“Your paper was intriguing, but undisciplined, for you. I thought your structural point on how Dostoyevsky was playing with time, flattening it in the first half of the book, was well taken. And more than that, original.”
“Thank you,” Rose said, for that was a compliment mixed into the criticism, wasn’t it? It was exceedingly difficult to think straight.
“But it wasn’t carried forth throughout the essay. You dropped it quite suddenly, as if you forgot about it. And I expected you to touch more on the theme of suffering you had discussed in class.”
“Oh,” she said, and she could not look at him. He was right. She too had thought about the notion of unavenged suffering, but when she thought of exploring it, truly articulating what she thought Dostoyevsky meant by it, she felt overcome, panicky with emotion. There was only so much she could say on the subject. Now she simply felt ashamed. She hadn’t wanted to do the hard work that university required. Professor Hillman was right. It was a shoddy paper, and it was all she could do not to leap across the desk and grab it and tear it up into minuscule pieces.
“You are a clever girl, Miss Zimmer,” he said. “I am telling you this precisely because you are clever. This paper is acceptable. If another student had written it, it might be quite fine. But you can do better. I’ve seen you do better.”
“I understand, Professor Hillman,” she said, and even she could hear the quiver in her voice. He was saying something kind, but how could she believe him? She had a hard time believing people, trusting the most basic of facts.
“I called you here for another reason too. Have you thought about your plans after you obtain your degree?”
She shook her head. Of course she had, but only hazily. A job in publishing, perhaps, or a position at the Home Office. These were things she had to consider, she knew—Gerhard and Isobel would not fund her indefinitely, nor would she want them to. But it unnerved her, to think of a time after school, when she would have to get a job again, when she would have someone tell her what to do.
“I hope you will consider teaching. You would make a fine teacher.”
“What?” It was something she scarcely allowed herself to imagine, too heady was the possibility. Teaching! “You think I would?”
“Yes, I most certainly do.” He reached for a thick catalog on his desk. “It takes work. You must earn an additional certificate through the education department, but you are up to the task. Certainly for secondary school—and there is still a great need, after the war—but I could see you, if you continued on this path, continuing your studies and remaining at a university level too. Not many women have the fortitude, but I believe you do.”
“Thank you, Professor Hillman,” Rose said, and couldn’t help flashing him a pleased grin. To be a teacher would be an honor and responsibility. It would give her security, a clear career path. She feared she wouldn’t be up for the task; she would work harder than ever to make it so.
But doubt crept in: Would Mutti have seen it this way? She respected teachers to be sure, but a career? She would want Rose to get married, have a family of her own. This was what mattered most to her. At twenty-one years old, Rose knew she should already be thinking of these things. But she felt so much older than her years, and sometimes she wondered if, after everything she had been through, meeting a boy was a step she had inadvertently bypassed, something that she was simply not destined to do.
“I appreciate all your guidance,” Rose said, more muted this time. “Thank you.”
Professor Hillman held out his hand and grasped hers with a firm shake that surprised her. “It is I who am honored to teach you.”
“You’re quiet today,” Isobel said to Rose as they neared the end of Sunday dinner.
“I’m tired,” Rose said, and it was the truth. She had stayed up late reading the night before. It had been four days since she had met with Professor Hillman, and every night she stayed up hours past the other residents at Mrs. Deering’s, poring over her books. She wouldn’t let Professor Hillman down again.
“Well, I read the most amazing item in the paper today,” Isobel said. “I’ve told you that when Grandpapa was in Sydney, he had a partner, haven’t I?”
“Perhaps,” Gerhard said with a little smile directed at his sister. “But the details on Grandpapa’s concerns have always been mysterious to me.”
Rose couldn’t manage a smile back. She forked off another morsel of Mrs. Tompkins’s roast. Rose knew that Isobel’s grandfather had gone to Australia as a young man and bought dozens of properties. The investments had paid off handsomely and provided the foundation from which Isobel’s large family had drawn for decades.
“Yes, well, Grandpapa’s ways were mysterious to all of us,” Isobel said. “But his partner was a man called Henry Cooper, and Mr. Cooper’s family and ours remained close. His grandson Douglas Cooper and I spent summers together in Wales, and he was at Trinity while I was at Newnham. Then he went off to the Sorbonne and Freiburg—and when he returned, he opened an art gallery. He always had such a critical eye. He could be a bit of a rogue, but my parents adored him. In fact, when I came home and announced to my parents that I was besotted with your brother and they were not at all pleased, they trotted out Douglas’s name.”
“Your father should have known better than to raise objections about a foreigner to you,” Gerhard said, raising an eyebrow, dabbing a corner of his mouth with his napkin. Had Isobel ever liked an Englishman? Last year, when she was reading Browning, Isobel told her about a northern Italian boy she had met during a sojourn to Lake Como. “He came from a banking family,” Rose remembered Isobel saying, “but he had the soul of an artist.” Her brother, Rose thought, was Isobel’s perfect match: a foreigner, which of course pleased her, and a man who seemed English to the core for her parents.
“Mrs. Tompkins,” Gerhard now called. When the housekeeper emerged, he said: “Delicious, as usual. My whiskey now, please.” He turned back to Isobel. “But why were you not enticed by the estimable Mr. Cooper?”
“So many reasons,” Isobel said. “Foremost I was not available, but had I been, Douglas Cooper does not like the female persuasion.”
“Ah,” Gerhard said. “And why are we speaking of him now?”
“Well, I knew from Mama that Douglas was in Europe, but what I did not know was that he became a British officer specializing in art. Tracking down lost art from the war. Douglas Cooper, can you imagine that? In a position of importance and authority!”