Celandine (16 page)

The searing flare of white light seemed to burst inside her head, blinding her completely, and the smell of burning magnesium filled her nostrils. She couldn’t see a thing – but in that helpless moment knew only that she felt no more pain. Her hair tumbled freely about her shoulders and her soft clothing was warm and comfortable, open at the neck, loosely creased around her knees. The fast ticking of a clock came drifting through the scented silence – a cheerful sound, and a friendly one, familiar to her. In her hands she cradled the present that she had been given, a little metal bowl, and she traced the polished rim of it, so cool and smooth to her fingertips. She felt very peaceful.

‘Thank you, my dear. That will do, I think.’ The photographer’s voice made her jump, and the bells on the red bridle gave a little jingle.

Gradually her vision returned, creeping in around the edges of the dancing white light, and with it came a sense of sadness and bewilderment. Wherever it was
she
had momentarily been – or
whoever
it was she had momentarily been – she was back, and she was herself. Once again her boots pinched and her collar itched. Once again her scalp felt as though her hair was slowly being pulled from it, strand by strand.

Celandine could hear the grave wooden tick of the grandmother clock on the wall behind her, the faint creak and whirr of the mechanism. She turned to look at it. Five-and-twenty past ten.

‘Come then, Celandine – we have also some more work to be done.’

‘Yes, Mama.’

‘You will excuse us, please, Mr Tilzey. My daughter is beginning tomorrow at her new school. We have some
boxing
yet to finish.’

Mr Tilzey looked mildly surprised at this, but said that he quite understood.

Chapter Seven

MOUNT PLEASANT SCHOOL
for Girls. Founded 1851. Headmistress; Miss A. Craven
. The maroon and grey lettering of the large painted sign more or less matched the colours of her uniform – maroon blazer over a grey tunic. And the pale yellow background of the sign was a similar colour to that of the ludicrous straw hat that lay upon the buckboard seat between her and Robert. The words MISS A. CRAVEN appeared to have been painted more recently than the rest, the raised outline of a previous name just visible in the Saturday morning sunshine.

Celandine had plenty of time to study these things because there was an obstruction up ahead – a motor coach and a carriage had between them blocked the steep curving driveway that led to the school. There was no point in Robert trying to go any further until the way was clear.

It began to look as though they might be stuck there for quite a while, and Robert finally said, ‘P’raps you should walk on up, miss. ’Tain’t very far. I can drop your boxes at porter’s lodge when I gets there.’

‘Yes, all right.’ She waited to be helped down from the pony trap, and then stood awkwardly holding her hat whilst Robert retrieved her large canvas bag from among the other things that were stacked at the back. She patted the horse’s neck and was inevitably reminded of Tobyjug. Her hand still held the memory of him – of how he too had once felt like this: alive and warm against her palm. And then so cold.

‘I’ll say cheerio, miss. And I hope . . . well, I hope ’ee’ll settle in all right . . .’ Poor Robert looked very uncomfortable.

‘Yes. Goodbye, Robert. Thank you.’ She wanted to cry. Robert was a kind man.

But she put on her hat and walked along the grass verge of the drive, threading her way past the unhappy entanglement of carriage and motor coach that still blocked all progress in either direction. The problem seemed to be that neither vehicle could reverse – the motor coach because of the steepness of the hill, and the carriage because one of its wheels had caught against the coach.

There was a lot of shouting. Both drivers were offering very lively advice as to what they believed the other should do, and from the queue at either end came further loud suggestions. The carriage was a smart landau, open-topped, and in the back sat a fair-haired girl in school uniform who was also shouting – though not very helpfully, ‘Oh for goodness
sake
, Stokes! Just go
on
, why don’t you? I shall be
late
!’

Silly idiot, thought Celandine. Why doesn’t she walk?

The scene at the top of the drive was no less riotous – there were girls and bags and boxes everywhere – so that Celandine only took in a brief impression of the school building. It was tall and complicated. There was a central clock tower, with several gables to either side, built from the local hamstone, like Mill Farm, but made ugly by the dark grey mortar between the blocks. Celandine noticed that there were metal bars fixed to the upstairs windows. These had presumably been put there for the girls’ safety, but the effect was to make the place look vaguely prison-like.

She had a letter tucked into the inside pocket of her stiff new blazer, and instructions to report to Matron – whoever that might be. Celandine climbed the broad flight of well-worn steps that led up to the high archway of the main entrance and pushed her way into the echoing hall. Here there were more girls than ever and the cavernous space rang with the confusion of voices and clattering feet. A stone staircase rose in a great square spiral right up through the centre of the building, and from high above came the sounds of banging doors and footsteps hurrying along distant corridors. It was all very bewildering.

Near the foot of the staircase a group of girls surrounded a woman in a white uniform. The woman was seated at a small table and the girls peered over her shoulder, trying to catch a glimpse of the sheets of paper that lay in front of her.

‘Matron, what about me? Am I in Wyndham too?’

‘Where am I, Matron?’

‘Matron, I’m supposed to be in Dampier, but you’ve got me down as Hardy. That can’t be right, you know.’

Celandine moved closer. At least she had discovered who Matron was.

The woman in white threw up her hands in despair, and shouted, ‘Girls! Will you please be
quiet
! I can’t hear myself think!
Thank
you. That’s better. Molly Fletcher – you’re in Hardy. Alexandra Long – Dampier. Kathleen O’Hanlon – Hardy.’

‘But Matron, you’ve got me on the list as an “H”. I should be an “O”.’

Celandine put her bag down on the chequered tile floor, and waited. She hadn’t the least idea of what they could be all be arguing about. More girls came and went – big girls, small girls, pretty girls and plain girls, tearful girls who clung to their mothers and cheerful girls who galloped up the stairs two at a time. Celandine watched them all and wondered how she would ever fit in, wondered whether all this would ever become familiar to her. It was so very different from the world she was used to.

At last the group that had been gathered around Matron dispersed, and Celandine was able to approach the desk. She took the letter from her blazer pocket.

‘Excuse me. I have a letter . . . I don’t know what I’m supposed to do.’

‘Ah. A new girl? Let’s have a look then, shall we?’

Matron took the letter and opened it, holding the single sheet of paper a little distance away from her as
she
read it. She had a remarkably shiny face, Celandine thought – very clean and neat beneath her wiry silver hair and starched white cap.

‘Celandine Howard,’ said Matron, and transferred her attention to the list on her desk. ‘Celandine Howard. Yes, here we are. Celandine Howard. You’re in . . . Hardy. Now then . . . who can I get to . . .?’ She glanced over Celandine’s shoulder. ‘Ah. Jessop. Just in time to make yourself useful. You can take this young lady up to Hardy for me, if you will. You’re both in the same dorm. Now then, Howard, this is Nina Jessop. Nina will be in the same dormitory as you, and so she can show you the ropes.’

Celandine turned round, and looked at the girl standing behind her – a red-eyed child who looked as though she were either just about to cry, or had recently left off doing so.

Matron continued to address the girl. ‘Did you want to see me, Jessop?’

‘No, Matron. Well, but only to ask you which dorm I was in this year.’ Her voice was a whisper. ‘It’s Hardy, is it?’

‘That’s right.’

‘Oh.’

‘Off you go, then, the pair of you – and Howard, you’re to go and see Miss Craven in the headmistress’s study at five-thirty. Five-thirty, mind. Supper’s at six-fifteen. Bell goes at six-ten. And don’t forget that there’ll be a locker inspection at seven, so you’ll need to have your bed made and locker packed before you go to supper – there’ll be no time afterwards. Jessop
will
show you what to do. Run along then. Oh, and Jessop,’ Matron opened her eyes very wide and gave the girl an unnaturally bright smile, ‘
do
try to buck up a bit, this term. You’re in the third form now.’

‘Yes, Matron.’

‘Yes, Matron. Well, see that you do. Go.’

Celandine had been a Mount Pleasant girl for barely half an hour, but already she sensed that she was in a less lowly position than the unfortunate Nina Jessop. Every question she asked – and she had many – was met with blushing shyness and a response that was as brief as possible. What was Matron like? Oh, she was ‘all right’. What about the teachers – were they very strict? Yes. What was the food like? Oh, pretty foul. Some of it was ‘all right’.

As they hurried along one of the dark upper corridors, three very young girls, minus their hats and blazers, came running towards them. They barged past Nina Jessop as though she had been invisible, although they seemed to acknowledge her existence as an afterthought – ‘Ninky-ninky-noooo!’ they chanted.

‘Who were they?’ said Celandine.

‘Second-formers,’ muttered Nina. She pushed open a heavy wooden door that bore a gold-painted sign in capital letters – HARDY – and Celandine followed.

They were in a room full of beds. It took Celandine a few moments to realize that this was where she would be sleeping. It was not that she had
imagined
something different, simply that she had given the matter no thought whatsoever. The overwhelming events of the recent weeks – Tobyjug’s death, her attack on Miss Bell, her meeting with Fin and entering the forest – had so filled the present of each day that there had been no time to wonder about the future. In a kind of numb helplessness she had allowed herself to be kitted out and bundled off to this place, for what else could she do in the face of her father’s anger and her mother’s insistence? None of it had seemed real. Her mother had clung to her in parting, and wept, yet she herself had been able to feel nothing. Her father had even given her a half-crown, saying that she should have the other half if she came home at Christmas with a good report of herself – and she had caught her brother Thos’s look of outright astonishment as she had taken the coin without a word. But now she was here, in a cold white room full of beds, with a weepy-eyed girl called Nina Jessop, and this was where she would be sleeping from now on. The reality of it struck her at last. She had left home.

There was a painful lump in her throat and her eyes prickled as she looked about the room. It seemed so cheerless. The iron beds – perhaps a dozen of them, each covered with a brown army blanket – were ranged side by side around the walls. There was just enough space between them for a small wooden locker. Two more beds stood end to end in the centre of the room, with lockers separating the head rails.

‘Hullo, Ninky, don’t tell us you’ve found a chum.’

Celandine looked round. There were three girls
sitting
in a far corner. They had been partially hidden from view by the open door.

‘Won’t you introduce us?’ The one who spoke looked somehow familiar. She was a big girl, with very dark hair cut into an unflatteringly short bob.

Nina Jessop, who was already kneeling beside a locker, raised her head and peered over the top of her bed. Her face was very flushed.

‘Oh,’ she said. ‘This is, um . . . It’s um . . .’

‘Oh, it’s
Um
, is it?’ The big girl spoke again, and her two friends giggled. ‘This is your friend
Um
, is it, Ninky? Well then,
Um
, how do you do? Chloe, Daphne, say hallo to Ninky’s chum – Um.’ The two girls giggled again. ‘Hallo, Um.’

Celandine was already feeling as though she wanted to slap the lot of them, but she forced a smile and began to say, ‘Actually, my name’s—’

‘Oh, I already know,’ the big girl interrupted her. ‘It’s Celandine Howard. My dears . . .’ she leaned forward and spread her arms in a mock curtsey, ‘please allow me to present Miss Celandine Howard!’

‘Hallo, Miss Celandine Howard!’

Celandine frowned and looked at the big girl, trying to remember where she might have seen her before.

‘How did you know my name?’ she said. ‘Have we met, then?’

‘Well, I don’t believe we’ve exactly met, you know. But your people were gracious enough to invite us to a party a few summers ago – on Coronation Day. It was all rather grand, and dear Mama was
so
grateful.
You’ve
a brother who’s rather sweet on my sister Emily, so I gather.’

Emily? Emily . . . Swann? Of course.

‘Oh. So you must be . . . um . . .’

‘No, I’m not Um. That’s you, according to Ninky. I’m Mary Swann.’

‘Yes, of course. Mary.’

‘But you may call me Swann.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘We call each other by our surnames here, unless we’re
particularly
good friends. Don’t we, Jessop?’

Nina Jessop said nothing, but returned to her unpacking.

Celandine had apparently been left to fend for herself. She looked about the room once more, and said, ‘But where am I supposed to go?’

‘I say, Ninky, you’re not much help to your chum, are you?’ said Mary Swann. ‘Over there.’ She pointed to an unmade bed just beyond Nina. ‘That’ll be yours.’

The mattress, a stiff and lumpy object covered in black-and-white striped ticking, was rolled tightly against the bedstead. A bare pillow, also striped, lay perched on top of the rolled-up mattress. On the slatted metal base was a neatly folded pile of bedding, although it seemed a rather meagre pile at that.