The Secrets of Drearcliff Grange School

by Kim Newman

  As Amy walked by the snowman, shivering from more than the cold, she caught sight of a girl she didn’t recognise. The stranger was skipping alone, deftly stepping over the rope, nodding as if hearing a rhyme in her head. Amy recalled the chanting, steeple-hooded monks in her Purple dream.

  Was this Mauve Mary? No, it was the wrong spot and the wrong time… and there was no violet glow. But the girl had the aspect of an apparition. Looking at her was deeply disturbing. She made Amy’s teeth feel funny.

  The skipping girl wore a sort of Drearcliff uniform. It took Amy moments to register the differences as if it were a ‘can you see what’s wrong with this picture?’ puzzle in the Girls’ Paper Annual Uncle Roger – her actual uncle, not one of Mother’s bogus beaux – gave her every Christmas.

  Instead of grey skirt with black side-stripe, she wore a black skirt with grey side-stripe. Everything else matched: black blazer with grey piping, black blouse with grey buttons, black socks with grey clocks, black straw boater with grey band, and jet-black tie with red-headed pin.

  The defier of uniform conventions was short and slight. Amy took her for a Second, though it turned out she was a Third. At first look, she appeared scrawny, undersized, weak… but she was skipping out of doors in a temperature well below freezing so she must be more resistant to the cold than Roberta Hale. She picked up pace without missing a step, face set in concentration, furrows between her eyebrows. She exhaled regular frosty plumes, like a piston-driven engine.

  Given that Drearcliff welcomed gill-girls, brain-maggots and junior moth-women, Amy wondered whether the skipping fool was some sort of self-starting automaton – a life-sized wind-up toy with a clockwork brain and a boiler for a heart. Her straight black hair, cut off at her jawline like a helmet, seemed starched. Her boater didn’t fly loose as she jumped up and down, crissed and crossed, hopped on one foot then the other, silently counting off. If she was a tin toy, she showed no signs of running down.

  This was Antoinette Rowley Rayne. The new new bug.

  II: An Address to the Whole School

  CHAPEL WAS COLDER even than outdoors. Ice-afrits blew through cracks in the window-frames. The pews were ice shelves and the floor was permafrost. Girls huddled together for warmth.

  Only whips were allowed cushions. Absalom reported – with some satisfaction – that this sort of injustice set off revolutions in Russia. Even so, most whips looked as miserable as the rest of the suffering masses – hands shoved inside blazers, gold-threaded scarves wound three or four times around privileged necks.

  Amy and her pals bent low, praying to South Sea Gods for a volcano to spout in the Quad. Kali flicked her gunmetal lighter – a present from her father on the occasion of his visit to the school – on and off. Its flame was thin and flickering.

  The Reverend Mr Bainter delivered a sermon on the theme of mortification of the flesh, illustrated with magic lantern slides. Using details from Hieronymus Bosch, he inculcated night terrors in Firsts and some more sensitive Seconds. Amy thought of the quaking, cracking eggs in her desert diagram dream. Bosch had a Purplish vision, she thought. Someone on the Viola pew sobbed and was sloshed to silence by a whip. The sermon lacked any discernible moral, but Ponce was enthusiastic on its subject. His elongated upper lip quivered like a squid’s beak as he talked of bones broken a thousand times and lakes of boiling filth closing over the heads of the unworthy. He miscalculated slightly – just now, boiling anything seemed a pleasant change.

  At the conclusion of the address, everyone rose as if to bolt for freedom… but Bainter rapped the eagle-wing lectern with a supple cane. The girls had to stay put a while longer. Digger Downs was stationed by the vestibule doors to prevent unauthorised sneaking out.

  ‘We have a new girl,’ he announced. ‘Antoinette Rowley Rayne.’

  Amy remembered the speech Dr Swan made on her first day and felt pre-emptive sympathy for the next victim. This time, it was down to Ponce to curse the rest of a girl’s days at Drearcliff.

  ‘Rayne has asked for a moment to address School,’ said Bainter.

  That was a new one! Was the canny filly going to get her licks in first? A shot across the bows of the witches.

  Someone choked in astonishment. Miss Dryden sustained dramatic chords. The cold had not done her organ any favours. Only pained wheezing escaped from frozen pipes.

  Amy looked at the mistresses’ faces for clues. No help there. The Staff could have been attending an execution or an enthronement.

  Wicked Wyke paused in her knitting and paid attention. She habitually knit socks for soldiers throughout Chapel and most lessons, though the War Office had asked patriotic ladies to cease such efforts after the Armistice. Salisbury Plain must be heaped with unwanted hosiery. Some closer to hand would have appreciated the knitted comforts wasted on ungrateful soldier boys. Miss Kaye smiled sweetly. Fossil Borrodale gripped a hymnal rumoured to be hollowed-out to conceal a hip flask. Miss Bedale snuck a look at her wristwatch.

  Headmistress was, on this occasion, absent. A swivelling telescope attachment above the teachers’ pew suggested Dr Swan kept an eye on everything. Her study was said to be one of the few well-heated rooms at Drearcliff. Smudge theorised that Keys burned kittens, puppies and confiscated hampers in a special furnace because the secretly cold-blooded Headmistress would slip into a hibernatory state if the temperature in her quarters fell.

  ‘Come up, girl,’ said Bainter.

  A strange clicking began at the back of the chapel. Like everyone else, Amy twisted around to goggle. It was the girl in the wrong uniform coming down the centre aisle. Her skipping rope was bundled like a belt. The handles clacked, echoing her footsteps. She was in no hurry.

  If it mattered to her that all the world was staring, she didn’t show it.

  The girl replaced Bainter at the lectern. Her head was barely visible over the eagle wings. Nervous laughter. Bainter shoved a stool under her. Now seen by all, she looked straight ahead.

  ‘I am Rayne,’ she announced, in a clear voice which filled the chapel. ‘In my time at Drearcliff, I shall endeavour to be neat, efficient and cheerful. I shall not indulge in compromise, wastefulness or unnecessary activity. I resolve to be a productive girl. I intend to be a credit to School. I hope I shall be your friend. I have come here to learn, but – as important – to teach, by example.’

  ‘I say, chums, have we got a new Headmistress?’ FitzPatrick asked out of the side of her mouth.

  Rayne slammed the handles of her skipping rope on the lectern. The report was like a pistol shot.

  ‘I will be heard,’ she said, not louder but more insistent. ‘I will not tolerate slacking and joshing!’

  FitzPatrick looked sheepish.

  Some heads bobbed in assent – disbelieving, but assent.

  But there were titters too. Amy swivelled around. Gryce, primly perched on a tasselled cushion, smiled blandly. Her Heathens were open-mouthed in naked astonishment. Buller made big fists.

  Kali drew a thumb across her throat. Amy had to agree – Rayne was going to do some hard learning soon. The only ‘teaching by example’ she was liable to manage would be when her horrible fate dissuaded any other idiot from issuing statements from the pulpit.

  Frecks paid attention. Always fascinated by odd specimens, she was a great one for giving benefit of the doubt… until she made her mind up, then she was hard to sway.

  What was Rayne thinking? Where had she been brought up to have so little idea how School – any school – ran? And why on Earth were the Staff letting her go through with this exhibition?

  ‘It is my intention, girls, to…’

  ‘Rayne, Rayne,’ drawled Gryce, amused and sympathetic, pausing for the chant to take hold…

  ‘Go away,’ shouted a pack marshalled by Buller, ‘don’t come back another day!’

  Laughter erupted.

  The spell of Rayne, with her freakish uniform and unprecedented speaking privileges, was broken.

  Amy saw the lines in the girl�
�s brows deepen. She clutched her skipping rope, winding it around her hand until her knuckles were red spots.

  The barracking chant continued, louder and louder. Amy found herself joining in. It took greater will than hers to resist – though Light Fingers was silent and Frecks pursed her lips in disapproval.

  There was something slappable about the new girl. Amy wasn’t proud of her impulse, but it ran deep.

  ‘Rayne, Rayne, go away,’ she chanted, raising her voice, ‘don’t come back another day!’

  Bainter barged back into the pulpit and the congregation fell silent.

  ‘That will be enough,’ he said. ‘Dismissed.’

  The rush from pews to doors recommenced.

  ‘That silly goose’s pasted a target to her own forehead,’ said Frecks.

  ‘The Witches will murderalise her,’ said Kali. ‘Has Nellie opened a book on how long before she lights out over the wall? I give her three days.’

  ‘I might take that bet,’ said Frecks. ‘Girl’s got grit. Maybe nothing else.’

  Amy glanced back. Rayne still stood by the lectern, watching the exodus. She unwound her rope, calmly.

  Gryce nodded at the new girl, smiling like the cat who’s noticed the catch on the canary’s cage doesn’t fasten properly. The nod was returned with a blank glare. Rayne had very black eyes. Angry, yet purposeful. She didn’t know enough to be afraid yet.

  No one had told her about the Murdering Heathens.

  The Crowninshield Sisters had fallen and Paule had wandered off, so Head Girl promoted replacements. Euterpe McClure, a Goneril Fifth who studied the oriental arts of dirty fighting, could twist a wrist just so or inflict a Chinese burn that hurt for weeks. Gryce had also wangled a whip’s blazer for Vanity Crawford, Viola’s flamboyantly vicious leading light. The Murdering Heathens were back to full strength.

  Amy had a pang of worry for Rayne. She was ashamed of joining in the chant against her. Of all people, she should have known better than to chuck dead stoats at a new bug who didn’t know the ropes yet.

  ‘Did you clock the threads the frail’s got on?’ asked Kali, as the girls crammed into the vestibule. ‘Like a camera negative. How is that legit?’

  ‘It’s a new option,’ put in Inchfawn, who still wasn’t to be spoken to. ‘Didn’t you read the circular? I think it’s smart.’

  The whips were usually first out of Chapel. Today they stayed behind, lolling on their cushions, giving the new girl the evil eye.

  From the vestibule, Amy looked back at the small figure illuminated at the lectern. The teachers had filed out through the Staff Door, leaving Rayne alone. Amy smelled a set-up.

  Gryce leaned forward, grinning like a hungry tiger.

  Rayne untangled her skipping rope, seemingly unconcerned.

  In the vestibule, Amy found Paule – who was permanently excused Chapel. Religious symbols of whatever denomination set off her vibrations and made her slip into the Purple.

  ‘Interesting times, Amy,’ Paule said. ‘Watch that girl. Rayne. She’s another one. Another significant addition.’

  III: The Inspection

  DESPITE PAULE’S PRONOUNCEMENT, Amy didn’t take much notice of the new girl during the next few days. Antoinette Rowley Rayne could take her own lumps.

  The purple dreams were growing troublesome. Their afterspell lingered into the waking hours, and Amy worried about slipping into a distracted state. She was afraid of ending up like Daffy Dora. Her friends noticed she was preoccupied, but she couldn’t share her night terrors with them.

  A persistent, yet hard-to-pin-down story went around that Mauve Mary had been seen again… and spoken to a Second. Every version had the ghost saying something different, but suggestive and enigmatic like ‘the caramels are creeping’ or ‘defy the deniers and doubt the debaters’. The Moth Club looked out several Seconds who were named as the mystery girl. Each hotly denied the story and suggested someone else. Farjeon, at the end of the chain, said it wasn’t a Second, but a mistress. Ponce Bainter had ordered that the unknown teacher keep mum about the message from the beyond. Farjeon couldn’t explain how, if this were the case, she’d been let in on the truth, and the lead petered out. Did Dr Shade or Shiner Bright have cases like this? Mysteries which dragged on and went nowhere. If so, they never got written up in Union Jack Monthly or Girls’ Paper.

  As for Rayne, there was an empty place in Viola.

  The girl chosen over Unity Crawford for Lucas Cleeve, the lead role in last term’s Arthur Wing Pinero Players production, had not come back after the hols. No one could remember whether her name was Harriet Marion or Marion Harriet. She was at an expensive Swiss sanatorium, recovering from ‘complete nervous collapse’. According to Frecks, that was ‘medical jargon for being an utter wet’. Amy had thought Harriet/Marion one of the sturdier Viola gals, given to vigorous calisthenics before breakfast and overdoing the friendly back-slapping and shoulder-punching. She specialised in men’s roles and her leading ladies tended to complain of bruises.

  Then, without meaning to, the hapless girl crossed Vanity and her fate was sealed.

  During rehearsals for The Notorious Mrs Ebbsmith, Marion/Harriet suffered. First, red-inked anonymous notes turned up in her Time-Table Book or under her pillow, issuing dire warnings and making unsubstantiated accusations. Then, an unusual series of accidents blighted the production: a minor fire, a mishap with itching powder and unauthorised amendments (in red ink, of course) to costume designs. Following instructions, Light Fingers provided a smart suit which turned out to be several sizes too small. Harriet/Marion nearly strangled during the first dress run-through. Throughout, Vanity maintained suspiciously unbreakable alibis… though she never could get the red off her fingers.

  Come the first night, Marion/Harriet developed serious stage fright. As the curtain went up, she was prostrate in her dressing room with cold compresses on her forehead. Vanity – who had helpfully learned the lines of Lucas Cleeve, on the off chance – went on in her stead. Mrs Ebbsmith was not a great success. Amy nodded off well before the last act.

  The upshot was that Harriet/Marion was in Switzerland. On the principle of ‘one in one out’, Rayne was duly delivered to the bosom of the worst House to be in if you were liable to be picked on. Viola had a poor record for protecting their own against even minor persecution, let alone a sustained campaign by the Murdering Heathens. Because of her stage heritage, Light Fingers had many dealings with Viola. She was acidic on the subject of the House’s theatrical posing and said some of their ‘stars’ relished roles which allowed them to suffer prettily… so they went out of their way to invite trouble. They imagined themselves Joan at the stake or Catherine on the wheel, and practised venomous forgiveness as they died in déshabillé.

  Rayne’s unique uniform – if a uniform could be unique – stood out, a splash of black in a shower of grey. Therefore, Amy was aware of the new girl’s presence in assemblies for meals, indoor games or speeches from Mrs Wyke about the dangers of playing outside in the snow. So she was still alive, at least.

  Gryce was stringing it out.

  The big story was still the weather. De Vere’s duel with Captain Freezing continued. The snowman sprang up anew every time he was battered down, even sporting a replacement shako after de Vere threw his old one into the sea. The whip put a bounty of a cream tea in Watchet on the head of the culprit, payable when information received led to a conviction and a clouting. If anyone knew the identity of the perpetrator who left no footprints, no one was telling. Even Garland of the Second, the Semiramis of Tell-Tale Tessies, couldn’t find out who to snitch on. Besides pride in being School’s premier sneak, Garland had a particular mania for cream teas and being seen in town in the company of glamorous older girls. Her inability to ferret out the guilty party put her in a vile bate.

  Each incarnation of Captain Freezing loomed larger and nearer the dorms, as if he were coming for de Vere. His coal-and-carrot features scowled more exaggeratedly, seemingly growing angrier. That
might be fair enough: de Vere demolished him with escalating violence. When she set out to do harm, she braided her hair with battle-beads and striped black and red warpaint on her cheeks. She got frostbite and her hands were bandage-mittened, but she stuck to her Ahab-like mission. At the end of the week de Vere dragooned a party to scavenge driftwood, then built a paraffin-soaked circular bonfire around the snowman and set it alight. The whip led her conscripts in a death-chant as flames ran round the ring. The Captain collapsed in the heat, hissing as his insides melted. He spilled on to the burning wood and doused the fire, leaving the components of his face studded awry on a heap of slush. No one doubted he would be back. Even de Vere knew it was inevitable.

  Priscilla ‘Prompt’ Rintoul, a round-faced Viola Third, was assigned to give Rayne the traditional guided tour. As stage manager, Prompt ruled the wings with ruthless efficiency when shows were running, but was otherwise overly meek even among her feeble sisterhood. Rayne might not be well served by such a model. The pair roamed the highways and byways, with Prompt pointing out features of interest to the solemnly attentive newcomer. The tour extended beyond the look-round Frecks had trotted Amy through. Doors were always being opened by Prompt so Rayne could peer into a room, nod as if memorising useful facts, and withdraw. More than once, chalk sticks were flung at the interloper.

  The occasional resounding scream or oath indicated when the expedition ventured into forbidden territory – the Staff room, the Whips’ Hut, the QMWAACC armoury. Prompt was uncommonly thorough. Rayne toured School like a diminutive conquering general surveying occupied territory rather than a new bug lucky not to be booted into the sea. Amy remembered Paule said Rayne would bear watching and did flick the odd glance her way – though looking at that wrong uniform made her go cross-eyed and see spots. Purple spots, of course.