it was not nonsense, but a collection of words she had found while reading advanced tomes in the library. He had asked Fern about the words and why she had written them. She said she liked the way the words felt on her tongue.
But the connection between father and daughter did not exist beyond the walls of the library. It was as though having the world of numbers and words to connect them, they could discard social pretensions. The library was a conduit between them, a buffer allowing them to interact at the level Fern could manage. Not completely vulnerable, but somehow more comfortable for the distance.
“You know that isn’t true.” Rose took the pins from Mrs. Hastings and nodded at the seamstress, wordlessly encouraging her to continue the fitting, although the woman was so tense she seemed like she was prepared to dodge an attack at any moment.
Mrs. Hastings wasn’t entirely unjustified. Fern was a fiery child, obstinate, and intransigent. She never seemed to build up to her tantrums the way her sisters did, she simply went from deadly calm to explosive in the blink of an eye. No one saw her signs, felt her begin to tremble, saw her fingers tap increasingly quickly. They only saw her combust.
“You will have a lovely new dress,” Rose continued, her voice low and reassuring, almost chantlike. “And you will celebrate Papa’s birthday, and I will be by your side all night.” Rose smiled, her brilliant emerald eyes glimmering with affection.
The rest of the fitting passed uneventfully. Fern and Mrs. Hastings survived the encounter with minimal damage, Violet glowed in her new amethyst silk concoction, and the quartet of women burst back onto the street an hour later in modest spirits.
Violet and her mother strolled ahead, heads close as they discussed the tasks they would need to accomplish before tomorrow’s event. Rose linked her arm with Fern’s and stroked her hand.
“She doesn’t love me like she does you and Violet.” Fern made the declaration flatly, as though stating a fact about the weather. “I don’t blame her.”
This was not the first time Fern had made this pronouncement, and Rose stood prepared with an answer. “That is untrue, and you know it. You’re too hard on yourself.”
“I’m too difficult,” Fern replied. “Don’t pretend I’m not. I’m not stupid.”
Rose laughed. Her laughter was like bubbles in a glass, delicate and beautiful as they alighted to the surface and burst into the air. “You are anything but stupid.” They passed two storefronts before she spoke again. “You must believe you are worthy of love before you can expect it from someone else.”
Rose squeezed Fern’s arm. The girls stopped in front of a brightly painted shop, its windows overflowing with feathers and ribbons—hats were next on the agenda. “Shall we?” she asked with a beaming smile.
Fern released her breath in a rush before setting her face in resignation. “I do not believe I have a choice.”
Chapter 2
“Thispartyisacelebration of your father, and all he has done for Oxfordshire as a viscount,” Lady Redborne intoned for what must have been the hundredth time that day, not even counting the number of reminders the girls received in the preceding weeks. She sipped her tea and looked at her daughters from the head of the breakfast table like a queen considering her subjects. “Tonight will be a chance to remind our guests of how important he has become.”
Fern stared out the window and tried to lose herself in the familiar sights of her mother’s beloved garden, the twists and turns of rose bushes, hydrangeas, and creeping ivy.
“Do you have a gift for your father, Fern?”
She jumped at her mother’s words, then nodded, lifting her chin with a smile. “I do, he’ll love it.”
Her heart warmed as she remembered the bundle under her bed. She had found a mid-19th-century history of Oxford University in one of the many town bookshops and wrapped it meticulously in some of her sketches of the campus.
When she was fourteen, Fern traveled with her father from their estate to Oxford so he could meet with their property manager. Lord Redborne had promised his daughter a trip to a bookstore in exchange for what he hoped to be a bit of time introducing her to other people and perhaps coaxing a smile from the reticent child. Lord Redborne had called in some favors and, as it was beneficial to be a viscount in Oxfordshire, walked an astounded Fern into the Bodleian Libraries. The arched wooden roofs resembling an overturned ship soared over ancient study carrels. Stacks of books reached towards the rafters, lending the air a scent of worn leather, dust, and paper. She was enchanted. It took all of Lord Redborne’s effort to pry her from the building before the doors locked for the night. As they left, Fern gripped her father’s hand, a rare physical connection.
“I want to study here, Papa.”
Lord Redborne gave his daughter a placating smile before taking her for a flavored ice.
Her dream was an impossibility. Women were not welcome among the intellectual elite, and the university relegated the few female students who had enrolled in the past ten years to studying above bakeries or during off hours, and only in subjects such as classics and art. Mathematics and sciences, the subjects that best captured Fern’s attention, remained the domain of men alone.
Fern had already read her father’s book, committing a detailed map of the Bodleian to memory. It was rare for women who were not students to be allowed inside, so this text was as close as she might get to setting foot on the premises, to be enveloped in a universe of words and knowledge and genius.
Fern felt about Oxford the way fish must feel about water. It was simply wrong for her not to be immersed in it. But “proper ladies” (as her mother was wont to remind her) did not bury their heads in books or indulge in their bluestocking fantasies. Attending poetry lectures or art exhibitions was a fine pastime, but to earn a degree? How utterly plebeian.
“I need to run into town again this morning,” Rose said. “I was so excited about my new reticule that I completely forgot to buy a ribbon for my hat.”
“But Rose, I need you to help me with the flowers,” her mother lamented. “No one has an eye for arranging like you.”
“I’ll go back,” Fern spat out, surprising the others and herself. “You showed me the ribbon you wanted to buy yesterday, so I don’t mind picking it up. And perhaps I can visit the bookstore for a few minutes while I am there?” she added, her voice raising in question. Thinking of her father’s book made her itch for something new to read, a distraction from the party preparations.
Lady Redborne’s nose twitched as though she were smelling something pungent. “You can never stay in a bookstore for a few minutes. I always have to get you and you cause such a scene.”
Fern suppressed the desire to snarl. It had been one time,one time! And it was patently unfair to pull her away from reading Dante’sInfernowhen she had finally gotten to the damnation part. When her mother had arrived to remove her from the premises, Fern flatly refused, and not politely, judging from the shocked expressions on the bookseller’s and other patrons’ faces.
