AN ORAL TEST OF THE GODS
Meanwhile, at Cambridge University
“You are a dunderhead.”
The accusation was said with a sort of tired resignation, as if the young man who spoke the words had said them many times in the past.
“I am,” Andrew Comber, the spare heir to the Aimsley earldom responded, even though he had never worked in rum production or had even held a cane of sugar in his entire one-and-twenty years. He was watching his older-by-mere-minutes brother regard his reflection in a shaving mirror. The reverse image of the scarlet tapestry waistcoat Anthony wore had him wincing. He looked down at his own plain hunter green waistcoat and audibly sighed. “Unless we wore identical clothes, you taking the test for me was never going to work,” he added. “I’m so sorry.”
“It would have worked if you’d at least worn the same color waistcoat as I was wearing,” Anthony, Viscount Breckinridge, countered. “Now I’m in trouble, too.” He rolled his eyes. “Perfect grades for four years and now...” He let the sentence trail off as he sighed.
“I don’t own a scarlet waistcoat,” Andrew said quietly. He wasn’t even sure the two of them possessed waistcoats of the same fabric. Similar colors, perhaps, although they had completely different tastes when it came to the decoration. His brother preferred flamboyant embroidery on his waistcoats—birds, flowers, dragonflies—while he tended to choose more sedate, single-colored fabrics and jewel-toned tapestries.
“Well, needless to say, Professor Smith-Jones wants you in his office now,” Anthony stated before he turned around and angled his head to one side. “And I rather imagine we’ll be hearing from Father if we don’t admit what’s happened before he learns of it from the dean, which means we must write a letter.”
The feeling of resignation was joined by a combination of dread and fear. Three days of the Lent term left, and Andrew was about to be expelled. He was sure of it. All because he had talked his brother into taking his mythology test in his place.
Professor Smith-Jones wouldn’t have even taken notice of his brother except that he had seen Andrew in the courtyard only moments before the start of class. Moments before the final test of the class was administered in his classroom.
The fact that Professor Smith-Jones noticed such things as the color of waistcoats had Andrew realizing the professor had probably been the victim of the same antics by other identical twins in the past. Andrew was almost surprised the man even noticed him at all. The older gentleman wore gold wire-rimmed spectacles and lectured from behind a podium, his baritone voice booming out through the classroom with a sort of authority possessed by kings and tax collectors. He had never thought the man even took notice of his students.
“I’d best go there then,” Andrew said quietly. “I’m really sorry this happened. Truly, I am.”
Anthony regarded him with a combination of regret and sorrow. “As am I. It’s best you not put it off. See what you can salvage, and I’ll see to penning a letter to Father.”
Nodding, Andrew took his leave of their dormitory room and made his way to Professor Smith-Jones’ office. While on his way, a half-dozen possibilities for his future flitted through his mind’s eye, not the least of which was his father disowning him and throwing him out of Aimsley House without so much as an allowance. He would never again spend his summers at Pickinghurst in Sussex. Anthony would probably continue their father’s edict, ensuring Andrew would be forced to marry for money. Marry some poor young lady in possession of a decent dowry that he might be able to make last for the rest of their lives if he budgeted carefully, and they didn’t have too many children.
By the time he knocked on the professor’s office door, Andrew had resigned himself to the life of a pauper, holding a tin cup as he begged on some corner near the Bank of England, his hunter green waistcoat threadbare and the soles of his Hobys worn through.
“Comber,” Smith-Jones said after Andrew had entered upon hearing the authoritative, “Come,” from the other side of the door.
“Sir,” Andrew acknowledged. “My brother said you wished to see me.”
The professor pushed some papers to the side of his large oak desk and waved to the chair that sat opposite of his own. “Do you know how many sets of identical twins have taken at least one of my classes over the thirty years of my tenure here?” he asked.
Realizing it wasn’t a rhetorical question, Andrew shook his head and shrugged his shoulders at the same time. “Ten, sir?” he guessed.
A chuckle rumbled from Smith-Jones’s throat. “You and your brother are my first,” he replied.
Andrew’s eyes rounded. “Sir?”
“I know. I have a colleague who teaches at Oxford. He’s had at least five sets over the years. Warned me, he did. So imagine my surprise when neither you nor your brother seemed to have attempted anything untoward for nearly four years.”
“You were expecting it, sir?” Andrew asked, his dark brows furrowing.
Chuckling once more, Smith-Jones leaned back in his chair. “Indeed. But... but what has me so surprised is whynow? You’ve not done well in this class for the entire semester—”
“I am terrible at taking written exams, sir,” Andrew interrupted.
“That’s become quite obvious,” Smith-Jones stated, his hand indicating several papers Andrew recognized as the other course exams he had nearly failed throughout the term. “And yet, you’ve never missed a class. I’ve never caught you sleeping during my lectures.”
“I know the material, sir. I remember every last word you said in class.” He pointed to the side of his head. “Everything.”
Smith-Jones leaned back in his chair. “And yet you’re barely passing my class,” he countered.
“The words in the tests are jumbled, sir.”
Blinking, Smith-Jones regarded his student a moment before he settled his crossed arms on his desk. “Jumbled?” he repeated.
