“We will find a way, Mrs. Turber,” said Agatha. “You and Lady Emily and I, together we will find a way.”
As Beatrice stood grinning in the parlor, Agatha Kent appeared against the bright sunlight of the open back door and let herself in. Beatrice went forward into the small kitchen to greet her.
“Ah, there you are,” said Agatha. “If you’re intent on staying here, I do hope you’ll try not to ruffle Mrs. Turber too much.” She lowered her voice and added, “She’s not the biggest gossip in the town, but she’s probably ranked second or third, so best to keep on her good side.”
“I can boil my own bathwater if necessary,” said Beatrice. “I had no idea I was being difficult.”
“I have arranged to send Mrs. Smith, our chauffeur’s wife, down to give the place a good scrub,” said Agatha, ignoring her. “She loves a challenge. Do you have furniture? I fear our lamented former Latin master, Mr. Puddlecombe, was not overly concerned with his comfort.”
“I have a small desk that was my mother’s and the chair that my father insisted on toting with us wherever we went in the world. I must send for them.”
“Is that all?”
“We mostly rented furnished rooms,” said Beatrice. “My father was always being invited to lecture at universities or to help collaborate somewhere on a new journal.” She felt herself blushing. Somehow it had never before seemed poor to live in rented rooms. She had always merely seen to the unpacking and shelving of her father’s library and stripped the mantels and side tables of excess gimcrack trinkets and doilies. They had lived mostly in Paris, in a succession of rooms near the Sorbonne, but in recent years had also made an extended visit to Heidelberg, spent two years in the romantic decay of a tall merchant’s house in Venice, and finally, had inhabited the rambling wooden house of an absent professor in the precincts of a California university. She had understood that their peripatetic life was sometimes dictated by the moderate limits of her father’s private income and might be partly the interior restlessness of an exile, but she had always felt rich in both her father’s companionship and the fierce life of the mind that they pursued. With his absence, all seemed reduced to meagerness.
“Well, we have a small store of old things in the stable,” said Agatha. “I’ve told Mrs. Turber I’ll be sending some pieces along. You must come and choose whatever you want, and if we are missing something, I’m sure Lady Emily would be glad to look through her attics.”
“Oh, I couldn’t possibly trouble Lady Emily,” said Beatrice. Agatha stiffened at the note of anxiety which Beatrice was not able to conceal. Beatrice made a quick calculation and decided to offer Agatha the truth. “I met Lady Emily’s son on the train.”
“Obnoxious young fool,” said Agatha. “Not half as much a man as my Daniel, or Hugh, but twice the income and prospects. A great trial to his dear mother.”
“So you understand that I’d rather not be indebted,” said Beatrice.
Agatha sighed and took off her hat. “My dear child, I fear we are all indentured servants of society. There is no escape. In your case, Lady Emily’s seal of approval on your employment won over the school governors where I, also an appointed member of that body, could not prevail. I’m afraid your independence, and my efforts in appointed office, both depend on our titled friend and on her little monogrammed invitations.”
“I am grateful to you both,” said Beatrice.
“And we are to you, my dear,” said Agatha. “You will prove us right and raise the educational efforts of Rye with your superior learning. And we will bask in your knowledge, and your presence will be a tiny move towards a society of merit and honor.”
“Goodness me, that’s a lot to expect for thirty shillings a week,” said Beatrice.
“Well, do try your best,” said Agatha. “Let’s show them how much more they can get from a woman—and at less expense to the annual budget. Ah, I hear a cart outside. Must be your things.” She bustled out, leaving Beatrice a moment of privacy in which to consider that while she and her father had discussed the more abstract principles behind the pricing of labor, it was not at all pleasant to discover that, simply as a woman, one was to be paid less than Mr. Puddlecombe of the sticky floors and cheap hair tonic.
Under Agatha’s direction, Beatrice’s trunk was shoved and manhandled through the narrow front door and, after some discussion, was placed in the middle of the parlor, on the greasy rag rug, as it was too large to go up the narrow stairs. Her boxes and crates of books were stacked alongside, and Beatrice had to still a quiver of anxiety that she was to live, for the first time, in a place without a single bookshelf. Her bicycle came in last, and as she held the door for the man to wheel it through to the back garden, they all heard a muffled snort from the rooms next door that indicated Mrs. Turber was not an enthusiastic supporter of the sport of cycling. Agatha saw the men to the door and then paused as if reluctant to leave Beatrice alone in the cottage.
“Thank you,” said Beatrice. “It was very kind of you to come with me, but I shall be perfectly all right now.”
“I am sending Mrs. Smith this afternoon, and I don’t want to hear about it,” said Agatha. “And you will come to dinner this evening. Just the family. Perfectly informal.”
“There’s no need…”
“You won’t say that so readily once you’ve sampled Mrs. Turber’s rather basic fare,” whispered Agatha. “Come early and you can get a look at the boys Hugh has been tutoring. I believe they call on him at four in the afternoon.”
“I look forward to meeting them,” said Beatrice.
Agatha gave one last hesitant look around the dingy parlor. “I am not at all sure about leaving you here. When you come to dinner tonight you will tell me whether, upon reflection, you would not prefer to be found a room with a nice family.”
“Thank you,” said Beatrice. She looked at the two lumpy wing chairs, deal table, and tarnished brass fire screen, which did little to soften the empty room. “I think I’ll be just fine, but I must say this cottage in its current state is almost enough to drive one into marriage after all.”
As the heat slipped from the day, Beatrice found Agatha Kent dallying among the thickly planted flower borders in the front courtyard of her house, snipping hydrangeas and tossing them abstractedly into a trug. She wore a loose tea gown and a straw hat.
“Oh, goodness, is that the time already?” she said, waving as Beatrice walked in at the gates. “I must have missed the dressing bell.”
“I came early to meet the schoolboys I am to tutor,” said Beatrice, enjoying the pleasant cool of Agatha’s garden after her stiff walk up the bluff.
“Oh yes, I had quite forgotten,” said Agatha, picking up the basket and dropping several hydrangeas onto the gravel. Beatrice bent to help her gather them. “It has been a little chaotic this afternoon as first Lady Emily telephoned and made it quite obvious that she wished to be invited to meet you straightaway and then our man of letters, Mr. Tillingham—well, I can’t imagine how he even heard—but he wanted to come too, and I am just hopeless at putting people off so we are extra for dinner and Cook is being wonderful about it but I needed more flowers and another leaf in the table and Smith was nowhere to be found and…”
“You can’t mean Mr. Tillingham the great writer?” asked Beatrice. Surely the American author widely described as one of the age’s leading literary figures could not be coming to dinner with Agatha Kent?