Madam

by Phoebe Wynne

  ‘I do, yes,’ said Rose. ‘What’s worse, is that nowadays Perseus is celebrated for being a hero, and Medusa is remembered for being a monster.’

  Freddie shook her head back and her red curls moved. ‘That’s rubbish.’

  ‘No, it’s true.’

  ‘I mean, it’s crap.’

  Rose and Freddie looked at each other, and the girl pulled an apologetic face. ‘It’s fine, Freddie, I think we’re past swearing now.’ Rose carried on: ‘Anyway, Medusa is often cast as the angry, irrational woman, conquered by the man,’ she paused for effect, ‘which is something I thought you ladies could think about.’

  ‘But she was a fighter.’

  ‘Well,’ Rose answered, considering Medusa’s face within the painting, ‘she might have been, but she didn’t have the chance.’

  ‘She certainly made a good monster,’ Nessa added.

  Rose laughed. ‘She did.’

  ‘It’s terrible that she was raped,’ Daisy suddenly said forcefully.

  ‘Be careful, Daisy.’ Daisy looked back at Freddie with a frown.

  ‘Freddie, why do you say that?’ Rose asked.

  ‘Daisy was punished the other day,’ Freddie nodded seriously. ‘In Sexual Health, she was asking questions about consent.’

  Rose stalled for a moment.

  ‘It’s all right, Madam.’ Daisy shrugged. ‘It was only lines, and a cut to my evening privileges for the week. My housemistress gave me a severe talking-to, but I wasn’t listening.’ She raised her head proudly. ‘I know my questions were fair.’

  Freddie was nodding at Daisy, before turning back to Rose.

  ‘I see,’ Rose answered.

  ‘Well,’ Daisy added cheerfully, ‘are there any other paintings of Medusa, Madam? I like all these women. They do make the classical world seem fabulous and exciting.’

  ‘Hardly!’ Nessa spluttered. ‘These stories always end so terribly! All the women die, or worse.’

  ‘Yes, you’re right,’ Freddie nodded, ‘there is a lot of doom in these stories, isn’t there, Madam?’

  ‘Yes, but girls,’ Rose answered firmly, ‘they made a difference, in their own way. Look at Antigone, Medea or Agrippina – they fought back, and stood up to power, as much as they could. They’re remembered for trying.’

  ‘Yes, but Madam,’ Nessa shot back, ‘the price they had to pay …’

  ‘We’ve got to keep trying, though.’

  ‘These women did their best,’ Freddie said, still nodding, ‘But it never ended well.’

  ‘But one day something will get through,’ Rose continued forcefully. ‘We’ve got to keep trying … My mother taught me that.’

  Three faces snapped up to their teacher, and Daisy softly asked, ‘Your mother, Madam?’

  Rose shook her head, her eyes fixed on the images set between the little group. ‘We must use the errors of the past to reflect on our own future. Human nature doesn’t seem to have … come very far.’ Her hand balled into a fist. ‘And reading their stories, sharing them with you, all of it makes me feel excited to be a woman. A feminist. Look how versatile, how surprising, how clever we are – and have been – throughout history.’

  ‘Madam, you are so embarrassing sometimes,’ Nessa scoffed, but her tone was fond. ‘Is this the rescue thing you were talking about?’

  ‘Sort of, yes. Why not?’

  ‘But you haven’t rescued yourself yet, have you, Madam?’ Freddie said quietly. ‘You’re here, with us.’

  The door opened suddenly. Emma appeared, her worn face twisted with crossness. They hadn’t heard her mounting the stairs.

  ‘Rose, what on earth are you doing up here? You’re not supposed to—’

  The girls slid out of their chairs and stood up.

  ‘Yes, sorry, Madam,’ said Rose.

  Emma held the door open and beckoned at the three girls. Nessa screwed up her face with humour as she collected her things. ‘Oh, Madam, she called you Rose! Is that your name?’

  Rose watched the three girls leave, Daisy sweeping the long sheet of her black hair behind her as she went. Freddie was last to go. Somehow Rose felt as though she were seeing them for the last time. She fought an impulse to follow them, to run, slip down the stairs, and take them with her, somewhere, anywhere but here.

  22.

  Rose was quietly furious with Emma – furious that she’d interrupted her meeting with the girls, furious with her for continually assenting, and even more furious when she insisted that Rose wouldn’t be able to help Nessa in any way.

  ‘She’s a Clemency girl, it’s only a small house and they have their methods. If she needs one-to-one tutoring, they’ll move her to the san.’ Emma turned away from Rose with a scowl. ‘And anyway, I came up to tell you that Vivien wants to see you.’

  Rose descended the stairs and found Vivien’s study door locked. She enquired with the secretaries, and one stood up authoritatively, insisting that Rose would need accompanying. The other secretaries gave their peer an encouraging look, their eyes creased with concern.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Rose asked as they walked along the northern end of the main corridor, in the direction of the sports hall and theatre.

  ‘The sanatorium,’ said the secretary briskly.

  Rose stiffened; she closed her eyes a moment to quell her unease.

  The sanatorium was another barnacle of a building, latched on to the northern bulk of the main school and accessed via a high-walled outdoor passage. It was certainly as tall as any boarding house, but far narrower – in her mind’s eye, Rose could see its short square placement on the library’s blueprint. Infinitely less homely than any boarding house, the interior seemed to have remained Victorian with its high white rooms spread out squarely across each ward, clean trolleys and gurneys scattered about the echoing, empty space. Rose remembered Frances’s comment in her first term, that it had been built to house reams of girl-patients during an epidemic.

  ‘Where are we going?’ Rose’s apprehension weighed heavier as they descended a set of neat stairs.

  ‘Just down here.’

  Rose thought fleetingly of those underground lead-lined rooms, buried far below. The secretary guided her through a set of double doors to a narrower room, a sanitised and blank bedroom, where a figure was sitting in an armchair. For a moment Rose felt dizzy; she’d entirely lost her bearings. The barred window behind the seated figure let out east and straight across the sea, where the land fell away and the rocky outcrops stretched out further beyond.

  ‘Here we are,’ said the secretary finally.

  With a frown, Rose focused on the woman in front of her, wondering where Vivien was. The nurse by the woman’s side spoke up,

  ‘How lovely, Jane, we’ve got a visitor.’

  Rose gazed at the woman that had haunted her since September. She was no such ghost – but not far from it: a shaking, deflated figure, rocking back and forth in her patterned armchair. Her eyes were bulging, her pupils dilated and staring at Rose.

  ‘Is that you, Bethany? Are you a woman now?’

  ‘No.’ Rose couldn’t breathe. ‘No.’

  ‘How long have I been here, Bethany?’ The woman had wisps of light brown hair, her Roman nose sharp and her skin pulling around her jaw. She grimaced. ‘No. I don’t know you.’

  ‘Now, now, Jane,’ the nurse said sharply.

  ‘She was here, but they let her go. They knew what she’d do.’

  Rose’s mouth hung open. ‘I’m so sorry, Jane.’

  The woman clamped her mouth shut and turned away.

  ‘We didn’t shave her head,’ the nurse insisted, nodding in Jane’s direction. ‘She’s just pulled it out.’

  Jane swung her face back to Rose.

  ‘You’re not her! Get away from me!’

  Rose was rooted to the floor as she heard a
gain Bethany’s words trapped in the mouth of this damaged creature. Jane’s mouth contorted again: ‘They let her out, they knew what she’d do. They let her out!’

  ‘Oh dear.’ The nurse pulled a cheery face. ‘Time for another dose, I think! Let me call the assistant.’

  Rose watched Jane grapple between the slim auxiliary and the nurse, relenting only when the needle of the syringe sank into her neck. Jane made a guttural noise as they eased her onto the bed; her shoulders shuddered as she closed her eyes on the small afternoon interlude.

  ‘Around Christmas, she became very disruptive where she was in Inverness; she’d had some bad news, I understand,’ the nurse explained, patting Jane’s shoulder. ‘She’s much better off here where we can keep an eye on her, keep her regulated.’

  Rose looked at the nurse, stupefied, before the secretary steered her away.

  Vivien was waiting in the small lobby of the sanatorium. It took Rose a moment to recognise her, as disorientated as she was, and distressed by what she had seen.

  ‘Shall we continue in my study?’ Vivien turned to hold the door open for Rose, the secretary hovering behind.

  Minutes later Rose was numbly directed to an upright armchair in Vivien’s study. Her thoughts were in tatters, so she tried to focus on a piece of artwork on the wall, a watercolour of a country house. It had to be from somewhere other than here. Wherever Vivien was from, Rose thought – the same place that Josie sprang from too, the household of beetle-black eyes, charm and sharp cruelty.

  ‘Did you enjoy your visit?’

  ‘Is this some sort of sick joke?’ Rose managed.

  ‘Not at all, Rose. We felt it was important to answer some questions you evidently had.’ Vivien moved around her desk. ‘No need to beat about the bush. We must discuss these.’

  Vivien tossed a smattering of envelopes into Rose’s lap. Rose flinched at the snappish movement, but then her eyes saw what they were. Her own writing was scrawled on the envelopes, one with the Dublin address, the others labelled with various Inverness hospitals, postmarks stamped and the edge of each envelope slit open.

  ‘The Headmaster’s old friend in Dublin,’ Vivien said carefully, ‘seemed to think that one ought to be returned to us here at Hope. The rest were returned to us by our many contacts.’

  Rose avoided Vivien’s gaze.

  ‘I’m afraid the Dublin address was false, Rose, and fed to you deliberately. Please understand that we contrive solutions to every eventuality; this was always going to come back to us.’

  As Rose’s words failed her, the deputy head continued with: ‘Here at Hope, Rose, our influence extends further than you can imagine.’

  Rose looked up at Vivien. ‘I had no idea—’

  ‘With regard to this issue, let me clear it up for you.’ Vivien leaned a long arm on her desk. ‘Jane suffered from weak mental health; it was not fitting to post her in any of our contributing preparatory schools. She was taken to a clinic after a breakdown, and now her treatment continues closer to home. Do you understand?’

  ‘But what …’ a voice urged from Rose’s throat, ‘why did she … have to go?’

  Vivien pursed her lips. ‘If you must know, Jane became overfamiliar with one of the students. She enticed her, and ruined her prospects. Jane wanted her here, as a Compassion, a teacher. The very lowest order.’ Vivien snapped her head to the side in disgust. ‘As if Jane could control that girl’s path! Oh, it was a dreadful affair, the whole thing, and a sorry end for them both. I hate to remember it. Not that this is any of your business – but I would say, Rose, that it is not a situation I would like to see repeated.’

  ‘Yes,’ Rose managed, comparing Vivien’s simplified version of events against the uncomfortable truth that Frances had told her. Stories of pain, stories of harm, stories that Hope tore up and tossed aside in its vast carelessness.

  Vivien stood up straight. ‘These letters will be added to your dossier, Rose, as evidence.’ She brought her hands together. ‘We shall need you to start impressing us, Rose, rather than having us tidy up your mess.’

  ‘But why did …’ Rose faltered, ‘why did I have to see Jane like that?’

  Vivien surveyed Rose, her eyes pointed and her mouth crooked. ‘We’re educating you on your limits, Rose. After all, this is more than just a school – it’s an institution.’

  Rose was prickling with vulnerability. She’d made her way to lunch without Emma, not having spoken to her since she’d seen Jane and been horrified into silence. In the canteen she moved efficiently, filling her tray with as little as she could, keeping her eyes to the floor, trying to evade the general clamour of the hall.

  But somebody was standing in her path. Between the gap of two parallel tables, there was Anthony. His presence was hovering and apprehensive, and he was touching her.

  ‘Rose.’

  Rose stared straight at him, through him. His face was lined and haggard, his beard thick. Rose looked at his fingers on her arm.

  ‘Get away from me.’ She shook him off, swinging her tray between them. ‘Don’t touch me.’

  The tables around them seemed to wake with the tension.

  ‘Rose,’ he said firmly, trying to take the tray from her. She held on to it, her fingertips white with the pressure. ‘I just need to speak to you. You mustn’t—’

  ‘Let go of me.’ Rose reeled away from him. Her arm flew out to the side, as did the tray. The sudden movement caught the surrounding girls’ attention, their faces swivelled to her and Anthony as her crockery clattered to the floor.

  Anthony rippled with anxiety, his hazel eyes driving into her face. ‘Please don’t do this.’

  ‘What do you care? You’ve already got away with it.’ A thrill of nervous anger ran through Rose. ‘You must be devastated that Clarissa’s getting married!’

  He leaned towards her, enclosing his arms around the cage of her body. ‘Rose.’

  ‘Get away from me!’ Rose was shrinking at Anthony’s strength, pressing at his lapel. ‘No!’

  ‘Rose, please. You’re being hysterical.’

  ‘Don’t you dare!’ She pushed him, hard, and he staggered. ‘I said no!’

  Anthony recovered himself. Swooping the alarmed and staring girls into his gaze, he raised his hands in surrender. He hesitated a moment before stepping away, hanging his head like a wounded beast.

  Rose shook her head, her chest hammering with uneasy fury. She became aware again of the dining hall and the blur of girls’ faces – painted with confusion, horror, surprise. Rose focused on the mess of her tray on the floor, her entire face aflame.

  ‘Hold on a moment there, Madam.’

  Rose stopped at the Headmaster’s coaxing voice.

  ‘Come along here with me. Best not to have one of your little outbursts in front of so many girls.’ The man made to circle her shoulder with his arm but Rose stood up tall over him.

  ‘Come along.’

  There were a few desperate looks from her Juniors, as Rose obeyed. She followed the Headmaster through the main door, set beneath the Founder’s painting.

  He led her to a low room at the end of a passageway, panelled into the rock. Rose had never been there before, and her anxiety beat in her ears as she took in the rough stone walls, the one slim window letting in a peek of light. At the far end a squat wooden door had been set into the stonework, with a worn plaque above it. Rose could just about read the words: To Postern.

  The Headmaster was talking in a quiet voice, so lightly that Rose had to stretch to hear. But still she stared at that obscure door. It stood next to the square and empty fireplace mounted with its own stag’s head.

  ‘I think we need to decide, dear girl, if this is going to work or not. We can’t have you shoving about our male teachers like this, writing letters, phoning papers, and bursting in on significant meetings as you did on Affiliates Day. I must a
dmit, I am disappointed. I had been told that your disciplinary phase was going well, and that since the beginning of term you have been almost entirely obedient.’

  Rose nodded mutely, seeing in her mind’s eye a letter of dismissal, her furniture loaded up, her bags packed and ready.

  ‘I was pleased to hear you had improved, particularly now that your mother is in a worsened state.’ The Headmaster was standing in the stream of the outside glow, his slight figure a silhouette. ‘I receive updates on her almost daily. It is important to make your mother feel safe and secure. We wouldn’t want to worry her.’

  Rose turned around fearfully. ‘Please …’

  ‘You do need to consider what kind of message you are sending our girls.’ The Headmaster was shaking his head. ‘You have been quite the confusing distraction for them.’

  Rose thought of Jane, her strange figure rocking back and forth.

  ‘Here’s what we are going to do. Your job here is safe for the time being. You have signed a contract and you have proven your compliance – despite this small hiccup.’ He pressed a hand against his chest. ‘I now need your loyalty.’

  ‘Headmaster, I—’

  ‘You will visit your mother briefly at half-term, accompanied, and then you will stay here for the summer. You will have an allocated short-trip period for your regulated holiday.’

  Rose blinked.

  ‘For the rest of this term, you will not speak out of turn in front of the girls.’ The Headmaster’s voice gathered strength. ‘You will help with the Ball. You will be a positive presence for the governors, the parents, the friends of the school. You see, I am very interested in you, Rose. The girls often speak about you. The Juniors and Intermediates certainly have a positive attitude towards you.’

  Rose’s words rushed out. ‘That’s because no one has ever cared about them before, and I do.’

  The Headmaster waited a moment. ‘Do you perhaps wonder, Rose, why it is that you are so … upset by the system here? When everyone else is happy – the girls, and the staff?’

  She focused on a spot on the floor. Not all of them, Rose thought.