Madam

by Phoebe Wynne

  ‘Not at all.’ Rose stumbled over her words as she sat up. ‘Clarissa, is it?’

  ‘Yes. It’ll only take a moment.’ Clarissa sat down on the desk in front of Rose, her knees together and turned to the side. The front of Clarissa’s green dress, although buttoned to the nape of her neck, had a sheer band of fabric that revealed her tight cleavage. Rose pushed her chair further back with her feet.

  ‘I am so pleased to finally speak to you, Madam.’

  Rose opened her mouth but reminded herself that this was a student. ‘How can I help you, Clarissa? I do have a lesson in a few minutes.’

  ‘This won’t take long. Here, Madam, I have something for you.’ Clarissa readjusted her green velvet hairband. ‘It’s a letter of apology from Bethany.’

  Rose’s face changed as she stared at a white envelope that had appeared in Clarissa’s slim hands. The writing on the envelope was small and masculine. Rose took it, opened it, and turned the letter over in her hands.

  ‘Did she write this or did you?’

  ‘Madam,’ Clarissa smirked, ‘I would never need to write such a thing.’

  ‘I don’t really need a letter of apology.’ Rose surprised herself. ‘I think I rather care more that she’s all right.’

  ‘How kind of you. She’s fine,’ Clarissa nodded brightly. ‘She’s in the san. The sanatorium, that is. She’s not attending lessons currently.’

  ‘Why the san?’

  ‘She is in the best place she can be, for girls in that phase. The nurses are wonderful. Don’t worry, Madam, she’s not on domestic duties or anything.’

  Some dark presentiment moved across Rose’s mind, and she read through the few sentences of the letter again. ‘Yes, but … is she being treated properly in the san? She seemed to be worried about … something.’

  ‘And,’ Clarissa continued brightly, ‘how are you enjoying our little school, Madam? Isn’t Hope a splendid situation?’

  Rose looked up at Clarissa with the corner of a frown. ‘Did they … do they teach you to talk like that?’

  Clarissa’s eyes clouded over. ‘I’m sorry?’

  ‘The way you talk, the way you look – your hair, your fingernails.’

  ‘I don’t know what you mean, Madam.’ Clarissa’s pointed chin seemed to stiffen. ‘This is who I am.’

  Rose looked down again at the letter.

  ‘And how are you getting on, Madam,’ Clarissa’s voice had less courage this time, ‘with the other members of staff?’

  ‘Oh, fine.’

  ‘Madam from German, and Sir the head of History?’

  Rose stood up so abruptly that the chair screeched behind her in protest.

  ‘Thank you for bringing the letter, Clarissa.’

  Clarissa stood too, and Rose could see she was affronted.

  ‘One more thing, Madam. The deputy head wanted me to tell you not to seek out Bethany. We think it would be better—’

  ‘Who is “we”, Clarissa?’

  ‘Oh, the Headmaster, and the deputy head, Madam Ms Johns. As head girl they often include me in their—’

  ‘Do they indeed?’ Rose couldn’t hide the cynicism in her voice.

  ‘Yes, Madam,’ Clarissa answered with renewed vigour. ‘And we think you and Bethany ought to remain entirely separate from now on, until the situation is resolved.’

  Rose started. ‘The situation is not yet resolved? The investigation?’

  ‘I believe not.’

  ‘Even with this letter of apology?’

  ‘No, Madam, it’s already gone far beyond that.’

  Rose shook her head, mortified. ‘And the deputy head didn’t think to tell me any of this herself?’

  ‘No, Madam, she’s quite busy.’ Clarissa’s face sneaked out a neat smile. ‘But thank you for seeing me.’

  The head girl left just as the Fourths appeared, parting in a line at the door to let Clarissa pass. Rose had never seen them so obedient. But soon enough, they were throwing their bags about, filtering through the desks. Rose didn’t mind; she was glad of their rough bustle after the calculated charm of Clarissa.

  As the noise rolled over her, she stole a regretful glance at the pile of unmarked books on her desk.

  ‘Madam, this Latin is really hard.’

  Daisy was staring into the page of Livy, the Lower Sixths’ work. Her tall figure seemed absurd in her white buttoned dress, her long sleeves too tight around her wrists.

  ‘Oh, yes. It’s not for you.’

  ‘What level is this, Madam?’ Freddie was now peering over the crook of Daisy’s elbow as she passed by. ‘Is this Sixth stuff?’

  ‘Yes, Freddie.’

  ‘So, is it possible to take Latin further, then?’

  Rose was momentarily astonished. ‘Freddie – is that something you would consider?’

  ‘Um …’ Her ivory face opened up. ‘Maybe?’

  ‘Don’t worry about persuading me, Madam,’ said Nessa, moving her pale hair out of her face as she scoured the page on her own desk. ‘I only understand one word in this whole thing. Nocte, night. Nocturnal.’

  Rose smiled. ‘That’s great, Nessa.’

  ‘By night, ablative,’ called out Daisy.

  ‘Oh my God.’ Rose staggered out a laugh. ‘Well done, Daisy.’

  Nessa was pushing the page to the edge of her desk; it almost reeled over to the floor, but she caught it. ‘Who is Lucre-t-i-a, anyway?’

  ‘Lu-cree-sha,’ Rose said, correcting her pronunciation.

  ‘Okay. Who is she?’

  ‘Is she like Dido, Madam?’ Daisy called out.

  Rose surveyed the room of bustling girls, anxious to start the lesson. ‘Not quite. Not at all, really, she—’

  ‘Is she a real woman or a mythological one?’ Daisy pushed.

  ‘She’s real, she’s part of Roman history.’

  ‘Tell us about Lucretia, Madam,’ Freddie said, tugging her blazer over her seat and untucking her cloud of red-gold hair.

  Rose glanced at their unmarked books again. ‘All right.’

  She turned to the blackboard and drew a diagram; she wondered how far back to go, and decided to keep it simple. The room dissolved into silence as she talked. Yes, she thought, maybe she’d find them a more basic translation to top it all off next week.

  Rose finally drew a little stick woman holding a dagger to her heart. She turned back to the room, triumphant.

  ‘I don’t get it, Madam,’ said Nessa. She and Freddie were grimacing at the board from the front.

  ‘Looks like she had a ghastly time, Madam.’

  ‘Yes, Freddie,’ Rose sighed, pinching the chalk between the tips of her fingers. ‘But through her actions, Lucretia made an impact on Roman history. There’s loads of interesting stories about that sort of thing, if you care to listen.’ Rose waited for the class to respond, but they didn’t. ‘We’re obviously much more liberated today. But it’s amazing that even in ancient times, domesticated women, like Lucretia, could make a difference.’

  Freddie’s face was fixed into a frown. ‘Who is liberated?’

  ‘Women today,’ Rose almost laughed. ‘Us. We are independent from men, we have rights. We can be leaders without the need for fathers or husbands to take the reins.’ Rose continued: ‘Look at the Queen, look at – God help us – Margaret Thatcher.’

  Nessa glanced at Freddie next to her, who demanded, ‘Don’t you like Margaret Thatcher, Madam?’

  ‘No, Freddie, I really don’t,’ Rose said firmly. ‘Not after privatisation, and what she did to the North.’

  Daisy passed her hand across her mouth. ‘Madam! How controversial you are.’

  ‘Madam,’ Freddie spoke again, and she was staring straight at Rose, ‘in the Aeneid, Dido is quite powerful.’

  ‘Oh, you did read Book Four over half-t
erm, then?’

  ‘Yes,’ Freddie nodded. ‘I liked her actually. Although she’s always looking “with her eyes”, and tearing at her hair and things. She’s quite emotional, isn’t she? She could buck up a bit—’

  ‘Yes, but Freddie,’ Daisy interrupted with her clear voice, ‘she dies at the end of Book Four, so what’s the point? I did the holiday work, too. But I thought Dido was a bit of a cop-out. At least this Lucretia woman died for something. She sounds excellent.’

  ‘You are harsh. Dido’s been a survivor her whole life.’ Freddie turned to pull a face at Daisy. ‘She saw no other way out, since Aeneas abandoned her by sailing away. She was doing well until he arrived.’

  ‘But really,’ Daisy insisted, ‘what is the point of her story, Madam? It seems so trivial.’

  ‘Not at all, Daisy.’ Rose placed her piece of chalk along the edge of the blackboard. ‘Dido’s story is self-contained within the Aeneid. She’s a powerful queen. She founded a city, after the murder of her husband, she escaped the tyranny of her brother. She may have been real, even.’

  ‘And Aeneas ruined it … but isn’t he supposed to be the hero?’

  ‘Well, Daisy, that’s an interesting question! And Virgil leaves us plenty to discuss. Did you know that Dido has more lines of speech just in Book Four than Aeneas has in the entire Aeneid? Could it be that she has a lot more to say?’

  Rose looked out expectantly at her pupils but their faces were impenetrable. Only Freddie seemed to react. ‘How many books are there in total again?’

  ‘Twelve. But we’re only studying Book Four for your GCSE exam next summer.’

  ‘Who is Virgil?’ Nessa asked, looking bewildered.

  Rose turned to rub the blackboard clean as Daisy and Freddie shuddered with laughter. She smiled along with them too; for now, it outweighed her dismay.

  The following evening there was a strange unified movement across the dining hall, and a silence that followed. Even the air seemed to change, as a figure in a dark grey dress followed a nurse carrying two meals on one tray. The girl was painfully thin, with sunken eyes and a shaven head.

  Her hairless head drew every pair of eyes in the hall. Rose squinted to identify the girl as she sat down opposite the nurse.

  Bethany.

  Rose’s face snapped back to her tray, horrified. But still in her mind’s eye she saw that shorn head hunched over, the vulnerability of her frail shoulders, the kinks of her bony skull. Those long tendrils of hair gone, a halo of shame in their place.

  The Junior tables passed around dark looks, heads turning, leaning into each other’s ear with an unkind whisper. The Intermediates’ faces were white as they dragged their cutlery around their plates. The remaining Sixth were solemn and obedient at their tables. The indifferent face of the Founder watched them all.

  Once the two of them had eaten, the nurse took Bethany’s thin arm and guided her away – back where? Rose wondered. To the sanatorium? To some iron bed, in some clean and empty hospital dormitory?

  The younger girls watched the dining hall doors even after Bethany had gone, the wake of her disgrace hanging over them as a warning.

  AGRIPPINA

  iam in mortem centurioni ferrum destringenti protendens uterum “ventrem feri” exclamavit multisque vulneribus confecta est.

  Then, as the centurion bared his sword, ready for death, she, presenting her stomach, exclaimed, ‘Strike my womb,’ and with many wounds she was slain.

  (Tacitus’ Annals XIV.8, written c.AD116)

  Agrippina is a lesson to us all in getting ahead. Of course, she was privileged to be born into the imperial family, but no other noblewoman dared to rise as high as she did.

  After the death of her husband in exile, Agrippina was permitted to return to Rome under the emperor Claudius, her uncle. He was a reluctant emperor, easily persuaded by his advisors and his women – in fact, his most recent wife had been executed for conspiracy against her husband. Agrippina saw an opportunity and seduced Claudius, against the wishes of his counsel, who labelled it incest. It was his fourth union, her third, and both had noble sons to raise. Claudius’s boy Britannicus carried the stain of his late mother’s dishonour, so it was easy for Agrippina to persuade Claudius to adopt her own son, a strapping young lad, as heir to the throne. In recognition, Agrippina’s son was given the new name of ‘Nero’. Soon after, emperor Claudius succumbed to death by poison. Many suspicious eyes turned to Agrippina, who had high hopes for her teenage son. And indeed, after Claudius’ death, Nero rode out into the Forum with the imperial praetorian guard, and declared himself emperor.

  Nero was a young and boisterous ruler. He regularly ridiculed his young rival, the righteous Britannicus, before having him poisoned as his father had been. Claudius’s closest advisors, too, were poisoned or driven to suicide. At Nero’s side, Agrippina made sure their path was clear.

  And the Roman public were delighted with her. She was a relation of Julius Caesar, after all, and very happy to be celebrated thus. ‘Augusta’ was her new honorific title, and her face bloomed across Rome – stamped on Roman coinage, carved on a statue conjoined to her teenage son. Indeed, the success and popularity that the young emperor Nero enjoyed was entirely thanks to his mother, the empress.

  But her dominance did not last. The young emperor soon tired of his mother’s interferences. Perhaps her plotting had been too ruthless – she’d taught her son too well. His tyranny and extravagance stretched beyond Agrippina’s control, and she was forced to leave Rome once again. There were many attempts on her life, arranged secretly by the emperor to seem accidental, but none hit their mark. And so, Nero was forced to throw caution to the wind. His assassins appeared at her countryside refuge under the cover of night. There would be no final escape from death. This time, Agrippina would face it boldly, and command one of the assassins to aim his sword at her womb – the place from where traitorous Nero had sprung – so that through her death, her son might always be reminded who gave him life.

  9.

  Rose spent the weekend trying to shake off that vision; her pitying worry for Bethany was almost too much to bear. Should she visit her in the sanatorium? Of course not. The school had been carrying out its pattern of punishments for 150 years – who was Rose to question them? Bethany’s path, and hers, were now diverging; Rose had to be the one to keep her head down and succeed, rather than follow in the girl’s declining footsteps.

  And on the following Monday a small reward came: Rose was asked to trial a night in the boarding house. She was glimmering with nerves but Emma reassured Rose that it proved Vivien’s good faith in her, and that they were seeing how she’d do.

  Rose found herself sitting in the tutors’ study after a tour of House Prudence, led by the brusque and buxom housemistress. The boarding house, the first she’d seen, was a luxurious rabbit warren, within which she’d completely lost her bearings – short corridors divided by year into identical cubby-hole bedrooms. The dormitories offered perpendicular iron bedsteads beset with soft toys or family photographs, the odd petticoat slung over a chair. Nestled in the innards of the house was one large reception room with a long kitchen and the highest beamed ceiling she’d yet seen, plus two shorter day rooms. There were dim sounds everywhere: the soft plunk of a piano in some other room, and the tick of a toaster’s timer in a smaller galley nearby.

  By now, Rose’s eyes were already tight with fatigue; she wasn’t used to the school day stretching so far into the late evening. She stared at a long list of strict punishments within ‘Discipline’ taped to the wall, a few details written minutely beneath. Below that, Nessa’s name was marked with a red dot beside two others. Rose felt a sting of empathy for the girl – she knew what it was to be a name on a board.

  A group of Thirds were filling up the long sofa in the study. They were like young gazelles with their soft eyelashes, passing fingers through each other’s hair, draping t
heir long limbs over one another. One pointed her little nose in the air. ‘Don’t look at me, Madam, my spots are out. I’m a mess.’

  ‘You are not. It’s all part of growing up.’ Rose tried to sound reassuring, but she could hear her own accent falling out of line with their clipped tones.

  ‘It’s no good. Bad genes. Everybody says so.’

  She was nudged by the girl next to her. ‘You’re nowhere near as ugly as that First with the ears – have you seen her since her new haircut? She ought to have them taped back. She’s so repulsive none of the Fifths want her as a fag.’

  The group collapsed into laughter as Rose frowned.

  ‘A fag? Like a cigarette?’

  ‘No, Madam, like a skivvy.’ The girl who answered rolled her eyes. ‘You know, someone to do your dirty work.’

  Rose turned away, disgusted, as a nub of an idea pushed at her. She knew she wouldn’t get detailed answers, but at least they would be blunt with their honesty. ‘Can I ask about punishments, girls? The Sixth girl, Bethany deVere …’

  ‘Oh yes, Madam, awful. We’re not supposed to talk about it.’

  One of the girls sat up. ‘Bareheadedness is one of the last-resort punishments, Madam, but it’s never supposed to happen in Sixth, because they need time to grow it back.’

  ‘Before what?’

  ‘Before they leave. But she’s in C Pathway, so I suppose it’s all right.’

  Rose hesitated. ‘What does “C Pathway” mean?’

  ‘No, Madam,’ the girls looked at each other cautiously, ‘we’re not supposed to talk about it. It’s not decent. And you’re new.’

  ‘Still,’ the girl perched on the sofa’s armrest wasn’t bothered, ‘it’s jolly having you here, Madam, we have the other Latin Madam for lessons.’

  ‘Mrs Jenkins with the large bosom, you know.’

  ‘Ah.’ Rose didn’t think she’d ever noticed Emma’s bosom; she regretted the change of subject.

  ‘Could you sneak us in some magazines, Madam? It’s not one of our privileges.’