The Wives of Bath Read Online Free PDF

shy, too.” The headmistress waved at the teenage boy planting mums with the tall gardener. “Mary Beatrice,” she said, “I want you to meet Lewis. I’ve put you in a room with his sister, Paulie.”
    The boy strolled over, clenching and unclenching his fists. His hands were large for his size and muscular and he walked like the boys in Madoc’s Landing, who always shuffle their feet, as if the impulse to move starts with their big toes. Girls, where I come from, walk with a swaying pelvis and put their toes down last. “How do you do?” he said, and bowed. I couldn’t take my eyes off the back of his neck, where his hair below the cap was shaved as short and sparse as the hair in front of a kitten’s ears. I wished I could shave my hair like that.
    “Having a good look, are yuh?” he hissed under his breath. He sounded spiteful, as if he wanted to hurt me. One of his front teeth was missing.
    He’s uneducated, I thought. And he thinks I’m looking down on him. I turned my head away shyly and pretended I didn’t hear what he said.
    Then he pointed to the Olds, where my steamer trunk sat in the back seat. “Can I carry in the new girl’s suitcase?” he asked. In my heart of hearts, I admit I felt pleased.
    “Thank you, Lewis. This is a job for Sergeant,” Miss Vaughan said.
    “That half-pint!” Lewis made a grab for the dwarf’s hat, and the corgi rushed at the boy and tried to bite his pantleg, but the headmistress grabbed the dog’s collar and pulled it back.
    “Lewis—that’s enough! Now get a move on—both of you!” the headmistress snapped, and then she smiled hugely again, as if she’d come to her senses and remembered we were still listening, “When Sergeant has shown Mary Beatrice to her room, he’ll bring her to the tea party so she can join the other girls.”
    Now the headmistress pointed toward another stretch of apple-green, and for the first time I dared to look at the group of girls and their parents I’d heard chatting to one another in high, excited voices under a dripping canopy. Not one girl had on a green tunic; they all wore long navy tea dresses. I looked down anxiously at my shiny black oxfords. What an overeager idiot they’d think I was, coming to school already in uniform.
    Morley looked at his watch. “I’m afraid we must get on our way,” he sighed. “I’ve got surgery back in Madoc’s Landing.” He leaned over and patted me hard on the cheek with the back of his hand—Morley’s way of kissing good-bye.
    “Good-bye, Daddy,” I whispered with my best fake smile.
    I didn’t really need crutches. I used to pretend I did to make Morley take pity on me. Then Sal got it in her head that I should never go anywhere without them, and I was too proud to admit I’d been faking. Of course, sometimes my lower back did get tired. And my left side gave out a bit. I liked to go to bed when that happened, but Sal wouldn’t let me. “Pretend you’re a victim of askiing accident, or a hero who’s been wounded in the Second World War,” she told me.
    That first morning at Bath Ladies College, the dwarf named Sergeant and I stood together in a huge stone reception foyer. The dwarf pointed out the niches in the wall where suits of armour had once stood. Another large reception area, to my left, had been cordoned off, as if to protect its shelves of library books, a slew of high-backed garden benches, and a dilapidated billiard table the size of a swimming pool—leftovers from Sir Jonathon. Meanwhile, all around us girls in navy dresses rushed at one another, shrieking and embracing. I clenched my teeth and pretended I didn’t hear when the dwarf told me to look at the parquet floor. Its herringbone pattern changed from shades of light to dark, depending on where you stood. As if I cared about its stupid design. It was bad enough to be wearing the wrong thing and carrying crutches, but to be paired up with a pint-sized man made me feel mortified.
    I followed him