The Girls of Cropton Hall

by Stanlegh Meresith

  "Yes! The look on her face when Bainbridge held up the packet! And I bet she got it harder for trying to deny it! Brilliant, Shirley, just brilliant."

  Jenny's eyes widened and she held her breath. Shirley? Shirley Barton? Surely not? I thought...

  "Thanks, Helen. And now we can sit back and watch what they do about the crest. But there's only one girl in the frame and, though I say it myself, it's a hell of a tight frame."

  "It is!" said Helen gleefully. "I can't see her wriggling out of that. The doorknob was the final stroke of genius, Shirl ... but ...do you think she'll be ... expelled?" asked Helen.

  "Top goal-scorer in Cropton's best team for years? I doubt it," said Shirley. "No, I rather think it'll be THE biggest caning - with the famous Molly - this school has ever seen. And they'll probably wait a bit too, as she's only just been caned, which won't be much fun for Miss Bennett, will it?"

  "No, and I'm GLAD. That cow got me caned - I've still got the marks, AND my parents are really angry with me. I hope she screams, I hope they..."

  "I know - you told me all that before," said Shirley impatiently. "Now, have you got that pound note?"

  "Oh yes. It's here." Jenny heard a drawer open and a shuffling noise. "Do cigarettes really cost that much?" she asked uncertainly.

  "They certainly do," said Shirley indignantly. "And it was a packet of twenty, remember."

  "Oh ... yes."

  "Thanks," said Shirley. "It's been worth it, hasn't it?"

  "Oh yes," said Helen, perking up again. "I'd have paid ... anything to see Julia Bennett get her come-uppance, really I would."

  The bell for the first lesson of the afternoon sounded in the distance. Jenny, lying perfectly still on the bare floorboards, winced and cursed silently.

  "Have you got a study period?" asked Helen.

  "Yes."

  "Me too. Shall we go and sit in the common room?"

  "Er ... actually Helen, I think we probably shouldn't be seen together for a while ... just in case."

  "Oh." Jenny could hear the disappointment in Helen's voice. "Right ... if you think that's best."

  "Yes ... after all, we've never really been friends, have we? And people might think it's a bit odd ... now, especially."

  "Oh gosh, yes, I see what you mean." Jenny could hear a note of fear in Helen's voice. One of them stepped out into the corridor and the other followed. The last thing she heard as they walked away was Helen's voice again,

  "Shirley, you don't think they ... they couldn't find out ... I mean..."

  Jenny slid back out and sat up. Her head span with the multitude and magnitude of all she'd overheard. But what to do about it? And now the bell had gone and she was late. Damn! She had to get to class, right now, and think about Barton and Patterson later. With any luck, Mrs Palmer might be late herself.

  Chocolate long forgotten, she ran to the door and off down the corridor.

  Her face fell when she approached 4A and saw the door shut. Her heart began to pound. She knocked loudly, placed a sweaty hand on the door handle and pushed.

  Mrs Palmer looked up immediately and stared at her angrily.

  "Simpson? What is the meaning of this?"

  "I'm sorry I'm late, Miss. I got stuck on the loo, Miss," tried Jenny.

  "NOT good enough, girl! Wait there by the door until I'm ready to deal with you."

  Mrs Palmer turned back to the class and finished some instructions she'd been giving them - a page in their textbook they had to read. She wrote 'Atoms and Molecules' on the blackboard then turned back to her table and jotted something down in her mark book.

  Jenny noticed some pitying sidelong glances coming her way, and wondered what she'd get. She'd seen Brown get four with the hairbrush for being late last week, and sure enough, she saw Mrs Palmer reach for the same implement, take it down and come striding towards her. She tried to catch the mistress' eye with her most pitiful, wide-eyed look, but nothing doing - the mistress was looking at the implement as she tapped it against the palm of her left hand.

  "Right, Simpson," she barked, peering down at the fourth-former and still tap-tapping that mean-looking wooden-backed brush on her hand. "There's been far too much indiscipline in this school already today and it's about time you girls learned that you're NOT going to get away with it ... bend over and touch your toes, girl."

  Abandoning all hope, Jenny did as she was told and felt her skirt being lifted out of the way. She braced herself as best she could in that awkward position but when the hairbrush struck it forced her forward and she cried out in both shock and pain.

  "OW!" It stung like crazy and set her right buttock blazing. She breathed hard and tried to prepare herself for the next one. It came all too soon - on the left buttock this time - smacking her hard with a loud crack. Her legs bent at the knees involuntarily and she gasped her agony at the wooden floorboards. Her skirt had fallen back down and she felt it roughly tugged back up over her back.

  "Keep your legs straight, Simpson, or I'll make it eight!" she heard. Eight? What? So how many...

  CRACK! The third one landed right on top of the first and she yelped. She HATED this hairbrush. OUCH! And Mrs Palmer seemed to be beating her EXTRA hard.

  She squeezed her eyes shut and breathed quickly. The fourth found the same spot as the second and now both her cheeks were like a furnace of furious stinging. Pleeeease ... please, not so HARD, she begged in her mind.

  There was a pause.

  "MARTIN! Get on with your work, girl, unless you want to feel some of this too!" Mrs Palmer was in a ferocious mood. Jenny felt the hairbrush resting against her right buttock again - and in the same spot!

  "No, Miss, pl-" she began to plead, but...

  CRACK!

  "AAAEEEEIIII," she cried. OW! OW! OW! No! It's not fair. Why do I get six? And all on the same spot?

  And as she'd known it would be, on this day of the crest desecration, six it was.

  The resounding crack of the last whack of the hairbrush echoed brutally off the walls, and Jenny screeched in agony. The hard wood had hit for a third time on the same place on her left buttock and her hands flew to her backside and clutched her flaming cheeks. Tears escaped her eyelids and rolled down her face to topple off and away to the floor.

  "Aaoooh!" she groaned, half-standing, rubbing carefully at the now-throbbing, battered spots.

  "Stop making a fuss and go and sit down," said the mistress peremptorily, taking Jenny by the shoulders and turning her in the direction of her seat. With a light shove she sent Jenny stumbling forward, her hands still glued to her bottom under her skirt.

  Jenny stood for a moment looking down at the wooden seat. She lowered herself slowly towards the unwelcome surface, letting her calves take her weight as she balanced the top of her thighs against the edge of the seat so that her buttocks remained - almost - untouched.

  And thus she perched, this latest punished girl, uncomfortably hovering half-seated whilst the unforgiving mistress outlined, with a sadly mundane brusqueness, the extraordinary miracle of the nature of matter. But Jenny Simpson couldn't think about atoms - her bottom felt as if it had had its own dose of nuclear fission and as the hot stinging gradually gave way to a bruised and aching throb, she thought about Barton and Patterson and whom she should tell on this most unfortunate of days at Cropton Hall...

  32. A Succession of Confessions

  Monday, September 27th 1953 2.50 p.m.

  Almost immediately upon her return to the school, Verily Markham had been apprised of the events of the morning by her Deputy and had asked to be left alone for a while to ponder matters. She had then gone to find Mr Arnold in his workshop to ask him to arrange for her car to be rescued from its state of abandonment on the Wrelton to Cropton road. She had also viewed the condition of the crest and pondered the significance of the five offending letters.

  "Founders Day on Friday, Mr Arnold ... October the first already! We need that crest looking immaculate," she said. He'd already made a start, and the S a
nd the W were almost completely erased now. "Can you do it, do you think?"

  "Aye, Headmistress, reckon I can, don't tha worry," said the old handyman, gently rubbing at the dribble beneath the C with a cloth smelling of turpentine. He paused. "Er, ma'am ...?"

  "Yes?"

  "Did tha get that book I left for thee?"

  "Book? No, I don't think I've seen that yet. What book is that?" She immediately recalled Sir Stanlegh's words: "There's a book. You'll find it in your study. I suspect you already know who I am, but if you do still have any doubts, that will dispel them."

  "I left it with Miss B, ma'am. Found it in t'attic room, same one as where I found that cane."

  Verily's eyes widened and she looked pensive for a moment before smiling warmly at the elderly man. "Well, thank you, Mr Arnold. That was very thoughtful of you." He beamed with pleasure.

  Back in her study, Verily soon noticed the brown leather-bound volume sitting on the shelf of the bookcase by the door where Edith had left it. She carried it over to her desk and sat down. It seemed quite new, despite the old-fashioned binding; but there was nothing on the cover to announce itself, which was odd. She opened it and turned the pages until she came to the title:

  THE GIRLS OF CROPTON HALL

  by

  SIR STANLEGH MEETH

  She felt a strange tingling in that same spot in the middle of her forehead as when she'd had that moment's clarity in the hotel dining-room in York. She put the book down quickly. Time for that later, she thought. There were more pressing issues at hand. She gazed at the packet of cigarettes and then at the little paint pot and the brush resting on some tissue on the corner of her desk.

  And yet, she felt there was something ... missing. Although she was of course concerned to get to the bottom of the crest business, and angry at the perpetrators, she was, in truth, rather more worried by the atmosphere of mild hysteria she'd sensed about the place since her return. Coming along the corridor earlier she'd heard what sounded like a pretty fierce hairbrush whacking coming from Mrs Palmer's class and she'd glanced in in passing to see young Simpson suffering rather unduly, she'd thought. Edith had said they'd all been pouncing on the slightest misdemeanour since this morning's assembly. Along with her misgivings about the whole Bennett story, as Edith had recounted it, these recent developments were making Verily feel uneasy. It seemed fairness was being sacrificed to the Gods of Order and Control and this was not her way; nor was it the way in which she had tried to lead her staff.

  But, undermining these natural concerns was a growing realisation that she was just not able to take any of it very seriously any more. And she found she couldn't even feel worried about the fact that she wasn't worried! Here was the biggest crisis of her short tenure as Headmistress and she felt relaxed about it! She had a bemused sense that all these ... dramas would naturally resolve themselves and that she need actually do no more than sit back and wait for events to unfold. She thought again about Sir Stanlegh, and about determinism.

  But then she took a deep breath, sat up and told herself, 'Love, and honesty, Verily, love and honesty.' She still had responsibilities, even if she was becoming increasingly uncertain about what exactly they were, or to whom precisely she was accountable. She could almost hear Sir Stanlegh whispering in her ear: 'Get on with it, Verily! Stop sitting there pondering!'

  Another concern was for Edith: Verily felt fairly certain that her dear colleague had made an awful mistake in caning Bennett, even if the girl almost certainly did still smoke. If Bennett claimed that this packet hadn't been hers she was probably telling the truth. And if the cigarettes had been 'planted' in her desk, then so in all likelihood had these other items, in which case ... what was going on? In any event, she didn't look forward to having to ask Edith to make a profuse apology to young Julia Bennett, though she knew her Deputy would not hesitate and would do so with good grace should the need arise. She was still pondering matters when there was a knock at the door.

  "Come in!" she called.

  Margaret appeared.

  "Is this a good moment, Headmistress?" she asked.

  A wave of affection arose in Verily at the sight of her bright-eyed, earnest and so well-meaning colleague. She stood and walked round to greet her.

  "Margaret, how are you?" Miss Dawson looked pleased if slightly bemused at the warmth of the greeting. Verily had only been away for one day. "And how, may I ask, are things with Monica? If my antennae are still in good working order, I would venture to suggest that the two of you are enjoying the first flush of a wonderful love?"

  Margaret blushed. "Well ... yes, Verily, we are." She took a breath to overcome her embarrassment. "And we are both so ...VERY grateful to you. Really, Verily, if you hadn't ... helped us both to..."

  "I know, Margaret, and I'm very glad it's worked out so well. But you know ... " She paused and looked down. " ... I'm very envious, Margaret. I have the same ... tendency as you do - I'm sure you must have wondered and yes, it's true - but sadly without the opportunity to ... enjoy it."

  There was an awkward silence as Margaret digested this extraordinary, if not entirely unsuspected, revelation. With wary affection she observed her former fellow-pupil, now colleague, mentor, match-maker, unsure how to respond.

  "But no more of that, Margaret," Verily continued briskly. "How can I help you? And what's your view of this morning's extraordinary events?"

  Margaret wanted to say something kind about the topic just dismissed but her news was pressing and so she thought she'd better get straight to it.

  "Well, that's exactly what I'm here about. I've just had Simpson come to me with a very disturbing story. She was..."

  "Rather distressed?" guessed Verily.

  "Yes! How did you..."

  "Oh, I was passing when I saw Eileen giving her a very hard whacking."

  "Yes, she was still looking very uncomfortable, poor thing, when she came to me just now, and I rather blame myself actually."

  "Why?" Verily looked puzzled.

  "Well, ever since the slippering I told you about, and her outpourings about her father, I'd been meaning to put Emily and Eileen in the picture so they'd go a bit easy on her, but I simply hadn't got round to it. I suspect Eileen pounced on her this afternoon thinking she's a girl in need of ... teaching a good lesson, especially ... today."

  "Quite so," said Verily unhappily.

  "Anyway, the point is, Verily, it appears that it's Patterson and Barton who are behind the Bennett business."

  "Ah!" said Verily. "How so?"

  "Well, the reason for Simpson's whacking was that she'd been a few minutes late for Eileen's lesson."

  Verily raised her eyebrows, thinking again how harsh that had been.

  "And the reason she was late was that she'd been up in her dorm getting some chocolate - she said pudding had been rather more disgusting than usual ... " They both smiled ruefully and rolled their eyes. " ... and while she was fetching it from under her bed, Patterson and Barton came in and she overheard them talking. From what she told me, it would seem that those two were responsible for putting the paint and the brush, AND the cigarettes, in Bennett's desk. And they said something about a doorknob which I don't understand - but apparently Patterson said it'd been 'a stroke of genius' on Barton's part."

  Margaret paused for breath and looked expectantly at Verily.

  "Oh! And one other thing," she continued. "Simpson said that Barton asked Patterson for a pound - the cost of the cigarettes apparently."

  Verily laughed. "Surely they're only about one and sixpence, aren't they? You'd get at least twelve packets for a pound!" Margaret nodded, smiling uncertainly and puzzled by the lightness of Verily's mood. "What's that American word for a gull, Margaret? Patsy? Patterson the patsy!"

  Margaret giggled, infected by Verily's good humour.

  "Well, well, well! Poor Bennett," said Verily, seating herself behind her desk. "I can understand Patterson's involvement, but I'm puzzled by Barton's behaviour and, by the sound o
f it, she's been the prime mover."

  "Yes," said Margaret. "That was the impression Simpson got. She's a bright girl, you know."

  "Good," said Verily, her elbows on the desk, circling her thumbs slowly round each other with her fingers interlaced. "Well, I think we should start by having a word with our Miss Patterson. Would you see if you can find her and bring her to me?"

  "Certainly, Headmistress."

  Margaret hurried out and Verily sat back ... to wait for events to unfold.

  ---oOo---

  Monday 2.55 p.m.

  After English, 5B had a short break before Geography. Alice took Grace aside in the corner of the classroom. Quite a few girls had left to go to the lavatory or dawdle in the corridor and a quick glance around assured Alice they wouldn't be overheard.

  "I told Rachel," she whispered urgently.

  "Told her what?" asked Grace.

  "About us ... you know ... the crest."

  It took a moment to register, then Grace burst out, "You did WHAT?"

  Faces turned to look and Alice flinched. She looked around and smiled awkwardly. "Just a joke!" she called. She turned to Grace, whispering. "I had no choice, and nor do we. Bennett's been framed and if..."

  "What do you mean 'Bennett's been framed'?"

  "Haven't you heard?"

  "Heard what?" Grace was becoming flustered, looking around anxiously.

  "They found the paint and brush in her desk. Our paint and brush. And some cigarettes. She already got the cane this morning for having the fags but she's going to get even worse unless we own up. She might even be expelled."

  "Oh gosh," said Grace, putting a hand to her mouth.

  "Yes, it is 'Oh gosh'," said Alice. "Rachel's offered to say it was her, but we can't let her do that, Grace, we just can't. I've thought about it a lot, and ... I'm going to own up."

  Grace stared at her open-mouthed. "But ..." She'd never seen Alice look so serious or so determined. Slowly the awful truth sank in. "But Alice ... if you ... then I..."

  "Grace, I won't give you up. I'll say it was just me. I don't mind what you do, but I know what I'm doing."