The Housemistress (18 page)

Some of Larkhill’s former pupils have gone on to win Olympic medals, their achievements documented here, alongside their school medals. In one trophy cabinet, there are several pictures of a blonde girl, some newspaper clippings, and a first place trophy that was awarded for winning a national gymnastics competition, donated to the school by the parents of the winning child: Kaitlyn Simmons.

“Comparing?”

Adel’s voice startles her.

“What?” Rylie scrunches up her face. “Sod off.”

“Seeing how you measure up against the old
petite amie
? You both have blonde hair and blue eyes; I guess Vivienne likes that.” Adel sidles up to her. “You’re shorter than Kaitlyn, but you have bigger tits.” She reaches around and grabs Rylie’s left breast.

“Fuck you!” Rylie smacks Adel’s hand away, shifting out of her grasp. “What’s your problem?!” She spins to face her unwelcome groper.

“Lately, my problem is you.” Adel gives her a push, jabbing her sore ribs.

“Why?” Rylie stands her ground, masking her pain. “What did I ever do to you? Besides exist.”

“I told you to stay away from her.” Adel keeps advancing. “It’s for your own good.”

“Oh, yeah? How’s that?” Emboldened by the presence of several ceiling-mounted security cameras intended to guard the priceless memorabilia, Rylie squares up to her aggressor. “Are you gonna hit me again?” She straightens her shoulders, standing tall. “Go on. Give it a try. Let’s see where it gets you this time.” She invites Adel to thump her, making sure she’s positioned for the cameras. “Suspension, you reckon? Expulsion maybe? Whatever happens, you sure as fuck won’t scare me away from Vivienne.”

“Hey, I’m only trying to do you a favor.” Adel backs up, holding both hands in the air, signaling no threat. “I don’t want to see you end up like poor old Kaitlyn, that’s all.” She juts out her lower lip, faking sorrow. “That would be such a tragic loss.”

“I don’t get it.” Rylie frowns. “What happened to Kaitlyn? I thought she left.”

“She did.” Adel folds her arms, adopting a smug grin. “In a coroner’s van.”

Rylie’s stomach twists and turns, churning upside down and threatening to toss up her breakfast. Carriveau isn’t just heartbroken, she’s mourning. No wonder she’s so afraid to let go.

“Was Kaitlyn the girl who had the accident in the old performance hall?” Rylie asks then, the pieces now fitting together.

“Accident?” Adel snorts. “That was no accident. The stupid bitch killed herself.”

After four hours of solid schoolwork, the words on the pages start blurring together. The study room—thirty individual cubicles surrounding one large table—is quiet, all other students having retired from their homework already this evening. Most are now to be found watching television in the common room, or mucking about in the dormitories. But not Rylie.

Seated at the main table, she’s now halfway through her second attempt at a creative narrative for Carriveau’s English Language class, and her concentration is waning. She yawns, but soldiers on, determined to hide herself away until it’s time to head up to the dorm for bed.

She doesn’t hear the door open and close. The first hint she has of Carriveau’s presence is the scent of her perfume, followed by the faint sound of breathing.

“
Mon amour
…” the beautiful French woman calls demurely to her from the edge of the room. “Have you been avoiding me? I haven’t seen you since this morning.”

“Not really.” Rylie keeps working, hunched over the desk. “Just busy.”

“Did you eat dinner?” Carriveau steps up behind her. “I didn’t see you in the refectory.”

“I made a sandwich.”

Carriveau places her hands on Rylie’s shoulders, intending to massage her, but Rylie tenses, holding a sharp draw of breath in her lungs, her pen frozen in the middle of a word, her discomfort apparent.

Rejected, Carriveau withdraws. “You’ve been shut away in here for hours.” She pulls out a chair beside the teen. “What are you working on?”

“My suicide note.”

The silence is painful.

Rylie stays focused on her notebook, waiting for an angry rebuke that never comes. Instead, she hears a strangled sob, the sound smothered by a hand pressed over a gasping mouth.

She tosses her pen down, whirling her chair around to find Carriveau in tears.

“I’m sorry.” She wheels closer. “I didn’t mean that.” She grapples for Carriveau’s hands, peeling them away from her trembling lips. “That was a shitty thing for me to say.”

“
Pas de problème
. It’s okay.” Carriveau struggles to swallow, determined to regain her poise. “I think I probably deserve the sharp end of your tongue.”

“No, you don’t.” Shamed by her careless disregard for Carriveau’s feelings, Rylie almost comes to tears herself. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

She rolls back to her spot at the table and dumps the contents of her backpack out, spilling pens, pencils, tampons, a ruler, several erasers, two chocolate bars, an assortment of school books, her day planner, and … a packet of tissues! She pulls one from the packet and trundles back to Carriveau, careful not to wheel over her feet.

“Here.” She hands it over. “No more tears, else you’ll set me off.”

“
Merci, ma chérie
.” Carriveau wipes her eyes and blows her nose. “I’ve never cried in front of a student before.”

“I’m not your student,” Rylie contests. “At least, that’s not
all
I am.” She runs a hand over Carriveau’s thigh. “I hope I mean more to you than that.”

“Oh, Rylie, of course you do. I’m terrified of how you’re making me feel, but that doesn’t stop me from feeling it.”

“I’ll be careful with you, Vivienne, I promise.” Rylie seeks out Carriveau’s fingertips with her own, brushing skin against skin. “I know why you’re so afraid, and that won’t happen with me. I won’t—” She stops herself.

Too late.

Carriveau knows precisely how that sentence would have ended, and more tears threaten to spill.

“You’ve found out about Kaitlyn, obviously.”

Rylie nods.

“Who told you?” Carriveau sniffs.

“Adel.”

The distressed Housemistress rolls her eyes. “Of course she did.”

“Why is she such a bitch?”

“Rylie …” Carriveau clutches her forehead, knowing she should chastise her pupil, but not really caring to. “Don’t be rude.”

“Why not? She
is
a bitch, and she acts like you belong to her. Did you know that?”

“She gets jealous,” Carriveau dismisses it.

“I’d call it possessive.”

“She’s lonely.”

“She’s mental,” Rylie counters. “She bloody clobbered me!”

In an instant, Carriveau’s concern shifts entirely to Rylie, her own pain forgotten. “
She
did that to you?! Why wouldn’t you tell me?”

Rylie winces, wishing she had better control of her mouth. “Please don’t say anything to her; it’s not worth it.”

“But I—”

Rylie hushes Carriveau’s objection before it fully forms. “You know it wouldn’t help.”

Pained by the reality of her impotence, Carriveau concedes that Rylie’s right: any intervention on her part would likely have very few positive repercussions, and indeed, would more likely fuel Adel’s animosity. In light of that, she turns her mind back to the reason she came looking for Rylie in the first place: she owes the teen an apology.

“Rylie, can we talk about last night?”

“Was it really an accident?” Rylie drives straight to the point.

Carriveau shakes her head. “I acted impulsively, but I knew what I was doing.”

“You fucked me,” Rylie presses on.

“I know.” Carriveau’s voice is barely above a whisper.

“Do you regret it?” Rylie forces herself to ask.

After a while, “
Oui
.”

Rylie tries to wheel away, but Carriveau grabs the arm of the chair and spins her back, forcing her to stay engaged, cupping her face to ensure eye contact.

“I shouldn’t have fucked you,” she explains. “You deserve better than a sneaky, clumsy, drunken late night tryst in the Lower Sixth dormitory. It was disrespectful of me to treat you that way.”

“But what you do with Adel … what you
used
to do with Adel …”

Carriveau cringes, her cheeks reddening with embarrassment. “Did she tell you about that, too?”

“No, I saw you. On my first night here, I saw you standing outside the dormitory door.”

“I’ve never touched her,” Carriveau swears vehemently. “I’ve never done anything more than what you saw, and I haven’t done that since I started …”

She seems set to make a proclamation, but then changes her mind.

“You should get upstairs,” she says instead. “I sent everyone else up before I came in here. It’s past curfew.”

Rylie nods, wheeling back to the table, clearing up her things.

Before she leaves, “I love you, Vivienne. I won’t stop telling you.”

She gives her reticent Housemistress a peck on the cheek before heading upstairs to the unusually silent Lower Sixth dormitory. As soon as she enters, she knows there’s something amiss. Voices drop to whispers, then tail off completely, all eyes on her.

“What’s going on?” she asks.

No-one answers.

She makes her way down the aisle toward her cubicle, waiting for the penny to drop. They couldn’t possibly know that she was alone with Carriveau, could they? Did someone eavesdrop? Has Adel said something? Why would she?

One more step.

And another.

And … Rylie catches sight of something on her bedspread: a noose.

Cut from the spools of manila rope found backstage in the performance hall, it’s been laid out most precisely, the knot expertly tied. It takes no great leap of imagination to make the connection: Kaitlyn must’ve hanged herself.

“Who did this?” Rylie drops her backpack at the foot of her cubicle, pivoting to lock her eyes on Adel. “
You
did this!”

She takes one step toward Adel, and Adel matches her. The two seem set to meet in the middle of the aisle, furies blazing, but a fuss kicks off. Girls from all sides—including Gabby—dart from their cubicles, keeping the two apart, squealing, shrieking, and yelling.

The noise draws Carriveau in.

“What’s all this racket?” she demands sternly from the doorway.

The room falls silent.

Carriveau looks from left to right, from one startled pair of eyes to another, waiting for an explanation. When one isn’t forthcoming, she strides into the room to commence her own investigation, but Rylie cuts her off, attempting to herd her away.

“It’s all right.” She puts her hands on Carriveau’s shoulders. “I can take care of it.”

Carriveau freezes, flashing Rylie a warning glare: Back off.

“Take care of what, Harcourt?”

Rylie withdraws her hands, but keeps the aisle barred to Carriveau. “You don’t need to see this, Vivienne. Please.”

At the sound of her first name on Rylie’s lips, Carriveau, now visibly angered, clenches her jaw and pushes the defiant teen aside. Gabby dives for Rylie’s cubicle to try and hide the noose, but she trips and falls at Carriveau’s feet.

Carriveau steps over her, fixating on the morbid presentation. With the eyes of the entire Lower Sixth on her, she dare not cry; she dare not show weakness. Breathing heavily, exercising a remarkable amount of control, she turns from the cubicle and walks slowly back down the aisle, targeting Adel as she reaches the threshold of the room.

“Burn it,” she growls, slamming the dormitory door on her way out.

CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Rylie can’t get comfortable. She tosses from left to right and back again, rolling with such force that she nearly throws herself out of bed on two occasions. Tormented by the thought of Carriveau locked in her private quarters, probably crying, alone, and in need of a friendly hand, sleep eludes her, her heart aching with sympathy for Carriveau’s grief.