At supper she sat next to Madge who was small and plump with furry cheeks, apple red. They had mince on toast. Madge told everyone the meat was poor quality: ‘My father deals in meat,’ she told Edwina. ‘He doesn’t handle it of course but he knows about it.’ She said it a little defiantly. ‘What does your father do?’
‘Nothing,’ said Edwina. She felt ashamed. Then she thought of some things he did do, but it was too late. Babs was already talking: ‘Meresia’s mother is a famous actress, did you realize? Lydia Merriwether. Only that’s not her real name. She came to the school once.’
‘What about her father?’
‘He plays the piano or something. You’ll like Meresia. She looked after me when I first came. I was only nine.’
Edwina asked: ‘Which is Clare’s aunt?’
‘Mother Scholastica. She sleeps in one of the dormitories. Otherwise you don’t see her too much with the girls. Sometimes she reads to us.’
There was a space at the table where Fanny should have been. They kept talking about her. People said, ‘When Fanny comes –’ A court without a queen. ‘I wonder what Fanny’s doing? Fanny wouldn’t eat this. Fanny has all sorts of special things, because–’ But no one, suddenly, could remember why.
A nun passed the table. She was very pointed. Everything about her, features, habit, shoes, hands, was pointed. But not like Ned; she wasn’t like him. She seemed to float from table to table. As she came back, she paused a moment at theirs.
‘Mother Anselm,’ explained Madge, wrinkling her upper lip. ‘She’s looking for Fanny. She’s got her nails into her.’ For chapel she had to wear a black veil. They sang: ‘O purest of creatures, sweet Mother sweet Maid.’ By the end of the first verse she knew the tune.
In the dormitory behind the white curtains she arranged her pictures on the bedside-table. A photograph of the Hall in a leather frame (a farewell present from Father). A miniature of Aunt Josephine painted from a photograph. Mother in a riding habit, posed in a studio. They took up nearly all the table. (But why nothing of Uncle Frederick? Why had she not asked him?)
After they had prayed and Mother Cuthbert had settled them, she lay very still, hoping to hear the sea. But she couldn’t even imagine it. All she heard was a cough, or some heavy breathing, girls turning over in bed, rude noises – she thought they must be already asleep if they made those.
It was strange, and it wasn’t home, but it would be all right. She said twice the name Meresia. It sounded lovely: like a flower, like a summer breeze, like the sea perhaps.
Everything was new, that was what tired her. A face coming round the curtains: ‘Vigilate et adorate…’
‘You’re meant to answer “Deo gratias”.’
‘Deo gratias.’ Next, fastening the black lisle stockings on to the liberty bodice, brushing hard on the hair which always stuck out. Mass. Breakfast. Lessons.
Lessons. Arithmetic, History, Geography, French – it was all different. In history they were doing the Stuarts. She knew nothing about them. There was a picture in their books: ‘When did you last see your father?’ For most of the lesson she stared at it. The desks were strange with sharp corners, the exercise books in their brown paper covers rustled and creased; the classrooms, closed for the holiday, smelled inky and dusty.
Then during French the windows were thrown open in the September afternoon heat, and she smelled the sea.
‘Are you sure you’re all right?’ Meresia asked at tea-time.
‘No questions, darling? Nothing worrying you?’
Edwina said, ‘Is it true your father plays the piano? For a living? All the time?’
Meresia laughed. ‘Well, no. It’s the ‘cello actually.’ Then she said affectionately, in a pleased voice, ‘People usually want to know about Mummy. It gets a little tedious. Because it’s only her work, after all She’s just always done it. She’s so beautiful.’
‘Is she as beautiful as you?
‘Oh no,’ said Meresia, ‘I’m not beautiful.’
But just then Babs, who’d been staring out of the window, came back to the table.
‘You ought to be sitting down,’ Meresia said.
‘I saw the motor,’ Babs said. ‘Fanny’s here.’
After tea and an hour’s reading, they had Benediction because it was Thursday. Edwina had never been before. It felt warm and loving. Madge next to her was singing loudly – she prodded Edwina and showed her the right page. But some of it was in Latin. O salutaris Hostia they sang as the host came in all flashing gold, winking metallically from its many spikes. At the back of the chapel were the nuns, hidden by a screen.
Then this girl came in late. Into the row just in front where there was a gap. She had the reddest hair Edwina had ever seen. It looked almost angry because it was so thick, so determined. She had never seen so much hair on someone of her own age.
Tantum ergo… they sang. Fanny – for it must be – had a piercing soprano. The girls on either side, Vita and Marion, kept glancing at her. Every now and then she tossed her head as if her hair, although of course neatly tied behind, was in her way.
The monstrance had flashed. The priest was reciting the Divine Praises: Blessed be Jesus, the Virgin Mary, St Joseph her most chaste spouse (who had chased him? Herod’s soldiers?). Many of them made no sense to her. She stared at the back of Fanny’s head and began to feel sleepy.
Fanny was there at supper, a little further down the table. They were having onion soup, rings floating on the top. The bread, which was home-made and crusty, was cut already in squares. Everyone was reaching, some quite rudely. ‘Pass the bread, please? Edwina didn’t want to scramble, seem hungry, because Meresia, sitting at the head of the table, supervising, might see her and think ill of her. Mother Anselm was walking about again. Once she paused quite a long time at their table. Edwina thought they had done something wrong.
‘Is that Frances back with us?’
Fanny only smiled. It was Madge who said, ‘Yes, Mother.’
‘Then kindly don’t let your excitement interfere with those who have already settled in, please, Frances.’
She moved on. The chorus began: ‘Where were you in the summer, Fanny? What did you do? Where did you go?’ No one seemed to mind that she’d nothing exciting to tell. She said: ‘I got a gramophone, my dears. For my birthday. And ten records to go with it. I played it every day.’
She didn’t seem to have noticed Edwina except to glance at her as they sat down. Madge said now: This is a new girl, Edwina.’
‘Why have you come here?’ Fanny asked directly. ‘Oh, her,’ she said about Glare. ‘I came because my governess died. They decided not to get another. I live in Whitby by the way, do you know Whitby? Well, I’m in St Hilda’s Terrace, a tall house with a lot of steps and a bit hidden from the road.’
Her face: she wasn’t pretty at all when you really looked at her. Her eyes were too small and she was too pale, her features almost puckered. Somehow, Edwina thought, I’d expected her to be beautiful.
They had cocoa to drink. It came round in a large jug. There’s bits of skin in mine, ugh,’ said Fanny. ‘Did you ever see anything so disgusting? I prefer chocolate. All frothed up with cream, like I had when they took me to Austria.’ There was stewed apple in a big earthenware dish. Meresia served it out. When Edwina tasted it, it tasted suddenly of home; as if the soft yellowy green, the mush and the running juice encapsulated the smell and sound and feel of home. Nursery dinner on autumn days – warm enough still to bowl her hoop in the garden, to watch the peacocks, stand and stare at Uncle Frederick’s singing birds. It all came over her in a great wave so that she thought she would drown in it, be washed away by it. And there was the whole evening to live through, and worse still the night. And then tomorrow and tomorrow and the next day and the day after that. She could never bear it. A lump rose in her throat, closing off speech, tears tickling the backs of her eyes. She put her spoon down.
But no one had noticed. Fanny was still holding court. ‘… and the
n I absolutely refused to wear all those garments, I mean, the hottest summer ever, I just flung .. Mother Anselm, passing the table, looked at her. And passed on.
At the beginning of the French and German classes they always prayed. ‘Je vous salue Marie pleine de gr âce, Heilige Maria… Fräulein taught them German and Mademoiselle, French. At mealtimes, both could be seen, spotty and unhappy, sitting at a special corner table with the mistresses. Both had pale faces and greasy hair-and of course, spots. But Fräulein looked somehow as if she could manage, while Mademoiselle had a little frown all the time, as if she would like to cry out but had forgotten how.
The afternoon of that first Saturday they all went for a walk on the sands. They had to wear gloves. (Mother Anselm promised a blackberrying expedition next week, perhaps. Fräulein would take some of them, and no, of course, Frances, berries would not be picked in gloves.) They were to set out from the lawn and the formal gardens behind the main building, then along a winding sandy path leading towards the steps down from the cliff. It would be quite a long walk.
The girls were all going up to each other and asking, ‘Can I walk with you?’ Edwina counted up and saw that, oh horror, they were an uneven number. Someone then would have to walk with Fräulein; she feared it would be her.
She stood there uncertainly, she wasn’t used to being uncertain. Her gloves felt clammy, the skin on her hands sore. She never thought about the piano now – Mother hadn’t done anything about it. Her hands felt swollen and useless, might as well cover them up. Fanny was standing near the stone statue of the Sacred Heart, pulling on her tammy. She’d come out a little late. Madge said, ‘Can I walk with you, Fanny?’
‘Sorry, no. I’m walking with Marion today.’ Madge looked around her for a while, then she turned to Edwina, ‘Would you like to walk with me?’
What made Fanny so popular? She couldn’t think what it was. It made her angry almost. She would like to be like that. It was something to do with, probably, the way Fanny was almost always in just a little bit of trouble, but not too much, not enough to bring down trouble on all of them. She’d never had a friend and thought that she’d like Fanny for one. And yet – she wouldn’t. She thought, you can have both feelings at the same time. So she thought, I’ll wait for her to choose me.
The tide was right out. It had a strange beauty, the sea so far away, like a memory. She wanted just to walk along the shore, looking at it, not talking. Chatter, chatter went the girls, still a crocodile. She tried to ease herself a little away but was called back. The sound of the gulls screaming overhead filled her with sadness so that the tears sprang up again. She thought irrelevantly, suddenly, music is the most wonderful sound there is.
‘I’m homesick,’ she said to Madge, because that covered up her not talking. She knew it to be true. But Madge merely said: ‘One girl was so bad once they had to come and fetch her because she wouldn’t eat –’ She stopped abruptly. Fräulein was calling for attention.
Achtung! They might, if they were very careful not to slip, play tig among the boulders. ‘Frances asks special.’
There was no talking in bed at nights. She would have liked to talk to Fanny. Fanny somehow held the secret of how to cope, how to manage in this place which was almost all right. The novelty, the newness of everything pressed down on her so that she had always to be thinking, what do I do next, where should I be now?
Sunday was letter-writing day. She had already heard from Aunt Josephine, telling her what the weather had been like with them and that Mother had been out cubbing on French Carotte. She’d imagined she wouldn’t hear anything till she’d written to them, and reading the large clear writing on the thick deckle-edged paper she felt a rush of affection for Aunt Josephine, that “only she had thought that Edwina would want, immediately, a LETTER.
‘Fancy hearing so soon,’ Madge said, adding proudly, ‘My father writes every Sunday and they get mine on Monday, so we always cross each other’s news. It’s rather silly, isn’t it?’
Meresia, stopping her in the cloisters leading to the classrooms, said: ‘I don’t want to be in the way but if there’s anything – ?’ Edwina thought of telling her, of saying, I want want want to be at home. She imagined then that Meresia would hold out her arms and, small plump ugly hard, she would sink into the sweet-smelling cloud that was Meresia’s hair. When it gets too bad, she thought, that’s what I can do. I can always do that if it gets too bad.
She had never thought she would be so homesick. In the mornings, all fingers, she struggled with the buttons, the suspenders on her liberty bodice. She was reminded of the shame of Laurence’s party. It was terrible that she should miss even Nurse. (But not Cora. She thought, I haven’t come to that. Then she would be overcome, thinking of Gora reigning supreme, lifted above Father’s head, carried on his shoulders, her corkscrew curls tossing.)
Outside the dormitory was a bag with her name. On Monday she would have to put in it bodice, knicker linings – two pairs – the knickers themselves, vest, stockings; their name tapes all sewn on by Sarah. Every last link with home. When they came back to her they would have been washed by foreigners, by strangers.
To pass the time along, to cope, she prayed. At unlikely moments: in the lavatory, changing her shoes in the gym, gazing across the gardens at the sea (so often hidden from view, so little a presence. In her fantasies it had beaten against the very walls of the classroom). The prayer was simple and sometimes had words and sometimes not.
In the chapel in the evenings they sang to Mary Queen of Heaven, Star of the Sea, Stella Maris. Maris, Marisa, Meresia. In the statue in the chapel she was palely beautiful, with hands outspread. Another larger statue stood in the grounds in a small grotto, roses growing all about. She was Bernadette of Lourdes’ Virgin – the Immaculate Conception.
One week, two weeks. Soon she would have been here three weeks. It was the month of the Rosary now and every evening it would be the Joyful mysteries, or the Sorrowful or the Glorious. (Perhaps if she asked, hinted, Uncle Frederick would send her a mother-of-pearl rosary like Clare, newly back from Switzerland, had?)
She was beginning to sort out the girls-a little. Babs, Gabrielle, Madge, Vita, Marion, Clare, Fanny. Fanny she had scarcely spoken to except to say ‘excuse me’ as they bumped coming out of their cubicles. Madge was the most – chummy. That was the word for it. Indeed too much so, because when she leaned near Edwina to make a remark, she smelled. Not like Aunt Adelina; this smell was like carrots in a stew, sweet and woody and faintly unpleasant. But better than Babs’s breath (she tried to say that fast as a tongue-twister) When rushing by, she’d asked Edwina some question, blowing over her the fishy smell of her malt and halibut liver oil, eaten with a spoon after breakfast every morning.
. The nuns were not so numerous really. She kept out of the way of most. She felt that like Nurse and Mother they would find her always a bit wrong. Some of them had nicknames: Aelred the Unready, Bede the Rosary, Edward the Confessor, Scholastica the Rubber Band (Clare didn’t like that, she heard), Anselm the Angry.
There were other nuns, dressed differently, who were called Sister not Mother. They were there, Edwina was told, to do some of the same work as the maids. It was just as holy to be Sister, it depended only which God had called you to be. ‘A Sister would be most unhappy as a Mother,’ Glare explained scornfully.
Clare’s aunt read to them the third Saturday, while they embroidered. She had a high voice and a small hooked nose. Although she was pale she wasn’t sallow like Clare; and she was light and thin. You could tell just by looking at her habit, which seemed too heavy for her. Indeed Edwina had noticed already the heavier the habit, the thinner the nun underneath. Mother Scholastica had darting eyes; she would look up frequently from the book, survey them all sewing, then dart back.
Edwina had barely begun to learn embroidery. She was doing chain stitch, horrible bright green stalks for daisies on some coarse brown cotton material. Her thimble wouldn’t stay on and had been jammed with waxe
d paper from the embroidery thread packet. She took it off because it was uncomfortable and promptly jabbed her finger. The blood oozed out interestingly.
She was sat next to Babs. Mother Scholastica was reading a story about Angels, by Father Faber of the Oratory. Babs whispered that he was a friend of the family, ‘We’ve a picture of him in the dining-room.’ The story was called ‘Philip, or the Pains of Children’. The heroine was called Edith. The similarity of the names embarrassed Edwina: she felt that everyone around knew she had a brother of that name. But this Philip: beautiful, dying in terrible pain, ‘his face as white as the chalk bank when the sun is not on it’, was much loved by Edith who ‘Wore a frown upon her brow which never ought to be seen on a child’s forehead’. But her guardian angel appeared to console her. He had a transparent body ‘and in the midst of it where his heart should have been was a great bright sea with a harp rising up out of the waters –’ (Mother Scholastica held up the coloured illustration) – ‘and when he trembled it made a kind of hushed music like the sound she once heard in the piano when she ran against it in the dark.’ The story had a very sad ending: Philip lying dead on Mother’s knee. But Edith saw too that Jesus was sending millions of angels with graces for souls in sorrow on earth. These graces came from Philip’s pains.
‘Well – I hope you enjoyed that,’ said Mother Scholastica, closing the book and raising her eyebrows. In the still of the classroom, Edwina could hear the trembling of the angel, the harp upon the seas.
At meals Fanny was to be envied. It wasn’t just the extras, the egg for breakfast every morning but also the vegetarian meals. Only the day before yesterday, when they had had mutton no longer hot, the grease beginning to set white, she had had an enormous mouth-watering cheese salad.
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