School for Skylarks

by Sam Angus

  Once she’d marshalled her girls into lines, and the desks and chairs were piled up like stacks of ammunition, Miss Pinnacle raised her staff and strode across the forecourt as if to stage an assault on the inhabitants of the place. Lyla saw the mellow, worn stone of Furlongs, and thought of its towers and turrets, and feared that all their romance and mystery would shrivel and shrink away in the face of this alarming woman.

  There came a brisk and militant rapping at the door, and Lyla waited in nervous enthralment for the collision of this person and Great Aunt Ada.

  15

  GREAT AUNT ADA’S PISTOL

  The door swung open and Miss Pinnacle swept into the room, her black gown billowing behind her. She had at some point perhaps mislaid her chin, for her head was all nose-shaped, with a small, round mouth and a backwards-sloping forehead that brought to mind dry bread and penitence.

  Lyla glanced down at Miss Pinnacle’s shoes, for Mop said shoes were a clue as to character. They were the heavy lace-up kind that indicated sound sense and very little else. Following Miss Pinnacle was a lumpy sort of girl with an indecisive chin and a yellow badge, and it seemed to be her job to carry the headmistress’s files about.

  Miss Pinnacle’s eyes settled on Lyla and she started, as if astonished to find anyone in the place. Then, recovering, she looked Lyla up and down and said peremptorily, ‘I was at no point informed that there’d be a child on the premises. You will of course have to attend my school.’

  Lyla, fearing Winnie’s schooling wasn’t up to the level of Garden Hill for Girls, replied, ‘Certainly not. Number one, I don’t believe in school. And number two, I’ll be returning to London very soon.’

  ‘Your name?’ Miss Pinnacle demanded.

  ‘Lyla.’

  ‘Lyla what?’

  Lyla hesitated before whispering, ‘Spence.’

  ‘Spence . . . Spence . . .’ Miss Pinnacle pondered on this as if trying to remember something. ‘Well, I, Miss Pinnacle, known to my girls as The Pinnacle, am the headmistress of Garden Hill School for Girls. Now . . . let me see –’ she unfurled some papers – ‘We shall be occupying the State Rooms, the Undercroft, the North and South Galleries, the Long Room, the Library –’

  She stopped abruptly as though a sudden thought had come to her.

  ‘Spence, you said?’

  Lyla, growing uneasy, nodded.

  ‘And your parents?’

  ‘Lovell Spence is my father.’

  ‘Your mother’s name?’

  Some instinct made Lyla pause before whispering, ‘Florence.’

  ‘Florence Spence . . . Oh dear . . .’ The Pinnacle withdrew a step or two. ‘Quite – I thought as much. Well, mercy and grace are my watchwords; I won’t visit the sins of the parent on the child. Come,’ she said, grasping the bewildered Lyla by the elbow.

  Bucket, disgruntled at being so rudely disturbed from his sleep, arched his back and bared his teeth. The Pinnacle gulped and stepped back as Lyla’s fur stole appeared to come to life. Noting the presence of a new person about the place, Bucket’s tail grew thick as a bottle brush, and he let out a hiss.

  Eyeing the hissing ferret from a safe distance, Miss Pinnacle recovered her poise, lifted her chin and said, ‘You, child – you will no doubt benefit greatly from all Garden Hill has to offer. Yes, we shall bring you into line in no time at all.’

  ‘You shall do no such thing. There’s nothing wrong with her as she is,’ boomed Ada.

  The Pinnacle turned from the hostile ferret to Ada and paused. Slowly she absorbed the apparition that was Lyla’s great aunt, starting in surprise as she took in the goggles and overalls and canary and all the various, unexpected elements of Ada, a series of gulps proceeding visibly down her body as if she’d swallowed a bible or some other uncomfortable thing.

  ‘And what are you doing here?’ she enquired once she’d recovered her power of speech, glancing once more at Little Gibson to make quite certain there was, in truth, a small yellow bird perched upon a pair of goggles.

  ‘What’s this? I can go where I like.’ Ada drew herself up. ‘I am Ada Spence, and this has been my family home since the Norman Conquest.’

  The two women locked eyes in bewilderment that there could be such a creature in existence as the other, and in both their eyes was the glint of battle, silent and ferocious.

  The first to be discomfited by this deadlock was The Pinnacle, who, taking a deep and visible breath, also drew herself up and said, ‘I see. And are you intending to remain here?’

  Great Aunt Ada strolled to the table, collected The Times, sauntered across the room and plumped herself down in a deep armchair, slinging her feet on to a footstool. ‘My house has been generously offered to the nation for the duration of the war, and for that you have to thank my great niece.’ Ada glanced at Lyla. ‘However, Furlongs is, as I have already said, my own home, and has been since the eleventh century, and I shall do as I like in it, when I like, for as long as I like.’

  ‘Of course,’ The Pinnacle said tightly. ‘But we must all endeavour to be an example to the girls, must we not?’ She raised her brows as she formed the question, and her eyes settled on Little Gibson. ‘In the meantime, perhaps you’ll direct me to the State Rooms?’

  Ada shook open The Times and, eventually, spoke from behind it.

  ‘Climb fifty stairs and bear north-east. Since Mercy and Grace are your watchwords, and since you seem confident you’ve all the company of heaven on your side, you’ll have no difficulty finding your way, Miss Pinion.’

  ‘Pinnacle.’

  ‘Quite, Pinnacle.’

  The Pinnacle tightened her lips and lifted her nose-shaped head heavenwards and barked, ‘Put these in position, Mary,’ to the yellow-badged book-carrier, handing her a sheaf of what looked like arrows and signs. ‘Mary Masters is my head girl.’

  The officious and self-important Mary Masters immediately began to busy herself taping yellow arrows and signs to Ada’s ancient walls.

  IVth FORMERS TO THE NORTH GALLERY

  ART DEPARTMENT TO THE ORANGERY

  Lyla looked on resentfully at the head girl, who was making herself so at home in Great Aunt Ada’s house. But Ada simply continued to read The Times and appeared not in the least concerned what might take place in the various rooms of her house, leaving the faithful Solomon to worry about all the delicate and precious things that must be protected.

  FRENCH TO THE STATE DINING ROOM

  DOMESTIC SCIENCE TO THE LAUNDRY

  ‘French? Hogwash. Domestic Science? Poppycock,’ remarked Ada from behind The Times. ‘Pintuck is intolerable, Solomon – d’you hear me? Intolerable.’

  Lyla shrank away, squirming that her aunt should speak in so many decibels just when the Garden Hill girls had begun to enter, two by two, each carrying a chair and pausing to look around the hall, astonished.

  ‘We’re at war, Solomon,’ growled Ada, ‘make no mistake. Pinhole and I are at war. Bring me my pistol.’

  ‘Of course, my lady,’ said Solomon. He bowed and withdrew, together with the porcelain urn he was carrying.

  Lyla began to wonder about Great Aunt Ada going around with a pistol, until a still more alarming thought occurred to her. She crept down and hissed from behind the curtain, ‘I won’t have to go to the school, will I?’

  Aunt Ada lowered The Times and lifted her disconcerting gaze to her niece.

  ‘You will. Since you have invited them, they are your guests, and you will attend all classes. I will have a word with Pinion on the matter.’ Her eyes sparkled. ‘However, on no account are you to allow the teachers to stop you being you.’

  Other members of staff entered now, whiskery, talcum-powdery women, smelling of lily of the valley and violet creams, and afterwards came an excitable stream of girls bringing with them into the Painted Hall lockers and hockey sticks, lumpy pillows and chairs and chalkboards, and all the while the first girls to enter were already rushing back downstairs, high-spirited and disorderly.

 
; Solomon handed something wrapped in a handkerchief to Great Aunt Ada, and Lyla eyed it as she slipped it into one of her many pockets. ‘What will you do with that pistol?’ she asked her aunt.

  ‘Oh, I don’t know – I might just shoot Pinpoint,’ mused Ada aloud. ‘On the other hand, there’s a WAR on, and we must be prepared . . . Now, listen here, Solomon, I’m sounding the retreat,’ she announced. ‘Temporarily, mind you. My living quarters will be the Smoking Room, my HQ the Billiard Room, and Prudence maintains Absolute Control of the Kitchens.’

  The last of the girls were entering now, and at the end of them all came one final, solitary girl, her hands on her head.

  ‘Catherine Lively, where is your chair?’ Mary Masters asked the girl.

  The girl called Catherine Lively looked up.

  ‘I found it impossible to carry a chair while keeping my hands on my head. If you can do it, I’d like you to show me how it’s done,’ she answered.

  Lyla grinned, fascinated. Catherine Lively. Mary Masters pursed her lips,

  ‘Well, perhaps you’ll think harder next time you decide to make up nasty rhymes about your elders and betters. Hands off your head. Fetch a chair.’

  Mary turned to pin a sign to the oak newel post of the Great Stairs. Catherine Lively removed her hands from her head and, as Mary turned her back, caught Lyla’s eye and whispered something that sounded very like, ‘Mary Mary Unnecessary.’

  The last of the girls were rushing on excitedly up the Great Stairs, and Catherine Lively turned to fetch a chair.

  IVth FORMERS TO THE CHINESE BEDROOM

  Lyla froze. Mary might have another sign about the Yellow Silk Room! But that room was hers and no one else’s, and no Garden Hill girl was going to take it away from her. Hoards of Garden Hill girls might at just this minute be arranging their horrid iron beds and saggy mattresses and lumpy pillows in there among her hares and unicorns.

  16

  NO ENTRY

  Lyla raced up the curling staircase, heart pounding, and ran full tilt down the corridor, but when she reached the West Wing she found all was quiet. She slowed as she went along the corridor, listening intently, but all appeared to be as it should. She burst into her room, rushed to the desk, grabbed a pen and wrote in furious capitals:

  NO ENTRY

  VERY, VERY PRIVATE

  Lyla crept out and tacked the note to the door. She paused, listened, then went back in, restless and wondering what to do next. As she thought about the girls, something began to prey on her mind: if she were to join the school, she would need a uniform. Until she had one, it was really rather awkward being in a different-coloured dress to everyone else. There might, just might, be something grey in the wardrobe, though it was unlikely. Mop didn’t approve of grey, but Lyla quickly rifled through her clothes just in case.

  Nothing.

  Anyway, she didn’t want to join their classes, and so it would be IMPOSSIBLE to remain at Furlongs a minute longer. She must escape.

  She grabbed the pen again.

  Furlongs

  Ladywood

  North Devon

  Dearest Mop,

  THIS IS VERY URGENT.

  Things have got even worse because, instead of the soldiers, a whole school of girls has come and it is horrid because hundreds of them are going about whispering and giggling and they might steal my room or sleep in my bed.

  What is most annoying is that Great Aunt Ada doesn’t mind at all about a school being here, because in the other war she had soldiers and they were noisier and dirtier than schoolgirls, and what is even more terrible is that I have to do lessons and be a part of the school but I don’t have any uniform so I will stick out and I won’t understand anything of what they do in lessons.

  The head girl is called Mary Masters, and I already know that I don’t like her at all. But there is a girl called Catherine who makes up rhymes and she might be a fun person to be friends with.

  Please don’t leave me here forever, as I do so much want to be with you, and every day I wait for a letter from you but it never comes.

  All my love,

  Lyla

  17

  A SURBURBAN SOUL

  Lyla found that she felt self-conscious about being all alone when she could hear the footsteps and whispering of girls her age, so she decided she must come up with another plan of escape. Her plans so far had not exactly had the right outcome, but she would keep trying. So she sat at her desk and put her head in her hands to concentrate, but after a while a thing kept coming into her mind that was not at all about Escape Option Three but about the way in which the Garden Hill girls were arranging their beds. Were they so close together they could whisper from one bed to another? That was what Lyla wanted to know.

  Lyla crept to the North Wing, dawdling in the corridor in such a way as not to appear that she might be heading to the Gallery. Hearing footsteps filing towards her, she slipped into a housemaid’s cupboard, and from there she glimpsed the girls’ swinging skirts and shining shoes. When they’d gone, she crept up to the Gallery and peered in. A line of beds ran down the room, a gas mask draped from the foot of each, the sheets crisp, the blue candlewick bedspreads turned neatly down. Between each bed was a single wardrobe.

  Towards the far end of the room two girls were bent over a bed, whispering as they tucked in the sheets in tidy hospital corners. One of them was Catherine Lively.

  ‘Imelda, don’t you think this house is rather fun? So full of peculiar things.’

  ‘Very peculiar. I’m sure we won’t notice them at all after a bit, nor that weird aunt person who lives here,’ said Imelda, who had colourless, wispy hair.

  Indeed, Lyla thought, indignant on behalf of Ada and of Furlongs.

  ‘Imelda Pole Suburban Soul,’ chanted Catherine.

  ‘You’ll have to put your hands on your head again if you keep making up rhymes that annoy people, Cat. Anyway, you don’t think we’ll have to stay here for the whole of the war, do you?’ asked Imelda.

  ‘I think we’re lucky to be here at all actually.’

  Cat, thought Lyla. I like Cat. If I was absolutely forced to talk to any of them, I would talk to her.

  18

  MORNING PRAYER

  The sound of the assembly bell the next morning was followed by the rattle of feet and then by a singing that filled the halls and corridors of Furlongs. Lyla would be late. She crammed on the yellow jersey with the sleeves that Bucket had taken to, but then she paused and went to the mirror. Yellow was really awkward if everyone else was wearing burgundy. Lyla’s hands rose to her hair to tidy it. She stared at herself some more, wondering what it might feel like to wear a grey dress with a swinging skirt.

  She sighed, turned and went to the sock drawer for Bucket and tickled him till he woke. He stretched and yawned and stretched some more. Lyla coaxed him into her sleeve, then crept out towards the landing. She peered down and saw the girls ranged on the stairs: the youngest at the foot by an upright piano, the bigger girls going upwards, and the choir near the top. The Pinnacle was at the very top of the stairs as though her girls were a ladder leading to a high and holy place.

  The hymn was ‘Morning Has Broken’. Lyla loved that one and was wondering how one went about joining in when everyone else seemed to have a place to know what to do and where to be, when she spied Great Aunt Ada on the other side of the landing, also peering down over the balustrade. When Lyla joined her, Ada looked at her in a way that suggested she had just remembered Lyla’s existence; that not only was she condemned to have a host of schoolgirls on her staircase at all hours, but on top of all that there was also another entirely separate girl who had somehow also come to be in her house.

  ‘The world’s adrift. No morning papers, no breakfast, and that infernal Pinsome on my stairs. It’ll be howling and gongs and bells and what have you from day break to day end,’ said Great Aunt Ada.

  What was preoccupying Lyla, however, was her lack of uniform. She sighed and turned away from her aunt, w
ondering what to do with herself. And then it occurred to her that, since the Garden Hill girls might be kept on the stairs singing and praying for quite a while, it would be safe to sneak back into the North Gallery and have another look at the dorms. She could plan Escape Option Three after that, because on no account was she going to do any lessons with the Garden Hill Girls unless they were about something interesting.

  As she entered the room, Lyla saw the sunlight on the blue bedspreads and, as another hymn drifted up from below, she paused to savour the peace that comes with order and routine. She remembered her own unmade bed and thought too of Mop and how, at home in London, Mop’s dresses would be draped about the place in artistic disorder.

  Lyla tiptoed to the nearest wardrobe. Two grey dresses hung from the rail, two white shirts were folded on the shelf, and from the door hung a straw boater. She ran her fingers over the fabric of a school dress and down its pleated skirt. An unaccountable longing to see herself in it suddenly came over her. She glanced about, pulled Bucket from her sleeve and placed him on the bed. Swiftly she slipped the dress off the hanger and stepped into it, tugging it up over her yellow jersey. She looked at herself in the glass of the door, pulled her hair back and placed the hat on her head.

  ‘Faye Peak won’t be at all pleased if she sees you.’

  Lyla jumped and reddened. A head appeared from between two beds: Catherine Lively – Cat – was there, and had been all along, huddled on the floor by the chimney, a book on her lap.

  ‘Faye is in my year and she’s the dorm prefect and she can be quite horrid . . . and she’s always telling tales and sucking up to Mary Mary Unnecessary.’

  Lyla’s hands flew to the dress and fumbled at the fastening.

  ‘I might tell Faye Peak What a Sneak that you tried on her dress,’ said Cat.