Dreaming of the Bones

good thing, too, otherwise I think I would have felt quite ill while waiting for the results to be posted. It’s all a bit hysterical, as everyone is feeling the same sort of relief and trepidation, and most are muddleheaded as well from end-of-term all-night swotting. Daphne and I trooped bravely from college to college and staircase to staircase, determined not to miss out on a single invitation. Some of the do’s were quite elegant, while others were last-minute affairs dependent upon potato crisps and bottled beer, and often those were the jolliest.
    Even the posh parties were very relaxed and informal, with lots of drinking and talking and dancing and people wandering about. If anything marred our fun, it’s that I seem to have acquired a persistent suitor, through no fault of my own. He’s a dark, brooding Welsh boy named Morgan Ashby, an arts student who has a knack for turning up wherever I make an appearance. He then looks soulfully at me from across the room, which is quite off-putting. Finally, he mustered the courage to ask me to his May Ball, but I have no desire to play Cathy to his Heath-cliff, and refused. Besides, I’d accepted Adam’s invitation months ago and wouldn’t have stood up dear, sweet Adam for the world.
    We made a foursome, Adam and I, Nathan and Daphne, and the heavens conspired to make it perfect for us—the end of our first year at Cambridge , and our first May Ball. Moon full, stars shining, an almost tropical night (truly a gift of the gods, it was so warm we could wear our gowns outside the marquee without wraps). In the garden, they’d strung fairy lights in the trees, making it look quite enchanted, and we danced on the lawn. Daphne and I both wore gossamer white, and pretended we were naiads (or is it dryads?) floating diaphanously about.
    We can now count ourselves among the Survivors. We stayed up through the wee hours, and at dawn we punted to Grantchester for breakfast, a bit bedraggled but still game. There we met up with Adam’s friend Darcy Eliot and his date, an insipid blond girl from Girton who hadn’t a sensible word to say about anything. It was too bad, really, because I think Darcy is destined to be one of us. Not only is he smashingly good-looking and charming and a promising poet, but his mother is Margery Lester, the novelist. Talk about icing on the cake! You know how much I love her books—you ‘re the one who introduced me to them. I daren’t allow myself to hope that I might meet her one day, and if I did I’m sure I wouldn’t be able to think of a thing to say.
    Picture me, curled up in my window niche in my nightdress, scribbling away to you. The morning light has gone all soft and shadowless, and if I close my eyes I think I can smell the faintest hint of rain through the open window. My ball gown lies discarded across the chair, a bit tawdry, perhaps, in daylight, and for a moment I feel bereft, Cinderella the morning after. This time won’t come again, and I wonder if I can bear to let it go.
    Needs must, though, as Nan would say, and my eyelids feel heavy as the best parlor curtains, thick and velvety, with the scratch of old dust. One more thing to tell you, though, the best last. When we finally straggled back to Cambridge , my exam results had been posted on the boards outside the Senate House. It was a good thing I had Adam to hold me up. My knees went all jelly and I had to close my eyes while he read them to me, because I couldn’t bear to look myself. But it was all right. I did better than I expected, in fact, I really did quite shockingly well.
    But nicest of all, darling Mother, is that we’ll have all the Long Vacation to be together. I’ll have to study, of course, for they don’t expect me to be idle, and it will take me another week or so here to organize all the books and things I’ll need over the summer. Then the counties will click by outside the train windows, and you’ll be waiting at the station with the old Morris. And maybe Nan will come, too, and you ‘II bring Shelley, who will pant and tail-wag in doggy anticipation, and then I will be home.

    Lydia

    Gemma regretted her decision more with every passing mile. After their disagreement last Sunday over his visit to his ex-wife (You started a row, she reminded herself), she and Duncan had spent the workweek avoiding one another. It wasn’t that they made a habit of spending every minute together, but he usually came round to her flat several evenings