Once they had travelled at least half the distance towards the building he had pointed out as the home of the History Department, he leaned over to speak quietly in her ear. “So is everything okay with John Chambers?”
Audrey stopped abruptly, “What?”
His hand on her back urged her to resume walking, “I don’t want anyone to realize that we are talking about this. I just figured that since someone wanted you to have this job, John needed to go to create a space for you. He left without talking to me and hasn’t been in touch. I’m hoping that whomever is throwing all this money around made it lucrative for him to abandon his job like that. He’ll need a good story to explain his actions to future employers. He’s a good man, please tell me that he wasn’t threatened or harmed.”
“Oh, dear!” She tried to stop again and discovered just how firmly his hand on her back was guiding her.
“Keep walking and talk to me.”
“I’m sorry, Thornton, I’m not in the loop on this. I was told that this job had opened up and I was expected to uphold the family reputation and not screw up anymore. I certainly hope he is okay. I would expect that he is, Worthingtons don’t hurt people; although I have to say that this whole episode is not in my family’s normal style of handling things. I can try asking around if you want, although I think I’m going to hit a wall. No one is going to admit to having anything to do with this. They are all acting as if this job offer was unexpected.”
“No point in asking them then. My friends call me Rich, by the way. Our noble leader likes the formality of my first name and uses it when he wants to impress people.” He leaned close again, “Which means he uses it all the time. I suppose he’s good at doing what a college president is supposed to do, which is raising money, keeping the alumni happy, presenting a good public image for Wheatleigh. But he sure puts a low priority on the actual educational process, especially the social sciences. If something is not precisely quantitative, he doesn’t know how to deal with it and can really muck things up. So I do my best to keep our department off his radar screen. Please try to work with me on this, okay?”
She nodded. “Wow, I wasn’t expecting to land right in the middle of campus politics like this. Of course, if you asked me Friday morning what my plans were for the weekend, I would have never guessed in a million years that I would be moving to New England and starting a new job at a school I’ve never even heard of before.”
Rich chuckled, “Feel a bit like Alice in Wonderland, do you, Audrey?” He stopped their progress in front of a three story brick building with ivy climbing up the walls in several places, which was clearly one of the earliest buildings on the quad. He waved to encompass the entirety of it. “Welcome to Abernathy Hall, your home, office, classroom and library. Gets very handy when the snows come, can’t beat the commute.” He led her up the stairs, opened the door and, with a flourish, bowed her inside.
She looked around and gasped. The center of the building was a vast open space with a mixture of library style shelving and conversional groupings of tables and chairs. Around the perimeter of the room, between the bookcases, were doorways, leading, she could see, into classrooms. A curving stairway drew the eye up to the second story, which was open to the floor below, contributing to the airy feeling of the space.
Rich nodded in satisfaction at her reaction. “Nice, isn’t it? I’ve always been grateful that they let the architect’s design stand and didn’t try to close things up by putting more rooms in upstairs.” He pointed to a mahogany desk nearby. “That’s basically our other duty in addition to teaching. This is the school’s library collection for history; they moved everything here when Yardley Library got tight on space. So whenever the building is open to the students, we need to make sure that the desk is manned.”
“To prevent theft.”
“And answer questions and just generally be a deterrent to misbehavior. We’re one of the smaller departments on campus and don’t have a lot of traffic through here; students have been known to try to use the stacks for a little hanky panky. When winter hits it can be hard for couples to find a nice warm space on campus for some private time alone.” He led the way to the doors on the right hand side of the main room. “These are the classrooms John used. Since your schedule is pretty grueling with all your classes back to back, John liked to move between the rooms so that lingering students from your eight o’clock class, Ancient World, don’t interrupt your arriving students for your nine o’clock class, Asian Studies, then back to the first classroom for the ten o’clock class, European History, and, you guessed it, one last move for the eleven o’clock class of American Experience. The system seems to work well. If you are unhappy with it, we can talk about it. Although, I have to confess to an ulterior motive of using as much space as possible to prevent other departments from trying to muscle in on our building space.”
She nodded understanding, “I like this idea of moving between the classrooms, but if I’m going to be here for very long, I’d like to talk about perhaps easing up on the scheduling. Why cram four classes into Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings and leave Tuesday and Thursday and all the afternoons open?”
He gripped her shoulder. “We’ll have none of that kind of talk. I want to make that clear right from the start.”
She looked surprised, “I have no input at all on the scheduling? None? Can’t even talk about it?”
“Not that, although you don’t, really. I meant there will be no expressions of doubt about you continuing here. You are here for at least five years, there is no doubt about that; the school will get that promised endowment.”
“And what do you get, Dr. Head of the Department?”
“I get to keep my job.” He looked at her surprise and laughed. “Did you think Boxford would part with any cash? Once you get to know him, you’ll see how outlandish that idea is. My significant motivation is continued employment. If you go, I go, plain and simple. It’s a hell of a good motivator, wouldn’t you say?”
“Oh Rich, I’m so sorry! First John Chambers gets his employability severely compromised and now your job is in danger, too! This is completely outrageous; if I knew who to yell at, I would. But I don’t know who set this all up.”
“Thank you for that lovely concern, but, as I just said, we will not be talking or thinking that way. You are here for five years. Accept that and get used to the idea. When we get to the part of the tour that is your living space, I will be happy to hear any renovation requests you may have, because, my dear, you are going to be here a while!”
“ ‘My dear’?”
“Sorry, I didn’t mean anything by it; I can be a bit old fashioned in my speech patterns.” He shrugged, “I’m a traditionalist, probably what drew me to history in the first place, I’m an old geezer in a young body. Or maybe I’m just a schoolmaster who has been reincarnated into a history professor.”
She smiled at him. “It’s okay, in fact I think it’s cute. I love when I go south and suddenly everyone is calling me sugar, honey, or darling or when I go to England and I’m love or lovey. It’s just so much friendlier. It’s a shame that everyone is so concerned about what is politically correct to say without even waiting to know if the person is offended or not.”
“I’m glad to hear that you are so receptive to my old fashionedness.”
“I’m pretty traditional too. It is interesting to hear your thoughts about that; I never thought to question whether that has anything to do with why I am so interested in