by Phoebe Wynne
But Frances didn’t shift her blue gaze, placing a tentative hand on Rose’s arm. ‘Don’t you think, Rose … in some way, you already knew?’
‘Rose,’ the Headmaster’s voice sounded behind them, ‘I wanted to commend you for your contribution today.’ Rose’s back stiffened, her every nerve standing on end. ‘And thank you for agreeing to stay over half-term.’
Rose found her voice, and turned around. ‘Half-term?’
‘You will be staying over half-term to aid our Japanese girls who are not leaving for the week, but in fact moving into their new boarding house, House See.’
‘But,’ Rose glared at the Headmaster, ‘I’ve got my train booked for tomorrow.’
‘The secretaries have postponed your ticket. Not to worry, dear. And your mother’s clinic knows not to expect you. Yes, your staying here will make all the difference. I expect you’re thrilled with how well things are going.’ Rose looked down at him, the brilliant shine of his brown eyes, the curve of his jaw. ‘Vivien will take you through everything necessary for half-term. Frances, may I have a word?’
Frances followed him silently, and Rose was left to stare at the seated group of women, who stared back at her, nonplussed. Hearing Frances’s voice rise and fall with the Headmaster’s, Rose left the common room without another word.
Rose stared at the ceiling above her bed, at the plastered mould of the light fitting. The wind was screeching at the window, and the damp of the late winter pressed at the glass as if to taunt her.
Frances had been ‘fully engaged’ with the Headmaster that Friday, then left early the following morning to visit an aunt in the West Country. Rose had found a hastily scrawled note on her desk, with a promise to see her the minute she returned. So Rose really was stuck there for the next week, with the secretaries’ instructions for her, the girls and House See.
Her thoughts were still frantic in their discovery, panicking about what to do next. Rose turned her face to check the time. She saw her upturned book on the bedside table and realised how distant that narrative was, and how very real and alarming her own situation. She couldn’t stay here much longer, she knew that. But what about the problem of her mother? Rose couldn’t ignore the fact that she had a degenerative disease, and was using an oxygen tank now. If Rose left Caldonbrae, she’d have to take on these new medical expenses herself, an amount she’d never be able to shoulder on an ordinary teacher’s salary. She could move her mother back to her previous palliative clinic – but the money from the house was gone. Then, without a good reference from Caldonbrae, and with inevitable questions from a potential school, Rose wouldn’t have a hope. No, she might never secure another teaching post again, if the Headmaster had anything to do with it. Not in Britain, anyway. What about her old tutors in Rome? But she’d never be able to afford to live there, work, pay rent and pay for a medical clinic. Could she find somewhere to live back in Kent perhaps, and what – look after her mother full time? Register with the local council for benefits?
No, Rose thought fiercely, she’d been taught to work for a living, to pay her taxes, to graft, to contribute and to prosper. She had to stay at Caldonbrae, then – one more year, or for as long as her mother needed her. There was no other option.
Rose had called her mother the evening before, but she wasn’t at all fazed that Rose wouldn’t be there for the week; even if she was feeling frail, she insisted she’d be better without Rose’s prattling. She’d received the card, too, but couldn’t see what Rose was getting at. How different a person she’d been in the post office that day, Rose thought. How naive, how blind. Rose had simply nodded and hung up the phone, her silence full of words her mother wouldn’t hear and couldn’t understand.
The half-term week began in House See. Hardly a boarding house, Rose thought, but two corridors of bedrooms attached to a large and bright day room, set within the north wing on the ground floor. The handful of girls did not even fill the newly painted dormitories, but instead stretched themselves across the dark green plush of the day room, basking in the light from the long windows facing the mainland.
Through gentle prying Rose discovered that the girls took up two year groups, Fifth and Lower Sixth, each with its own corridors. But how different the corridors were. The Lower Sixth clutch of girls stroked their hands through their soft hair as the porters moved around them, heaving boxes of plants and ornaments. The Fifths, however, dragged in their own designer suitcases jovially, kicking them down the steps, nudging each other forward to get on with it. Once they were in their rooms Rose caught a group of three laughing girls as one stood inside a billowing duvet cover, its feather duvet trampled under their feet.
Rose soon got to know a few of them; Hanako, a young-looking girl with short hair, was the chattiest of the Fifths and seemed to find everything an adventure. A tall Lower Sixth girl, Ayumi, peeled herself away from her friends and hid her smiles behind her hand as she declared herself the head of the house. She seemed to enjoy passing a daily hour or so chatting to Rose in the day room; she spoke soft and excellent English, and asked to be corrected if she made any mistake. Rose worried slightly about another girl, Shiyo, with a long narrow face, who didn’t associate herself with the other Sixths, had very few possessions around her bed, and buried her elegant nose in couture magazines. Shiyo approached Rose on the third morning as the trays of lunch were brought in.
‘Madam? Why does no one make our beds each day?’
‘Oh.’ Rose hesitated. ‘I think you might have to make your bed yourself, Shiyo.’
‘Please,’ the girl wore a heavy frown, ‘call me Lisa, I would like to use my chosen English name.’
‘Okay, Lisa.’
‘Me, I prefer Hanako, Madam,’ Hanako called out from her little group as they examined the lunch trays. ‘My father says Amanda. But Hanako I prefer.’
Rose kept to a chosen corner of the day room with her planner and various books, only nipping into the small kitchen to top up her tea. The Fifths offered repeatedly to make her one of theirs, but Rose didn’t want to inconvenience them. She didn’t want anything to crack the softness she’d found in those girls – a softness she hadn’t yet come across in her other students. It was so different from the frantic one-upmanship and casual carelessness of the girls in House Prudence, and from the unpredictable energy of the girls in her classroom. Despite her underlying dismay at the girls’ segregation, House See’s small space was a balm to Rose and an antidote to her painful discovery of Caldonbrae’s true function.
‘Hanako,’ Rose dared one afternoon, ‘do you go to lessons with the other girls from Verity, or Prudence?’
‘Sometimes yes, Madam. Sometimes no.’
‘And why, now, are you being moved in here?’
Hanako nodded. ‘There will be more of us, Madam. Isn’t this good?’
‘Can I see your timetable, Hanako?’
‘You are funny, Madam, why?’
Rose gave in to Hanako’s smile. There were more questions she had, in order to understand why and how things were as they were. Her own weak conclusions guessed at the girls’ slow integration into the Caldonbrae system: just like Rose’s own introduction, but seemingly more discreet.
Rose was battling to piece together the truth and place it against the school she already knew. Against her Sixth and their crowing over future husbands, against Bethany who took herself to the beach to die. Was that why she’d done it – was she despairing over this darker purpose? I’m doomed, Bethany once said, and Jane was the only one who could save me. Save her from the fate of an arranged marriage?
The evenings stretched out late in House See as Rose’s questions evaporated into the empty air. Beyond those dark green rooms there was a smattering of half-term staff about, one of whom was Anthony. Their short greetings were regularly interrupted with a summons here or there, and Rose’s courage failed her every time she opened her mouth to challenge
him. Any feelings she’d been nursing for Anthony now cowered behind this new and ugly knowledge; did he approve? Was he complicit? She certainly didn’t dare ask any of the others that lingered in the empty dining hall, or in the scarcely populated common room with its continuous Vestal fire.
On the first morning back after half-term, Rose’s lessons had been cancelled without explanation. After she’d endured a long morning of thrumming panic in the Classics office, at midday one of the secretaries guided her into the Headmaster’s study for the very first time.
A blast of light from the windows alarmed her, framed by the blackened lines of windowpanes. As she squinted through the dazzle, Rose saw a silhouetted figure move towards her, too tall to be the Headmaster’s.
‘Good afternoon, Madam!’ the head girl gestured with her arm. ‘You’ve been invited to the governors’ lunch. The Headmaster sent me to entertain you before introducing you to them.’ Stunned, Rose didn’t shake Clarissa’s hand. Instead the head girl readjusted her velvet hairband, the same maroon as her dress. ‘Have a seat.’
‘Where is the Headmaster?’ Rose paused, glancing around the large study. ‘And the governors’ lunch – what is that?’
‘You’ll be meeting a few of Hope’s governors. It’s a real privilege, and I gather they will be going through the particulars with you. The Headmaster will be along in a moment.’
‘The particulars?’ Rose echoed.
‘Yes, Madam, now that your probationary period is over.’ Clarissa sat down on a corner couch opposite Rose, her knees together and turned to the side. Rose sat down too, carefully. No one had told her that her probationary period was over. How did Clarissa know before she did? Checking around her, Rose took in the handsome room, masculine and full of mahogany furniture.
Clarissa leaned forward and asked, ‘How was your half-term, Madam?’
‘Fine.’ Rose gathered herself. ‘How was yours?’
‘Lovely. My father and I went to the country. We had a lot of people at the house.’
Rose faced Clarissa. ‘And are your family pleased with your … progress here?’
‘Yes, Madam, of course. My Value is the highest in the year.’
‘Is that how one becomes head girl, then?’
‘Almost.’ Clarissa seemed unable to hide her pride. ‘We have to be voted in. I won the vote.’
‘You must be so thrilled.’
Clarissa’s face dissolved into smiles; Rose noticed the wink of light from a pair of neat diamond earrings she wore.
‘Yes, I’ve got the best one.’
‘The best what – sorry?’
‘Suitor, Madam. Husband. Of all of them.’
‘Of course,’ Rose scoffed. ‘And he chose you?’
‘He won me!’ Clarissa gushed as Rose looked at her with alarm. ‘No, I’m being silly, of course.’
‘And were you happy with these …’ Rose hesitated. ‘Forgive me, I’m still learning – the requirements he made of you?’
‘You mean the Promises? Most of them were fine, I’ve managed. Just the French has been hard.’
‘And,’ Rose said carefully, ‘what were the other requirements?’
‘We’re not supposed to speak of those, Madam.’
‘Oh, I see.’
Clarissa shuffled to sit better on the couch.
‘But what about the requirements that weren’t fine? Were any of them,’ Rose asked tentatively, thinking of the risk she was taking, ‘difficult or unfair or—’
‘It’s only a few sacrifices, Madam,’ Clarissa interrupted sharply. ‘Nothing worth worrying over … for a lifetime of happiness and security.’
Rose blinked sadly as Clarissa carried on.
‘I’ll be married in the autumn. I’m looking forward to it, to having a husband, a companion, my own household. My father is always busy, he’s in the army. Madam Ms Johns and the others have been so wonderful. I don’t know what I’d have done without them.’
Rose let a moment fall between them, before saying, ‘Can I ask you, Clarissa, did you ever have a choice?’
Clarissa stared at her, puzzled. ‘What do you mean?’
‘You know what I mean,’ Rose pressed. ‘Did you ever have a choice?’
‘I came here as a child.’
‘Yes, but,’ Rose pressed further, ‘did anyone ever ask you if this is what you wanted?’
Clarissa leaned against her armrest. ‘I am everything I ever wanted to be, and I can’t wait for the future.’
The way she moved, her beauty, her sensuality, it was all so calculated – and hypnotising, Rose thought. ‘But you’re almost an adult. You could do anything you wanted. In life. You could go to university, have a career. You could be successful on your own terms – there’s certainly money behind you. But you want this?’
Clarissa raised her chin slightly. ‘Madam, you couldn’t possibly understand. Excuse me for speaking so plainly, but look at you. You’re a single woman who has to work for a living. You’re alone. As far as I can tell you have no connections, no society, no community – except for your mother, who is poorly, I believe. And your position here is one of privilege. You have no understanding of the way things are.’
Rose said bracingly, ‘I am free to make my own choices.’
‘Only within your societal limits, your financial constraints.’
Rose opened her mouth to reply, but a small lurch of the door made them both turn. The Headmaster appeared, and Rose’s thoughts stilled; how long had he been waiting on the other side? How much had he heard?
‘Well,’ the Headmaster’s jovial voice intruded into the space, ‘good afternoon, Miss Christie, Miss Bray.’
Clarissa stood up with her wide smile and greeted the Headmaster.
‘Clarissa, dear, how many years have you attended our little institution?’
‘This is my seventh year, Headmaster.’
Rose couldn’t help but shrink at the gentility of his voice.
‘And how many years has the system been in place?’
‘Since William Hope founded the school in 1842. My mother was one of ours. My grandmother and my great-aunt, too. They were both great Surrey beauties and married prominent and successful politicians.’
‘Clarissa, you are a splendid example of what Hope accomplishes.’ He drew his eyes to Rose. ‘Will you take Madam to the conference room, please. The governors are looking forward to meeting her.’
‘You won’t be at the lunch?’ Rose dared to ask.
‘Ah, Rose,’ the Headmaster’s eyes grew shrewd, ‘the governors are far more important than I am.’
Clarissa hovered nearer Rose. ‘This way, Madam.’
Rose followed Clarissa down the corridors as if she were suspended in the air, drifting past swathes of girls, seeing them all with new eyes.
Clarissa halted at the door of the usual staff meeting room. Her small hand found Rose’s and shook it. ‘Thank you, Madam, I enjoyed our little talk. I hope you’ll only continue to prosper here.’
The door opened to reveal Vivien in the door frame; she was already talking under her breath: ‘You needn’t look so horrified, Rose. Of course, I’d rather you hadn’t discovered the way things are in so underhand a way.’ She gestured to Rose to enter. ‘But all the same, get yourself together. This is an important moment for you.’
A conference table was placed in the middle of the arched room, laid for seven, with white tablecloths and polished silver, serving platters already laid out and covered. The fire was lit. Rose gazed at the glassy eyes of the stag mounted above the fireplace in some strange solidarity. Vivien twisted her figure towards a group of five men, one of whom Rose immediately recognised as a cabinet minister.
The governors stood up for Rose, gruff and formal, with pinned ties and pocket squares, leaning forward in different motions to shake her hand. Ro
se acquiesced, suddenly shy as Vivien made the introductions, the stone walls of the room somehow growing hot and cramped around her.
‘It really is a pleasure to meet you, Rose,’ the man closest to her spoke up. He had a quick smile and a very neat beard. ‘Goodness me, you are rather younger than I was expecting.’
Vivien bowed her head slightly. ‘Rose, this is the chairman of the governors, Lord Carstairs, a descendant of William Hope.’
‘By marriage, of course,’ he nodded amiably.
Rose didn’t know what to say. ‘Thank you for seeing me,’ she tried.
‘I gather that we are now fully inducting you into the system here.’ The man gestured for Rose to sit down. ‘But first, can we offer you some lunch?’
The other gentlemen broke into bracing smiles as they passed around the dishes, pouring each other drinks. Rose took as little food as she could without seeming rude, her posture tight and startled.
Ten minutes later the chairman touched the corner of his mouth with his napkin; he checked the others around the table as their conversation died down. Then he spoke up: ‘Allow me to start, Rose.
‘The girls of Caldonbrae Hall are here for a curated education: one that serves a purpose and benefits society. This great tradition continues since its founding.’ He folded his napkin. ‘The system has three main threads: Discipline, Study and Value. You have so far been privy to the first two. The full structure of the curriculum will be explained to you in due course.’
Rose turned an inquiring face to Vivien, silent next to her.
‘Your situation,’ the chairman went on, ‘is rather delicate. We haven’t recruited in over a decade, and now we are expanding. Our previous method of recruitment is not sustainable, so we must look at actively seeking out candidates. We have taken a risk with you. You must prove us right. I understand that you are an intelligent, impressionable and modern young woman. We celebrate young women here. We need innovators, visionaries, trendsetters.’
Rose couldn’t help herself. ‘You want visionaries? But surely you can’t deny how … antiquated the system seems?’