‘I’m sorry, lovey. Danny’s not here. He’s at work.’
‘I was afraid he might be. I – I came to say goodbye.’
‘Oh,’ Mrs Eland said. ‘Oh, I see.’ She was looking at Kate with her brown, sad, eyes. Her black hair was drawn severely back from her face into a bun at the nape of her neck. Already there were wisps of grey at her temples even though, Kate guessed, Beth Eland must be a similar age to her mother, – only in her early thirties.
Returning the woman’s steady gaze, Kate thought – and not for the first time – that Danny’s mother could be really beautiful, as striking as her own mother, if she were to take a little trouble over her appearance. She had a lovely face, with high cheek-bones and dark eyes fringed with long black lashes. Her figure was a little too buxom to be fashionable, but to Kate it made Mrs Eland seem all the more warm and motherly. She was reaching out now and touching Kate’s face in a gentle gesture. ‘Tek care of ya’sen, lovey.’
Kate nodded and said flatly, ‘I’ll see you at – Christmas.’ It seemed an age away and though Danny’s mother said, ‘It’ll soon be here,’ even her tone lacked conviction.
At the cottage next door, Kate found herself swept against Grannie Harris’s ample bosom. ‘Eh me lass, we’ll miss you, all on us. ‘Specially Rosie. There’s nobody like Kate Hilton in young Rosie’s eyes.’
Kate’s summer had been spent with Rosie. The child had been her constant companion.
‘Let’s go and find her. She’d never forgive me if I let you go without seeing her.’
Rosie’s tears almost shattered Kate’s resolve not to cry. ‘Don’t go, Katie, don’t go ‘way. Who’m I going to play with? Who’s goin’ to take me to school?’ She wound her chubby arms around Kate’s neck, almost strangling her, and sniffled pitifully.
‘I must go, Rosie. Really I must. Me mam’ll be waiting for me,’ Kate pulled herself out of the child’s grasp, turned and ran.
She could still hear Rosie’s sobs as she crested the Hump and plunged down the other side towards home.
‘There you are. It’s time to go. Mek haste, Kate.’ Her mother was dressed in her best costume, with a smart new hat perched on top of her hair which, as always, was piled high on her head, luxuriant and thick – a rich auburn colour like Kate’s own. There was not a trace of grey showing in her mother’s hair, Kate thought.
Her stepfather was still in his working clothes for he was only coming as far as the station.
‘Aren’t you going to say goodbye to your sister?’
Dutifully, Kate bent over the cradle and kissed the baby’s forehead. Lilian’s tiny fingers clutched at Kate’s flowing hair and tugged at it.
‘Ouch!’
The baby crowed with delight, but when Kate prised open the small hand and stood up, Lilian began to whimper at the removal of her plaything. Kate stood looking down at the child with distaste. She’d rather have little Rosie for a sister any day!
‘We’re all loaded up,’ Jonathan Godfrey came into the kitchen, ‘and Enid’s just arrived to take Lilian till I get back.’ His voice had a forced joviality that did not deceive Kate. But far from upsetting her, it actually comforted her to think that he cared.
As the trap rattled down the lane towards the town, Kate watched Brumbys’ Farm become smaller and smaller. She bit down hard upon her lower lip. She refused to let her mother see her cry.
What hurt most of all was that she had not seen Danny. The one person she loved best in all the world and she had not even been able to say goodbye to him.
She pushed her hand into the pocket of her coat and felt the reassuring wrinkled surface of the whelk shell he had given her.
Seven
The school was a tall grey building set in a row of imposing town houses. From the street, stone steps led up to the heavy front door and the long windows seemed to be watching their approach.
It had been raining when they stepped off the train, and although Esther had tried to hold the umbrella over both of them as they walked from the station, by the time they reached the school Kate’s long hair was straggling down her back in untidy wet strands. There was a peculiar fluttering feeling inside her stomach, just below her ribs, like a captive bird struggling to get out.
A maid opened the door; a young girl in a long black dress with a white apron and mob cap covering her short hair. Her face was pale and pinched. She was young enough to be a pupil, but obviously she was not one of them.
‘Wait here. I’ll tell Miss Denham.’
They were left standing in a hallway that stretched up and up three storeys high. From the centre of the hall the stairs rose to the first floor and divided into two and then again up to the second floor, dividing again. On each level the landings ran around the open square so that even from the topmost floor it was possible to peer down and see who was standing in the hall below.
Kate heard the echo of whispering and looked up to see herself being observed by three pairs of curious eyes, their owners leaning over the balustrade on the second floor. Somewhere a bell sounded and the three girls scuttled down the stairs to the first floor and disappeared.
The maid returned. ‘This way,’ and they followed her through a huge oak door at the left-hand side of the hall and into a book-lined study.
From behind a wide, leather-topped desk rose the tallest woman Kate had ever seen. She towered above both Kate and her mother and her height was accentuated even further by her grey hair scraped up from her face into a bun on the top of her head. Miss Denham stood tall and straight-backed, and her shape looked as if her body were trussed up in a corset, moulded by bones and padding, all tightly laced. Her bosom was high and rigid and her waistline, though by no means slim, curved in and then out again to generous hips. Her hairstyle and dress, a grey striped close-fitting gown with a white collar and a small velvet bow at the neck, were out of date for the shapeless fashion of the twenties. But if intimidation of the girls in her charge was her endeavour, then, in Kate’s wide eyes, Miss Denham succeeded.
‘Good morning, Katharine. I am Miss Denham, and I am the Principal of this school.’ The voice was deep, almost masculine, but it fitted the frame from which it issued. Kate felt the woman’s cold grey eyes taking in every inch of her appearance from the top of her very wet head right down to the muddy toes of her lace-up boots. The woman was pointing now at Kate’s feet.
‘I trust, Mrs Godfrey, that you have equipped your daughter with something more appropriate in the way of footwear than – those?’
At her side Kate felt her mother almost bristle with indignation. ‘Naturally, Miss Denham, I have – equipped – her with every item on the list of requirements ya gave me.’ Esther Godfrey was standing stiffly before the woman and staring fearlessly up at her. In that moment Kate was fiercely proud of her mother until she remembered that it was her mother’s fault that they were here in the first place!
Miss Denham pulled a bell-rope and before the tassel on the cord had stopped swinging the little maid appeared in the doorway.
‘Say goodbye to your mother, Katharine, and go with Mary.’
Kate gave a little gasp, turned and flung her arms around her mother, pressing her face into Esther Godfrey’s bosom. ‘Mam, dun’t go. Not yet.’
Her mother’s arms came tightly around her. She rested her cheek against Kate’s hair. ‘Oh, Kate,’ she whispered. ‘You’ll be all right, really you will. Write to us . . .’ For an instant there was a slight tremor in Esther’s voice, as if suddenly she had doubts herself.
‘Mrs Godfrey,’ Miss Denham’s manly voice cut in, ‘you are not helping the child.’
Kate lifted her head and looked up into her mother’s eyes; eyes that were troubled now. ‘Mam, please don’t leave me here . . .’
‘Katharine!’ Miss Denham barked, so that Kate jumped physically. ‘Control yourself. We do not condone such emotional behaviour here. Now,’ the voice quietened a little, ‘I repeat, say goodbye to your mother, and pray conduct yourself with a litt
le more decorum.’
Kate was so shocked that before she really realized what was happening she was being kissed on the cheek by her mother and then ushered out of the door by Mary, who shut the study door with a heavy thud of finality.
‘This way, Miss.’
There was nothing Kate could do but follow obediently.
*
The three pairs of inquisitive eyes were staring at her again, this time much closer.
Kate was sitting on a high bed and the three girls were ringed around the end just staring at her.
The long room, with a high ceiling, had five beds down each side. Beside each bed were a small chest of drawers and a narrow wardrobe. There were windows at the end of the room but set so high up in the wall it was impossible to see out of them. They were barred and the little of the glass that could be seen was opaque with grime on the outside so that not even the sky was visible. The floor was bare of any carpet or rugs and was so highly polished that it squeaked under Kate’s boots when she walked on it.
‘What’s your name?’ one of the watchers asked at last.
Kate looked at each of the three girls in turn. They were all dressed in similar uniform to her own, yet there was a subtle difference about theirs somehow. They all had short hair, cropped to a length just below their ears.
‘Kate. Kate Hilton. What’s yours?’
Another spoke but ignored Kate’s question. ‘Is that your proper name? The one you were christened?’
‘N-no. I – was christened Katharine, but I’m called Kate.’ And Danny calls me Katie, she almost added, but bit her lip to hold back the confidence.
‘Huh,’ the second girl said scathingly. ‘You’ll be called Katharine here.’
‘And you’ll have to have that hair cut.’ The third girl spoke for the first time, touching her own neatly cropped hair. ‘We all have to have it cut the same way.’
‘Or plait it, Isobel. She could have it plaited,’ the first one volunteered.
‘Not unless she can do it neatly.’
Kate gasped in horror. ‘They aren’t cuttin’ mine!’ she said vehemently, but the girls only laughed.
The door opened and a woman entered. She was dressed in what appeared to Kate to be a nurse’s uniform. She wore a long navy blue serge dress and a pristine white apron with a bib. Her hair was completely hidden by a starched square of white cloth folded around her head and falling into a triangle at the back.
‘Matron – this is the new girl, Katharine Hilton.’
‘But she likes to be called Kate.’
The woman’s eyebrows almost reached the edge of her cap. ‘Really?’
Now four pairs of eyes regarded her.
‘Come with me—’ the Matron paused and then added with emphasis, ‘Katharine.’
The three girls stifled their giggles swiftly as Kate slid slowly off her bed and walked between them towards the Matron.
‘Look at her blouse – it’s home-made,’ came a whisper.
‘So’s her gym-slip – just look at her boots!’
‘Have you unpacked and put your clothes away?’ the matron was asking.
‘No, me trunk ain’t got here yet.’
Another whisper. ‘Listen to how she speaks! How common!’
Kate spent the next half-hour in the Matron’s room listening to a list of school rules which she knew she would never remember. Then the Matron took her downstairs to the first floor and into a classroom to meet her teacher. When they entered, there were seven other girls in the room, all sitting in a semi-circle around the teacher, sewing. But at once they all stood up and chanted, ‘Good afternoon, Matron,’ and only sat down again when the Matron had acknowledged their greeting and added, ‘You may sit down, girls.’
‘Miss Ogden – this is Katharine Hilton. She will be in your class from tomorrow morning.’
The teacher rose and came to greet Kate, stretching out her hands to take Kate’s. For the first time since she had arrived at this place, Kate found herself looking into a face that was smiling and welcoming. Miss Ogden was a pretty, dark-haired young woman with a kind smile and merry, dancing eyes. ‘Welcome to Class Two, Katharine. We’ll introduce you to everyone tomorrow.’
Kate glanced briefly at the other pupils and her heart sank when she saw that the three girls whom she had met half an hour earlier were sitting there, their heads bent demurely over their sewing.
‘We’ll see you at dinner this evening,’ Miss Ogden said as the matron ushered Kate out of the classroom door and continued to show her around the school.
The ground floor consisted of the Principal’s study and private sitting room, the dining room and, at the rear of the house, the kitchens where the cook reigned over her kitchen maid and the parlourmaid who had answered the door. On the first floor were three classrooms, an art room and a domestic science room. Upstairs were three large dormitories with ten beds in each, Miss Denham’s bedroom and those of her two assistant teachers and the Matron. There was also a small room set aside as the sickroom, whilst up in the attic were the domestic servants’ bedrooms.
‘There, now you have seen everything, Katharine, I expect you not to get lost. Miss Denham cannot abide unpunctuality either for lessons or meals, or indeed for anything. Dinner is at half-past six. You may go and unpack your trunk which I believe has now arrived from the station.’
With the briefest of nods, she dismissed Kate.
‘We speak French at meal-times.’ In the dining room, Miss Denham was towering above her. ‘I presume you know a little French?’
‘No, Miss, I dun’t.’
‘She can’t speak English properly,’ came a voice from somewhere behind her, but Miss Denham chose to ignore the remark.
‘You’d better sit next to me this evening, but from tomorrow you will sit at Miss Ogden’s table.’
With an outward meekness she did not feel inside, Kate followed the Principal, thinking that she would rather sit near Miss Ogden, French or no French.
Miss Denham’s deep voice boomed out above their bowed heads, saying the Grace in French. Then there was a scraping of chairs on the bare wooden floor and everyone sat down.
Two girls from each table went to the serving hatch at the end of the dining room and returned carrying plates with a portion of meat on each. The procedure was repeated until everyone was served. Then, starting with the teacher at the head of each table, the vegetables were passed round and everyone helped themselves. Only when everyone was served was the signal given that they might start eating.
Conversation was not allowed, the rattle of knives and forks being the only sound in the room.
Kate felt the knot in her stomach, just below her ribs, tightening. She took a mouthful of meat and began to chew. The meat was tough and tasteless. Her mouth was dry; she could not swallow it.
‘Please may I have a glass of water?’
The Principal spoke but the words were completely unintelligible to Kate. ‘En français, s’il te plait.’
Kate stared blankly at her. Even sitting down the woman looked tall and imposing, with lips so pursed there was hardly any mouth at all. Further down the table came a stifled giggle which prompted a stony glare from Miss Denham.
There was no way Kate could understand what was being said to her and even less chance of her replying. She bent her head and ate some of the vegetables instead. They had been over-cooked to a mushy pulp. She felt the bile rise into her throat with revulsion. Setting her knife and fork neatly together at the edge of the plate, Kate folded her hands in her lap.
She would eat no more.
‘Mange!’ In the silence of the room, Miss Denham’s voice boomed, audible to all.
Kate fixed her gaze upon a picture on the wall opposite to where she was sitting, yet she could feel every eye in the room was turned in her direction. She was aware that only one face was perhaps turned upon her with any expression of sympathy and that was Miss Ogden’s, who was seated just below the picture.
‘Ka
tharine Hilton, mange – maintenant!’
The nervous knot in Kate’s stomach hardened into anger. Her green eyes swivelled from the picture and sparked fire.
‘I dun’t know what you are saying to me. I dun’t understand French.’
A shocked gasp reverberated around the room.
Kate stood up, her chair scraping on the wooden floor.
‘Assieds-toi, immédiatement!’
Kate realized she was probably being ordered to sit down, but she had said she could not understand and now she had to carry it through. She left her place and marched down the length of the room, pulled open the heavy door and went through it. It swung to behind her with an echoing thud. The hall was dark and dismal, with only low wall lights burning. Kate shuddered, lifted her skirt above her knees and scampered up the two flights of stairs to the dormitory.
It was worse there. The long room was in complete darkness with only a glimmer of light coming from the high, barred windows at the far end. Kate rushed towards them. If only she could see out, she might feel better. If she could see the garden, trees, hear the birds . . .
She stood below the windows craning her neck backwards, but all she could see was pale grey light through the grime.
‘I can’t even see the sky!’ she wailed aloud. She leaned her cheek against the wall and sobbed.
It seemed as though she was in the darkness on her own for an age, huddled on her bed, before she heard voices coming up the stairs and along the landing, nearer and nearer.
Then they were in the room. Someone lit the gas light near the door and they were crowding round the end of her bed, gaping at her. Some had expressions of something akin to admiration. ‘Fancy walking out like that. I’d never have dared!’
Others with derisory glee. ‘You’re in for it. Miss Denham wants you in her study. Now!’
And one or two with hostility: ‘You’ll get us all into trouble if you carry on like that.’
The Fleethaven Trilogy Page 46