Becoming Jane

Chapter 11

Chapter Eleven

“I knew it!” Kitty exclaimed, barging through Little J’s bedchamber door without knocking. Little J had been on her lonesome for several hours while the dinner party continued downstairs.

Little J jumped with surprise upon her sister’s abrupt entrance. “Knew what?” she asked innocently, pretending to be none the wiser.

“Do not play coy with me,” Kitty scoffed and made her way over to Little J’s bed. “I knew it the minute you commandeered Millie’s birth. I knew you were better read on medicine then just by a simple book. Hearing Doctor Gray talk of James so highly cemented it in place for me. I just knew it!”

“I still have absolutely no idea what you are talking about,” Little J continued. She knew there would be no convincing her sister. Once Kitty got an idea in her head there was no stopping her.

“Is he who you are in love with?” she said, her voice filled with realisation. “You told me about a man right before we found out about Sabine’s engagement. You said that what you were doing is illegal and that a man had something to do with it … Little J, just please tell me the truth. You pulled my daughter from my stomach and kept us both alive, you know more than what you let on. I am you older sister, if you can’t trust me then you can’t trust anyone.” Kitty shuffled forward on the bed so that she was inches apart from Little J. She could see the sincerity in her sister’s eyes. She could see the desperation and the knowing, she could see everything.

Taking a deep breath, she began. “It all started when I was seventeen,” she breathed. “I’d finished all the education that mama and papa could give me, and I was about to be launched upon society. I was not going to be a wife and mother for the rest of my life. I wouldn’t be happy. I would be crying behind closed doors. So I created a plan. I applied to Oxford University as a man and I was accepted. All I needed was an appropriate disguise and I was set.”

Kitty furrowed her eyebrows. “So you have been attending Oxford all this time and we haven’t known anything?” she gasped. “Wherever did you find the money? Papa would notice if you took that away from Ethridge …”

“Papa has been paying for the tuition,” she interrupted. “James found me when I was going through his wardrobe looking for male attire. That is where he pointed out the flaws in my plan. The money to begin with. James has been frolicking about with women for a year, so he was starting university a year later than most men his age. But he didn’t want to go. He … he suggested that I take his place …”

“You took his place?” Kitty cried. The volume at which she exclaimed would surely alert any passer-by’s so Little J hushed her.

“Shh,” she hissed.

“Sorry,” she said quickly, lowering her voice.

“But to answer your question, yes, I took James’ place,” she nodded. “For the past three and a half years I have been attending Oxford as James Alcott and none but you have figured it out.”