The Jane Austen Society(6)

“He’s doing a lot of reading,” Evie spoke up. “Miss Lewis gave him a list of books to cheer him, and he’s working through it from the library, one by one.”

Dr. Gray cocked one eyebrow at Miss Lewis as if stumbling upon evidence helpful to his cause. “I’d like to see such a list sometime, if I may.”

“Hardly,” replied Adeline with a slight frostiness to her tone. “I am judged enough around here for my choices.”

Evie continued to watch the two adults, having sensed a strange shift in mood between them, as if they had forgotten she was sitting there. Dr. Gray was usually so gentlemanly with the ladies—along with his salt-and-pepper hair, intense brown eyes, and broad shoulders, it was his manner as well as his vocation that kept him an object of interest and, young Evie suspected, lust among the village women. But with Adeline he always seemed, as now, both flustered and on the defensive. At the same time, Adeline was showing none of those same ladies’ usual deference towards him, which Evie suspected was irritating Dr. Gray even more.

“Well, let’s ask Miss Evie, then, shall we?” Adeline was saying, and Evie popped out of her reverie to see both adults turn towards her.

But she had no interest in getting in the middle of any of it, being fully on Miss Lewis’s side when it came to her teaching methods. Instead Evie grabbed her book bag from a nearby desk and, with a quick nod and a goodbye, scurried off along the old oak floorboards of the classroom.

“Ah, to be fourteen again and without composure,” said Dr. Gray with a laugh when Evie was far enough away.

“Oh, Evie Stone is composed enough alright. She just doesn’t feel like tangling with the likes of you.”

Adeline came around to the front of her desk and leaned back against it, arms crossed, the piece of chalk still clasped in her fingers. She was wearing a straight brown skirt to her knees, with a cream-coloured blouse open a few buttons from her neck that accentuated her tawny complexion, and the same stacked-heel, laced-up brown Oxfords that Dr. Gray noticed on all the young working women of late.

“Look, we’re doing critical and thematic analysis of the text, Dr. Gray—what, so if they’re all off seeking treasure or fending away pirates, that’s more relevant? Understanding social mores through the lens of literature is just as important for young men as it is for young ladies. Or don’t you think it important at all?”

Dr. Gray took off his hat, and she watched silently, head tilted to one side, as he tousled his hair and then sat down in one of the extra-small desk seats in front of her.

“What?” he asked as she stared at him.

“You look so small, sitting there. You always look so tall.”

“I’m not that much taller than you, I believe.”

“No … but it feels like you are.”

“Can’t you add some Trollope at least, some good old Doctor Thorne or the like?”

“You and your Trollope.” She now crossed her legs at their ankles as if she had all the time in the world to debate him, while still watching him curiously. “Listen, we know you love Austen as much as I do. I do talk about the Napoleonic Wars and abolition and all that.”

“I’m sure you do.” He grinned. “I am sure you cover it all. You are nothing if not thorough in your lesson planning. But the other board members—”

“And you…”

“No, I agree only to an extent—but mostly because I don’t want you to lose your job. When we hired you for this opening, I was pleased that you could stay close to home and help out with your mother. Pleased that one of Chawton’s own, so to speak, was going to have a part in moulding our youngest minds.”

“Dr. Gray, why so formal? Just tell me what you want me to do. You know I’ll always do it. Eventually,” she added with a playful smile.

He was looking at her as she spoke, trying to do something with the dawning consciousness that she was mocking him in some way. Or, at the very least, daring him. He often felt that way around Adeline—it was most unnerving.

“Hey, Addy!” a young man’s voice boomed down the classroom corridor.

Dr. Gray turned in his seat to see Samuel Grover, another of the village youth, striding happily towards them in full uniform.

“Hey, Dr. Gray, how are you?” The young man joined Adeline at the desk, put his arm about her waist, and gave her a lingering kiss on the cheek.

As the village doctor, Dr. Benjamin Gray had cared for both Samuel and Adeline for many years now, watching them grow up together, both brown haired and brown eyed and quick to laugh, little mirrors of each other. They had done their parents proud since then, Samuel training in his father’s footsteps to be a solicitor, Adeline receiving her teaching diploma. But Dr. Gray had had no idea that they were now officially a couple.

He stood up rather abruptly, grabbing his hat. “Well, I should be going. Miss Lewis, Samuel—I mean, Officer Grover.”

Dr. Gray headed back towards the main school door and Adeline ran after him.

“I’m sorry, wait, I’m sure we weren’t finished,” she called out, catching hold of the back of his coat sleeve to slow him down.

He looked down at her hand on his sleeve and noticed for the first time her engagement ring, a small solitaire garnet stone.

“I didn’t know,” he said quickly. “I should have congratulated you both. Please give my best to Samuel.”