Lady in Waiting

by Lady Victoria Hervey

  Harriet was the sporty one, like me. We were in a lot of the same teams, like lacrosse and netball, and loved anything athletic. Harriet was the latecomer to our group. She had been in a different boarding school until last year when she had joined Mapleton Manor’s ranks. She was half Swedish, and had beautiful golden blonde hair and bright blue eyes.

  Cassandra was the glamorous girl in our group. Her dad was a big time movie producer in LA and knew everybody worth knowing. Cassandra had grown up in a mansion in Beverly Hills next door to a famous actor and it wasn’t uncommon for her to attend movie premieres and parties.

  Alicia was the sweet one. You could always count on Alicia to have a smile on her face and a laugh bubbling out of her. Alicia was everyone’s best friend, and was adored by teachers and students alike. She was our Get Out Of Jail Free card whenever we flirted with getting caught on one of our many adventures.

  Annie boarded at Mapleton Manor, but her family lived in Sandhurst. Her Dad served as an officer in the military academy there. He was scarily fit and put us athletic girls to shame.

  Then there was me.

  I was the lady of our group. Literally. Lady Frederica. Sometimes Fenella would tease and address me as ‘Her Ladyship’, but always in good humour. Aside from the title, I was a fairly down to earth girl—a bit flukey, loyal to my friends and a devoted animal lover.

  Not to mention Acquirer of all Things, whether it be sweets and magazines, or cigarettes and alcohol. Perks—or downfalls—of being the tallest girl in the year.

  The rest of the morning—what was left of it, anyway—was spent planning out Polly Pearl night. It would be a long wait until it came around. Every Mapleton Manor girl looked forward to the year it was finally their turn to get their revenge, even if it wasn’t on the ones who did it to them.

  We all cycled over to the dining hall for lunch where we scoffed our food down as fast as we could so we could get on with our trip to the Ville.

  The Ville was about a fifteen-minute bike ride away. We were allowed out of the school grounds at weekends and apart from going on long bike rides through the countryside, there wasn’t much else to do apart from take a trip in the Ville.

  There wasn’t much to it—a few clothes shops, a chemist, a couple of cafés, charity shops, a newsagent, a quirky novelty shop, a post office, a few pubs…and an off-licence. But it was our main source of weekend amusement. The off-licence, luckily for us, was at the far end of the Ville, away from the other shops we would be likely to visit, so it meant we didn’t really have to worry about being seen together. I daresay it would look a tad suspicious if I was seen with a group of schoolgirls when I was trying to pass myself off as a grown-up.

  We whizzed through the country lanes, rushing by long, green fields filled with cows and sheep. Tall hedgerows loomed up from the ground and the breeze stirred the branches of the lines of trees. As much as I loved Monaco, I also adored Britain and her greenery.

  The rain, however, I could gladly do without.

  Once we arrived at the Ville, we split up. Jemima, Annie, Harriet and Cassandra went to the supermarket to stock up on crisps and other snacks, while Athena, Alicia, Fenella and I hit the off-licence. The other three stayed a good distance away while I went in alone, armed with a fake ID that I had made in the CDT centre with the laminator and made-up tennis club names.

  The middle-aged guy behind the till paid me no notice as I wandered up the aisles, pretending to browse the selection of fine wines and beers when really I was waiting for him to wise up to the fact that I was a schoolgirl and toss me out on my behind.

  A few minutes passed by, and he hadn’t even given me a second glance. Whoever was on page three of his newspaper was occupying too much of his attention.

  I picked up a few bottles—mostly whatever was cheapest, as we didn’t have much money between us. Vodka was always a good pick as we could pass it off as water and it didn’t make your breath smell.

  The guy served me without a problem, and didn’t bat an eye when I also bought lots of packets of cigarettes.

  Fenella and Athena both gave me a thumbs-up when I left the shop laden down with carrier bags, the bottles chinking against each other as I lowered them into my bicycle basket.

  We met back up with the other girls, and our shopping list of supplies for Polly Pearl night was complete.

  Back at Mapleton Manor, we resembled a slow moving convoy taking careful surveillance of our surroundings. It was one thing to actually buy the alcohol for our fun night, it was quite another to smuggle it into Masters. Any moment a teacher could round a building and see our bicycle baskets full of carrier bags…not to mention the fact that the bottles rattled against each other when I rode over any uneven patch of path.

  At the bike shed, we formed a tight huddle and stashed bottles up our jumpers, or tucked them into the waistband of our Levis. The carrier bags full of junk food wouldn’t alert too much suspicion, but just in case, we hid a few bags of crisps and packets of sweets too. We tucked cigarettes into our bras and filled our pockets with extras.

  We went two at a time into Masters so it didn’t look like we were a huge group of girls coming back from an illegal shopping spree. I went last with Fenella and she was a bundle of nerves.

  “Oh, I hate this bit,” she mumbled as we walked into the building. Her face was a shade paler than normal, as though she was walking into a haunted house rather than the place she slept every night.

  I smothered a laugh with the back of my hand. “Why? This is the easy part, Fenella!” It wasn’t, not really. It was the part where we were most likely to get caught. Mapleton Manor girls were savvy when it came to smuggling stuff into school, but Housemistresses and Matrons had been confiscating them for far longer. For every trick we had, they had one too.

  “I get so nervous, it’s so obvious I’m up to no good,” Fenella mumbled.

  Our feet had just touched the stairs to go up to our floor when there was a voice from behind us. “And what no good is that, Fenella?” Housemistress asked.

  Fenella froze like an ice sculpture and her face completely drained of blood. Slowly, as though she was about to face her maker, Fenella turned around. “Um…”

  I sighed and turned around also. “We’d better tell her, Fenella. She’ll find out sooner or later anyway, I suppose.”

  Housemistress’s eyebrows rose.

  Hanging my head, I reached into my jeans pocket and pulled out a packet of itching powder I’d bought at the novelty shop in the Ville. It was a shop kept in business mostly by Mapleton Manor girls who bought copious amounts of stock to play our pranks on each other. I handed the itching powder over to Housemistress. “I’m sorry, we were going to get some of the First Formers.”

  When I risked a glance at Housemistress, she looked as though she was trying to contain her mirth. “Thank you for being honest, Frederica. Do I need to remind you girls how horrid it was to have your bed coated in itching powder?”

  Fenella and I shook our heads.

  “Then it should come as no shock when I tell you to leave the younger girls alone.” Housemistress waved her hand in dismissal. “Off you go, the pair of you. And no more pranks.”

  “Yes, Housemistress,” we chorused like the good schoolgirls we pretended we were. We darted up the stairs and rushed into my room where we shed ourselves of all the naughty things we shouldn’t have had in the first place.

  “My gosh!” Fenella said with a breathy laugh. She placed her hand over her chest. “My heart is racing! How do you think on your feet like that, Freddie?”

  I shrugged. “It is but one of my many talents.”

  The bedroom door opened and we jumped about a foot in the air. Athena and Annie came in and shut the door behind them.

  “What took you two so long?” Athena asked in a hushed voice.

  “We nearly got busted by Housemistress,” Fenella said, widening her eyes, making it seem as though she’d narrowly missed the gallows. She crossed the room to where I
stood and threw her arm around my shoulders. “Luckily for me, who cannot lie to save myself, I was with Freddie, who can bluff like a poker shark.”

  Athena and Annie fell into giggles along with us. We finished hiding our loot, covering the bottom of my desk drawers and piling jotters and textbooks on top to hide them.

  “Did everyone else get in all right?” I asked Athena once we had finished.

  She nodded. “They’re probably waiting downstairs by now. We’re going for a walk, are you both coming?”

  Fenella nodded. “Let me grab a magazine.”

  “Is Cassandra bringing her ghetto blaster?” I asked.

  Annie laughed. “Of course she is. Shall we meet you down there, then, Freddie?”

  “Yep, just give me a few minutes!”

  The other girls filed out of my room, and I tucked a packet of cigarettes into my pocket and grabbed a handful of the latest magazines that I’d picked up that afternoon in the Ville.

  I was the last of our group to arrive a few minutes later, and we all jumped back on our bikes and headed out to the Hemston Forest, the woodlands that surrounded Mapleton Manor.

  Our usual stomping ground was a small clearing in the woods that we’d discovered one camping trip. We had moved some smaller fallen tree trunks into a makeshift circle that surrounded where we built a campfire. We’d spent many an afternoon in the clearing, and also many a night, sharing sweets and ghost stories.

  Cassandra set up her ghetto blaster that she carted everywhere with her—back to Mapleton Manor and home again every term, camping trips and afternoons out of school like today. She popped in her East 17 CD and sat back against her tree trunk.

  The afternoon was like many others that had been before it—a group of girls hanging out, swapping magazines and reading out embarrassing agony-aunt stories. We scoured the fashion pages for inspiration for the event of the year, which was the mixer dance with Stonebridge.

  We stayed out there until the light began to fade, our stomachs started to growl and we were forced back to school.

  After dinner, I caught up on some homework. I checked on the common rooms in Crosby to make sure everyone was behaving themselves and helped two First Formers with their homework. Jessica seemed to be coming out of her shell more, and I found her playing a board game with another girl in her room. I joined them for a spell, but left after one game when they both kicked my butt.

  Back at Masters, I dropped in on Annie in her room, and found her sitting cross-legged on her bed. She gave me an excited smile as I entered her room and took a seat in her desk chair. “Are we still on for tonight?” she asked.

  “I think so. Are the others?”

  Annie nodded. “They can’t wait. Athena and Fenella nabbed a ladder from the maintenance shed and left it propped up against the wall near Fenella’s bedroom window. We should be able to get out no problem.”

  I grinned. “Brilliant.”

  It felt like time moved backwards as we waited for a good time to sneak out. I had already helped Miriam, the Upper Sixth girl who was House Captain, check the First and Second Formers in Crosby. In Masters, it was both easier and harder to sneak out. Easier because you didn’t strictly have a bedtime.

  As Sixth Formers we were encouraged to manage our own time and think responsibly, so as long as we were quiet in our rooms, no one bothered enforcing a strict bedtime.

  But this also made it harder as there was no guaranteed time when a housemistress or matron could come checking. It was like sneaking out Russian roulette.

  At eleven that night we stuffed our beds and crept down the hall to Fenella’s bedroom. One by one, we tiptoed down the ladder, cringing at every creak and groan of the metal.

  If anyone saw us we would surely resemble a renegade band of female criminals. We hugged the walls of the Sixth Form Centre before darting across the open space and disappearing into the safe coverage of the woods.

  Never mind—I was fairly sure I was learning invaluable life skills.

  As though by entering the woods all noise was blanketed and we were ensconced in a sound proof bubble, we let out peals of laughter that bounced off the trees and soared into the night.

  We rushed through the dark woods, and though we only had the light of the moon to guide us, not one of us tripped or stumbled. We knew these woods backwards, and had been sneaking out since we were young, impressionable First Formers.

  By the time we reached the clearing, we were breathless with laughter. Athena and Annie lit the few camping lanterns we had, and Cassandra started handing out cigarettes.

  Jemima cracked open a bottle of vodka and after taking a swig for herself, passed it on to Alicia.

  “Who wants a Wagon Wheel?” I asked, reaching into my backpack and withdrawing the packet of biscuits.

  “Ooh, I’ll have one!” Harriet said, reaching for one.

  “And me,” Fenella said, snatching the entire packet out of my hands. She giggled and handed them to Cassandra.

  I accepted the vodka from Annie and settled down onto a log beside her.

  “Man, I missed this,” Athena said, blowing smoke circles into the air.

  “And me,” Alicia agreed as she sat on my other side. “I love summer holidays, but I miss you lot something terrible.”

  “I bet Jemima didn’t miss us,” Fenella said, giggling. She elbowed Jemima. “Did you, Gem? What was that boy’s name? Tony?”

  Jemima let out a wistful sigh. “Timothy. And he was dreamy. He kept me busy most of the summer.”

  We squealed with laughter at this.

  “So does that mean no poor Stonebridge boy stands a chance with you at the dance?”

  Jemima smiled coyly. “Never say never.”

  That was our Jemima—heartbreaker.

  We stayed out until two in the morning, swapping more stories from the summer holidays and pondering the good looks of several boys from Stonebridge who would be at the dance later in the year. When our vodka bottles were empty and our snacks depleted, we staggered back to the Sixth Form Centre like tipsy little criminals who couldn’t stop giggling.

  That ladder was awfully more difficult to negotiate the second time around.

  It was a chore to force myself out of bed the next morning. On Sundays the entire school attended chapel in the Ville for a special Sunday Service. We all dressed in our finest to give the best impression of Mapleton Manor. Which meant you could guarantee everyone wanted a shower, and hot water wasn’t something that lasted long.

  There was already a queue when I sloped into the communal bathroom on our floor. Athena and Jemima were dotted in the line, and both gave me sleepy waves as we all waited for our turn.

  I had a lukewarm shower, which was wildly preferable over a cold one, then hurried back down the corridor to my room. After taking the time to blow dry my hair properly, I styled it in a neat plait that fell down the middle of my back. I pulled on my smart blue dress, black tights and black shoes and was ready to go.

  For the most part, I yawned my way through the service. It made Fenella giggle and there was nothing worse than getting a giggling attack in a quiet church. She clamped a hand over her mouth but it was useless as the laughter had already taken over her.

  When it at last broke free, it did so in the form of a most unladylike snort that seemed to reverberate off the old walls. Every head turned our way and I bit my lip to not burst into laughter myself.

  Mrs Macpherson pinned us with a glare, and I fought back a groan. Just what I wanted—punishment on a Sunday. Turning to Fenella to glare at her myself, she gave me an apologetic smile and shrugged her shoulders.

  My annoyance melted and a giggle of my own bubbled in my throat.

  Well, that was it.

  There was no coming back from it now, and so I might as well resign myself to it. We were getting punished anyway.

  After a stern lecture about decorum and being representatives for the school, Mrs Macpherson sentenced us to scrubbing the red staircase in the main building
with toothbrushes. We fought back groans. Scrubbing the steps was backbreaking work. The wide, curved staircase seemed to reach dizzying heights and it would take the pair of us a few hours at least to complete the chore.

  When Mrs Macpherson turned her back, I gave Fenella a gentle shove, and she shoved me back. “Thanks a lot, you nuisance. You’re worse than Louisa!”

  “You shouldn’t be so entertaining then, your Ladyship,” Fenella said with a grin.

  It took us almost three hours to finish scrubbing the staircase. And my back definitely felt like it was broken by the time we were finished. We trudged back to Crosby House like we had just been released from ten years in a workhouse.

  “Freddie, your mother called while you were out,” Housemistress said on our return. “I think there’s a queue now to use the phones.”

  Of course there was a line! Sunday was the day everyone called home, or parents called their daughters. There were only two phones in the Sixth Form Centre to go between all the girls, so the wait could be agonising sometimes. “Thanks, Housemistress. I’ll go get my phone card.”

  Leaving Fenella to her own devices, I grabbed my phone card from my room and headed back downstairs to begin the long wait. Parents could top up phone cards for their daughters, and with so many of us having families who lived abroad, it was something that had to be done fairly often. Cassandra, in particular, had a fortune spent on her phone card.

  Around forty-five minutes later, it was finally my turn to use the phone.

  It was Daddy who answered, when the phone had rung for a minute solid. “Christian Beaumont.”

  “Hi, Daddy, it’s Frederica,” I said with a smile.

  “Hello, darling,” Daddy said, his voice softening. “How has everything been?”

  “Everything is fine, good, great. Everything.” I laughed. “How are you?”

  “I’m well, I’m well. Mummy and I went to the African Queen last night. We had a banana split in your honour.”

  “How kind of you!” I exclaimed.