smiled through her exasperation.
“I’m very glad they convinced you to come to England, otherwise we never would have met, and that would have been unfortunate indeed.”
She fell silent a moment, but Sarah could feel her eyes on her.
“Sometimes it takes a regrettable event to shake us out of our complacency, and good things often follow.”
When they said good-bye, Lady Clara hugged Sarah to her and held her there momentarily. “I think it was George Sand who said, ‘There is only one happiness in this life, to love and be loved.’ Don’t despair, my dear, it will happen.”
Pleading a headache, Sarah sought the privacy of her room after dinner.
Packing the last few items of clothing, she wondered why her encounter with Alex troubled her so. After all, they’d only just met. He didn’t owe her anything. Not even the truth. He was just another guy trying to impress a woman he’d met in a bar.
Just another guy. Right. He was an Earl for God’s sake. An Earl slumming it in a pub. One that was obviously a favorite haunt of his.
Forget him, she scolded herself. She was certain he’d forgotten her the minute she’d walked away. Moved on to his next target. What did it matter anyway? She was never going to see him again.
I am sad today. This, my last day of classes, has come all too soon. I wish I’d signed on for two weeks of classes. Next year. This has truly been an experience of a lifetime. I must remember to thank Becca and Ann for encouraging, and sometimes pushing, me outside my boundaries.
Seated at her desk in her dorm before class, Sarah recorded the thoughts in her journal, wanting to jot them down while they were still vivid in her mind.
I can’t explain what it is like walking the grounds of this venerable institution. I admit to feeling a wicked sense of superiority as I walk across Tom Quad in the early morning, where the tourists press their faces against the iron gates to catch a glimpse inside of Christ Church, or later in the day as I blithely walk through the hordes of tourists past the signs that read “Private. No admittance.”
Entering Tom’s Gate is like stepping back in time, or like Alice stepping through the looking glass, isolated from present day reality, where you can choose to ignore the real world, if only for a short time.
When I climb the stairs to Tudor Hall, where the college has served meals to Christ Church residents since 1529, I feel the indentations worn into the stone steps by the centuries of footsteps from the scholars who’d tread the same path.
Tonight is the final reception and dinner. In the morning I’ll leave these magical walls for a week alone in Oxford. It will seem all the lonelier for having spent this week in such engaging company.
But for today, I will enjoy the atmosphere of Christ Church: the sense of stillness I find in the Master’s Garden, the hush of the Picture Gallery, and the peace and tranquility within the walls of this college, not passing through Tom’s Gate into the noise and chaos of the city until I leave tomorrow morning.
Closing her journal, Sarah picked up her copies of Sense & Sensibility and Mansfield Park and headed to class, ready to make the most of her final day.
The temperature rose into the upper seventies, a heat wave by England’s standards. She’d even had to remove her otherwise obligatory cardigan while she and her classmates picnicked in the Master’s Garden.
She should be relieved it hadn’t been too warm this week since none of the dorms were air-conditioned.
Glancing at her watch, she realized she’d dawdled in the Picture Gallery too long, and hadn’t left herself much time to change for the reception. After a week of wearing conservative trousers and cardigans, she’d selected a lovely, feminine black and white floral silk sundress, with a lemon yellow pashmina, and black strappy sandals. She left her hair loose around her shoulders.
Satisfied with her appearance, she spritzed on a little Voile De Jasmin, grabbed her bag, and hurried over to the Cathedral Garden.
From the volume of voices drifting through the door to the Garden, everyone had already arrived for the reception. She stepped through the doorway, looking for her group. Almost every head turned in her direction, eyes wide, some with frank approval, some with disapproval.
Compared to everyone else in the Garden, she looked as if she were going to a garden party