Blythewood

by Carol Goodman

  We spent the next two days “swotting” for my exam, as Agnes put it. We had the mansion to ourselves. My grandmother had been called upstate on a “delicate matter.”

  “But I leave you in capable hands. I am sure you will acquit yourself as befits a Hall.”

  The last bit sounded more like a threat than a hope. She was right about Agnes, though. She drilled me in Latin declensions, historical dates, passages of English literature, and, most curiously, collective nouns. My mother had had a fondness for these that I had always thought strange, and now it turned out that they were part of the Blythewood tradition.

  “It’s part of the archery program,” Agnes said vaguely. “Ladies are expected to attend the hunt. Thank goodness that Evangeline taught them to you.”

  “I don’t see how knowing the collective noun for badgers is going to make me fit in at Blythewood,” I said the morning of the interview as Agnes gave me a last-minute drilling over breakfast. “Perhaps Miss Janeway would consider taking me on as an apprentice?” I’d been thinking since our visit to Miss Janeway’s that I’d feel more at home among the girls at their sewing machines than on the archery fields and in the tearooms of Blythewood.

  Agnes frowned with disapproval.

  “I can sew,” I said defensively. “My mother taught me that. Not everything she taught me was useless. She just somehow neglected archery.”

  Agnes reached across a platter of kippers and squeezed my hand, her kind, honest face stricken. “Oh, Ava, it’s not that Miss Janeway wouldn’t have you, it’s that you’re destined for so much more!”

  “I hope I’ll never think myself better than a dressmaker . . . or secretary,” I added, sneaking a look at Agnes, who smiled at the inclusion of her profession. “Is it really so important I go to Blythewood? Do I have to go? From how you and Miss Janeway were talking it sounded like not everyone is entirely happy with the school.”

  “We shouldn’t have been arguing about those things in front of you. Please don’t tell your grandmother—or the admissions board—that I said anything against the school.”

  “Of course not,” I assured Agnes, surprised and alarmed to see her so rattled. “But if Blythewood is so mired in tradition, will they really accept a girl who’s worked for a living—”

  “Blythewood does not disapprove of work,” Agnes cut in, her freckles standing out on her face as they did when she was angry. “We’re all encouraged to find our proper role in the world—whether as the wife of an earl or a dressmaker or a secretary. We all serve Blythewood in our own way.”

  “Even a woman who bore a child out of wedlock and took her own life?” I asked, my voice trembling. “That’s what you’ve been talking about with all those women, isn’t it? Whether Blythewood will take me after my mother disgraced herself. Well, maybe I don’t want to go to a place that wouldn’t have my mother.” I didn’t know that I felt that way until the words were out of my mouth.

  “Oh,” Agnes said, her mouth a round O and her eyes wide. “My dear, that’s not what we’ve been talking about at all! There are other things happening at the school which I’m not at liberty to tell you. I’d never gossip about your mother behind your back like that. It’s perfectly natural for you to feel aggrieved on your mother’s behalf. I don’t blame you at all.” She looked down, her brow knotted and her head bobbing as she silently mouthed something to herself, something she did, I’d noticed, when she was trying to work out a problem. Then with a final nod that whipped the feather in her hat to attention, she looked up and nudged her chair closer to mine.

  “By George, if you don’t want to go to Blythewood you shan’t go! I won’t let anyone make you, not even Mrs. Hall. If need be we can live with Carrie Janeway above the shop and we’ll all trim hats for a living! Don’t worry, Ava, you and I shall be great friends whether you go to Blythewood or not. That is, if you’ll have me as a friend after I’ve behaved like a fool.”

  “I’d be honored to have you as a friend, but you haven’t behaved like a fool.”

  “Yes, I have. I didn’t even consider that you might not want to go to Blythewood after how they treated your mother. And I don’t blame you. It wasn’t fair. Other girls have . . . well, let’s just say that other girls did far worse than Evangeline and weren’t asked to leave. I’ve always thought that Evangeline must have said something to the Council that made them want to be rid of her or that she knew something that frightened them.

  “You see, Blythewood is full of mysteries, and because of that, the Council thinks they have to keep us in the dark. Things can get . . . complicated. Rumors, whispering campaigns, even factions. But in the end we’re all loyal to Blythewood and all the layers of traditions and secret rites that are slowly revealed to the new girl as she makes her way through her years there. I can’t tell you them.” She tapped her ring. “We all take an oath by the Bell and Feather not to reveal the secrets of Blythewood, nor do I know the very deepest secrets. Those are always reserved for the Dianas—the chosen girls. But I wonder if Evangeline learned something even beyond what the Dianas were told. And I suspect it was a secret that had something to do with your father.”

  “My father? Do you know . . . ?”

  “No, I don’t know who he was. I don’t think Evangeline ever told anyone. But hasn’t it occurred to you that your best way of finding out who he was—and why your mother was really expelled—lies in going there yourself?”

  I didn’t answer right away. The secret of my father’s identity was one so long veiled in mystery I had long ago given up ever penetrating it. Whenever I had tried to ask my mother any question about him she looked so pained that I had learned to shy away from any reference to fathers at all.

  “Do you really think I might learn who he was at Blythewood?” I asked at last.

  “I think,” Agnes said, gripping my hand tightly, “that if you put your mind to it you will be able to learn everything you need to know there.”

  I covered Agnes’s freckled hand with mine and looked into her deep brown eyes. “What time is the interview, then?”

  The next morning I dressed in the French blue serge dress with inserts of white lace and matching hat and veil that Caroline Janeway had made for me. Agnes escorted me to the Italian Renaissance palazzo on Forty-Second Street, not far from the new public library, which housed the Bell & Feather Club.

  “A lot of Blythewood alumnae, including Mrs. Hall, belong to this club,” Agnes told me at the doorway. “The selection committee conducts their interviews in the Oak Library on the second floor. The secretary at the front desk will be able to direct you to it.”

  “You’re not coming in?” I asked, suddenly feeling frightened.

  She shook her head. “I’m not a member. But here, I know what will help.” She reached into her pocket and took out the black feather that had belonged to my mother. She ran her fingers along the long curved vane of the black plume so that it gleamed in the sunlight and then tucked it into my hat. “You saved this for a reason—I imagine because it reminds you of your mother. Think of how proud she would be of you today.”

  I thanked Agnes and gave her a brave smile. When I turned to go in I felt a breeze tug at the feather, lifting my chin, which did make me feel braver. But as I turned to enter the building, I thought of how I’d found the black feather beside my mother’s lifeless body and wished that Agnes had chosen something else to remind me of her.

  I stepped into an elegant entrance hall paved in pink marble, the walls painted a soothing dove gray. An elaborate gilt-edged desk stood opposite the front door, behind which sat a Chinese man in a gold silk embroidered jacket. I crossed the foyer toward him, holding my head up high, and explained why I had come. He bowed and, without a word, got up and motioned that I should follow him up the curving staircase. I did, staring at the long braid that hung down his back and marveling at how little sound his feet, appareled in thick sandals, made on the marbl
e steps. Halfway up the stairs, I switched my attention from him to the oil portraits of stern-looking women that lined the staircase.

  “Is the Bell & Feather only for women?” I asked when we reached the top.

  But he only bowed again and opened a heavy wooden door that was labeled “The Oak Library.” I stepped through the doorway and gasped. The room, which must have taken up the entire second floor of the palazzo and was three stories high, was lined with books. Brass balconies ran around the second and third stories allowing access to the upper levels of books. I was immediately drawn to the shelves and to the gilt titles stamped on old leather bindings.

  Travels to Faerie and Back Again, Arbarrati’s Atlas of Other Worlds, The Great Sky Castle of Doctor Ashe—each title was more alluring and fanciful than the next. Were the members of the Bell & Feather fans of the scientific romance made popular by Mr. Jules Verne and Mr. H. G. Wells?

  “Ahem.”

  The sound of someone rather exaggeratedly clearing her throat drew my attention away from the books. I turned, feeling the feather in my hat snap at the movement, reminding me to lift my chin, which was good because I might otherwise have cowered at the sight before me. At the far end of the library was a long black-and-gilt table, behind which roosted a murder of crows.

  I blinked, and the giant crows resolved themselves into three women in black attire. The impression of crows came from their hats, which sported not just a few black feathers but the bodies of entire birds, their preserved heads peering over the hat brims with hard, glittering eyes.

  The woman seated in the middle cleared her throat. “While we admire your enthusiasm for the written word, the Council does not have all day. We have other interviews to conduct. Many young ladies are eager to attend Blythewood, though few are chosen.”

  I started forward with lowered eyes until the feather tugged my chin up and I found six sets of eyes on me—those of the women and those of the birds atop their hats. I wasn’t sure which were more intimidating. The women wore dresses that might have been in style at the turn of the last century: stiff, glossy black silk encrusted with lace, embroidery, and beading. Were they all in mourning, I wondered, perhaps for the same lost relative? They looked, with their pale skin, light-colored eyes, and silver hair, as if they might be related; only the woman in the center was larger and more formidable than the two women flanking her.

  As I got closer I noticed a fourth woman sitting in a chair to the right of the table. She was younger, blonde, and dressed in a navy-blue suit and a flat tricornered hat trimmed with yellow feathers. When I looked in her direction she smiled at me and then looked down at the notebook in her lap. Perhaps she was a secretary. Her smile gave me courage. I looked back at the triumvirate of crows. The middle one indicated I should sit in the low straight-back chair in front of the table.

  “Avaline Hall?” she asked, looking down at a sheet of paper before her.

  “Yes,” I said, “only I go by Ava—”

  “Here you will go by your correct name. I am Mrs. Ansonia van Hassel and these are my associates, Miss Lucretia Fisk . . .” The needle-nosed woman on the left slightly inclined her pointy chin. “And Miss Atalanta Jones.” The woman on the right scowled at me. “Miss Vionetta Sharp, who has lately been hired to teach English at Blythewood, will be observing the proceeding and taking notes.”

  I glanced at the slim blonde in blue and received another shy smile.

  “However, she will have no vote,” Mrs. van Hassel added, glaring at poor Miss Sharp. “Together we three will decide if you are suitable for Blythewood. The school is most selective. Family legacy alone will not gain you admission, nor will consideration for your recent bereavement, although I personally would like to say that you have the Council’s condolences for your loss.”

  The three women briefly bowed their heads, which left me looking into the hard beady eyes of the three crows atop their hats, who didn’t look the least bit sorry that my mother had died.

  “Now,” Mrs. van Hassel said, “we will move on to the examination. At Blythewood we follow a rigorous regimen of classics and athletics. As you appear to be physically fit—”

  “She’s a bit thin,” Mrs. Jones said with a hungry look in her eyes that suggested she might like me fattened up a bit before having me slaughtered for dinner.

  “And pale,” Miss Fisk added, tilting her head at me like a robin listening for worms in the ground.

  “I’m sure she’ll tone up with a regular regimen of archery and bell ringing,” Mrs. van Hassel asserted. Clearly she was in charge here. She might even be the one to decide whether I went to Blythewood. “Would you like to ask the first question, Lucretia?”

  Miss Fisk cleared her throat and asked me to conjugate the verb incipio in all tenses, moods, and voices. I took a deep breath and launched into the conjugation, grateful my mother had quizzed me on my Latin every day over tea. When I was done Mrs. van Hassel informed me that I had slaughtered the pluperfect subjunctive and instructed Miss Sharp to award me a seven out of ten. Then she asked me to recite the story of Niobe as given by Ovid. And so the examination went on, containing a great deal of Latin, Greek, mythology, English poetry, and etymology, including an entire section on collective nouns.

  “An exaltation of larks. A parliament of owls. A cete of badgers,” I responded, glad and surprised that my mother’s strange fascination with “the language of the chase,” as she’d referred to such terms, was finally coming in handy. As I answered each question successfully it came to me that she had spent my lifetime preparing me for this exam. Did that mean she had wanted me to attend Blythewood?

  After I answered the last question, Mrs. van Hassel asked to see Miss Sharp’s notebook. She ruffled through the pages, Miss Fisk and Miss Jones peering over her shoulders, their heads bobbing so that it seemed again as if the three crows were picking over my answers like seeds of grain.

  “Not bad,” Mrs. van Hassel concluded, handing the notebook back to Miss Sharp, “but there’s more to being a Blythewood girl than intelligence and learning. There’s character. Miss Sharp, would you mind stepping outside for a moment?”

  Miss Sharp looked up from her notebook, an expression of surprise on her face that was immediately extinguished by what she saw in Mrs. van Hassel’s face. She glanced at me and then quickly turned and knelt to gather some books that lay beside her chair on the floor. A sound drew my attention behind me. Only as I was turning did I realize that the sound came from inside my own head. It was the bass bell tolling danger. Were the three women in danger? But when I turned I found that they were no longer women.

  Three enormous feathered creatures perched on the long black-and-gold table. As I watched, one of them spread its wings and launched itself at the tender white nape of Miss Sharp’s neck. Without knowing I was going to, I leapt to my feet and threw myself between the bird and Miss Sharp. I heard the sound of wings thundering in my ears, felt the brush of feathers against my cheek and the scrape of talons on my wrist . . . and then I felt nothing but air. I stumbled into Miss Sharp, who looked up, surprised, and steadied me with her hand. I whirled around to face the creatures, but found the three women again, sitting sedately, their eyes coolly watching me.

  “Excellent, Miss Hall. We think you will do very nicely at Blythewood. We’ll expect you on campus tomorrow at noon sharp.”

  6

  I WALKED OUT with Miss Sharp, whose calm demeanor suggested she had experienced nothing unusual in the library. Her open, cheerful countenance belied any suspicion of a subterfuge. Had I imagined the giant crow attacking her? Was I hallucinating as I had at Bellevue? The thought made me feel sick. I’d hoped those visions had been a result of the shock of the fire, the blow to my head from the fall, or the drugs Dr. Pritchard had given me. But if I were still hallucinating . . .

  “Congratulations, Miss Hall,” Miss Sharp said as we came down the stairs. “I’m sure you’ll d
o very well at Blythewood. You have an admirable command of classics and mythology. Your mother taught you well. She would be very proud of you.”

  “It seems she was preparing me for that exam all along.”

  “Perhaps.” Miss Sharp paused at the bottom of the stairs and turned to me, a troubled look on her smooth elegant features. Had she seen the crow attack after all? I wondered. “Or perhaps she was only sharing with you what she loved. At its best Blythewood instills a love of learning in its girls, and a wish to share that knowledge with others.”

  “You attended Blythewood?”

  She smiled—a sad smile, I thought. “Most faculty are alumnae. I did my bachelor’s degree at Barnard College and I’ve been teaching at Miss Spence’s school, but I’ve missed Blythewood terribly. I can’t tell you how pleased I was to get this appointment. I’m afraid there is one flaw in Blythewood.” She touched my arm and looked at me gravely. I wondered if she was going to tell me that the school was mired in the old ways, but instead she leaned closer and whispered, “It’s so perfect that no place will ever measure up. You’ll always long to go back.”

  Agnes was waiting for me outside. When she saw Miss Sharp her face lit up.

  “Vi!” she cried.

  “Aggie!”

  The two women threw their arms around each other and twirled around on the sidewalk, nearly colliding with a stout businessman in a bowler hat and eliciting disapproving looks from a clutch of ladies exiting a dressmaker’s. They were oblivious, though, to anyone but each other—even to me—as they traded particulars of their lives since graduation. When Agnes learned that Vionetta Sharp would be teaching at Blythewood, she turned to me. “Now I haven’t any reservations at all about you going, with Vi there to look after you. That is if . . .”

  “She got in,” Miss Sharp announced. “She did brilliantly on her exam.”

  “I knew she would,” Agnes said, pulling one of her oversized hankies from her bag and dabbing her eyes. “Evangeline taught her well.”