She pushed open the swing-door into the assembly hall. Soon it would be filled with rows of girls, navy and white, hair pinned and hymn books open. Miss Fletcher would take her place on the stage to lead the prayers, and behind would range the five members of her staff. Would Mrs Kent be there, dark and swarthy with hair hanging lank either side of her face, torn as ever between her native French and her adopted English? Would she cry as she always did when Eternal Father was sung and her husband was alive again for a brief moment?
Hannah stood looking around the hall. It smelt the same, the whole school smelt the same but there was no sound and she had never known it like this before. No opening and shutting of doors, no music wafting from the music room, muted until an opening door snatched out the sound. No sound of feet walking, never running. No murmur from the classrooms which bordered the hall, their tall internal windows unable to open, placed high so that light could enter but sight could not leave.
She smiled and walked across the wood-blocked floor. She and Esther had been appointed window monitors for their class a few years ago and when the fire practice bell was rung they had been talking behind their hands in the back row of their classroom. They had rushed to close the windows, hauling at the thin ropes, as the others had filed out into the playground. At last, in long rows, they had stood facing Miss Fletcher. Behind her all windows were closed except for theirs. They had been so deep in their own private world that they had opened them as wide as was humanly possible, Miss Fletcher had said as they had reported to her during lunch break.
They had been relieved of their window duties publicly, and now Hannah’s smile was rueful. Her hand ached from the hundred lines they had also had to do but it was the humiliation that had taught her more. It had never happened again. Now she pulled at her gloves, brushing at her skirt though there was nothing to mar its crisp navy. She took a deep breath and pushed open the door into the corridor. Why was it so dark? Miss Fletcher wasn’t dark, wasn’t forbidding, even when punishments were given.
She passed the side door which only parents could use and some light came in then, multicoloured through the green and blue stained glass. But the door was set into its own small lobby and the dim light did not reach beyond this.
At the end of the corridor outside Miss Fletcher’s room there was a bench along the right-hand wall and above it was a photograph of Queen Victoria. She’ll have to get that down soon, thought Hannah, and put Edward up there after the Coronation in June. Just imagine, a man in a girls’ school. What will the parents say? She straightened her shoulders. But her father had said enough already, and now she knocked, hard and fast, and almost immediately she heard Miss Fletcher’s voice, surprised but calm as it always was.
‘Enter.’ And she did, feeling the hardness which had so rapidly filled her giving way even as she opened the door.
Miss Fletcher sat behind the desk in grey, as always, her bored face inclined towards the door, tilted in query until she saw Hannah, and then she smiled and Hannah was warmed.
‘Hannah, this is a surprise, but a pleasant one.’ Miss Fletcher waved towards the hard wooden chair which was placed almost opposite her. ‘I hope that you’ve come to me with good news and that we can be considering the Classical Tripos for you, but first, of course, there is the Cambridge Junior Examination.’
Hannah smoothed her skirt then interlocked her fingers and drove them hard down, pushing back the material of her gloves. Her throat hurt and she looked up, not at Miss Fletcher but through the window which was above the dark mahogany filing cabinets to the left of where they sat. Papers lay on top of the cabinets and exercise books were heaped on the floor beneath the sill, spilling against the bottom of the green curtains. Bottles of ink stood on the varnished shelf which hung between the corner and the window. Some had splashed against the pale green flock wallpaper and the blue had changed to black.
Outside, the shrubbery looked bleak and grey in its January setting and the fog, the ever-present London fog, was looming and blanking out the neighbouring streets and buildings; but not the street noises, which it magnified – the rattle of the carriages, the sound of horses and traders’ cries. Still, there was too much of a tightness to speak, too much uncertainty of poise to attempt an answer.
She looked down at her hands again, then up but not at Miss Fletcher, not yet, she was not yet ready to tell her. On up to something, anything, which she could hang on to and gain composure and there it was. The painting above Miss Fletcher. Vivid and thick with paint. Sun on geraniums, warm and vigorous as the marigolds had been. Stay with me, Joe had said in the rain that drenched and froze, and she felt again his hand, his hard strong hand and somehow his strength was for a moment hers.
‘No,’ she answered and her voice was not high or broken but, perhaps, rather loud. ‘No, I am not allowed to go to university.’ She saw the frown begin on Miss Fletcher’s forehead, the darkening of her hazel eyes and the hand which darted to the pearl buttons on her high-necked dress.
‘But why, my dear?’ This time Miss Fletcher’s voice was not calm but sharp and urgent. ‘I must speak to your father. I will write to him today and ask if he will come and see me, or I could visit him.’
Hannah shook her head. ‘No, please don’t. There is no hope of ever changing his mind.’ She looked from Miss Fletcher to her hands, pulling her gloves off now, finger by finger, laying them neatly one on top of the other, flattening her body shape from them. She would not think of him, his dark violence, his rigid form. She would not think of her mother’s sickness and swelling belly, full of him. She would not think of Harry as he took her place.
‘I want to teach, I want to learn how to look after myself and my mother and how not to have babies. I want to learn how to become a person, not a piece of property.’
And now she looked straight at Miss Fletcher, into her calm face framed by chestnut hair. ‘Therefore I need you to employ me as your pupil teacher and I need to join the St John’s organisation; I know you sometimes help them to raise funds and therefore you will have the name of someone I can go and see.’ It sounded rude, abrupt, but that was not how she felt inside. Would Miss Fletcher realise that? Hannah sat back and said nothing more.
For many minutes there was silence. There was not even the ticking of a clock because Miss Fletcher had said long ago that she could do without every extremity of her body longing to twitch in time to its regular rhythm. The clock was now in the dining-hall and could not be heard above the rattle of knives and forks. Eventually Miss Fletcher picked up a pencil, first rolling it between her hands before using it to write what appeared to Hannah to be a list. All the time there was a frown between her eyes and now, as she finished, she looked briefly at the hunter watch that she kept on her desk to one side of the large blotter pad, and then up at Hannah.
‘Would you care to tell me what has happened, Hannah?’
She straightened her pad of paper then nodded as Hannah said, ‘No, if you don’t mind, Miss Fletcher, I would prefer not to, at the moment anyway.’
Miss Fletcher nodded. ‘Very well, my dear.’ She smiled and briskly tapped the desk. ‘Now, time is getting short. The girls will already be arriving. With regard to your requests, I have a few ideas I need to consider, to investigate, before I can give you an answer but,’ and here she put up her hand as Hannah started to protest, her impatience for an answer insupportable, her fear that it would be negative drying her mouth, ‘I can understand that it is probably advisable that you are not late home if, as I suspect, there has been a difficulty.’ She smiled as Hannah flushed. ‘My dear, I am thirty-three years of age and was not born yesterday. Now, perhaps you would join me here again at luncheon. I shall arrange to have a meal brought to us for we have a great deal to discuss.’ She paused. ‘It might be as well not to mention that fact to others, even that blonde shadow of yours.’
She smiled, and so did Hannah, who felt suddenly that it would be all right, that there was someone wiser alongside her. That her re
quests would be granted.
Miss Fletcher looked again at her watch, then clicked it shut. ‘Off you go then, Hannah. I have to remind Miss Dobson that it is definitely not a good idea to start the rather dreary Spring Term with Eternal Father. It is somewhat more than one can bear, don’t you think? Especially after the machinations of Christmas.’
Hannah rose, drawing on her gloves again. ‘“Thank you” doesn’t seem adequate somehow, Miss Fletcher,’ she said, hesitating.
‘Just wait until you see what I have in mind – you might not feel like thanking me. Teaching is not quite as idyllic as you perhaps think it is.’ Miss Fletcher laughed and waved to the door.
As Hannah reached it she paused and looked back. ‘Esther will be applying for university so you will have someone to groom,’ she volunteered, for Esther had written to tell her this. It was Uncle Thomas’s punishment.
Miss Fletcher laughed gently. ‘Not quite what I had in mind for that young lady,’ she said. ‘Perhaps you are both being punished?’ And she returned to the papers on her desk as Hannah closed the door, wondering if there was anything that escaped Miss Fletcher.
Esther was waiting for her in the cloakroom, by the pegs near the big square stone sinks with their gaping plug-holes. She was smart in the regulation high-collared white shirt and the navy serge skirt and thick cardigan.
‘For heaven’s sake, Hannah, darling. Where have you been and where are my sweets?’
She was pinning her hair up in the mirror which she always carried. It was propped up on the white-tiled window-ledge, which was not ideal because the light was too vivid in her eyes.
‘Sorry, not today. I had to see Miss Fletcher about something,’ Hannah said and reached for the mirror, holding it at a better angle for Esther.
‘How are you?’ she asked, looking closely at Esther. ‘Is your father still angry?’ They had not seen one another since New Year’s Eve and she had missed her cousin.
Esther pouted taking the last pin from her mouth and sliding it into the roll of hair at the nape of her neck. She patted it and turned slightly sideways. ‘How’s that?’
Hannah grinned. ‘Passable, I suppose.’ She wouldn’t think of Esther at university.
Esther pulled a face, putting the mirror back into the large leather bag that they all carried for their books. She linked her arm through Hannah’s and they strolled back into their classroom, Esther sitting in the desk nearest to the fire and Hannah taking the one behind her to avoid the direct gaze of the teacher. The room was full now with girls talking and laughing, the blackboard was quite black, devoid of any trace of chalk. The windows were closed against the weather, and the wood-panelled walls gleamed from holiday polishing. There was a smell of wax. Girls greeted Hannah as they passed and she smiled but was trying all the time to hear Esther.
‘Of course he’s not too cross,’ she heard. ‘He’s so busy sorting out that lovely brother of yours who’s grown so much, so well.’ She lifted her eyebrows and moved her shoulders and Hannah could have slapped her.
‘What’s he sorting out, for heaven’s sake?’ she asked, passing a ruler to Marjorie, who sat behind and wanted to draw up her margins.
‘Oh, you know, his training for this romantic mining of his.’
Esther nodded as Mary Miller asked if she was warm enough. ‘Thank you yes, Mary, dear, and there’s no need to look like that, the swiftest wins the prize.’ She swung back to Hannah.
‘Well, where is he going?’ Hannah asked, desperately wanting to know because she had not been able to bring herself to speak to Harry before he had left for school.
‘Oh to the London School of Mines. It was a choice of that or Camborne but I pointed out to dear Papa that it would be so much easier all round if it was London, and surely London has that certain flair that perhaps Cornwall has not?’
Hannah sat back. ‘Why on earth should you involve yourself in it at all?’
She felt Marjorie prod her and reached over her shoulder for her ruler as Esther put her pencils on her desk.
‘Well, darling. If that lovely brother of yours is in London, then I shall see rather more of him. I know you love to disappear to the wilderness of the Cornish peninsula, but I don’t and anyway, it’s all far too far.’
Hannah was laughing now. ‘Are you really serious? He’s just a schoolboy. You know, like us.’
Esther grinned. ‘Hardly like us, dear.’
Hannah blushed, knowing to what extent that was true. Did Esther know, really know? She wondered and doubted it. The school bell was ringing for the start of assembly and she took the hymn book from her desk. It was covered with green cardboard, but for a moment she could taste red leather. Rising with the others, she caught hold of Esther.
‘But you’ll be studying too hard for your Cambridge entrance. It needs hours of extra tuition,’ she whispered.
‘Certainly not. Somehow I will have to make the time and it’s up to you to help me.’
They filed into the hall. Miss Dobson was already playing the opening bars to Oh God Our Help In Ages Past and Hannah wondered who it was that he had helped.
Luncheon in Miss Fletcher’s study was served by one of the maids on trays covered with white linen embroidered with pink thread.
‘A Christmas present from one of the leaving girls,’ Miss Fletcher commented, smiling at Hannah. ‘Just put Miss Hannah’s on the other side of the desk, please, Beatrice,’ she instructed, and unfolded her serviette, spreading it out on her lap while she waited for the maid to leave the room.
‘Come along, Hannah.’ Miss Fletcher pointed to the plate of roast pork and vegetables. ‘Eat up, for goodness sake, we have much to discuss and a full stomach is better than an empty one, so the sooner we have dispatched the pork, the sooner the talking can begin.’
As they ate, little was said. The fire was burning in the grate, the blue and white tiles of the surround glinting in its light. Miss Fletcher’s liver-and-white spaniel was now lolling in front of the fire on the small faded Turkish rug which toned in with the muted red of the Indian carpet. Two of the first-years had earlier taken it for a walk and the damp canine odour was heavy.
It was odd to be here, like this, but not uncomfortable somehow. She did not feel tension snapping at her back as she did when she ate with her father, but merely a companionable presence.
What was Esther thinking, she wondered. Her face had clouded when Hannah had explained that she had to speak to Miss Fletcher and would therefore miss lunch. Esther needed her, she knew that. She had few friends besides Hannah, perhaps because she was too quick to take and slow to give, but that was not because she was mean, Hannah had explained to Marjorie and Mary Miller last term. It was because her mind went from one thing to another so quickly that without meaning to she upset people sometimes. You become used to it, she had added, and Marjorie had tossed her head. You might have to because she’s your cousin but I don’t. Hannah had shaken her head. She’s only my cousin once removed which is different. I don’t have to like her, Marjorie, I just do. I’ve grown up with her and she’s like my sister.
The pork was tender and it was hard to leave some as she had been schooled to do. She placed her knife and fork together, wiping her lips with her serviette, leaving it crumpled on the tray as proof that it had been used and would require washing.
Bookshelves set behind glass lined the wall opposite the window. Hannah could see that Shakespeare was amongst the leather-bound volumes. Further from her, near the fire, were H. G. Wells and Oscar Wilde. Her father would not permit Wilde’s books to be discussed or read, and Hannah wondered why.
Miss Fletcher folded her napkin carefully and smiled at Hannah.
‘I shall use mine again this evening. The maids have more than enough to do without extra work created by me.’
Hannah smiled in reply but wondered why the maids’ workload had never occurred to her. They had always just been there.
Miss Fletcher rose and picked up her tray, and Hannah was quick to c
opy. She followed her over to the side table which stood near the window through which she saw that the fog had thickened, heavy, yellow and stinking.
‘Just put it down next to mine. Beatrice can collect it when we’ve finished our discussion.’ Miss Fletcher swept back to her chair, her straight skirt devoid of the statutory black bustle. Hannah watched as she drew a set of papers from the side of the desk and sorted them into three piles. She sat down in the seat opposite her Headmistress.
‘Now, Hannah. The first request was to accept you as my pupil teacher.’ Miss Fletcher patted the sheets of paper as she spoke. ‘Though it is unfortunate that we should have to be holding this particular discussion, it is none the less a remarkable coincidence that you should be having to plan your career at this time.’ Miss Fletcher sat back, her arms lying along the arms of her chair, her hands quite still. ‘You may or may not know that there is a movement afoot to reform the way the education of the country is run. Last year the Board of Education was set up as the first step towards regulating the present system which is failing to produce sufficient numbers of adequately educated young people. As a result a new Education Bill has been formulated whereby secondary education is to be substantially improved, as is the elementary stage.’
Hannah frowned. ‘Does this mean the government is beginning to care?’ She thought of her father and the Vicar and how they despised the poor.
Miss Fletcher laughed. ‘Certainly not. We have an Empire and an industrial revolution to maintain, a position of superiority to preserve in the world, and we cannot do so unless we have more people capable of working in it. It is expediency, that is all.’ She paused. ‘And it’s clearly keeping a few people awake at night. After all, what might an educated “mass” lead to?’ She laughed. ‘So there is certainly a hot debate going on in Parliament but, none the less, the Bill will be carried. The local authorities will be given responsibility for secondary and technical education and money from the rates will be made available for improvements.’
A Time for Courage Page 12
