Better Than Byron

New Acquaintances

III

If I could always read, I should never feel the want of company.

-Lord Byron

The following morning, Margaret proposed a picnic in the gardens of the establishment, as it was a fine day. "You may sit with your meals wherever you please," she called out to the girls as they began exchanging expressions of excitement to one another in energetic whispers. "Provided that you remain on the school's grounds. Now," she said sotto voce. "Where is that man?"

As the teachers and pupils left to enjoy their meals out in the sunshine, Margaret crept up to Edgar's chamber. When she reached his door she knocked on it, expecting no answer. Duly receiving none, she unlocked the door and made her way in. Some would find this an impertinent liberty on her part, but Margaret thought too directly to care for flimsy guidelines assigned to a nervous set of people. She did not think of it as taking a liberty—she knew someone had to take care of this emotionally extravagant man, and that it would have to be her. She found him sleeping in the position she had left him in the night before.

"Mr. Thurlow, are you awake?" she asked, perching herself on the edge of his bed and gently putting her hand over his, which lay on his chest. As she waited for his answer she noticed a couple of stuffed crows sitting on his windowsill. She raised her eyebrows as a grunt mingled with a grumbled word or two came out of him, and he was presently blinking his eyes open and staring incredulously up at the headmistress of the Thurlow Academy for Young Ladies. "You are up at last! I shall ring the bell," she smiled, rising from the bed and pulling on the bell by the door. "Jenny shall take good care of you, and mind you do not try her patience – she is an invaluable servant and I should not like her to be offended by your... well."

"An employee advising me on how to behave?" he said under his breath, looking suspiciously at her as she drew the curtains aside, letting the sunshine pour into his room like hot honey. "Good God, woman, do you intend to blind me?"

"You must allow Jenny—who I see is just come," (indeed the girl was standing quietly at her elbow, gazing perplexedly at the man in the disarranged bed)—"to nurse your severe headache, as severe headaches may often be expected to follow excessive alcohol consumption. Which I understand you have subjected yourself to... Jenny," turning to the girl, "bring up a hearty breakfast for Mr. Thurlow – and do not permit him to any coffee. Tea will have to do."

"Miss Vickers," he said in a gasping tone of incredulity. "You are quite the tyrant in your own way. Since when do you make choices for me?"

"Mr. Thurlow, do not proclaim me tyrannical. I am neither cruel, unreasonable, nor arbitrary."

"But you are cheeky – you'll allow that," he scoffed, sitting up and leaning with his back against the bed frame. "I thought you cool and vacant, but now I see that you are as sly and venomous as a viper in the guise of a lamb."

"Did I sting you, sir?"

"No! But you did criticise. Madam I will tell you this: I shan't suffer anyone's criticisms but mine own."

"Yes, I thought you were self-critical when I first saw and spoke to you – a certain negative energy oozed from your eyes... Ah, here is Jenny. Come here my girl; put the bed-table down upon his lap. Mr. Thurlow, I am joining my pupils and teachers outside in the garden. I hope you shall shortly grace us with your presence?"

"Do I have a choice, madam?" he demanded crossly.

"No. I will be seeing you in a half hour, sir."