by Eva Ibbotson
Julia was in the room next to hers; then came Barney, then two children she had not met yet. Kit was at the far end of the corridor.
As she was putting her things away there was a knock on the door.
“Do you need any help with unpacking? I’m Magda—your housemother.”
Magda was thin and very dark with large black eyes and wispy hair.
Tally shook her head. “No, I’m all right, thanks.”
“Good. Well, high tea’s in half an hour. You’ll hear the gong. And after that you’re to go along to the headmaster’s room.”
Tally looked stricken. She had not quite shaken off the memory of the books she had read before she came. “I can’t have done anything yet—I’ve only just got here.”
Magda smiled. “No, no. Daley likes to welcome new children individually. Julia will show you where to go.”
The headmaster’s study was large and light. One window looked out over the courtyard; another faced the terraced garden leading to the playing field and, beyond it, the rolling hills. Now, hearing a quiet knock at the door, Daley said, “Come in,” and a girl with a nibbled fringe and interested eyes came into the room.
“Ah, Talitha Hamilton, is that right? And they call you Tally.”
“Yes.”
Clearly this wasn’t a curtsying situation, though the headmaster sat behind an impressive desk, so Tally smiled instead and put out her hand.
The headmaster had a headache. He always had a headache for the first three days of term, but for a moment the throbbing grew less. For this child was actually on the list, she was expected, she looked intelligent—and she had taken notice of the cedar tree. And this was important because she was on a scholarship and he couldn’t console himself with thinking that she brought much-needed money with her. One child, however awful, provided the salary for a teacher for a term, or a year’s worth of books. He shouldn’t of course have given any more scholarships, but his friend Professor Mayfield had spoken so enthusiastically of the selfless work done by Tally’s father that he had agreed.
“Now,” he said, when he had welcomed her to Delderton, “have you any questions you wanted to ask me? ”
“Well, I do have. I mean, I thought I was coming to an ordinary school where girls lived in dorms and shouted, ‘Well played, Daphne!’—and all that . . . but this isn’t like that, is it? ”
“No.”
“I’m not reproaching anybody, but what is it exactly? People say it’s a progressive school and I know what progressive means—at least I think I do. It means going from somewhere to somewhere else. But where to? ”
“Ah yes.” The headmaster for a moment looked sad. “That is a good question. I suppose we want children to take responsibility for their own lives. To choose what is right rather than to have it forced on them.”
“Yes, I see. Of course, one would have to know what is right.”
“Don’t you think one does know? ”
“I suppose so. Usually. But oughtn’t . . . the whole school to be going from somewhere to somewhere else? To somewhere better . . . if it’s being progressive? I mean, the world isn’t very good, is it, with this war coming and everything.”
Daley was silent. The child was certainly right about the state of the world. For a moment he saw what she saw: a whole school marching like an avenging army on the side of The Good.
“We do what we can to help: we take a lot of children from abroad. Staff, too, and many of the people who help with domestic work come from oppressed countries. And there’s a council meeting every other Monday: if you have any ideas you could put them forward then.”
Tally nodded, screwing up her face. “I expect it’s more difficult than I realize.” And then: “Is it true we don’t have to go to lessons? ”
“You don’t have to, but I hope you will. We have some excellent teachers.”
“So it’s all right to go to lessons? We don’t have to be free if we don’t want to? ”
The headmaster smiled. “No, Tally, you don’t have to be free.”
But Tally had another question. “I was wondering about Augusta Carrington. Did anyone find her? ”
“Yes, they did,” said the headmaster, looking pleased. “She’s turned up at a school in Wales. She got on the wrong train at Paddington—it happens from time to time.”
He looked down at the note he had made on his writing pad. All the children had a tutor chosen from among the staff, whom they saw once a week and to whom they could take special problems. Next to Tally’s name he had written: “David Prosser.” There was nothing wrong with the chemistry teacher; he was a perfectly sensible and responsible man. But now he crossed it out and wrote a different name.
“Your tutor will be Matteo von Tarlenheim. He takes biology . . . and other things.”
Now why did I do that? he wondered when Tally had gone. He usually kept Matteo for difficult boys or for children like Julia Mecklebury who had a special problem—and Tally was in neither of these groups.
But he did not change his mind.
When she got back to her corridor Tally found that Julia had finished unpacking and arranging her room. She had tacked up two posters of landscapes—an autumn wood and a rocky beach—and plumped up an embroidered cushion on the bed. Everything looked cheerful and nice, except for the photo of Gloria Grantley, the film star with sausage curls and pouting lips, which was in a silver frame by Julia’s bed.
“Is she a friend of the family? ” asked Tally, but Julia just shook her head, and Barney came in then to say he was going to settle the axolotl in his proper tank in the pet hut and, if they came with him, Tally could see where everything was.
The pet hut was behind the gym, which was a separate building set in trees. On the wooden steps leading up to it sat a small, very pretty girl talking in French to an enormous white rabbit that drooped down on either side of her slender knees.
Inside, the hut was full of cages from which came the squeals and snuffles of various rabbits and mice and guinea pigs. In one corner, however, there was an unexpected pet: a large striped snake, which opened one gummy eye as it felt the vibration made by their footsteps. It looked unhealthy and dry.
“That’s Verity’s,” said Julia. “She’s an awful show-off. You wouldn’t catch Verity with anything as ordinary as a guinea pig.”
Verity, it turned out, was the girl who had been barefoot in Paddington Station.
They decanted the axolotl into a bigger tank and gave him some bloodworm pellets and he settled down at once and began to eat—but Barney was still worried because he hadn’t got a name for him.
“It’s so rude having pets that aren’t called anything,” he said.
But it was difficult. The axolotl’s head, with its piercing black eyes and feathery gills, could have been called something Mexican and royal-sounding, like Protaxeles, but his legs were not royal at all. They were short and bandy—and if you had been naming his legs he would have been called Cyril or Alf.
“It’ll come to you suddenly,” said Tally. “Probably in the middle of the night.”
After that they took Tally on a tour of the school buildings. As the school had grown, classrooms and workshops and studios had sprung up outside the courtyard in places that had been part of the gardens of the old hall. There were only a few gardeners and groundsmen left now, so that creepers grew up the side of the gym and there were patches of moss and wildflowers between the paving stones. In the early-evening light everything looked dreamy, like an illustration in a book of watercolors.
They went down a sloping field to look at the school farm: a huddle of sheds with three goats, a cow, a handful of sheep, and some chickens which an African boy called Borro was shutting up for the night. As they made their way back they passed the open door of the art room and saw Clemmy bent over some dishes, mixing powder paints. She looked serene and happy—and Tally saw what Barney meant when he said that she should not be in charge of trains. Last term’s paintings were still on the
wall: monkeys swung through jungles, underwater creatures wreathed and coiled . . . and in one corner was a bloodred painting of excited workers carrying sickles and hammers toward a palace gate.
“That’s Tod’s picture,” said Julia. “He’s sure the revolution will come soon, and that will be the end of tyrants and kings.”
Julia had not been exaggerating when she said that Magda was not good at making cocoa. When they had washed and put on their pajamas, all the children in the Blue House met for cocoa and biscuits in Magda’s room. Magda had a little kitchenette adjoining her room and she disappeared into it, emerging with a huge jug and a tray of cups.
The cocoa she poured out was quite extraordinary—blackish and grainy with a thick layer of skin—but she seemed so relieved when she had made it and poured it into the cups that even the rowdiest children said nothing. Then she played a Mozart sonata on her gramophone and everybody went to bed.
“You see what I mean about the cocoa,” said Julia.
“Yes, I do. Perhaps something could be done,” said Tally.
Julia looked surprised. “How could it? She always makes it like that.”
“Maybe we could make it? ” suggested Tally.
But now, as the lights went out, the homesickness that had been lying in wait for Tally gathered itself together and pounced.
She thought of the aunts, waiting for her as she came home from school, eager for every detail of her day. She thought of her friends in the street—Maybelle and Kenny, and Primrose in her stable.
But above all she thought of her father. Coming in from the surgery asking, “Where’s Tally?” as soon as he entered the house . . . teasing her about something foolish she had said . . . walking with her along the river on a Sunday, while they talked about anything and everything on earth.
It would be months before she saw him again and they had scarcely been separated for a day.
The lump in her throat was growing bigger. She groped for a handkerchief.
And then she heard the sound of sobbing. The sobbing grew louder, was muffled, then grew louder again.
Tally had expected tears from Kit but he had gone to sleep at once, his thumb in his mouth, and anyway his room was at the other end of the corridor. She waited, but the crying went on. It was none of her business, really—but she had not been brought up to ignore distress. She got out of bed, opened her door, and listened.
The sobbing came from a door opposite. She knocked very quietly, then pushed it open.
She was in the housemother’s room. Magda was sitting at her table, which was piled high with manuscript paper. Clearly she had intended to work on her book about the philosopher with the difficult name, but she wasn’t. Her head had fallen forward and she was crying bitterly; strands of hair lay on the paper and there was ink on her face.
When she saw Tally she sat up suddenly and blew her nose. “Is anything the matter? ” she asked. “Are you homesick? ”
“No . . . well, not really. But are you all right? ”
Tally’s inquiring face, tilted in concern, brought on another attack of weeping.
“Yes . . . yes. Of course. I’m not starving or being shot at, so of course I’m all right.” Magda sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. “You must go back to bed—you’ll be so tired in the morning.”
But Tally knew what one had to do when people were in trouble; her father had told her often enough. One sat quietly beside them and waited. And indeed, almost at once, Magda began to speak.
“It’s just . . . when everything’s quiet, one can’t help remembering. You see, I studied in Germany, in Weimar. It’s such a beautiful city, the old squares, the gardens . . . so peaceful, so full of interesting people and everyone so well-behaved. Scholars, professors . . . the lectures were remarkable. There was a young professor there . . . Heribert. I was going to go back to Germany to live when I had finished my book, and I thought that we might get married. But not now. Not with the Nazis marching about in jackboots spoiling everything—and anyway, I have a Jewish grandmother. But for me,” said Magda, and her eyes filled with tears again, “Weimar will always be home.”
“Yes, I see.” Tally put out a hand and laid it on Magda’s arm. “I’m so sorry.”
She stayed for a while, and before she left Magda’s sobs had died down. She even offered to make Tally another cup of cocoa.
Back in her bed, Tally found she was too tired to go on with her own longings. She had expected anything except to go to a school where it was the teachers who were homesick—and almost at once she fell asleep.
CHAPTER FIVE
Becoming a Fork
Perhaps it was a pity that the first lesson on the timetable the next morning was drama. Tally had thought that drama was about doing plays and had been looking forward to it, but it wasn’t. It was taught by a woman with gray hair called Armelle, wearing a leotard, and took place in the hall.
“Now I want you to spread yourself out on the floor,” she said. “Give yourself plenty of space because we’re going to do an improvisation that covers the whole of our lives. We’re going to start by giving birth to ourselves. We’re going to imagine that we’re an embryo waiting to be born. Waiting . . . waiting . . . Don’t hurry it . . . that’s right . . . Then we’re going to learn to walk . . . slowly . . . very slowly . . . crawl first . . . then upright. Good . . . good . . .”
Tally was between Julia and Kit. She had hoped that Kit would decide to be born near some boys on the other side of the room, but he settled himself down as close to her as he could and now she heard his anguished whisper.
“I don’t want to give birth to myself, Tally. I don’t want to. I want to go to a proper school, where they have prefects and play cricket.”
When they had finished giving birth to themselves they had to stand up and become rigid and pronged like a fork, and then curved and bountiful like a teapot, and then soft and yielding like a pillow.
“If we don’t have to go to classes, why does everyone come to drama? ” asked Tally when they were out in the courtyard again.
“It’s because Armelle’s son was killed in Spain, fighting for the Republicans,” explained Julia. “She used to be quite fat and bossy, and now she’s all skin and bones.”
After drama came handicrafts. This was taught by a cheerful plump woman called Josie, who took them out into the fields behind the school to look for sheep’s wool.
“When we’ve got a sackful we’re going to wash it and card it and dye it—using natural dyes, of course. Lichen and moss and alder bark . . . It’ll keep us busy most of the term,” she said cheerfully.
Tally thought that this was likely: the fields around Delderton seemed to be inhabited by cows rather than sheep and wisps of discarded wool were scarce, but as they searched the hedgerows Josie pointed out all sorts of interesting plants which they would pick later and grind up and boil in vats.
“I’ve been experimenting with woad,” she said, and rolled up her sleeves to show them her forearms, which were mottled with blue, “but I haven’t got it quite right yet. It makes you realize how clever the ancient Britons were.”
After break they had a double period of English; it was taken by a quietly spoken man in spectacles called O’Hanrahan. They were studying Greek myths and he told them the story of Persephone, who was carried away by the King of the Underworld and kept prisoner there, guarded by a dreadful three-headed dog, while her sorrowing mother, the goddess Demeter, searched and lamented, and the trees and flowers withered and died. He didn’t read the story, he told it, and the class listened to him in total silence.
“It would make a good play,” said a boy with ginger hair.
“Perhaps next term,” said O’Hanrahan. He turned to Tally. “What do you think? ”
Tally nodded. “Yes, it would. The spirits trapped in the Underworld would be interesting to do. Writhing and shrieking and begging to be let out.”
“Oh, not a play,” said Julia nervously. “Not proper acting.”
&n
bsp; O’Hanrahan looked at her quietly for a moment before he said, “No one has to act if they don’t want to, Julia. You know that.”
When they were back in Julia’s room getting ready for lunch Tally asked, “Don’t you like acting? ”
“No. I mean, I don’t do it. Not ever.”
She had on her worried look and Tally did not ask any more. She knew already that she and Julia would be friends, but there was something puzzling about her. It was as though she would do anything not to be noticed, as though she needed to be younger and less important than she was.
Later, as Tally walked over to the dining room with Barney, he said, “She’s silly. Julia, I mean. O’Hanrahan got her to do a bit in Much Ado About Nothing. It was just in the classroom, but Julia was amazing. Only when we told her how good she was, she clammed up completely and went off in a state and she’s never done anything since. Whereas Verity always wants to be the star. You’ll see—if we do Persephone, she’ll try to be the heroine.”
“I was wondering about her feet. Verity’s, I mean. I can see it’s fine to go barefoot in the grass, but in Paddington Station . . . Doesn’t she get splinters? ”
Barney shrugged. “Someone told her she had beautiful feet and that was that. She’s the vainest person I know—she’ll spend an hour tearing her skirt in exactly the right place or untidying her hair.”
In the afternoon they had games and Kit’s hopes of playing cricket were finally dashed. The only team game they played at Delderton was softball, and people who didn’t want to play that went for cross-country runs, used the apparatus in the gym, or worked on the school farm.
Tally went down to help Borro clean out the goats. Borro’s father had been a chieftain in Bechuanaland before he was deposed by a rival and now had a job lecturing in the University of London, but Borro was determined to go back to Africa and reclaim his father’s land and farm it. The walls of his room were covered in pictures of cattle: Friesians and Aberdeen Angus and Longhorns, whose mild eyes gazed down at him as he slept. Not only that, but he was going to breed a new kind of cow, which would grow fat even on the parched soil of his native land.
