by Alex Bell
“My name is Alice, and I got took before the courts for not having no home to go to.”
Miss Grayson gave a great sigh. “Please speak properly, Alice. You were brought before the courts for vagrancy.”
“Yes, miss,” Alice mumbled.
Next there was another girl of the same age. She was a tiny little thing, with pretty, honey-coloured hair and huge brown eyes.
“I’m Bess,” she said, twisting the front of her dress with both hands, clearly anxious at having to speak in front of everybody. “And the magistrates sent me here because they said my father was too much of a drunkard to look after me.”
After Bess took her seat, a girl of around ten stood up. She was thin, with extremely pale blond hair and a sickly look that spoke of long-term ill-health. And yet there was a spark in her eyes, a sort of smouldering defiance that made me like her at once. “My name is Estella,” she said in a strong, clear voice.
“And why are you here?” Miss Grayson said.
Estella did not look at the floor as most of the other girls had but instead raised her chin slightly. “The magistrates sentenced me to industrial school because my parents declared me to be beyond their control.”
There was almost an element of pride in her voice.
“And why did your parents finally have to wash their hands of you, Estella?” Miss Grayson pressed.
The girl stared right back at the schoolmistress. “They called me a compulsive liar.”
“That is not correct,” Miss Grayson replied.
Estella glared at her. “Yes, it is.”
“You were not sent here because your parents called you a compulsive liar, you ignorant girl,” Miss Grayson replied. “You were sent here because you are a compulsive liar.”
Estella shrugged. It was the first open show of rebellion I’d seen since arriving. All the other girls seemed remarkably well behaved, probably because they were all terrified of the schoolmistress.
“Sit down,” Miss Grayson ordered.
To my delight, Estella paused just a moment before doing so. When she glanced at me, I smiled at her. She looked surprised but offered me a small smile in return.
Once the rest of the girls had introduced themselves, Miss Grayson pointed to a pupil in the second row and said, “Georgia, for the benefit of our guest, can you please tell us what one of the two objectives of Dunvegan School is?”
“To provide pupils with the skills they’ll need to support themselves through honest, hardworking labour,” Georgia immediately said.
“Correct,” Miss Grayson replied. She turned her gaze on me and said, with obvious pride, “We are particularly noted for the excellence of our training programme here and girls educated at Dunvegan are highly sought after as domestic servants once they leave. Bess.” She turned back to the girl with honey-coloured hair. “The second objective?”
Bess looked startled to have been chosen and replied so quietly that no one could hear her.
“Speak up!” Miss Grayson ordered.
The girl tried again but as soon as she opened her mouth water poured out of it, an endless stream that soaked her shoes and splattered the boards at her feet. Her eyes had a dull, vacant look as her mouth opened wider and wider. She was soon soaked from head to foot, her clothes dripping wet, her hair sodden. Clumps of black sand fell from her mouth, landing on the floor with wet thumps, along with a tangle of weeds that the girl had to drag out of her throat, gagging all the while…
“Speak up, Bess,” Miss Grayson said again.
And suddenly the water was gone, and the girl was dry and normal-looking once more.
“To reform the child’s character,” Bess whispered.
I bunched my hands into fists and kept them carefully clenched in front of me. I must not react, not in front of everyone. Was I going mad? I must not allow myself to lose my mind. I was overtired, that was all, and hadn’t eaten in what felt like decades.
“Correct,” Miss Grayson said, bringing me back to the room. “You have all come from reduced circumstances and many of you have fallen in with bad crowds as a result, but any undesirable behaviour will be swiftly stamped out here.”
She looked directly at me as she said the last sentence. The lesson, which turned out to be a writing one, consisted of Miss Grayson handing out Bibles to the girls and having them copy out verses into their exercise books. She marched back over to me at the front of the room and handed me a large wooden ruler.
“If you see any student writing with her left hand you are to strike her immediately with this,” she told me. “You may sit on that stool.” She pointed to one at the front of the class. “But please keep an eye on them. There are several girls here who will insist on using their left hands.”
I took the ruler and sat on the stool, praying that I wouldn’t have to use it. The writing activity was carried out in silence and seemed to go on for an eternity. After the first half hour I was so bored I could have screamed. Being a medium may have had its downsides but at least it was never dull. In fact, I had rather enjoyed accompanying Mother to some of London’s most fashionable homes, sitting in their elegant parlours and dazzling the assembled guests with our carefully staged display of table-tipping and wall-rapping, our ‘ghostly hands’ tricks and levitating candlestick illusions.
Really, darling, it’s not much different from walking the boards at the theatre, you know, Mother used to say. She had done a bit of stage acting in her time, before the séance business. And although she couldn’t really speak to clients’ dead loved ones, I always thought Mother performed a valuable service anyway, as her kindly nature gave her a knack for comforting the bereaved. It always seemed to me that people could carry their grieving burdens a little easier after she had been to see them. No doubt that was why she created such a glowing reputation for herself as a gifted medium.
I had nothing to do but reminisce for the rest of that lesson. I was almost falling asleep by the end of the hour when I suddenly spotted one of the students, who’d shyly introduced herself as Martha, writing with her left hand. The last thing I wanted to do was go over there and hit her with the ruler for an offence so trivial, so I pretended I hadn’t noticed, hoping Miss Grayson wouldn’t see and that the lesson would soon be over. But moments later, the schoolmistress was on her feet, snatching the ruler from my hand and marching up towards the girl. Hastily Martha put the pen into her right hand but it was too late. Before she could even dip it in the inkwell, Miss Grayson had dealt her a stinging blow across the wrist.
“Martha, I do not know whether you are deviously stubborn or intolerably stupid, but I have told you countless times to write with your right hand!”
Martha mumbled an apology, gripping the pen tightly, her knuckles whitening.
“Proceed!” Miss Grayson snapped. “And, this time, do it correctly.”
Biting her lip, Martha started to write but, almost at once, Miss Grayson had seized the exercise book from her and was holding it up to show the class.
“Disgraceful,” the schoolmistress said. “This is easily the worst penmanship I’ve ever seen. You do not show any improvement at all, Martha. None! You will sit in the stupid corner for the rest of the lesson.”
She gripped the girl by the shoulder, pulled her up from her seat and dragged her, stumbling, past the desks to a stool at the front of the room. Then Miss Grayson reached behind her desk and drew out a tall, cone-shaped white hat, which she passed to Martha.
“You will wear the imbecile’s cap for the remainder of the lesson,” she said.
Martha put it on without a word, staring miserably down at her feet.
“Miss Black, while I inspect the others’ work, would you please record Martha’s punishment in the Punishment Book?” the schoolmistress said. “I trust this task, at least, is one you might be able to perform?”
She proceeded to deposit the most enormous tome on the desk. I’d never seen such a gigantic book in my life. You could have beaten someone to death with it
, if you’d had a mind to. As Miss Grayson walked up and down the rows of girls, I went over to the desk and saw that letters spelling out The Punishment Book were stamped across the leather cover in dark, curling script.
I opened the book and found it was already more than halfway full of punishments doled out to various students over the years. There were columns for the date, the girl’s name, their offence and the corresponding punishment, all written out in small, precise text bunched up as tiny as possible, as if the writer had wanted to squeeze as many misdeeds on to the page as they could.
Running my eye down the page it seemed to me that most of the offences were trivial enough – writing with the left hand, being five minutes late to class, performing poorly on a test, daydreaming during lessons. The punishments, though, were anything but trivial. I saw cane lashings and leg whippings and withheld meals, as well as hours and even days spent in ‘Solitary’.
Gritting my teeth, I picked up the pen and copied out Martha’s name, offence and punishment in a straight line beneath the others. Finally the lesson came to an end and the girls filed out quietly for their fifteen minutes of designated ‘playtime’ outside. During this time, Miss Grayson gave me a tour of the school, albeit with a reluctant, long-suffering air.
We began upstairs with the girls’ dormitory, which consisted of rows of narrow beds with threadbare blankets. We took the servants’ stairs back down to the kitchen, where Miss Grayson introduced me to Cassie, the pretty but hostile maid I had already met, and the second maid, Hannah, who looked a few years older and had straight brown hair and a timid expression. Miss Grayson said that Cassie had been a student at the school herself and had only been employed as a maid a couple of years earlier. Now that I looked at the girl closely, I realized she couldn’t be more than fifteen. There was also a cook, named Mrs String – a thin woman with a straggle of greasy hair scraped back on her head.
“And that there is Whiskers,” Hannah said, gesturing at a grey tabby curled into a contented ball by the fire. “The school cat.”
“Whiskers keeps the mice and the rats at bay,” Miss Grayson told me. “Everyone has their role to play, you see. And that is the entire household, apart from Henry, who I know you are already acquainted with.”
“Oh, are you related?” Cassie asked, in rather a hopeful tone.
“We knew each other as children,” I replied.
Growing up as neighbours, Henry and I had been practically inseparable. It helped that his mother was a costume seamstress for the theatre, which was how she and my mother had first met. Mrs Collins often came to our home to measure Mother for the elaborate gowns she wore when playing the part of a medium. But then, to my dismay, Henry’s mother returned to her birthplace on the Isle of Skye when I was eleven and Henry twelve.
Of course we’ll be married, he’d often said to me in that joking way of his. As soon as I can make myself worthy of you, that is.
It all seemed a long time ago now. We had written to each other periodically ever since and Henry’s latest letter, containing the job advert for a place at the school where he worked as a drawing master, couldn’t have come at a better time.
There’s nothing keeping you in London, after all, he’d written. And I would love to see you again, my dear old friend…
Part of me dreaded our first meeting. I knew I had changed a lot in the past six years and Henry was bound to notice. And then he would want to know about what had happened to me and that was something I couldn’t share. With him, or anyone.
“Mrs String comes in to prepare the meals but Cassie and Hannah are the only other live-in staff,” Miss Grayson said. “They have every third Sunday off, so we organize the meals ourselves on those days. I should make you aware now that we never prepare any food with nuts in it. One of the girls, Estella, mustn’t eat them. It’s extremely serious. We had an incident last year when she had a funny turn and almost died. The physician had to be called – at great expense to the school, I might add. He informed us that we were extremely fortunate on that occasion but, if there were to be a repeat occurrence, then the result would surely be fatal. For that reason we don’t cook with nuts at all. You must bear this in mind when you run the cookery classes.”
“Will I be doing those on my own?” I asked, a little nervously. When Mother and I lived alone I had sometimes helped her in the kitchen, but I was no accomplished chef by any means.
“Yes, I thought you could manage to take those lessons,” Miss Grayson said, although she gave me a dubious look as she spoke. “I need the additional time to catch up on my correspondence. It needn’t be anything too fancy, mind. The girls simply need to learn how to become decent housekeepers. You may peruse Mrs Beeton’s book for recipes.”
I was relieved to hear there would be a recipe book, at least.
We continued on with the tour. Miss Grayson showed me the remaining classrooms as well as the basement, which contained the luggage rooms where the girls’ trunks were stored during term time.
“Of course, many of them remain here for the holidays,” Miss Grayson said. “Their parents are supposed to contribute to the fees but some can’t and most wilfully don’t. Whatever money they get is probably frittered away in gin palaces and dogfighting dens.” She sniffed loudly. “The girls are better off here. This school represents the one chance at a decent life that many of them will ever know. If they can obtain employment in a respectable household then they can raise themselves out of the slums from which they came.”
We had reached the entrance hall once again and Miss Grayson stopped at the foot of the stairs. “I suggest you take the rest of the morning to acquaint yourself with the school and unpack your belongings,” she said. Her mouth twisted and she added, “No doubt you hoped one of the maids would see to your unpacking for you but I’m afraid you will have to learn to look after yourself.”
“I did not expect anything else for a moment,” I replied.
“Lunch is served in the hall at twelve o’clock,” the schoolmistress went on, as if she hadn’t heard me. “Lessons resume at twelve forty-five. Please present yourself promptly.”
With that she turned and left me, and I was more than pleased to see the back of her.
Chapter Three
Isle of Skye – January 1910
When I returned to my room I found that the servants’ bell had been removed in my absence, no doubt under Miss Grayson’s orders. I was not surprised. Clearly she was determined to make life as unpleasant as possible for me.
I unpacked my luggage quickly. It did not take long, for the simple reason that my possessions were few. Most of my things had been destroyed in the fire at Whiteladies. After the funeral expenses had been taken care of, there was just enough money left to see to my wardrobe and procure a few personal items. My clothes were all identical mourning dresses; my shoes and hats were plain and cheap.
After tidying away my things and glaring one last time at the brass hook where the bell pull should be, I put on my cloak and decided to take a turn around the grounds. I was keen to get out of the school, enjoy some fresh air and get my bearings.
On my way down to the kitchen I took the servants’ stairs and, to my surprise, almost collided with a maid who was humming to herself and dusting the banisters. She was a thin girl of about my age, with mousy hair tucked into her white cap.
“Oh,” I said. “Hello. I thought I’d already met everybody.”
The girl abruptly stopped humming and whirled round to face me, her brown eyes wide. She stared at me with such a look of shock that I began to think she must be rather a simpleton.
“I’m Jemima Black,” I said. “The new assistant mistress.”
The girl said nothing. I wondered whether perhaps Miss Grayson had neglected to inform her that I was arriving.
“And your name is?” I pressed.
“Dolores,” the girl whispered, her voice so quiet that I had to strain to hear her.
“Well. How do you do?” I said feebly. I
went down the rest of the stairs, leaving the maid staring after me, the feather duster dangling from her hand.
By now the girls had returned to their lessons and I had the place to myself. I ran into Cassie outside the kitchen. She scowled at me and I gave her my coldest stare right back. The cat, Whiskers, was poking around outside the kitchen door and I distinctly saw Cassie aim a bad-natured kick at him as she went past.
Shaking my head, I turned away from the schoolhouse and set off to explore. I quickly found the well-tended vegetable patch, as well as the chicken coop, where a collection of plump chickens pecked and scratched at the frozen earth. The grounds were neatly landscaped and I could hear the distant roar of the sea. I followed the noise right to the cliff edge and saw that the roiling ocean seemed to be in as restless a mood as I was. I had never laid eyes on the sea before yesterday and I didn’t think I’d ever quite get used to the incredible hugeness of it. There was something soothing about all that water, as well as the deep rumbling roar of the surf swirling around in the hidden caves below.
I’d been standing there for a few minutes when a dog arrived. I didn’t hear it approach; suddenly it was just there and it was without doubt the ugliest creature I’d ever seen. For a start, it only had three legs – one of its front ones was missing, causing it to hop along in a most ungainly way. And it had a scar running down the side of its face that caused its left eyelid to droop. It looked like some kind of terrier, small and wiry, with a patchy grey coat and ears that flopped about all over the place. It seemed terribly excited to see me, hopping up and down on its sole front leg in an absurd fashion as it did its best to lick my hands.
I’d never had much contact with dogs, and wasn’t really quite sure what to do, but this was certainly the warmest welcome I’d had from any living soul since arriving on the Isle of Skye.
“Hello,” I said, tentatively reaching out and patting the dog’s head. “You’re an excitable little fellow, aren’t you?”
The dog licked my hands and wagged its tail, looking ecstatic.
