Celandine (18 page)

It was a direct question. ‘Yes, Miss Craven.’

‘I hope I do. Because there will be no second chances. I have my eye on you, Howard, and I have assured your parents that the atmosphere here at Mount Pleasant will bring about a change in your attitude and behaviour. I intend to see that it does.’

Miss Craven leaned back slightly in her chair, and pulled open a drawer. She took out a small white booklet, and placed it at the front of the desk.
Mount Pleasant School for Girls. Rules and Regulations
.

‘Take it. Read it. I shall expect you to have it off by heart before lessons begin on Monday. Either Miss Belvedere or I will be testing you on it at that time. For tonight you should read the section on locker drill – Miss Belvedere is very specific in these matters, and no exceptions will be made. That will be all. Your hair, by the way, is unacceptable. It must be tied back properly, or cut short. Go and see Matron about it.’

Celandine said ‘Yes, Miss Craven,’ and picked up the booklet. She glanced once again at the glass case, and at the otter with the fish in its jaws. Then she
realized
that it was the stuffed fish that had seemed out of place. It was a mackerel. A mackerel was a sea fish, wasn’t it? Surely that couldn’t be right.

‘Was there something you wanted to say?’ The dark eyebrows were once again raised in query.

‘No, Miss Craven.’

‘Then you may go. Dismissed.’

There had been no reason to assume that Nina would still be waiting outside the headmistress’s office, but it was nevertheless a slight disappointment to find her no longer there. Celandine walked back into the main entrance hall and hesitated for a few moments. She supposed that she ought to return to the dormitory, but then decided that she was in no great hurry after all. Perhaps she would explore instead.

She wandered the now deserted corridors of the ground floor, pausing to look at the green baize noticeboards that still carried redundant games fixtures from the previous term – lists of unfamiliar names, and activities. ‘The
Dipper Club will NOT be meeting this Thursday. Please note
.’ What on earth could the Dipper Club be?

Celandine peeped into those rooms where the doors were ajar, classrooms for the most part, and looked apprehensively at the rows of iron-framed desks, each with its bench seat neatly raised. She smelled the smells that the long months of summer vacation could never erase – paper-glue and chalk dust, pencil sharpenings and musty textbooks, ink-stained floorboards, and the toil of generations. One of these desks would be hers perhaps, her allotted cell,
and
here she would sit . . . or there . . . or there . . . in the weeks that spanned the unimaginable distance between now and Christmas.

The last classroom that Celandine wandered into turned out to be occupied by a couple of older girls – who quickly brought her out of her reverie.

‘Where do you think you’re going, you little squit? This is the fifth-form room! Get out!’

One of the two, a very spotty girl, shied a tennis ball at her, which missed and bounced out into the corridor. At the same moment a bell began to ring, a harsh and urgent clamour, and Celandine fled the room, dodging the grey tennis ball as it rebounded back through the doorway. The terrible clanging seemed like an alarm, warning everyone of her trespass onto forbidden territory, but as Celandine ran along the corridor she realized that of course it was only the supper bell. How silly of her. She slowed her pace to a walk and tried to appear as if she knew where she was going. But then the bell stopped ringing and, as the chaotic echoes still jangled in her head, a strange sensation came over her – a tingling to the very roots of her hair. Celandine came to a dead halt, right in the middle of the corridor. She had seen something. She had glanced through the open doorway of one of the classrooms in passing, and she had seen something – a figure standing by a far window. A girl. The girl had been on the other side of the room, half turning from the window and looking expectantly towards the door. Waiting for someone to arrive. It was the girl with the strange hair, the one that she had
seen
looking out of her bedroom at Mill Farm. She had been holding something in her hands – a cup? – and her mode of dress was quite extraordinary: brightly coloured trousers and a striped shirt that had no sleeves.

Celandine remained in the middle of the corridor, quite unable to move, although she was now aware of quick footsteps approaching her from behind. She felt a dull thud on the back of her head, which made her jump out of her skin, and the two big fifth-form girls overtook her, one on either side. The spotty girl had given her a passing clip with the tennis ball.

‘Hurry along, squit. You’ll be late for supper.’

Celandine automatically put her hand to her head in annoyance, but ignored the two fifth-formers and turned instead to look towards the open doorway. What
was
it that she had seen? A curious shivery feeling stole about her shoulders, but she finally found the courage to step backwards a couple of paces and peep in to the room. Nothing. Just rows of empty desks. Twice, now, she had seen that ghostly figure, and twice it had disappeared. Well, three times, if she were to count that business when she had sat for the photograph . . .

What was happening to her? What could it possibly mean? Chattering voices in the main entrance hall drew her attention back to the present and she began to make her way along the corridor once more. She must go in to supper.

There was no need to ask for directions – all she had to do was join the gathering crowd and
allow
herself to be swept along by the confusion of it all.

The dining hall turned out to be a large single-storey wooden building, separate from the main school. Bright gas lights shone down upon rows of long tables and benches that ran down the centre of the hall, and these were already filling up with schoolgirls as Celandine arrived. At the far end of the room was a single long table, not yet occupied. Celandine didn’t know what she was supposed to do, and so she spoke to a girl who appeared to be about the same age as herself.

‘Can you tell me where I should sit? Only it’s my first day, you see . . .’

‘Well, what form are you in?’

‘Third form. I think.’

‘Same as me. Come on. It’s just over here.’

Celandine followed the girl past two or three of the long rows and was shown to where the third form sat. She recognized some of the girls that had been in the dormitory, Mary Swann among them, but they were at the far end of the table and they took no notice of her. She looked around for Nina Jessop, but couldn’t see her anywhere.

‘You might as well sit next to me,’ said the girl. ‘What’s your name?’

‘Howard.’ How strange that sounded.

‘I’m Jane Reiss. What dorm are you in?’

‘Hardy.’

‘Oh. I’m in Wyndham. We’re all Wyndham down at this end. The Hardys are all at the other end. You’d be
better
sitting with them in future. It’s not a rule though.’

‘I’ve a brother called Wyndham. Only we call him Freddie.’

‘How funny.’

But then somebody shouted out ‘Rise!’ and there was a general scraping and shuffling as everyone clambered over the bench seats and stood up. All talking had ceased and there was an expectant silence. After a few moments a side door opened and a procession of teachers entered the room, with Miss Craven at the head. The teachers walked in single file to the top table, where they stood in a line, half a dozen of them, their long black gowns making them look like a row of jackdaws, Celandine thought.

Miss Craven surveyed the motionless ranks of assembled schoolgirls . . . and waited. For what, Celandine wondered? The cold gaze of the headmistress fell upon her and the dark brows lifted slightly in query. Celandine suddenly realized that all those about her had their heads bowed and their eyes closed. She quickly dropped her head and squeezed her eyelids tight shut.

A few more moments, and then the deep voice spoke.

‘For what we are about to receive, may the Lord make us truly thankful.’

‘Amen.’

There was shuffling once again as all took their places, and then a low murmur of conversation, more subdued now that there were teachers present.

The Wyndham girls were a little friendlier towards
her
than those in her own dormitory had been. They asked her what her name was and where she was from, and what on earth had possessed her parents to consign her to a dump like Mount Pleasant. They laughed at her book of rules and regulations – The Epistles, they called it – and told her she’d be a month learning it all. Bloodcurdling warnings, they gave her, as to the kind of punishments meted out to those who strayed, and they pointed out those teachers who were the most zealous in wielding the strap, which information Celandine took with a pinch of salt. But, inevitably, the Wyndham girls had more to say to each other than they did to her, and Celandine was eventually left to eat her meal in silence.

Platefuls of watery-looking fish pie were passed along the line from the end of the table, where a prefect sat dividing the contents of a large metal tray into more or less equal portions. Tureens of cauliflower and carrots were delivered to the tables by members of the kitchen staff, and serving spoons were provided so that the girls could help themselves. The vegetables were very overcooked and there were hardly enough to go round, so that by the time the tureen reached Celandine there were just two bits of carrot and a few damp scraps of cauliflower left. She fared a little better with the pudding, tapioca, but this was because several of the girls turned their noses up at it altogether. ‘Frogspawn’, they called it.

When the meal was over, all rose once more and Miss Craven said Grace, followed by the Lord’s Prayer. She, and most of the teachers, then left the room – but
the
girls remained where they were. One of the teachers was still standing at the top table, and apparently had a few words of her own to add. She was a great buttress of a woman, very heavily jowled, with shiny black hair that was scraped mercilessly back into a tight bun. Her upper lip was noticeably dark, even from the distance where Celandine stood, and her hips looked as broad and as powerful as those of a rhino.

‘Who’s that?’ whispered Celandine.

The girl Jane Reiss leaned slightly towards her, and muttered from the corner of her mouth. ‘Miss Belvedere – ’ware The Bulldog.’

Celandine nodded – she could have guessed as much – but there immediately came a great bellow from the end of the room.

‘
Reiss!
Were you
talking
?’

‘Please, miss, no, miss. I mean . . . well, I was just telling this new girl your name, miss.’

‘My name? She’ll learn my name soon enough, girl! And
you’ll
learn not to speak without permission. Outside the staffroom, immediately after this.’

‘Yes, miss.’

‘Yes, miss. And what
is
my name, Reiss? As you seem intent upon helping others, perhaps you’d like to tell
all
the new girls who I am.’

‘Miss Belvedere, miss.’

‘That’s right. Miss Belvedere! I am the Lower School house-mistress, which means – for the benefit of all you first-formers, and any others who are new to the school – that you are in my care. It is I who have the responsibility of making sure that you are all
tucked
into your beds at night. It is I who have the responsibility of making sure that you are properly dressed, that your kit is all in order, and that you are generally fit to be seen. And it is I to whom you should come if you have any questions, although I might warn you that I don’t encourage a lot of foolish questions. All new girls will have been given a book of rules. Learn these by heart, do as you’re told, and there should be no need for questions.’ Here Miss Belvedere picked up a piece of paper from the table in front of her and consulted it for a few moments.

‘I have a few points to make before you get ready for locker inspection. Item one. You will have noticed that during the holidays some improvements have been made. We now have the electrical lighting installed in the main school building. On no account shall any girl, other than Head Girl, be allowed to touch any part of this.

‘Item two. We have begun the building of the new swimming pool. This will be ready for use by the spring term, although it cannot be guaranteed that the war with Germany and Austro-Hungary will not affect these plans. Miss Craven will be addressing the school on the subject of the war during Monday’s morning assembly. For the time being, the workmen are here – and I need hardly remind you that there will be no communication between any girl and any of these men.

‘Now you will go to your dormitories and wait for inspection – apart from you, Reiss, who will attend a short interview with me. Dismiss!’

After a final glare about the room, Miss Belvedere
grasped
the lapels of her gown and strode towards the door.

‘Oh, bad luck, Jane!’ The girls who had been standing in the immediate vicinity of Jane Reiss offered their sympathies as soon as the terrifying Miss Belvedere had left the dining hall.

‘First night back, too.’

‘The wretched old Bulldog’s worse than ever.’

Jane Reiss said nothing, but took a deep and shaky breath. She looked very pale.

‘I’m so sorry,’ said Celandine. It hadn’t really been her fault, but she felt guilty nevertheless.

Still Jane didn’t reply, but began to make her way towards the exit, her head up and her eyes unnaturally bright.

‘What will happen to her?’ Celandine asked one of the girls who had been close by.

‘The swish, of course. Should have been you, you little dummy.’

The swish? What was the swish – the strap? So, had the earlier stories of beatings on the palm of the hand really been true? Celandine miserably followed the crowd, feeling that any friendliness that the Wyndham girls might have offered was now very definitely withdrawn.

When Celandine entered the dormitory, she felt that the atmosphere there was even more hostile towards her than it had been previously.