the restaurant and scanned the room, his eyes landing on me. I stopped breathing until he removed his hat, revealing himself to be quite old and not at all resembling my mysterious savior.
I said, “Kate, do you ever have frightening dreams?”
“Of course, Mina. Everyone has
“Have you ever confused being awake and being asleep? Or left your bed while you were still sleeping?” I was afraid to broach this subject with anyone as inquisitive and probing as Kate, but I had to know if others had had my experiences.
“No, but I have heard of such things. The condition is called
I felt my stomach sink. “Of what sort? An overdeveloped sense of smell, perhaps?”
“Yes, or taste or hearing. Why do you ask, darling? Are you, of all people, taking part in
I was not ready to confess what had happened to me. I did not want to become the subject of one of Kate’s investigations, professional or otherwise.
“No, not me. One of the girls at school leaves her bed at night and goes outdoors, but claims that she has no idea how she came to be there.” I did not mind concocting this lie, as I knew that the two least likely people in London to ever have another conversation were Kate and Headmistress. “It leaves her feeling quite disturbed.”
“The girl should be interviewed by a psychologist. These doctors are coming closer to understanding the workings of the mind in the dream state.”
“I will pass your advice along to Headmistress,” I said.
“That would really be something,” Kate said. “Headmistress taking my advice.”
“She knows that I am helping you with research,” I said. “Despite that you were her least malleable student, she is always happy to hear news of you.”
“Miss Hadley and her pupils are fortunate to have you, Mina. If you had been my teacher, perhaps I would have turned out differently,” she said wryly.
“Oh, I doubt that,” I said, and we both laughed.
Kate paid for supper out of her purse and escorted us through the dining room, tipping her little cap at the men as if she were just another of them. We walked to a cabstand, where she gave the cabman some money and instructed him to “take this lady to her destination straightaway.” He nodded, not even casting a sideways glance at her being without a corset and without an escort at midnight. I kissed her good-bye, thanked her for her generosity, and got onto the seat, wondering if indeed the world was changing in her direction, and I, from my sheltered post at Miss Hadley’s School, was unaware of the magnitude of the shift.
Chapter Two
The room had none of the new eclecticism of Kate Reed’s flat, but had been decorated some fifty years ago by the elder Mrs. Hadley, from whom Headmistress had inherited the house. The furnishings were heavy and ornate, as was the style in the earlier part of our century. In keeping with its formal atmosphere, Headmistress used the parlor to receive prospective parents and their daughters, or her most special guests, serving them tea in bone china and using the linens from her grandmother’s wedding chest, for which she personally supervised the starching, pressing, and folding. An antique Belgian point de gaze tablecloth of roses with raised petals covered the tea table, revealing only its lower legs, which looked as if they belonged on a colossal mahogany giant.
During their meeting, I had poked my head in the door to ask Headmistress a question, and Jonathan caught my eye. He looked quite boldly at me, making me blush. Before Headmistress could open her mouth, he had leapt to his feet requesting an introduction. One was dutifully provided, and I gave him a little nod, all the while assessing how tall and handsome he was, how white his collar, how starched his shirt, and how well-tailored his coat of subtle velour stripes. He had long hands so nicely shaped and so very clean that the white arc at the bottoms of his fingernails seemed to glow. I could not judge the color of his eyes. Hazel, perhaps, with a touch of amber. It appeared that he had had, that very morning, a haircut and a shave at his barber’s. A hat, fashionable, but not ridiculous or unmanly, sat on the table. It looked new.
He inquired as to what subjects I taught, and was told that I instructed the girls in etiquette, decorum, and reading. He fumbled for words, making a feeble joke about being deficient in the first two areas, but considered himself rather well read for a solicitor. Headmistress dismissed me, but not before I looked him straight in the eye and smiled.
The next day Headmistress informed me that Mr. Harker had offered to lecture my reading class on the importance of developing strong literary tastes. He arrived a week later with notes in hand. He told the girls that as a student, he had read Goethe in translation and was so moved by the work that he decided to learn enough of the German language to enjoy the original. He had hoped that at least one girl present would develop that sort of serious literary sensibility. For those with more romantic tastes, he read a poem by Mr. Shelley, furtively glancing at me as he read, and blatantly staring at me as he explained its meaning. He looked very tired, as if he had been up the night before composing his lecture. At tea afterward, he confessed that that was exactly what he had done, and asked Headmistress’s permission to call upon us again. She said, “If you mean to call upon Wilhelmina, then the answer is yes.”
He stammered out a short sentence: “Yes, that is precisely what I meant.” He then left in such a hurry that he had to return to collect his hat.
That was the beginning of our courtship: a year of fruitful visits, Sunday strolls and picnics, and lengthy conversations about similar interests over tea, culminating in a proposal of marriage put to Headmistress just weeks ago, who accepted on my behalf with delight.
“It is the perfect culmination of every lesson I have taught you, Wilhelmina. You will be sorely missed here, but your success will be an inspiration to our pupils and a superb advertisement for the school. I am as happy as a mother that I had a hand in your good fortune, and even happier that you did not need to marry beneath you.”
We both knew that it had been a danger; girls with my ambiguous family background were usually left with the choice of marrying a man of even less status or spinsterhood. In fact, Mr. Hawkins, who had reared Jonathan after his parents died in an epidemic, did voice some consternation about me. I’m certain that he thought I was a fortune hunter. With Jonathan’s good looks, education, and bright future, he had his pick of many girls from prominent families. But Jonathan explained to his uncle that we two orphans had found immediate kinship, in addition to romantic attraction. We understood the loneliness that only parentless children experience, and we both longed to create a family that would give us the sort of domestic life we had yearned for as children. After a long tea with Headmistress, and after interrogating me, Mr. Hawkins gave us his blessing. “Pardon my caution in this matter, Miss Murray,” he said to me. “Jonathan is my liege, my kin, and my heir. I am thoroughly satisfied as to your character, and I am sure that you will be a lovely wife and a solid partner to him.”
These days, when sitting with Jonathan, sipping tea and having a simple discussion, I was overtaken with gratitude for my good fortune. Unlike Kate, I was not “in the middle of things,” where I might meet a compatible mate, nor did I have the family connections that would bring me a man of distinction. My dearest friend, Lucy, was a year younger than I and had already turned down a dozen offers of marriage from men she always tried to send my way. But after rejection by Lucy, those men simply pursued other heiresses of lesser beauty and wealth until they found one who accepted their offer.
Jonathan was above all that. He was good and kind and honorable, and he had an open mind and a broad way
