The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School

by Kim Newman

  On Wednesday afternoon the Third Form endured Double R.I., a lesson legendary for longeurs. As Ponce Bainter recited a lengthy list of ancient fellows who begat other ancient fellows, with scarce mention of any part ancient fellowesses might have had in the matter, Amy was distracted by movement beyond the frosted windows.

  Two small figures trudged across the frozen tundra which had once been playing fields. The black hat identified the titchier girl as Rayne. Prompt, wrapped in scarves and shawls like a tubby mummy, leant heavily on a vaulting pole, suffering for the sake of her mission. What exactly was the new girl being shown other than a hard time – and why wasn’t she in lessons yet? Amy had been tossed into History and Deportment before her trunk was unpacked.

  Ponce noticed her wandering eyeline and commanded her to stand.

  ‘You are at hazard, Thomsett.’

  Girls sat up straight and paid attention. This, at least, was more interesting than Mizraim begatting Ludim, Anamim, Lebahim, Naphtuhim, Harry Hawke and Uncle Tom Cobley and All. Bainter’s dreaded Three Questions trapfall was his way of tormenting an Infractor, often tossed at random because he felt like it. A Minor would go down in Amy’s Time-Table Book unless she gave three letter-perfect answers to questions on a random R.I. topic.

  ‘The subject is the Deaths of Bible Kings, Thomsett. Are you prepared?’

  ‘I am, Reverend Bainter, sir.’

  ‘Agag the Amalekite…?’

  ‘…was cut to pieces, sir, by the prophet Samuel, who said to him “as your sword has made women childless, so will your mother be childless among women”, sir.’

  ‘Abimelech of Manasseh…?’

  ‘…ordered his armour-bearer to pierce his heart, sir, with a sword because he was mortally wounded by a millstone dropped upon his head by a lady defender of the Tower of Thebaz—’

  Cheers from several Tamora girls who had declared this unnamed Thebazite their heroine!

  ‘—and couldn’t bear for history to record, sir, that he had been slain by a woman.’

  ‘Adoni-Bezek of Canaan…’

  ‘…succumbed to an infection, sir, after his thumbs and big toes were cut off by Judah and Simeon, in imitation of his own method of humiliating vanquished enemies, sir.’

  She sat down, escutcheon unstained, and darted a glance window-wards. Prompt and Rayne had moved on.

  Bainter resumed the begatting and somnolence settled on the form.

  The next day, Frecks and Amy were ambling to the Chem Lab, when Rayne and her guide appeared in Hypatia Hall, walking very straight down the centre of the corridor.

  ‘Frecks, old thing,’ Amy said, ‘Rintoul’s nabbed your job. She’s doing for Rayne what you did for me last term.’

  ‘She’s welcome to it. That was a one-time offer, for special customers… like you, my fondest friend and most devoted disciple.’

  Amy reached out to tip Frecks’ boater off her head. She rose a few inches off the floor to get there and only succeeded in making the hat wobble.

  ‘Hands off the titfer, Thomsett! ’Tis sacred!’

  The friends’ scuffle meant they blocked Rayne’s path. The other girls didn’t seem to notice Amy’s tiny float. She was always surprised so many failed to clock what Frecks drolly called ‘her lighter moments’. People chose not to see things which didn’t fit the way they understood the world.

  Prompt cringed out of their way but Rayne stopped in her tracks.

  It was possible that her eyes hadn’t missed the levitation. Amy resolved for the umpty-fifth time to be more cautious.

  Laughing, Amy said ‘don’t mind us, ladies… we’re an old married couple… the barney never stops.’

  Prompt smiled nervously. Rayne’s expression changed not a jot.

  Frecks stuck a friendly paw out at the new new girl.

  ‘Pleased to meet you, Rayne. I’m Walmergrave and this is Thomsett. Welcome to the asylum.’

  Rayne looked as if she were really confronted by two lunatics on the loose while touring a madhouse.

  After a few moments, Frecks pumped empty air with her hand and took it back.

  ‘Please yourself,’ she said, not taking offence. ‘We’re off to stinks.’

  Too late, Rayne formed a smile. She didn’t seem used to the expression. Her eyes remained set and neutral.

  Without a hand to shake, the girl bobbed her black-boatered head and did something between a curtsey and a shrug.

  She was at least trying.

  ‘Amy Thomsett,’ said Amy. ‘I was the last new bug so I know what it’s like. You’ll soon get used to Drearcliff ways.’

  ‘I think not,’ said Rayne, calm and cold. ‘There will be changes.’

  ‘Drearcliff’ll have to get used to your ways, eh?’ said Frecks. ‘Can’t say I hold out hope for that, what with Murdering Heathens on the rampage. But I admire your nerve. Good luck to you, Black Hat. You’ve no problems with me.’

  ‘I didn’t think I would have. But thank you for clearing up the matter.’

  Amy wasn’t sure about Rayne’s manner. She was odd even for an odd ’un.

  ‘What school were you at before?’ she asked.

  Prompt stepped in, protective yet peculiarly spooked. Her jowls were sweaty, though a chill wind blew down the corridor.

  ‘This is Rayne’s first school.’

  There was a story there, then. Amy and Frecks looked to the subject for further elucidation, which was not forthcoming.

  Rayne wore a burnished metal lapel brooch in the shape of an ant.

  ‘Antoinette Rowley Rayne,’ Amy said. ‘You wouldn’t happen to be related to Professor Rosalind Rowley Rayne, would you? The entomologist and eugenicist.’

  Now Rayne paid attention to her.

  ‘She is my mother.’

  ‘I have her A Child’s Taxonomy of Arthropodiae. It’s not much on moths.’

  ‘That is her popular work. It is inevitably simplified. She’d rather be judged by her twelve-volume Introduction to Trilobites, Chelicerates, Myriapods, Crustaceans and Hexapods.’

  ‘I have that on order at the library.’

  Rayne looked Amy over as if she were cargo being inspected.

  ‘Your name again?’

  ‘Thomsett. Amy Thomsett.’

  Amy was leery of offering her hand, but matched Rayne’s semi-curtsey. The new girl nodded… then moved on.

  ‘You’ve made a friend,’ said Frecks. ‘New bugs together, eh?’

  Amy wasn’t sure. She didn’t feel befriended. She felt… catalogued.

  IV: Damocletian Days

  EVENTUALLY THE TOUR of inspection concluded. Rayne had to come to lessons like any other girl. A desk was found and she took her place in the alphabetical order of the Third Form. Amy was five desks behind her, with Rintoul, Sawley, Sieveright, Stallybrass and Thicke in between.

  The new girl took notes in a private shorthand. Her exercise books looked as if an insect had escaped from an inkwell and hopped and crawled over the pages. Rayne spoke only if directly addressed by a mistress. If something notionally droll were said, she faked laughter with the rest of the form. Teachers’ jokes were seldom genuinely funny, but braying hilarity was a requirement of an easy life – though girls had been Minored for overdoing the thigh-slapping and tears of mirth when Wicked said ‘we shall draw a veil over your prep’ to Morgana Vail or Fossil said ‘alimentary, my dear Watson’ to some girl who wasn’t called Watson.

  Rayne’s address to School wasn’t forgotten – how could it be? – but she made no further declarations of intent. Her resolve to lead by example was apparently set aside. Aside from her uniform, she fit in. It was soon as if she had always been at Drearcliff Grange… along with the semolina, Joxer and the grim weather.

  Amy only now realised School had done the same for her. On her first day, she should have looked more closely at the annual photographs. She suspected she’d have found her own face in them, like Headmistress, all the way back to the founding year. Before the Christmas hols, a new photogr
aph had been taken. Amy was in that, with all her friends and enemies and nodding acquaintances. Their whole lives were bound within the walls of Drearcliff. She rarely thought about life before School or life outside School. It was as if she were born fully formed when she stepped off the down train. Home wasn’t home any more. School was.

  Even Rayne’s uniform now seemed less radical. Amy noticed other girls wearing black hats or socks, if not the full kit. Inchfawn had been right – it was now an acceptable option. Few were likely to go fully black until the dust settled. For a start, there was a possibility the dust would be settling on Rayne’s grave.

  From Light Fingers, who heard it from Prompt, Amy understood Rayne had received the customary visit from the Murdering Heathens. Her trunk contained no contraband – just approved clothes and books. She did not acknowledge Gryce as ringleader of the reception she’d been given in Chapel. She did not whimper when McClure applied a neck pinch that usually raised a high yelp. The puzzled torturer felt around Rayne’s shoulder and throat, pressing for nerves she couldn’t find. In the end, she slapped the new girl’s face and left it at that. Rayne shrugged off the pain like a fakir. Gryce didn’t know what to make of her. Lack of terror was a mute challenge. All School – with the exception of Rayne herself – assumed there would be a terrible reckoning.

  As Rayne went about unmurdered, suspense grew. Smudge reported vile plans afoot. Even those who disbelieved on principle anything Smudge said nodded sagely. These were Damocletian Days. The Blade of Doom hung overhead. Rats stayed in their holes, Violas slyly practised expressions of heartfelt sorrow in their mirrors, Mauve Mary was unseen and unheard, Nellie Pugh refused further bets on the Dread Day and Antoinette Rowley Rayne was a Walking Dead Girl.

  Only Palgraive smiled when Rayne hove in view, and she smiled at everyone. Sensible folk scarpered, just in case. Wherever Rayne went, Rintoul tagged along, lagging far enough behind to claim she wasn’t with her. As unconcerned as Rayne seemed to be, Prompt was terrified – she shed weight at a time when other girls were stuffing themselves against the cold.

  ‘They’ll leave me be,’ Prompt told Light Fingers. ‘They always have to leave someone alive to tell the tale.’

  Even as the new girl but one, Amy shouldn’t have felt especial sympathy for Rayne. They were in different Houses, different dorms, different clubs. Five desks was a chasm, rendering Rayne a virtual stranger – a Patagonian or a Jainite. If Rayne was of her mother’s opinion on moths, Amy could have precious little common ground with her. Professor Rosalind Rowley Rayne dismissed moths and butterflies in a mere two pages in her Child’s Taxonomy… while devoting seventeen pages to uninteresting species of ant.

  …and yet, Amy was concerned.

  She raised the Damocletian issue at a meeting of the Moth Club. Kali said Rayne’s forthcoming death was her own business… and besides, she’d probably just get tied to a netball goalpost overnight. Then, the Heathens would crack on with persecuting someone else. Palgraive was overdue for doom and the apostate Paule must be in Gryce’s black books – though the chosen victim could as easily be some scrawny Fourth or beanpole Second no one had thought to take notice of before.

  Amy still hadn’t found a way to share her suspicions about the identity of Red Flame with her friends and was self-conscious about her lack of candour. Kali already deemed her father a rotter of the first water, but Amy didn’t know how she’d react if told he was behind the Hooded Conspiracy. She was keeping quiet about Paule and the Purple too, and being vague about her dreams. How did she come to have so many secrets? Even from her closest pals?

  ‘I rather like Black Hat’s pluck,’ said Frecks.

  Was Rayne brave? Or simply acting according to her nature in ignorance of the consequences? The new girl struck Amy as sly and a shade sinister rather than a heroine to rally behind. She had more time for Absalom’s futile gestures than Rayne’s carapace of uncaring superiority.

  ‘I reckon I’d cut a dash in black,’ Frecks said. ‘I can see myself in widow’s weeds. Or whatever you call mourning clobber when it’s, say, a useless brother who’s booted the bucket.’

  Light Fingers had visited the Viola dorms to take measurements for the Mid-Winter Revue costumes. She reported that, since Rayne joined the ranks, the theatricals were quieter, less tizzy-prone and decidedly off their feed. Amy guessed the new girl’s House Sisters were afraid Gryce might decide to make an example by tying, say, Rayne’s whole dorm to that goalpost.

  ‘It’s not that,’ Light Fingers said, ‘it’s something else. I’ve never seen Viola like this. It’s like they’ve found something precious and are protecting it, but are afraid of it at the same time.’

  ‘I wouldn’t put Viola in charge of guarding the family silver,’ said Frecks, ‘unless I wanted it half-inched so I could put in an insurance claim.’

  Frecks’ brother had pulled this swindle as a way of realising fast cash on what ought to be Frecks’ inheritance. Doing something about Viscount Ralph was on the agenda of the Moth Club.

  ‘If Rayne winds up in concrete overshoes, Viola ain’t gonna do nothin’ but shut up about it,’ said Kali. ‘If Gryce’s goons messed with Goneril, they’d land up in the infirmary. Sheesh, if they came round here and pulled that fright stuff, we’d give ’em Italian smiles…’

  An Italian smile was a throat cut from ear to ear.

  ‘…and dump the stiffs on the doorstep. But Viola… nah, it’ll never happen. Rayne’s a goner. Them’s the breaks. A solid gone goner.’

  If Harriet/Marion had snapped before Imogen Ames, Amy would have been in Viola instead of here. She remembered the dorm rallying around when the Murdering Heathens came to call… she’d only survived her first week at Drearcliff because of her friends in Desdemona.

  All Rayne had were the blubbing babies of Viola.

  Amy agreed with Kali – she was a solid gone goner.

  It shouldn’t matter to her, but – somehow – it did.

  V: Break

  WHEN THE SCHOOL Rules were written – if not at the Diet of Worms in 1066, then in secret sessions nearly fifty years ago – each word in each phrase in each sentence in each paragraph on each page was considered. Everything was weighed and debated. Ambiguities were eliminated or enshrined. Rights were established and traps were set. After the final deliberation, the Rules were inscribed in the Drearcliff Grange School Charter. The Founders – often-invoked, never named – ceremonially cut their fingers and shed blood on the document.

  Their decisions would stand until the End of Time.

  The Last Trump would not sound until the last lesson was taught. Girls would not face Judgement until all books, chalk and pens were tidied away and the desks lined up. An orderly crocodile would be formed. Hats must be worn in the presence of Angels Hallowed or Fallen, but doffed in the presence of Archangels and Above. Whether in Heaven or Hell, a Drearcliff Girl would be a credit to her cloud or furnace. Among the saved or the damned, she would be exemplary.

  According to School Rules, girls had Break of forty-five minutes between midday meal and afternoon lessons. Unless it was raining, the period was to be spent out of doors. The word at issue was ‘raining’. With a looser definition of precipitation, current conditions might trigger the subsidiary clause which allowed that pupils could take Break in a designated classroom. There, they could play whist for ha’penny a trick, desperately cram up on subjects they should have covered in prep or gossip like washerwomen. As it was, strict interpretation of the Rules meant girls were not excused outdoor Break if it were only snowing.

  At the beginning of term, enthusiasm for snowball fights, skating and other winter pastimes ran high. That petered out by the end of the first week. Captain Freezing kept popping up, and de Vere continued her by-now demented solo assaults on his incarnations. Every day, more complaints of chills, colds and frostbite were presented to Nurse. All but the manifestly dying were turned away from the Infirmary. A sudden, unprecedented enthusiasm for second and third helpings of
semolina delayed expulsion to the freezing outdoors. Girls volunteered to clear away the meal-things, traditionally a punishment handed out to those whose spirit the whips wished to crush. Only Palgraive had put her hand up for this before. Now, smiling with her mouth and screaming with her eyes, she competed for the chore of scraping leftovers into the foul vats which were carted away to feed pigs or for use in scientific experiments. What unholy life might stir in the depths of foetid custard, rancid bacon rinds, bitter trifle and leathery liver?

  For a week Miss Kaye supervised Break. No stickler she for rigorous interpretation of School Rules. Under her merciful regime, girls stayed in the Refectory until the lesson-bell tolled. Provided they didn’t get in the way or set fire to benches and tables. Board games were played, Buller retained her status as Arm-Wrestling Champion, and paper aeroplanes sailed the length of the hall. Light Fingers showed Amy how to do cat’s cradle, which she said helped her focus and not make involuntary quick moves with her hands – keeping her talent under a bushel, so to speak. Amy saw what her friend meant, but had more than fast fingers to worry about. Intricate string constructs didn’t keep her on the ground, so she was back to stones in her pockets. Harmony Meade, a Viola Fourth, reclaimed the long-disused minstrels’ gallery. She plucked a lute as the wind blew snow against the long, rattling windows. She knew all the tunes from Chu Chin Chow and The Bing Boys Are Here.

  Then Digger Downs took over as Break Mistress. A fanatic for a literal reading of School Rules, she threw girls out in the cold, cold snow like errant daughters in the melodramas of yesteryear. Scarved and mittened, the whole school had to be herded by literal whips. The prefects used riding crops. Even the hardiest Goneril amazons complained it was a bit much, while the weeds of Viola gave voice to lamentation and wailing and gnashing of teeth. Amy kept her head down and trudged. The Moth Club spent Break in the Quad, which was somewhat protected from icy wind. Many huddled in Mauve Mary’s covered walkway, reminding Amy that the spectre had made herself scarce lately. On the playing fields, snow drifts formed around girls who stayed in one place too long.