The Hound and the Mutt

II

Oxford, 20 September

Miss Grey,

I am sure this letter may come as a surprise to you. You've not heard from me in four years! I cannot even be certain if the address Rosalie gave me is accurate. You know how Lady Ashby can be. To think she has corresponded with you this whole time with hardly a word to me about it. What a sister she is.

Although Rosalie is quite settled with her Sir Thomas, Mother has only become more troubled that I remain free from such matrimonious joy. I suppose a daughter of twenty unmarried is quite the embarrassment for her. I, of course, am to blame, as are you, Miss Grey. After all, the men back home still recall me as the coarse, boyish little girl who preferred dogs to people. If you, Mother says, had been even a halfway decent governess, you would have scrubbed that coarseness from me long before anyone could have ever blamed me for the behavior. Mrs. Younge, your replacement, seems to have satisfied Mother as to my behavior. You would not recognize me for the world, Miss Grey! I have learned all the right and proper ways of walking, sitting, speaking, and pretending. I can almost charm as well as Rosalie now, and if the gentlemen of Horton had not such firm memories, I imagine I could have gotten one of them by now.

As it is, this is not the case. Mother has decided to bring me to Oxford, perhaps on the small chance that I may catch the eye of the studious youths here. It is rather odd, as it is so late in the year, and the air has started to turn chill. The assemblies are not very populated. Perhaps that is Mother's design: I have very little competition. Every evening in the company of these intellectual elite gets a little easier to manage.

My one duty and task is to find a mate here, but I must confess, Miss Grey, that for all their elegant and learned words, these men simply bore me to tears. They have a great joy for sitting and a greater distaste for dancing or walking. I find some dance partners, but they are rare and poor in form. If this is the prowess of an intellect, then I should wish only to have a dullard for a husband.

And so it is to you, Miss Grey, that I shall report of my endurance of this place. Rosalie has her daughter to fill her time, and I take no pleasure in her words anyway. I always enjoyed vexing you, Miss Grey, and so I hope that my letters will annoy and distress enough to keep us both entertained! I did so regret when you left us at Horton. Mrs. Younge was a stark governess, cold and heartless, and she was only ever interested in molding me into another Rosalie to please my mother. She would never entertain me as you did, and she was entirely impossible to tease.

Since I am a proper young lady now, I shall bid you adieu until I have something more interesting to tell you about. Don't expect it to be of a man, lest he allow me to chase his dogs around the university green.

Yours most affectionately,

Matilda Murray

P.S.: I do realize you have not been Miss Grey for some time but rather Mrs. Edward Weston. But I cannot bear to think of you as Mrs. Weston. It reminds me of all those Sundays in church when I would watch you trying to hide your blush whenever Mr. Weston would look toward our pew. How insufferable it was to watch you in love. Somehow you took out the pleasure of even that!