The Education of Bet (15 page)

No one had laid a hand on me in anger in my entire life.

I wanted to run, run away—well, if I
could
run, which I could not, given how badly bruised my whole body was. Still, I wanted to get away from the Betterman Academy as quickly as I could, put this, all of it, behind me. I had been silly to think I could impersonate a boy, foolish to believe that my dream of an education could ever be a reality. I would—

And then anger came in.

What was I going to do, become like
Little?
Live in fear of the likes of
Hamish?
Oh, no. I had worked too hard, come too far—they would
not
take this away from me.

"I'm fine," I insisted again as James and Little carried me up the stairs of Proctor Hall to the door of Mrs. Smithers's rooms.

When she asked them what had happened, they told her that a contest had simply gotten a little too zealous.

Despite the pain I was in—did Hamish have to hit me so many times? and so hard?—I could see that she didn't believe them. But what could she do? It would be the same back at the scene we'd just left. The boys would tell the fencing master that it was an accident that I'd been injured so badly, perhaps even blame my lack of skills for what had befallen me, and the fencing master would have no choice but to take them at their word. In fact, he'd no doubt be relieved to have avoided a moral dilemma, for what would he have been compelled to do if brought face to face with the knowledge that one boy had intentionally caused grievous bodily harm to another? We all knew the lay of the land at the Betterman Academy. The very worst crime one could commit was to tell on someone else.

Even I knew that now.

"Leave us," Mrs. Smithers commanded James and Little, looking more annoyed than I'd ever seen her. I wondered if she was frustrated that she'd been lied to about what had happened. Perhaps she held James and Little partly responsible for their complicity in those lies?

Whatever the case, they took their leave after James had put his hand on my shoulder and assured me I would be all right, and Mrs. Smithers closed the door behind them and turned the key in the lock.

"I'm fine," I insisted yet again as she removed my fencing mask.

"Take everything off," she said, ignoring my words.

"What?" I said, unsure if I had understood her. She couldn't mean...

"Your clothes," she said harshly. "How can I possibly treat your injuries, how can I even tell how severe those injuries are, if you keep your clothes on?" She put her hands on her wide hips. "There's no need for modesty. I can assure you, Gardener, that in my time at the Betterman Academy, I've seen many a boy naked."

I remained seated, frozen to the spot.

"Well, Gardener," Mrs. Smithers said when I refused to move, "are you going to take off your clothes or am I going to have to take them off for you?"

At last, as though a mesmerist were controlling my actions, I slowly began undoing my fencing tunic, one excruciating button at a time. Then the protective gear, moving slightly quicker now. By the time I got to the last layer of covering between my body and the world, the material that bound my breasts tight, my fingers were working with rapid speed to remove the mummy casing. It was as though it had finally struck me that the end was near, my exposure imminent, and now I simply wanted to be done with it.

In truth, after the battering I'd received at Hamish's hands, it felt good to be free like that. And hadn't I not so very long ago been contemplating leaving anyway?

I sat in my chair, trousers still on, my mummy material dangling uselessly from my fingers, and waited for doom to fall on me. And yet, curiously, I felt a strange combination of defiance and detached acceptance about it all. If I'd ever given the matter enough thought, surely I would have realized that eventually it would come to this. Or if not exactly this, then some form of it.
Let whatever is to happen, happen,
I thought.

Mrs. Smithers barely glanced at my upper body, perhaps both shocked and embarrassed at the sight of my semi-nakedness, before turning away from me to fill a basin with water. Then she took a cloth, immersed it in the water, and began gently bathing my injuries.

Hamish's efforts had not broken the skin anywhere, I saw now, but there were more bruises than I could count, the coloration of those bruises already changing to a startling array of hues, angry purples and reds and sickening yellows.

As the cloth made contact with my skin, I involuntarily flinched back, from both the coldness of the cloth and the sensation of pressure against my injuries.

"Sorry," Mrs. Smithers apologized curtly. "If I'd known one of you boys was going to get yourself half killed today, I'd have made sure to heat some water in preparedness. As it is..."

"One of you
boys"?
Was Mrs. Smithers insane? Was she blind? Could she not see that, whatever else I might be, I was not "one of you boys"?

"Whoever did this," Mrs. Smithers went on when I did not speak, beginning to apply some sort of ointment to the tender skin covering my ribs, "wanted to do as much damage as possible."

Of course she was right, there had been grave malice in Hamish's behavior, but what was going on here? Why was Mrs. Smithers not acting shocked? Why was she not sounding the alarm, sending for the housemaster, sending for the
head
master? Why was she not...

No, I told myself. Of course she wouldn't do that,
couldn't
do that while I was still half naked. It wouldn't be proper. She would wait until after she'd finished ministering to me, and
then
she would turn me in. It was only a matter of minutes now, I thought, as she began to wrap cloth around my ribs, cloth not dissimilar to that which dangled from my fingers.

"It'll hurt even more in the morning than it does now," she cautioned as she worked, "but if you keep this dressing on it, you should heal nicely in no time." She paused, gave the matter some thought. "No, you won't heal in no time, but you will eventually heal. There."

As Mrs. Smithers had worked, her fingers had moved with deftness, and yet I'd also felt a roughness to her gestures, as though she were angry at something. I'd assumed she was angry with me for my idiocy and my lies. But now, as she reached down and gently pried the dangling fabric from my fingers, I felt a change. Perhaps she pitied me for the mortification that was about to come?

"Here," she said softly. "You'll be wanting this again."

"What?" I said dumbly.

Why was she...? But then I thought,
Of course. She's giving me my things back because she can't very well parade me through the school naked.

I began to wrap the fabric around myself, wincing with the effort; Hamish had assaulted my back as well.

"Perhaps I can help you with that," Mrs. Smithers offered.

Without waiting for an answer, she took the fabric and gently began winding it around my upper body, careful to avoid any contact that might be indelicate. Then she helped me back into the fencing tunic.

"I don't think you need the protective gear anymore," she said as she did up the buttons, "but you'll be wanting to keep yourself covered with this, at least until you get back to your room." She finished the last button. I had the peculiar sensation that I was being dressed like a doll. "There," she said a second time, clearly pleased with herself.

"What is going on here?" I burst out, the first words I'd spoken, other than the dumb "What," since she'd told me to take off my clothes.

"I'm sorry?" She looked puzzled.

"You're sending me back to
my room
now? But I don't understand. Are you going to send for Dr. Hunter and have him go there? Or are you just going to call a carriage to take me away?"

"Why would I do either of those things?" Mrs. Smithers looked more puzzled still.

God!
Did I have to say everything myself? "Because I'm
a girl!
" I half shouted at her in my exasperation.

"Oh." She paused. "That."

"Yes!" For some strange reason, I felt like throttling her. "That!"

"But why would I turn you in now?"

"Because you've just learned—"

"Is that what you think?" And then she laughed, practically in my face, the first real mirth I'd ever seen Mrs. Smithers show. "You actually think—" She struggled to control herself, but it appeared useless. "You actually thought—"

"I fail to see the humor in the current situation," I said, the sternness of my words useless in the face of her gales of laughter.

Oddly, I think it was my use of the word
humor
that sobered her.

"No," she admitted at last, "the current situation is not funny. It is merely funny that you think I am only just today discovering that you are a girl."

I narrowed my eyes at her. "How long have you known?"

"How long?" She looked at me as though I'd said something particularly dense. "Do you think I'm stupid?"

"Do I think you're—"

"I've known since you brought those sheets to me! Impetigo, my foot. What kind of fool story was that to tell me? What was it you said, that when you were younger you had it so bad you used to bleed like a geyser? Believe me, I know a little bit about medical matters, and I know impetigo doesn't work on a body like
that.
"

"So that's what clued you in?"

"Well, that and the quality of the blood on the sheets. I am a woman, after all, Gardener; I do know that a certain kind of blood looks different than others."

I didn't understand. She'd known all this time, and she hadn't turned me in?

"What is your real name anyway?" she asked when I failed to speak.

"It's Elizabeth." I spoke haltingly. "It's Elizabeth Smith. But some call me Bet."

"Bet." She smiled. "Such a pretty nickname." Then she turned brusque again, becoming all business as she handed me the protective fencing items. "You'd best be off now, Gardener."

I had no idea what to make of all this.

"You mean you're really not going to turn me in?" I wondered out loud.

"Turn you in?" she said. "Are you joking with me?" She laughed again. "I happen to think it's the most marvelous thing I've ever heard of!"

***

I made my way back to my room, still stunned, hearing Mrs. Smithers's words echoing in my mind.

"In my time at Betterman," she'd said, "I thought I'd seen everything, but I've never seen anything to top this. A girl masquerading as a boy to get an education? My hat's off to you, Bet, and I'll do whatever I can to help—I think it's great to see one of
us
putting one over on one of
them
for a change. But do be more careful, won't you? Perhaps I should tell your masters that compulsory sports are out of the question for you for the time being? At least that should minimize one of your risks of exposure."

James was seated at his desk. He turned when he heard me enter, his expression miserable.

"Are you all right?" he said anxiously, rising. "You were gone so long, I feared you might be even more injured than you seemed." He took a step toward me, then stopped himself, as though fearful that if he touched me, perhaps laid a hand on my shoulder, he would cause me greater damage. I was grateful that he did not touch me, for if he had, I would surely have broken down in tears: tears for the shock of physical pain; tears for the frustration of having been unable to defend myself against Hamish; tears of relief that I hadn't been exposed, had been granted a reprieve. I could not allow myself to cry in front of him; even though I thought tears were a perfectly reasonable response in these circumstances, it was not what a boy would do. Certainly, it was not what the kind of boy I had decided I would be—
had
to be—would do.

"What did Smithers say?" James asked when I failed to respond immediately.

"She says that I am to be excused from compulsory sports for the time being, which is, I suppose, a good thing, given that I apparently have no talents in that area." I tried a brave, manly laugh, but the effort caused me to wince as it sparked a seizing pain in my ribs. "She says I will live."

"I suppose that is a good thing as well," James said, attempting to put his own brave smile on it. "Here, sit." He pulled out my chair for me. Having seen my wince, he was all solicitousness now.

"I'm sorry I did not do more to help earlier," he said once I was seated.

Without him having to expand on that, I knew what he was talking about. He was talking about his—and everyone else's—failure to intervene when Hamish was pummeling me.

"It is all right," I said, absolving him now. "We all know that would only have made matters worse."

"Yes," he said, but he did not look relieved at this acknowledgment.

"Do not fear," I said. "Eventually, I'm not sure how yet, I will have my revenge on Hamish."

"I have no doubt that you will."

I wondered if he believed that, if he believed in me.

"Can I get you anything?" he asked.

"No," I said. "All I want to do right now is get out of this fencing costume, since I am no longer to be a fencer."