‘I think it’s disgraceful!’ she said. ‘Nothing more or less than a witch-hunt. On the basis of a whole lot of unsubstantiated allegations, three of my form are given the third degree, including my form captain. When she walked into their geography class after seeing the Head the poor child looked devastated. As for Constance King, that’s all the good of the last eight weeks undone. She’s a highly intelligent, sensitive girl - shut up, Sylvia, I don’t want to hear your bitchy remarks - and a great deal of damage has been done.’
‘And Charmian?’ said Sylvia Parry. ‘Do let’s hear your perfectly splendid defence of Charmian.’
‘All right. OK. So you think she’s the culprit. Give me one single shred of evidence. One.’
‘God, you’re so self-righteous it makes me sick! If we had any fucking evidence—’
‘Language!’ admonished a voice.
‘If we had any fucking evidence, I said, we wouldn’t all be acting like a bunch of amateur sleuths.’
‘Yet you wrote her name down, didn’t you? As chief suspect?’ Ginny Valentine said.
Sylvia Parry’s voice grew dangerously soft, like the wolf who’s eaten chalk. ‘The names we wrote down were confidential, or so I was given to understand. May I have your evidence for that remark?’
Diana interrupted. ‘Ginny, you don’t know and how could you, so drop it. I know it’s twice as unsettling for you, what with it being your form, but do let’s try and talk about something else for once. Who’s going to win the Ladies’ Singles? Five bob on little Mo, anybody?’
‘I’m glad you’ve got five bob to chuck about…’ said ‘Bibs’ Whitby; and conversation veered to the standard complaints about how badly they were paid, compared with men, and the iniquities of the Burnham scale, until the bell rang. All but one headed off to their classrooms, books clamped under one elbow.
Only Mrs Whitby, the games mistress, was left behind in the staff-room as the others dispersed to teach. She had not been at the previous evening’s staff meeting, for it was assumed that she didn’t know enough about individual fourth-form girls to have any basis for suspicion. She’d come in earlier than usual to draw up a detailed timetable for Speech Day’s exhibition of swimming and diving.
The one member of staff who lived at home with her husband and children, Bibs Whitby had a sense of proportion that the other teachers lacked. In the cramped staff-room each tremor of favour or success was elevated into melodrama. Everyone took sides. Gossip ricocheted off the walls, as fact was overtaken by the wilder constructs of rumour, malice and invention, passing from girls to staff like Chinese whispers. By now the building itself seemed to emanate guilt to such an extent that if in years to come someone with second sight were to walk through its rearranged rooms, the sense of that guilt might touch them too. Charmian’s unhappy, pointless thefts - such small crimes, she would say later, laughing, as she told some man a pretty tale about her schooldays - the grit of those small crimes now permeated the bricks and dust of the building.
The teachers, in this hermetically sealed, stuffy domain, knew nothing about the rituals of courtship and marriage. Worse than that, thought Mrs Whitby, they were completely ignorant of the realities of bringing up children. It showed in how much store they set by imposing authority and commanding obedience, and the footling methods they used to boost their own self-confidence and punish any child who showed spirit: the pompous ritual of order marks that had to be written in a book and verified with the teacher’s initials. She’d seen the book. SP, SP, SP, SP the initials ran down the last column. And the crimes? Running down the corridor. Interrupting in class. Whispering in class. Coming late to the lunch queue. There was something wrong with any child who didn’t behave like that, and something wrong with a system that regarded it as right and proper for children to be grave, slow and deferential.
Her own twin sons were ten, her daughter twelve, and she focused attention upon them with an intensity far greater than she gave to all the lumpy girls in the flapping shorts and Aertex shirts. Comparing the other teachers’ lives with her own, she knew that she was lucky. They had scores of girls in their charge, but at the end of each day only she read her three children a story, inhaling the smell of Pears’ soap and warm Viyella: her own children, not some other woman’s. The unmarried teachers had missed out on a woman’s proper destiny, and she felt a thread of contempt for them. What did they know of bed, poor spinsters? As for that unstable pair, Sylvia and Diana, Bibs disliked even being in the same room as them.
There was a knock on the staff-room door, but before she could call ‘Come in!’ the pert face of Charmian Reynolds, framed by blonde bunches, looked round it.
‘Oh, Mrs Whitby, sorry!’ she said. ‘I didn’t think there’d be anyone here.’
‘Why did you knock, in that case?’
‘Well, I don’t know, um, just habit …’
‘What do you want?’
‘Nothing. Gosh. Sorry I disturbed you. It doesn’t matter.’
She would have shut the door and slipped away, but Mrs Whitby got up and led her into the room.
‘Come in. I know it’s not allowed, but there’ll be no-one here for at least half an hour. Sit down.’
‘I can’t. I only asked to be excused. I have to go back.’
‘All right, dear, run along, then. Only remember: if you want to have a chat with me, just ask. I believe your parents are getting a divorce? I know how upset you must be. I’m married and have children of my own. I can imagine what it would do to them if Mr Whitby and I were to separate. I do understand how you feel.’
‘It’s awfully kind of you …’ said Charmian, but Bibs could see that she was itching to get away.
‘Remember, then. Any time.’
‘Yes. I’ve got to go now. To the aunt I mean. Thanks anyway.’
Bibs Whitby closed the staff-room door thinking to herself, Now what on earth was all that about? Charmian Reynolds, what are you up to?
Charmian, as she raced back to her classroom, thought, That is my first mistake. It makes it all the more exciting, somehow. Then, from behind her, a voice called out her name.
‘Well, that didn’t get us very much further,’ said the Head to Peggy Roberts. From their imposing desks in the study they looked bleakly across at one another. ‘And I have received the first parental letter this morning, asking what’s going on,’ Henrietta added.
‘Whose?’
‘Hermione Mailing-Smith’s.’
‘Well, there you do surprise me! I would not have thought that young lady capable of writing an articulate letter.’
‘Peggy! You make me laugh with that voice. You mustn’t be so cutting. Oh, dear, you’re quite right, though. Just because she’s nice-looking.’
‘Not “nice-looking”, Henrietta. Be fair. She is a beauty.’
‘Handsome is as handsome does, as my Scottish nanny used to say.’
‘Yes, and handsome does very well in a boarding-school. And everywhere else, for that matter. Well, what are you going to do? Get her in?’
‘Why not? Anything’s worth a try, and I don’t know what else to do.’
After the next bell, a junior was despatched to find Hermione and bring her to the study. She entered guiltless and easy, flashing the same glorious smile with which she favoured everyone. It was not returned.
‘Sit down, Hermione,’ the Head said. ‘I have had a letter from your parents. I gather you have told them about the episodes of stealing that have bedevilled us all recently.’
Peggy Roberts smiled inwardly. Bedevilled, she thought. That’ll fox her.
‘That’s all right,’ the Head went on. ‘You have a perfect right to tell your parents whatever you think fit. I wonder, however, if there is anything you should be telling me about these thefts? Perhaps one of the juniors has confided in you?’
‘No, Mrs Birmingham, unfortunately not. I wish they had. I’d love to be able to help.’
‘And you haven’t noticed anything unusual? No special
behaviour?’
‘No, Mrs Birmingham.’
Not likely to, either, thought Peggy Roberts. There was a silence.
Most girls, after a silence had lasted longer than a minute, would become uncomfortable and volunteer some remark, even if it were only ‘Shall I go now?’ But Hermione sat, apparently perfectly relaxed. She was watching the gardener’s boy, sleeves rolled up to reveal his muscular arms, riding the mower across the lawn. It made a distant grinding sound. Then she realized that she could look at her reflection in the side window, beyond which a dark tree acted as a mirror. She studied herself tranquilly, devoid of thought, until Mrs Birmingham said, ‘All right, Hermione, you may go. You will be a prefect next term, I expect. I hope you take your responsibilities seriously. It’s time you put something back into the school.’
‘Yes, Mrs Birmingham,’ said Hermione prettily.
As she walked along the corridor from the dining-room towards the Covered Way, Hermione saw Charmian coming out of the staff-room; definitely coming out of it.
‘Charmian!’ she called. ‘Charmian! What were you doing in the staff-room?’
‘I don’t know, Hermy … sorry, Hermione.’
‘You don’t know?’
‘Well, I mean, Mrs Whitby called me in. I don’t know why.’
She is an attractive child, thought Hermione unexpectedly, and that’s why she’s having problems. Old Bibs must be after her. She looks pale.
‘Are you all right, Charmian? Are you sure? Has anything happened?’
Charmian had never seen Hermione’s face so close, bending anxiously to look into her own, a long curl swinging beside her ear. Her skin was faintly translucent, with an almost bluish sheen through which her veins showed up in lilac tracery. She smelled of Elizabeth Arden’s Blue Grass. Charmian had a sudden vision of herself being picked up by Hermione, of being carried away, of being taken to some secret place, of being cuddled, of telling her the whole story … about Mummy and Uncle Dickie, and how much she loved Daddy, and how he didn’t write to her, so she must have done something wrong, something bad. And - no, she wouldn’t say what she’d done; she’d say how sorry she felt for the poor little orphans in Dr Barnardo’s Homes who had no parents at all, and so she was trying to cheer them up; and then in the vision Hermione was saying, ‘Goodness Charmian, what a kind person you are!’ All this sped through her mind in seconds, as Hermione’s soft fair hair tickled the side of her neck. But Charmian said nothing. She had learned about silence.
‘Well,’ said Hermione, in a disappointingly senior way, ‘you’d better hurry back to your form-room. But walk, don’t run.’
‘Yes, Hermione,’ said Charmian. She dawdled back to Miss Monk’s boring maths lesson.
Constance sat in class huddled inside herself, trying to blot out the hostility of the others, who knew, of course, that she had been summoned to see the Head this morning. Her finger was throbbing where a splinter had gone into it a week ago and the pain and her thoughts plunged her into sullen misery. She had expected to be one of those who was called to the study. She knew they all wanted her to be guilty. She was the ‘new girl’, the outsider. It would suit them if she were the one.
Mrs Birmingham had cross-questioned her closely -not so much about herself; she was not apparently a prime suspect, not in the Head’s eyes anyway - but about who might be doing the stealing.
‘You’re intelligent and observant. You would notice the girls in your class, how they behave, what they’re like. You must have drawn your own conclusions by now about which of them is honest or dishonest. I need your help, Constance: tell me what you think.’
Constance had longed to succumb to this mixture of flattery and reassurance, and longed most of all to be rid of the burden which Charmian imposed. But if Charmian were accused, everyone would know that she had split on her friend, and that was even worse than stealing. She hesitated. Mrs Birmingham noticed the hesitation, and extended her hands, palms upwards, upon the desk. This was an old, unconscious gesture of hers. It symbolized openness, defenceless pleading. It nearly worked.
Constance had sighed deeply, unconscious of her sigh, and looked down at her throbbing finger. The flesh around the nail was red and shiny. With each pulse the bright needle of pain zig-zagged through her. She squeezed the fingertip tightly in her clenched fist, and the red part glowed yellow and poisonous. It hurt more, and she squeezed it again.
‘I don’t know anything about it, Mrs Birmingham,’ she had answered, looking at her finger. There was a long silence. Finally she said, ‘May I go now?’
‘You may.’
‘Constance King, will you repeat for the class the formula for quadratic equations?’
‘I’m sorry, Miss Monk, I don’t know it.’
‘But I have just this very minute explained it. Where were you?’
‘I’m sorry, I didn’t hear.’
‘You mean you weren’t listening.’
No, I wasn’t listening, thought Constance. I hate maths. I hate the Lower Fourth. Most of all I hate Charmian. I want to go home. I shall run away. And, as she hadn’t got a home that she could visualize, she thought, I hope there’s a letter from Mummy at Break.
Charmian entered the room, glanced decorously towards Miss Monk, and slipped into the next desk. After a moment or two she looked fiercely at Constance and gritted her teeth. Constance shook her head imperceptibly. Charmian’s shoulders relaxed and she reached over and squeezed Constance’s hand, making the finger throb.
‘Well done, Gogs!’ she whispered, and smiled in a way that anyone else would have interpreted as sympathy, but only Constance knew was pure triumph.
As the end of the week approached, the school was gripped by a single over-riding purpose. Saturday was Speech Day, when form-rooms were decked out with needlework and pottery, exercise books and text books, arranged so that the best were nearest the front, while pages marked ‘Untidy work, Rachel: you must take more trouble’ or ‘You haven’t understood, Charmian: please see me!’ were hidden away at the bottom of the pile.
The school, of course, had no secrets from parents.
Up in the studio the best pictures were displayed on wooden battens along the walls or tacked on to easels with drawing-pins. Every girl’s portfolio was there to be opened; some were simply more accessible than others. Fathers would walk round in navy blazers and striped or regimental ties, hands behind their backs, peering uncertainly at the drawings or paintings, stuck for words.
‘Which one’s yours, darling?’ mothers would ask; and then, ‘Lovely, my pet! Oh, I do like it! Are you allowed to bring it home?’ If the picture did come home at the end of term, rolled up and a little crumpled, the grey sugar paper already shabby, it would be folded and put away in a ‘treasures drawer’, and often not looked at again until years later. After the death of the parent, a dutiful daughter, now middle-aged, clearing through ‘their old junk’, would suddenly stop, rock back on her heels, and stare at this same drawing. Then the recollection of the high studio with its skylight and chalky easels, stained jam jars, splayed paintbrushes, and of their aprons splashed with bright poster paints, would flood through her with an emotion more acute than any evoked by her parent’s recent death.
The amphitheatre was a natural dip in the ground behind the swimming-pool, surrounded by pergolas that had once been draped with Edwardian roses but were now sadly neglected because the gardener had no time, with just the one boy to help him, and the games field to roll and mow. Here, in the evenings, rehearsals for 1066 and All That went on until the dormitory bell rang and the jaunty singing of ‘Oh, we don’t want to lose you, But we think you ought to go …’ had to stop. In the long, light evenings of high summer it seemed as if their voices floated for miles across the green and leafy Sussex hills, vibrant as the sunsets, mellowing towards the finale.
Ginny Valentine, bright-eyed and endlessly enthusiastic, sewed and altered costumes every evening when rehearsals were over, and badgered other members of the staff to
do the same. In her study, Mrs Birmingham sat writing her speech for the parents and school, searching for words that would reassure the parents without being dishonest about the state of affairs within the school. Usually the plump cadences would have rolled off her nib. ‘And in this coming year, as every year, we shall strive to carry on that Christian tradition which is perhaps the school’s proudest, and at the same time its humblest, boast…’ How could she say that, when each girl and every member of staff knew that someone was stealing and at least one other person was lying? She could not set the girls an example of duplicity; yet parents - and in particular the bishop, who was to be this year’s special guest and give out the prizes - needed to be told that the school was a character-building Christian community.
She had invented a prize for Sheila Dunsford-Smith - Best Garden, not that their square, unimaginative little patch really deserved it - in the hope that this would persuade the Major to bring his daughter back to the school. The child had said no farewells, and Mrs Birmingham knew from her own experience that a proper leave-taking was essential.
She remembered the disbelief with which she had greeted the news, brought by the village postman bearing a telegram. First Alistair. Dead. Then, two years later, Hugo. Dead. She could not reconcile her last image of them - in uniform, but so ebulliently, solidly alive - with the realization that now they were dead. Blown up, shot to pieces, left to die of thirst in some shell-hole: the details, however often she had tried to imagine them, were almost beside the point. It had taken years to accept that she would not see them again, not even when the war was over and life had supposedly returned to normal, except that her brothers were still dead.
Mrs Birmingham knew that Sheila needed the rituals of saying goodbye, exchanging home addresses, promising to write, to visit, to keep in touch. Even if she did none of these things, she ought to round off her time at the school. She hoped the child would come, and that she herself could find a moment amid the bustle and demands of Speech Day for a quiet word with her about the death of her mother.
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