Madam

by Phoebe Wynne

  ‘Is that everything, Rose?’ Anthony interrupted suddenly, his face tight with exhaustion.

  ‘No.’ Rose thought of Nessa and felt a throb of urgency. ‘What about the girls who are demoted by house?’

  ‘Ah.’ Frances pulled a regretful face. ‘Yes, there’s ranking in the Junior Intermediate houses. Clemency is the lowest house, the route towards the C Pathway, unless they get their act together.’

  ‘But in Clemency,’ Rose insisted, ‘if the girls aren’t doing well, what happens?’

  Frances wasn’t looking at her. ‘There’s bareheadedness, and then the girls move into the san with monitoring and individual tutoring until they improve.’

  ‘Are any girls expelled?’

  ‘No,’ Frances said darkly. ‘We can’t let them go.’

  ‘So, how can you be sure others won’t go the same way as Bethany?’

  Frances didn’t respond, and Anthony leaned forward heavily. ‘Rose. The girls are uniquely happy here. Their futures are decided in the best way, with their consent and their parents’ approval.’

  ‘It’s not real consent! They’ve been indoctrinated!’ Rose sat forward. ‘How can you stand it, both of you?’

  Anthony checked Frances’s face before speaking up. ‘There are many perks to the job. The gentlemen of the staff are promised excellent pensions, and even senior positions in smaller boarding schools if they wish … Besides, the connections here are deeply influential.’

  ‘And the women?’ snapped Rose.

  ‘Perks for them, too. Look at your colleague Emma,’ Anthony insisted. ‘Her two boys were sent through boarding school and university, Hope picked up the bill. Her husband was promoted at work and relocated to be near his wife. Now that they are recruiting single women like you, they will be broadening the incentives.’ Anthony leaned forward, lowering his eyes. ‘I, however, should be happy here until I retire.’

  ‘But,’ Rose said desperately, ‘Jane was sent to a school in Dublin, wasn’t she? Before … Inverness? The governors said they couldn’t let me go – but they let her leave and teach somewhere else?’

  ‘Dublin?’ Anthony looked up, confused.

  ‘Jane,’ Frances cut in, ‘was a warning to all of us.’

  ‘Frances,’ Rose pushed, ‘why are you talking about her in the past tense?’

  ‘Oh, I don’t mean to.’ Frances shook her head quickly. ‘She’s not well, that’s all.’

  ‘Yes, I know.’ Rose couldn’t control her flurry of panic. ‘And is she not well because she had some kind of nervous breakdown, or is she not well because the school … interfered with her?’

  Rose looked at Frances’s blank face, knowing she’d find no answer there. Anthony sat back, regarding Rose with careful and anxious consideration. She could see that he wanted her acquiescence, he wanted her to see his side.

  But Rose knew she was as far from her two colleagues as she’d ever been. I can’t stay, she thought, I can’t possibly stay in this godforsaken place.

  15.

  Rose’s keys were splitting the skin of her fingers as she resisted their force. Someone was smashing them into her mouth, cracking her teeth. It was that cold, pale face with ribbons of lank hair, Bethany, her eyes impossibly blank holes in her face as she pushed the metal into Rose’s mouth.

  Rose opened her eyes away from the nightmare, sliding her legs apart in the bedclothes, hot and damp in that cold room. She touched her own face, mercifully intact, but her mouth even now felt parched and injured. Moving out of the bed, she went to the bathroom.

  Rose’s mind was ablaze with thoughts. She’d been trying to make sense of the last few days, to find some string of logic to this massive reinstatement of everything she’d thought to be true. How clear it had always been – how obscene and obvious.

  The staff had immediately shifted in their manner towards Rose. She was no longer a wary intruder to tiptoe around, no longer a source of tricky curiosity, but now simply one of them, and ought to disappear into the furniture accordingly. But Rose distanced herself from their knowing acquiescence. Only the three Moirai were still watching her closely, enjoying her anguish, anticipating her next move.

  Not only that, but Dulcie had been removed from Rose’s Upper Sixth class, and the other four girls claimed to know nothing about it as their lessons continued. With dismay Rose thought of that engagement ring and Dulcie’s overspilling emotion, divulging the truth of Caldonbrae’s system. Was the girl being punished for that? Was she still in school? Yes, but only really in house, Madam, Lex had answered, since half-term. Rose had glanced at the empty seat in the middle of the girls as her Euripides book trembled in her hand. Everywhere punishments, everywhere trapped.

  Frances was trying to be helpful – even comforting, perhaps, in her own usteady way. The handover of departmental duties would be slow and methodical, she told Rose in her flat one evening. Frances had drawn near to Rose on the sofa, the hot accompaniment of wine on her breath, a strange intimacy that Rose wasn’t used to and didn’t welcome.

  ‘I’m so glad that you know now.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ Rose swung her body away.

  ‘It’s easier. I’ve had to be so careful about what I said.’

  Rose closed her eyes with frustration. ‘You’ve been lying to me.’

  ‘I’ve had no choice,’ Frances protested. ‘But we are friends, you and I.’

  Rose drew back. ‘Friends? When you’ve been concealing this? And you’re okay with it? How can anyone here think this is right?’ Rose’s head fell into her hands. ‘The girls have been brainwashed! So have the teachers!’

  ‘Look, I know it is … unusual. Hard even, at times. This,’ Frances was nodding enthusiastically at something, ‘has been my way of coping with it. My moods, they call it. I’m volatile. I’ve never been as strong as the school would have liked, but,’ she sighed with small pride, ‘I am loyal to Hope.’

  Frances put her hand on Rose’s knee, who stood upright in one movement, her anxieties bolting themselves tighter around her like armour.

  ‘Loyal? No, Frances,’ said Rose firmly. ‘It’s not just unusual, either. If this got out to the press, or even further, then—’

  Frances glanced up at Rose, her eyes musty with alcohol. ‘Maybe you’re the one to fight it, then?’

  ‘What? How can I?’

  Frances shrugged but her eyes never left Rose’s face. ‘I don’t know.’

  Rose hesitated. ‘What – call the papers?’

  ‘Why not?’ Frances drew her glass to her mouth. ‘You can try. They’ll probably take you in hand. And, of course, they’ll be observing me as well as you since we’re friends.’

  ‘Take me in hand?’ Rose exclaimed.

  ‘They are entirely serious about the rule-breaking consequences, Rose. It’s not just you, the ones you care about will be punished too.’ Frances took a weary sip of her wine. ‘They’ll hit you where it hurts, and they always know where that is.’

  ‘You’re exaggerating. What is this, the mafia?’ Rose sat down on her armchair frantically. ‘Why didn’t you leave immediately when you found out how it really worked? Haven’t you worked out a way to escape, in all the years you’ve been here?’

  ‘It’s complicated.’ Frances leaned back on Rose’s sofa and closed her eyes, ‘Besides, I couldn’t leave. Things are difficult … and … I was so enmeshed in the system. You’re young. You’ve only just arrived.’

  ‘I feel like I’ve been here for ten years.’

  ‘Trust me. You haven’t.’ Frances frowned as if in sudden pain.

  ‘But surely I can just … disappear?’

  ‘You can’t. You won’t. Please.’

  Rose glared at Frances. She seemed suddenly repulsive; the reek of her breath, her yielding drunkenness, her overreaching compliance.

  Rose’s repulsion had bounded th
rough to her waking nightmare. At the end of the bottle Rose had politely pushed Frances out of the door. But then she’d heard the men’s voices again. A car roaring into life, low hollers softening amidst the slamming of doors. Why were they there? What were they saying?

  What would happen if Rose rushed downstairs and called the police at that moment?

  Nothing. They wouldn’t pass through the gate. The groundsmen wouldn’t be there, just as they hadn’t been there for Bethany that night. It was a dead night, no wind, no stars. Rose could hear nothing now. The muddle of her thoughts that evening blurred into the next, or was it the evening before? Perhaps it hadn’t even happened yet. Had Bethany even drowned?

  No, she’s in my bedroom, Rose thought, wreaking havoc with my dreams.

  She settled back in her bed as her thoughts turned to her girls. Freddie’s analytical eyes, Nessa’s desperate little face next to Bethany’s. Their voices calling at her, one after another. There was something there – was she still dreaming? Voices like threads of light she could pick up and tie together, bind as tight as a rope.

  Her breathing grew easier. The girls’ faces softened; their calls were duller.

  This was a purpose that Rose could drive towards, she realised, as rosy dawn began to peek through her curtains. Prevent Nessa from following Bethany’s path; prepare and send off those girls to university, to set them free.

  She nodded her head, and each nod was a silent vow.

  The following afternoon, Rose went to the mullioned window to draw back the curtain she hadn’t pulled that morning. The room was suddenly drenched in white light; and there it was, propped up against her plumped-up pillow in the mess of her unmade bed: an envelope, bearing the same crawl of her name.

  Dear Madam,

  Apparently you know how things are now. Aren’t you the lucky one working in a place like this? You’re out in the open now – and doesn’t that feel better? Now it’s time for you to get on with it and start proving yourself. And keep your mouth shut or there will be consequences. Do we need to remind you?

  Yours,

  One of Us

  These senseless demands, these harsh comments thrown out haphazardly. Typewritten again, the same letter ‘s’ jammed and retyped. The same short sentences, the same strange yellowed paper. The same envelope with spidery writing. This time Rose turned the page around to check the back, and caught a whiff of a particular flowery scent she knew she’d smelled before. One of the girls had been in her flat.

  ‘Leave me alone,’ Rose said aloud to the empty room.

  She crumpled the letter in her hand. Were the governors, the Headmaster and his staff, the students, all in continuous conversation about her – perfectly timing these nasty actions to strike her down, encourage her to submit?

  Rose strode over to her bedroom window, pushing it open. She held out her arm, and let the damp sea air soften the paper in her hand, before the wind took it up and away, yellow becoming grey becoming nothing.

  Should she have saved it, joined the letter to the other one, and taken both to Vivien? They seemed so private, so personal, attacking Rose on a childish level. She was embarrassed even to have been upset by them, and wouldn’t let Vivien, or anyone, have her tears. No.

  Another entirely different letter had been sent, as Emma had told Rose during lunch that day, over the rabble of the girls’ noise.

  ‘The Headmaster received a letter about you from the Lists over half-term.’

  Rose froze. ‘About me? From whom?’

  ‘Frederica List’s parents. The Headmaster was saying he hasn’t had a letter about academic enthusiasm like that in years.’

  Rose let out a gurgle of surprise.

  ‘You might laugh,’ Emma continued, ‘but they are an important family. Frederica is proving to be every bit as excellent as her older sisters. She’ll be head girl in time, mark my words. And to have singled out your teaching like that …’

  ‘I’m sure it wasn’t anything.’

  ‘It was, Rose. You should be thrilled.’

  Rose gripped her fork. ‘So, why are you telling me? Why haven’t I heard this from the Headmaster, or Vivien?’

  Emma sighed, exasperated. ‘No need to be so cross, Rose. Honestly, you’ve been cross all week. I thought a complimentary letter would be good news?’

  Rose pushed her food around her plate. Then she asked, ‘Is Dulcie still in your Sixth class?’

  ‘Yes, although she has missed a few. She seems very unhappy. I gather she’s restricted to house.’

  ‘She’s been excluded from my lessons entirely. I think it’s because she’s the one that told me what was really going on.’

  Emma stiffened, not looking at Rose. ‘Yes, I was informed about that. It will be good to have you settle in properly.’

  ‘Will it?’

  ‘Listen, if you play your cards right,’ Emma nodded, ‘you can help make some excellent connections. And the school will take care of you, and your mother.’

  Rose searched Emma’s face urgently. ‘But the girls, Emma—’

  ‘What?’

  ‘They have no say in the matter. They’re packaged off to some man they’ve never met.’

  ‘Some religious cultures arrange unions like that all the time,’ Emma retorted calmly. ‘Why shouldn’t we?’

  Rose dropped her cutlery with a clatter and Emma flinched. ‘Because it isn’t the same at all. It’s wrong.’

  ‘Goodness me, you’re worried about the girls now.’ Emma shook her head furiously. ‘What’s next, will you want to become best friends with them?’

  Rose glowered at Emma, hating her thick glasses, hating her dowdy skirt. But she had no other response; no courage to muster, especially with the Founder’s forbidding painting gazing down on them.

  The second hate letter pursued Rose still, even though she’d given it up to the elements. Surely she had the only key to her flat – or did everyone have the same brass ring of keys, with its many little pieces? There might be replicas of her key all over the school tucked into jacket pockets or tossed into desk drawers. Somebody had gone in and out of there, into her very bedroom, and was unafraid to show it. It was a violation, and it alarmed Rose.

  In the entrance hall Rose ducked into the porters’ office to ask. She tried to suppress the distress in her voice.

  ‘Who has access to the private flats above the boarding houses?’

  The porter on duty looked up from his small TV screen. ‘The private flats? For staff?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘No one, Madam, only the resident of the flat, and then we have a copy of each key here, for emergencies. They can be requested by management, if necessary.’

  Rose nodded through the information, even though it explained nothing.

  ‘Thank you.’

  The porter gestured towards her own ring of keys. ‘You must be academic staff. You’ve got the key to every internal door in the building there, Madam.’

  ‘Thank you,’ Rose repeated numbly.

  She ducked out of the office. Who then, and how? Rose still had the offending envelope, having compared it to all the badly written homework she’d collected from each of her students, scrutinising the turn of each letter, desperate to find a match.

  As she moved up the short steps to the main corridor Rose noticed Lisa striding along proudly with a pair of Upper Sixth girls. She walked with great poise, her elegant nose in the air; obviously her couture magazines were rubbing off on her. Rose wondered dimly how things were going in House See.

  But at the foot of the Great Stairs Daisy had been stopped by Ashley, Anthony’s burly colleague in History. Daisy was as tall as the man was plump, and she looked miserable at his attention. Rose hastened towards the odd pair.

  ‘Rather think you should be wearing an altogether different dress, my dear, this one hardly fits you
. Are you sure you’re only in Fourths?’ Ashley boomed.

  ‘Yes, Sir, I assure you.’ Daisy’s face burned scarlet. ‘I don’t know what else I can say.’

  The man chortled. ‘And what’s your surname, young lady?’

  ‘Ayrton.’

  ‘And what does your father do?’

  ‘He’s a barrister, Sir.’

  Rose now stood at Daisy’s side, and spoke up. ‘And a Classicist, as it happens, Sir.’

  Ashley’s eyebrows furrowed at Rose’s intervention. ‘Middle classes, good to see them climbing. We’ve picked the right-looking ones, haven’t we? I’ve noticed her wandering about,’ he said to Rose as he appraised Daisy further. ‘And she’s a Fourth?’

  ‘Yes, I can confirm that Daisy is in my Fourths class.’

  ‘Really?’ Ashley smiled hoarsely. ‘She looks like a Sixth; I’m afraid I’ve been giving her rather a hard time about it.’ Rose saw his eyes linger on the girl’s breasts, pushed out by the brace of her bodice.

  Rose moved her own figure between the man and Daisy; straightening her shoulders, she blocked his gaze. She was so close to Daisy that she could feel the girl’s breath on the back of her neck.

  ‘Did you have any other questions, Sir, or may I speak to Daisy about a Latin matter?’

  ‘Daisy, yes.’ The man’s rheumy eyes roved back to the girl’s face. ‘What house are you in?’

  ‘House Verity, Sir.’

  ‘Goodness, well done you.’

  Rose set her jaw to respond, but a crown of gold-red hair interrupted the small group.

  ‘Sir, I’m so sorry to interrupt, but I believe Madam Ms Johns was asking to see you.’ It was Freddie, talking in a controlled voice, her animated face bright and appealing.

  ‘Was she, indeed?’ The man turned his smiling eyes on Freddie.

  ‘Yes, Sir, it seemed important.’

  ‘All right, then, very good.’ He patted his lapel. ‘Forgive me, ladies.’

  Once Ashley moved away Rose was very aware of the two girls close to her, and others moving past them, closer still. She took a step back.