“Theresa Billings,” Catherine replied. “My best friend.”
Eliza felt a fresh twinge of envy. She had never had a best friend before, aside from May. “Billings?” she asked. “As in . . . ?”
“Yes, as in Billings School for Girls,” Catherine replied, rolling her eyes slightly. “She has a single room on the top floor, even though she’s only a third-year like us. She’s always had a single room on the top floor.”
“I see,” Eliza said with a small smile.
“You’ll meet her at the welcome,” Catherine said, placing a few books near the end of her bed. She looked around at her plain bed and dresser. “Unfortunately, my books always end up spending the school year at the bottom of my trunk.”
“That is simply unacceptable,” Eliza said. “Use my bookcase.”
Catherine looked at the large case on Eliza’s side of the room. “I couldn’t.”
“You can and you will. Until I get some new books of my own, it’s going to look far too lonely and sad anyway.” Eliza plucked the heavy copy of Mansfield Park from Catherine’s bed and placed it on the top shelf. “There. Much better.”
“Thank you, Eliza,” Catherine said, looking Eliza in the eye. “That’s very kind of you.”
“It’s nothing,” Eliza replied. “In return, you can grant me permission to read them when the whim strikes.”
“Permission granted,” Catherine said, with a joking bow of her head.
The two girls glanced at the open doorway as a few of their classmates traipsed by, laughing and talking of upcoming classes.
“How many students live in Crenshaw?” Eliza asked, detesting the uncertain tone in her voice.
“There are forty of us altogether,” Catherine said. “Ten in each class.” She glanced at Eliza, and her expression turned sympathetic. She placed a stack of books atop Eliza’s bookcase and took her roommate’s arm in a companionable way. “Let’s walk over to the chapel together, and I’ll introduce you to as many of them as we meet along the way.”
Eliza grinned, relief flooding her veins. “Thank you,” she said happily. “I’m glad the headmistress matched us up as roommates, Catherine White.”
“As am I,” Catherine replied, holding her close. “I have a feeling, Eliza Williams, that you and I are going to be great friends.”
The Chapel
“Oh! How beautiful!” Eliza said breathlessly as she and Catherine emerged from the canopy of trees behind Crenshaw House.
The Billings chapel stood in a clearing at the center of the woods, its bell tower gleaming white against the stark blue sky. The stained glass windows were the most intricate and colorful Eliza had seen apart from the Mission Church in Boston. Flowering shrubs bloomed along the base of the structure, their fat pink petals bobbing in the breeze.
Catherine tilted her head as she looked the structure over as if for the first time. “It is rather lovely, isn’t it?”
“Catherine!”
A pretty girl with dark black ringlets and a perfec
tly pressed green-and-white striped dress approached Catherine, holding a matching parasol to shade her milky white skin. She held the hand of another girl, who was clearly her twin, except that the other girl wore a lavender version of the same dress and kept her eyes trained shyly on the ground.
“Viola! Bia!” Catherine greeted them. “How was your summer?”
Viola kissed Catherine on the cheek and grasped her hand. “Just amazing,” she said. “All we did was travel and shop.”
Catherine laughed. “Sounds like a dream,” she said. “Viola and Bia Hirsch, meet Eliza Williams.”
“Williams?” Viola said, her dark eyes wide. “As in May Williams?”
Catherine turned to look at Eliza as Bia glanced up with interest. Eliza blushed slightly, feeling somehow ashamed that she hadn’t mentioned May to Catherine before.
“Yes, May is my older sister,” Eliza said.
“Really? But the two of you look nothing alike!” Viola exclaimed.