She looked at me with the sort of kindness I always tried to show Lucy, “You’re welcome, Silvia. Oliver, take care of your missus and have a quiet supper. Make sure she eats. She’s looking peaky.”
“I will, Ma’am. Thank you for everything.”
She winked at us and then turned quickly on her heel and sped away.
After Alexander’s outburst, people were at least less quick to be rude to Oliver and me. Whether it was out of guilt or because they were terrified of Alexander pointing a finger at them I can only speculate, but they treated both of us with much more respect. I even got an apology out of Meredith in the library a few days later.
“I didn’t mean to start any rumours,” Her blue eyes were wide with sincerity, “At your wedding, you remember, Oliver and Alexander made those comments about you showing if you had to wait and about their parents praying for you. Personally, I didn’t know if they were joking or not. I just didn’t see any other reason why you two would do something so rash. I only said about a baby to one person, I swear. The really mean stuff wasn’t me. I’d have never said any of that. I told people that it was a nice little wedding and that you both seemed very excited and happy. It was just so extreme, the way you two just went and did it! You’ve always been kind to me, Silvia. Oliver has been, too, even though I know he really can't tolerate me at all. I never meant to hurt anyone’s feelings.”
“Well thank you for that,” I said honestly. Meredith was a spoiled, whiney girl from North of London who most people couldn’t stand, but the truth was that I liked her. She had a good heart beneath it all. “I’m sorry Alexander is being so cruel to you.”
“That’s not your fault,” She pressed her pretty lips together. Alexander had been dating Meredith for a year, far surpassing any of his previous flames, but he’d turned on her when they came back to school. After humiliating her in the dining hall, he refused to speak to her. She’d gone out of her way to try to make things right between them. She’d cried, she begged to know what she’d done, she’d even pulled on his arm to force him to talk it out, but he’d simply walked away. I knew that the truth was that he was just bored of her and was using the situation as an excuse to get rid of her, but I didn’t have the heart to tell her that. She was hurting enough, “I do hate him.”
I didn’t blame her for that one little bit, nor did I blame Jennifer Eisenberg when she spat on Alex in the common room as we were entering to make the curfew bell.
“Disgusting! Honestly!” Oliver rubbed it off his cheek, “Could you have sprayed any further? I think you might have missed someone! My brother is right, you are completely mental!”
“I’ve had your saliva on me before,” Alex retorted, wiping spit from his neck with his sleeve, “Always willing to share, aren’t you, Jen?”
“You’re a pig!”
“Oink-Oink,” He sneered, “And you’re an asymmetrical cocksucker.”
The common room filled with, “Oooooohs” and assorted laughter.
Jennifer whipped her head around, turned bright red, and began to cry. “I hate you, Alexander Dickinson!” She screamed as she tore her way through the crowd and out of the room toward the dormitory. “I wish you’d just die!”
“Join the crowd, take a number, get in queue,” Alex mumbled. He looked about the room, “Anybody else got anything to say to me?” He called. He waited a moment. There seemed to be no takers. “No? Brilliant! Fuck off then, all of you! Leave me alone!”
Alexander could be the foulest, nastiest person in the world. I was awfully glad he’d never seen me without my clothes on. If I ever made him angry who knows what he might have said.
Life at Bennington was easier to bear from then on, at least for me. Still, it was perfectly awful only being able to meet with my husband after classes and at meals. Sleeping without him beside me at night was hell. I would go to bed pretending that my pillow was his chest and wake up thinking we were at the cabin. I was so happy for just a second and I’d reach for him only to find the cold side of a bed. Then I would cry, wishing desperately that we were back where it was just us and the faeries who stole socks in the night.
“It’s going to be all right,” Sandy would whisper, “Oliver promised so you know it will.”
Friday came and went, marking a week we’d been kept away from each other, although Professor McClellan did allow us to stay in the common room so late on my birthday that we fell asleep spooning on the sofa. “Let no man set aside what God has put asunder,” She quoted to us as she gently shooed us back to our dormitories just after dawn, “Go get ready for breakfast before anybody finds out where you spent the night. Hurry! Here are your passes! Go!”
The following Friday evening our Headmistress again summoned Oliver and me to her office.
“We’ve had a board meeting,” She said without a smile, “To discuss your situation. It would seem that there is no rule as to whether or not our students who are of age or have parental consent may marry; therefore the board can say nothing of your marital status. They are afraid more than anything that you will set a precedent that others will follow. I told them,” She took off her spectacles and looked at us very seriously, “That not all of our students have that inclination and I did not think that you two could influence anyone to follow in your stead. Students, as we know,” She put her glasses back on, “Have found other ways to demonstrate their strong desires for each other without the constraints of marriage.”
Oliver grinned. I was sure he was thinking of Alexander and his proclamation that he’d banged half the bitches at Bennington.
“Now, as I had previously expressed to Miss Cot—I mean, Missus Dickinson, or, Silvia, if I may…I can’t quite get over the Missus, if you don’t mind,” She cleared her throat, “As I had previously expressed to Silvia, there are strict rules about students visiting the dormitories of the opposite sex. These we cannot bend, nor can we find a way to make any exceptions in your case.”
I felt tears rush to my eyes. “I knew it!” I gasped.
“We’ll get through it, Sil,” Oliver whispered, “Together. I promise.”
“Together would be right, Mister Dickinson,” Headmistress Pennyweather leaned forward, “At the suggestion of both your parents, I, along with Sandra Ashby’s father, Roland, who sits on the board, and with the support of several professors who attended the meeting, have persuaded the board to allow the two of you to finish your term here at the school residing in the smaller of the gamekeeper’s quarters which until this morning housed many shovels and rakes. Those have been moved and the quarters are being cleaned as we speak to make them suitable for the two of you. They should be ready by the end of the weekend.”
I think I squealed. Oliver and I embraced and kissed quickly in our excitement. “I told you, Sil!” He held me tight, “I told you it’d be all right!”
I turned my head and saw that the headmistress was smiling.
“Thank you!” I ran around the desk and threw my arms around her neck. I am sure I was choking her by the way she rubbed her throat when I let her go. “Thank you so much!”
“I told you, I am no ogre,” She stood up, “But now I’ll tell you something I didn’t before,” She looked at us both with a sort of twinkle in her green eyes, “I met my husband here when we were students. It was our final year when he asked me to marry him, right under that tree where the two of you like to sit. We asked our parents to consent, but they refused. We had to wait then, of course, until autumn for me to turn eighteen to marry, but I understand how hard it can be to be asked to do so. I suppose now you can appreciate why I am on your side.”
“I can see why he married you!” Oliver exclaimed, pulling me back into his arms as I rounded the desk. He flashed that unbelievable smile at her, the one that made women wiggle inside like jelly. “You’re bloody beautiful, you are!”