The house was like a woman of a certain age. There were still good bones and good manners and not a hint of embarrassment at being forced, after years of independence, to go to work in the world. The job might be demeaning and badly paid. Never mind; it was honest work and could be done with dignity and even some grace. Unhappiness was a private matter, to be kept strictly inside.

This comparison, I admit, occurred to me later when I knew more about the house. In time, I learned its history and its floor plan well enough to find my way through it in the dark. (A skill I needed on more than one occasion.) My initial view of the place, however, as the cab chugged up the long curving drive, was pure, uncomplicated pleasure. A great sweep of green lawn, well tended and dotted with tall trees, rose up on my left. The cab crossed a small but genuine brook on a small but moss-covered bridge. To the right, I could see a dell full of shadows and checkered September sunlight. Then I looked up at the house.

It was very satisfying. Late seventeenth century, manorial but not overpowering, with bay-windowed wings and formal borders full of mellow color. The house itself gleamed dazzlingly white. The gravel turnaround was neatly raked, the cornice recently painted. Rosebushes bloomed on the sunny western flank of the lawn.

I paid the cabdriver and stood in a small pile of luggage looking around and smiling.

After a while I walked up to the front door and rang the bell. After a long interval, the door was opened by a tall, very solid woman wearing glasses and a brown tweed suit.

"Hello." When this brought no response, I added, "My name is Meredith Blake."

"Blake?" She came back from some deep preoccupation. "Oh, you must be the American! How do you do?" We shook hands cordially. "Sorry, I was up in my study writing. A bit off in another world. I'm Dr. Young, the Warden. Do come in. Welcome to the university and to Edwards Hall!" She glanced at my luggage piled in the drive. "Don't worry about your things. I'll have them brought up."

I stepped into a stone-flagged hall with an empty fireplace on the right and a broad central staircase that ran up to a landing, and then made a quarter turn before climbing on to the second floor.

"You're nearly the first to arrive," said the Warden. "Susan Franklin came in last night. A very pleasant young woman from New Zealand. She's been traveling on the Continent with a friend. I expect you came straight up from London."

"I was there for a week. It was wonderful!"

"London has a great deal to offer, of course. But I think we do, too, in a quieter way."

I looked around. It certainly was quiet. There was a litter of unopened mail on a small table and bulletin boards on the wall. Sunlight streamed in through a clerestory window over the landing. You could almost hear motes drifting down the beams. After a moment, Dr. Young opened a door on the left and led me into a large, graciously proportioned room with a high ceiling and a splendid view of the lawn.

"This is our common room."

"How lovely!" I felt a little sorry about the furniture, though. It was overstuffed and bulgy and covered with chintz. Still, you couldn't expect a redbrick university to provide Chippendale and Oriental carpets. There was a grand piano in an alcove formed by the bay window. Dr. Young led me out again and across the hall to the dining room. Another fine space with long refectory tables and the kitchen and buttery behind it. Opening off the kitchen was a small courtyard, a walled garden, and "the Annex," which must once have been a stable.

"We wear gowns to dinner, by the way. Except on Sundays when there is only a cold high tea."

It took me a moment to realize that she was talking about academic gowns.

"I didn't bring one." I had worn an academic gown only once in my life, at my college graduation four months earlier.

"Quite all right. You can buy an undergraduate gown. There's a shop in the Close that's very reasonable, just off the High Street."

When we reached the second-floor gallery, my regret about the house's furnishings turned to downright indignation. The old, spacious rooms had been ruthlessly cut up and partitioned with plasterboard. The carpets were threadbare. The library shelves were undusted. Dr. Young didn't seem to notice but said cheerfully, "We've put you across from a bath. Do be careful with the hot water, though. There are four baths in Hall, but forty-five women will be using them. Here you are, Miss Blake!"

"It's a single room."

"Yes. There are a few. Most belong to third-year women. Living with friends is all very well when you're a fresher, but by the time you're twenty-one, you want some privacy."

This assumption mollified me a little. Even with chintz and plasterboard, Edwards was far better than a high-rise dormitory filled to bursting with women, none of whom was thought to want or need any privacy.

My new room was a long, high, narrow space with its own washbasin and, in the place of a closet, a tall oak wardrobe.

"Most of the women will be arriving tomorrow. We can give you breakfast in the morning, but I'm afraid nothing is planned until then. Can you manage?"

"Oh, yes."

"You might look up Miss Franklin. Her room is on the floor above."

"That's a good idea."

"There's a bus stop just across the road, and it's a 20-p. ride into town." The Warden looked as if she were longing to get back to her study.

"Thank you. I'm sure I'll find a decent restaurant or a pub."

"Well, I'd better go and see about your luggage."

I washed my face in the basin, dutifully sparing the hot water until I remembered that there wasn't much competition for it yet. Then I splashed contentedly, looking out the window at the view. I could see a rose garden in its late summer splendor and a clay tennis court without a net. Traffic noises could be heard from the road west of the house. Beyond the road, the river Exe wound gently on this side of the small, sweetly molded green hills. What had the woman I met on the train said? "Londoners think we're slow. The country is so rich, you see, they think we're a bit idle. We must have nothing to do but mend the thatch and shear the odd sheep or two." She had smiled, a pleasant-looking woman in a pullover and wool pants.

With an eye trained by summers spent on a Kansas farm, I could see the richness for myself as the train had sped through the countryside. It was in the red Devonshire soil, the tidy fields crossed by dark lines of hedge, the brilliantly whitewashed houses. By the time the train pulled into the Victorian fantasia that serves Exeter as a railway station, I was sure I had made the right choice. Let other people have the Midlands. Let them even have London. I was prepared to love this quiet provincial city flanked by green hills, where the skyline was low and the air was clean and the largest building in town was still the cathedral.

"What a wonderful view!"

I turned, a little startled. There was a girl standing in the doorway of my room, a girl who had to be from New Zealand. She was tanned and slim and blonde and blue-eyed and had an accent I couldn't quite place. (I can detect Australian.)

"Susan Franklin."

"Meredith Blake. We seem to be the only ones here."

"Yes. I rather surprised the Warden by arriving yesterday and requiring a bed." At my welcoming gesture, she came into the room. "I have a dormer window that looks east and there's not as much to see. This is super! Big, too."

It didn't seem big to me until I saw the tiny cells on the top floor that served the third-year women. "Not enough room to swing a cat," as Susan put it.

"I'm here to read French," she said. "What about you?"

"English fiction, eighteenth century."

"Will you take an M.A.?"

"If I can."

She sat down on the bed. "Oh, I'm sure you can. Americans have a reputation for being terrifyingly hard workers. And the only requirements are a year's residency and a thesis." Her blue eyes had a touch of mischief.

"That's good. My scholarship only lasts a year."

"It couldn't be extended?"

I shook my head.

"You could probably finish your thesis back in the States. If your tutor said you were making satisfactory progress."

"I'll have a tutor?"

"Oh, yes. He'll direct your work, and you needn't even go to lectures unless you want."

It all sounded very casual. Susan thought it was the remains of a gentlemanly tradition that assumed you would work or be a wastrel as you chose. In any case, no one would have dreamed of holding your hand or worrying about you. Visiting students, undergraduates in particular, often spent their time going to parties and then hurling themselves frenziedly at the year-end exams. "Quite futile, of course. You can't pass, let alone take a good degree, if you put off working."

"But Americans don't behave like that?"

"Good heavens, no. They're far too disciplined and methodical. Especially the graduate students. You will be an inspiration to Edwards Hall."

I laughed. "Do I have to start tonight?"

"It can wait. There's no one here yet but me. Let's look for some dinner instead."

"Want to go into Exeter?"

"Oh, yes! There's a salad bar--"

"No salad bars," I said firmly. "I want a pub and shepherd's pie."

"Or we could have a plate of vegetables at the Happy Hindu."

"And I want a beer. A dark beer."

Arguing amiably, we went out to the gallery. We were halfway down the stairs before we realized that we weren't alone. There was a man standing in the entry hall. A workman, I assumed. He was dressed in jeans and a pullover and Wellingtons. Probably the gardener or groundskeeper.

As we descended, Susan sang out, "Can we help you?"

He jerked a thumb over his shoulder. "Those your bags?"

"They're mine," I said quickly. "Could you just leave them in front of room number one? Opposite the bath?"

"Aye."

He turned and went out the front door. Susan and I reached it just as he came back loaded down with my bags.

"Sorry," Susan said, edging past him.

"S'all right."

But when I tried the same maneuver, I got a different response. As I squeezed past him in the doorway, he swore under his breath -- one soft but heartfelt "Christ!" I was so startled that I looked him straight in the face. Since he was fairly short, this was easy to do. He was young, no more than twenty-three or -four, and his eyes were as dark as a seal's or an otter's and just as unreadable. They betrayed no emotion but went on staring into mine for what seemed at least half a minute and was probably only a second or two. Then his gaze dropped, and he yanked the bags past me and into the house. I joined Susan in the turnaround. "Get stuck?"

"Almost."

We walked down the long curve of the drive, and my annoyance at the man's rudeness began to fade. Maybe I had been the straw and he the camel on a long hard day. In any case, it was pleasanter to listen to Susan explaining that the front drive, winding down to the road, was much the best way to approach the bus stop because it preserved for a little longer the illusion of being enclosed by the past. The back way, once you shut the gate, quickly dumped you onto an ordinary suburban street lined with dreary row houses.

Copyright © 1992 by Judith Eubank