I changed into the dry gown and balled it up with the sodden sheets. I didn’t know what to do with them. I wandered around the washroom, seeing if there was anywhere I could hide them. I tried the window to see if I could throw them out, but it was nailed shut. After searching further I found a wicker basket and shoved them inside in a sodden heap.
I decided to use the water closet again – after Mary-Ann’s taunting I was terrified that I really might wet the bed, though I hadn’t had an accident since I was a tiny girl, when Mildred first came to live with us. She’d thought I was simply too lazy to use the pot and had smacked me hard every morning. She said it was for my own good – I had to stop being such a dirty girl.
I was sad to have left all my brothers and sisters. I was sad to have left Pa. But I was glad, glad, glad that I was rid of Mildred at long last.
I scurried back to the dormitory. Everyone still seemed fast asleep. I took my clean sheets and silently spread them out, tucking them in neatly and putting the blanket on top. Then I climbed into bed and pulled the sheets over my head. For a few moments they seemed wet too, but it was only their cold crispness. It wasn’t long before the bed warmed up. I felt warm too, but I still shivered. I slept eventually, though every time I turned over I woke up again because the bed felt so empty.
At last it was daylight and Miss Ainsley came knocking at our door. ‘Wake up, girls! Rise and shine!’
There was a chorus of sleepy groans and murmurs.
‘Did you sleep well, Clover?’ Miss Ainsley asked.
‘Not very well,’ I said.
‘Well, I dare say it will feel a little strange here at first, but you’ll soon settle in. Now jump up, dear, and turn your covers down to air while you go along to the washroom. Come along, girls, all of you. Out of bed!’ she said.
They all stumbled out of their beds and threw their covers back. I got out too, and slowly and deliberately pulled my top sheet right back. Miss Ainsley glanced at it. Every girl in the room stood very still.
Miss Ainsley brushed the bottom sheet with the back of her hand and then gave me a little nod. ‘Off you go then, Clover,’ she said. ‘And the rest of you! What are you staring at?’
Mary-Ann didn’t just stare. She blatantly felt my bed, looking bewildered. I smiled at her and then marched off to the washroom in my clean dry nightgown.
She caught hold of me when I was in there. ‘So how did you pull that trick?’ she asked, frowning. ‘Those sheets were sopping! How could they be bone-dry now?’
‘I wonder,’ I said.
‘No, don’t mess with me,’ said Mary-Ann, taking hold of my arm. ‘Tell me how you did it!’
‘Magic!’ I said.
‘What?’
‘Look at my eyes. What colour are they?’
‘Green.’
‘Exactly. Witch’s eyes. Everyone knows that. And I’m a witch. I can work all kinds of spells. So watch yourself, Mary-Ann. Don’t you mess with me,’ I said.
I pulled myself free, went into the water closet and slammed the door. I wondered if she’d try to trap me inside again, but the door opened easily enough when I came out.
They were all standing still, staring at me.
‘Are you really a witch?’ Millie quavered.
I nodded.
‘Of course she’s not,’ said Mary-Ann, but she didn’t sound certain.
‘Do another spell then,’ said Julia, the girl with the dark bob.
‘Yes – make toads come jumping out of Millie’s mouth,’ said Mary-Ann.
Poor Millie squealed and covered her face, retching.
‘I don’t do silly party tricks like that,’ I said scornfully.
Just then Sissy came into the bathroom. Jane was in her arms, screaming and kicking, Elspeth and Moira on either side, and little Pammy trailing behind, sucking her thumb.
‘Oh Lordy, Jane’s having a real roarer this morning,’ said Sissy, struggling with her. ‘Can you try to calm her down, Clover?’
I went over and took hold of her clenched hand. ‘Hey, Jane. It’s me, Clover,’ I said, having to shout above her screams. ‘What’s all this noise?’
But there was no noise. As soon as she recognized me Jane stopped yelling. Her eyes still streamed with tears but she clamped her lips together and reached out for me. I took her from Sissy, holding her tight, and Jane crowed triumphantly, though she was still jerky with sobs.
‘There now,’ I said. ‘Are you going to use your pot like a good girl?’
Jane shook her wild hair.
‘Well then, I’d better take you into the water closet,’ I said.
‘Tinkle tinkle!’ said Jane, laughing shakily.
I pushed in front of a whole queue of girls from my dormitory and took Jane inside. She refused to climb on to the seat herself, insisting I lift her up, but then performed perfectly. We emerged from the water closet hand in hand, Jane walking demurely, utterly composed, with a proud smile on her face.
‘That’s the sort of trick I do,’ I murmured to Mary-Ann and Julia. ‘But beware. I have learned the Black Arts too.’
‘Do you think we’re stupid?’ said Mary-Ann, but she took a step backwards as I passed her, her hands going to her hair, as if I might really conjure a pair of scissors from mid-air and start snipping at her golden locks.
I breathed out as I turned my back on her. For the first and only time in my life I felt grateful to Mildred for calling me a little witch so often. She’d given me such an effective idea. My black mourning clothes were also useful. Mary-Ann and Julia whispered away while we had breakfast – creamy porridge with a little sugar sprinkled on top, so much nicer than the burned slop Mildred made. By the time our bowls were clean every girl in the home thought I wore black because I was a witch, and even the big girls were peering at me warily.
‘What tales have you been telling?’ Sissy asked me in the kitchen.
‘Tales?’ I said, trying to sound innocent.
‘They’re all saying you’re a witch and can do magic spells. You’re a bad girl to spin them such silly nonsense!’ she said, but she was smiling.
‘I can’t help it if they’re stupid,’ I said. ‘And you said I worked magic on Jane.’
‘And so you did. Please keep it going – you make my life much easier. Just stop scaring the rest of the girls!’
‘I won’t. Well, not much. Sissy, don’t tell them it’s all play, will you?’ I asked anxiously.
‘Not for the moment,’ she said. ‘I can see it’s a very useful ploy. I remember what it was like to be a new girl here. There was a lot of unwelcome joshing. But don’t worry about it too much, Clover. You’ll soon settle in and be one of the girls.’
I didn’t want to be one of the girls. I was still seriously thinking of making a bolt for it, but I was no longer sure that Thelma was my best bet. I didn’t want to go home either, though I longed to give little Bert a cuddle again. I missed Mr Dolly most of all, though I knew I couldn’t be his little apprentice. He thought I should continue my education, so perhaps I should try hard to learn here.
I didn’t get off to a good start. First of all we had Bible Study and I proved a total dunce, ignorant of everything. Miss Ainsley taught me the Lord’s Prayer and I learned that quickly enough, though I was baffled by everything else. She spoke reverently about Jesus, and told a story about huge crowds gathering to hear Him speak. She said there were only five loaves and two fishes to feed this multitude, yet Jesus shared the food out so that everyone had enough to eat.
This was clearly impossible. Of course, it depended on the size of the loaves and fishes. I wondered if they might be gigantic loaves baked as big as a house, and fish as vast as whales, but when I asked Miss Ainsley she shook her head.
‘Please don’t ask out loud like that, Clover. If you have a question, put up your hand,’ she said. ‘And don’t be silly, child – how could you possibly have giant loaves? Where would you get an oven that huge? And there were no whales in the Sea of Galilee! They were pe
rfectly normal-sized loaves and fishes.’
I put my hand up.
‘Yes?’ said Miss Ainsley, sighing.
‘But it wouldn’t be possible, Miss Ainsley, even if the crowd only had one mouthful each,’ I said.
‘You’re missing the point, Clover. Don’t you see? It was one of Jesus’s miracles,’ she said.
I put up my hand again. She looked really exasperated. I was surprised. Mr Dolly had always delighted in my questions and said it was a sign of a lively mind. Miss Ainsley would have clearly preferred a dull one.
‘What is it now, Clover? You must learn not to interrupt so much – unless there’s something you truly do not understand,’ she said.
‘But I don’t understand. What is a miracle?’
‘What is a miracle, Miss Ainsley. How many times do I have to tell you? A miracle is . . . like magic. An amazing supernatural gift,’ she said.
‘Oh!’ I said, enlightened at last. ‘So Jesus was a witch?’
I thought Miss Ainsley was simply cross because I’d once again forgotten to say her name. I was astonished when she took hold of me and said I must go to the washroom and rinse my mouth out with soap this instant because I was a wicked blasphemer.
‘Go this instant! Scour your tongue! Never, never, never say such words again!’ she cried, in a passion.
I trailed off to the washroom. She wasn’t there to supervise me, so I didn’t do much scouring. In fact I didn’t see the point of making myself sick with soap, so I simply rubbed a little at the corners of my mouth to make a convincing froth. Then I returned and quietly apologized to Miss Ainsley to see if it would calm her down. She nodded and pointed for me to return to my desk, as if talking to me further might contaminate her.
Julia leaned towards me. ‘Did the soap make you gag?’ she whispered.
‘Of course not,’ I whispered back. ‘Witches absolutely love to eat soap, it’s one of our favourite treats.’
‘You’re mad!’ she said uncertainly.
‘Ssh!’ said Miss Ainsley, and started telling us about Jesus’s parables. This seemed to be another word for a short story, but I didn’t like to check with Miss Ainsley in case this was another blasphemous supposition.
It was a relief when the clock ticked round to ten o’clock and we could move on to another lesson, Writing. Mary-Ann was in charge of giving out notebooks and inkwells and blotting paper and very worn pens. She gave me a particularly scratchy pen and an inkwell silted up with someone else’s blotting paper, but I felt I might prove myself good at writing.
However, we weren’t allowed to write our own thoughts and ideas. Miss Ainsley copied out a long passage on the blackboard in her pinched copperplate and we had to copy it, word for word, Capital for Capital, comma for comma. It was a very tedious passage too – about a girl being wilful until her mother whipped her severely to teach her a lesson.
I didn’t want to copy a story like this. I wanted to imagine the girl seizing the whip from her mother and lashing her severely because I didn’t think any parent should beat a child, but I had just enough sense to see that this would aggravate Miss Ainsley. I’d end up having a whole cake of soap stuffed down my throat.
So I copied the nasty tale in the even, round hand that Mr Dolly had taught me, wondering why the other girls were sighing and groaning and shaking their hands as if they hurt. I craned my neck to see Julia’s notebook and was surprised. She was sharp enough, but her penmanship was appalling, wavering up and down and sloping this way and that. She’d missed out some of the words and inserted several twice over, so that her passage didn’t even make sense.
When I peered around it seemed that Julia was one of the most competent pupils. Several girls were still getting to grips with the first sentence, bent over their page with their pens clutched like drumsticks. Mary-Ann’s writing climbed upwards as if her words were trudging up a mountain, and she’d made three big blots already.
Miss Ainsley wandered around, tutting and sighing and pointing out mistakes. She paused as she peered over my shoulder. I hoped she might praise me for my work. Mr Dolly always told me I was a very clever girl, and if he thought I’d tried extra hard he’d reward me with a peppermint. But Miss Ainsley was less encouraging. She simply sniffed and walked away without saying a word, though I was sure I hadn’t made a single mistake.
I was finished long before the others and had nothing else to do. I turned the page and started drawing instead. I’d never drawn with pen and ink and made a few blots myself, but after several attempts I had drawn a passible portrait of Miss Ainsley in the classroom. I made her even smaller, dwarfed by the desks on either side. In fact I turned her into a little mouse, eyes beady behind her spectacles, her sharp nose twitching, a tail peeping out under her too-long skirts.
Julia glanced at my notebook and then burst out laughing. Miss Ainsley looked up. I tried to rip the page out of my book and scrunch it up but I wasn’t quick enough. She snatched it, smoothed it out and stared at it.
‘How dare you, Clover Moon! Go and stand outside the classroom in disgrace,’ she demanded.
The other girls gasped. This was clearly considered a dire punishment.
I put my hand up and cried, ‘But it’s only a drawing, Miss Ainsley!’
‘Put your hand down!’ Miss Ainsley insisted, to my bewilderment, tearing my drawing into tiny shreds. ‘You are not allowed to draw in your handwriting notebooks, especially not unpleasant caricatures. Outside this instant!’
17
I STOOD OUTSIDE in the dismal corridor. I told myself I didn’t care. I’d finished my copy-writing anyway. And it was pointless to boot. This home for destitute girls wasn’t going to teach me all the things I wanted to know. If this was schooling then I hated it. I thought of Mr Dolly’s patience, his interest, his encouragement, and longed for him.
I longed for Megs too. Our mother had given me a good-luck name but it seemed like a grim joke now. Was it lucky to be here in this horrible home with cruel girls and alarming teachers and incomprehensible rules – while poor little Megs was miles away, lying in her fresh grave beneath the yew tree, all alone?
I so hoped being dead was just like sleeping. What if she were still awake inside her poor cold body? She’d be so frightened, so lonely, so desperate for comfort.
I closed my eyes and tried to talk to her inside my head.
I’m here, Megs! I’m still thinking of you and I always, always will. Don’t be scared, darling. Imagine my arms around you, holding you tight. I’m stroking your hair, kissing your cheek, whispering in your ear.
‘Oh dear, are you feeling that miserable?’ said a voice.
A woman had come silently along the corridor and was now standing beside me. She was tall and held herself very erect, though she was quite elderly. She had long, wavy white hair arranged neatly in a snood. Her dress was black too, of a soft satin material that hung beautifully. Her hands were very white and carefully manicured, but she had ink stains along the forefinger of her right hand, showing she did a lot of writing.
‘Yes, I am very sad, Miss Smith,’ I said, wiping my eyes with the cuff of my dress.
‘Here, my dear.’ She took a lace handkerchief from her sleeve and offered it to me. ‘Have a good mop and blow. So, you know who I am. And as a matter of fact, I know who you are too. Miss Clover Moon?’
I nodded, mopping and blowing obediently. I didn’t know what to do with the used handkerchief. Should I hand it back to her?
‘I should pop it in the laundry basket in the washroom later,’ said Miss Smith. ‘Now, perhaps you’d like to tell me why you aren’t in your classroom, Clover.’
‘Miss Ainsley sent me out,’ I said.
‘Yes, I gathered that. Have you been very naughty?’
‘I didn’t mean to be!’
‘Perhaps I’d better go and have a word with Miss Ainsley,’ said Miss Smith. ‘Stay here, Clover.’
She went into the classroom. I watched through the window as she talked quietly wi
th Miss Ainsley, having to bend down low so that they could speak face to face. Miss Ainsley still looked very indignant, nodding her head emphatically. The other girls were listening of course. I saw Mary-Ann nudging Julia. Miss Smith looked very grave.
I was in serious trouble.
I don’t care, I don’t care, I don’t care. I don’t care even if they whip me, like the girl in the stupid story on the blackboard. I can stand any beating after living with Mildred all these years. I wish I was a real witch and could cast a spell on them. I hate them all.
It wasn’t true. I liked Sissy, I liked Jane, I liked Pammy. And I liked Miss Smith too. She had seemed kind. But now she would think me dreadful.
She patted Miss Ainsley on the shoulder and then walked out of the classroom.
‘Well, you’ve certainly made an unfortunate start with Miss Ainsley,’ she said. ‘You’d better come with me, Clover Moon.’
I felt my breakfast porridge stir uneasily in my stomach. Was she going to whip me? I trudged miserably behind her to a room at the end of the corridor. I followed her inside and she shut the door on us ominously.
It was a small room and sparsely furnished, but it wasn’t bleak like the rest of the house. There was a bookcase full of books with green and red and deep blue covers. On a large desk with a green lamp, letters and papers and several registers were neatly stacked.
‘Are they your books, Miss Smith?’ I said quickly, pointing to the bookcase.
‘No, they’re not by me. I think it would look very vain if they were out on public display,’ she said.
‘Oh, I’d like to have seen one,’ I said.
‘I think you’re trying to distract me,’ said Miss Smith. ‘But I’ll let you have a quick peep.’
There was another door to one side, behind her desk. She opened it and I peered inside a secret little room. On another bookcase was a row of books with gold lettering and curly decorations on the spine, clearly children’s books. There was another desk too, with a pen and inkwell, a blotter and an open manuscript book covered in neat handwriting. There was also a picture hanging on the wall. It showed children playing chase in an alleyway. There was something familiar about the delicate lines and soft shading.
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