After an evening at the theatre (they had gone to see Hay Fever and were emboldened by its daring informality) her mother had tactfully left them to dine à deux at Boulestins, after a quiet word with the head waiter. Over dinner, warmed by a glass or two of wine, Henrietta had felt honour-bound to confess. She had tried to explain that she was not - she thought she might not be - she was uncertain, but … He had looked at her in a bewilderment which grew to dismay and, finally, when she didn’t know whether to expect anger or sympathy, into gloating triumph.
‘You!’ he’d said, and his hands clutched his knee gleefully. The cherished virgin daughter of the clan Campbell-Leith: not a virgin after all, eh? What a turnup! Well, I‘ll be damned!’
She shrank from his vulgarity.
‘I’m not sure. It was only once. I was just a girl.’
‘Once is enough. Either you are or you aren’t! No, don’t tell me how it happened, I don’t want to know.’
There was still a week left. She could have changed her mind. Was she sorry? Looking down the twenty-seven years of their marriage, Henrietta Birmingham surprised herself by thinking, no, not really. I am not sorry. I feared much worse. Without him there would be no James. Without him, the parents of these girls would despise me, as I see them despising Peggy, for being a spinster. With a husband and son I am the equal of any of them. It was not such a mistake after all. No, I do not regret my marriage. And with a flourish she turned into the Lodge, braked, yanked at the hand-brake, heard it squeak, felt the car throw its bonnet up like a startled horse, and turned the engine off.
‘Darling!’ she shouted up the stairs as she entered the house. ‘Lionel! It’s me! I’m back! Coming!’
Constance had escaped from Charmian that evening by hiding in the spreading cedar that shed its greeny-black shadow across the cool green turf. Her senses were scratched by its rich smell and her skin by its rough bark. Scared by the drop, paralysed for moments at a time, she had climbed higher than ever before, till she could straddle a branch twenty feet above the ground and lean back against the uneven trunk. She fished her mother’s latest letter out of her knickers, sniffing the delicately crackling paper, inhaling deeply as though there were some faint memory of her mother’s hand resting on it; but all she could smell was the sticky resin on her own fingers.
Darling Constance,
I’m just snatching a quick twenty minutes before I have to get dressed, as Daddy and I are going out to dinner, but it’s cool enough for me to sit on the verandah with a nice pink gin and write to you. Oh, darling, we’re leading such an exciting life out here! People are simply too social for words - parties, parties, all the time - and as we’re quite new, they pump us for all the gossip from England. (Not that I’ve got any, of course!) I could have done with twice as many cocktail frocks. Even though you know in advance it’s going to be hot, you don’t really understand until you get here. We’ve all picked up lovely tans already - we look like Riviera folk, imagine!
I’m so pleased to read between the lines of your last letter that you’re cheering up. Trust us, darling, we knew you’d be happy there. Once you find a nice friend to confide in and share secrets, the way girls do (well, I did, anyhow!) you’ll wonder what you ever thought you had to be miserable about! Stella’s settling in very happily too, except that she’s a bit too ‘chummy’ with the Africans. Poor pet, she isn’t used to servants!
Well, Connie dear, I must go or Daddy will be cross with me for making us late. Work hard and play hard, and make us both proud of you. A big hug and lots of kisses from your loving Mummy.
Below this her father had scribbled ‘and Daddy’.
Constance shifted her bottom on the roughness of the branch as she hitched up her skirt and tucked the letter back into her knickers. The dormitory bell would be going soon, and she hadn’t had time to think what to do about Charmie. She was tempted to confide in Hermione - being a senior and a prefect, she would know what to do - but when she caught her eye, Hermione had looked away.
Is Charmian my friend? Must I be loyal to her? Is it always wrong to tell tales? Would they call me a sneak? I bet nobody would believe me.
People were strolling beneath the tree. She stayed quite silent and held her breath. The chattering voices passed and in the silence that followed, Constance recognized the tree sensation stealing through her, more powerfully than ever … I am a tree, strong and dark and green and eternal, I am a tree, my limbs thicken, I am this tree, my tongue thickens, I cannot speak, my head swells, I cannot hear or feel, my eyes close, I cannot see, I am a tree, a tree I am.
Charmian had had two letters that day, and was wandering round by the games field looking for Constance. She meant to read her mother’s letter to Constance. Not the other one; Gogsy mustn’t see the other one. Her mother’s letter said,
My dearest darling little Charmie,
How is my pretty baby? Not too sad, I hope. What shattering news about Sheila’s mother. I remember your friend, of course, but did we know her mother? Was she anybody? You must tell me their surname in your next letter. Perhaps I ought to send a little note of condolence to Sheila’s Daddy. What a shock all this must have been for you, my precious. I’m sure you’re being very brave and strong. Mummy is having to be brave, too. It’s all so difficult, and Daddy doesn’t try and make it any easier. But Uncle Dickie has been an absolute tower of strength and he takes me out and about and tries his very best to cheer me up.
That’s all for now, darling, don’t worry about me, keep your chin up.
Lots and lots of love and a great big hug from Mumsie.
Her other, secret letter was from Sheila. It said,
Dear Charmie,
Thank you very much for your letter. It’s very sad that Mother is not with us any more but I’m sure she has gone to a better place. I have been to lots of theatres and films but I miss you and even miss school! I’ve been thinking, I should write to Old Ma B and tell her it was me that took the things, ‘cos she’ll forgive me now, and then it will be all right again and the school needn’t be punished any more. You said something awful would happen if I told. Well it already has. So this is to say don’t take any more things and I’ll own up and then you’ll be let off. Don’t tell anyone it was you all along. Promise on your word of honour. Sorry to be so bossy but I’ve been thinking about it a lot. Tell Mick and Flick I miss them and blow a kiss to Hermione (ha ha, bet you don’t dare) and please look after Flopsy and give him a cuddle from me.
Lots of love, Sheila.
She’d have to answer her mother’s letter, but she wouldn’t write back to Sheila. What cheek! Just because her mother was dead she thought she could say anything she wanted and get all uppity.
‘Gogsy!’ yelled Charmian. ‘Gog-sieeee! Hey’ - she appealed to a passing girl - ‘have you seen Gogs? Tell her I’m looking for her if you see her. Go-ogs.’
But Constance, high up in her tree, didn’t catch the voice that drifted downwind. Charmian stood still, unaware that what she wanted was her mother. Then she went off to torment the rabbit. She’d pull another of its whiskers out, she thought, and watch it wriggle. She skipped along to the pets’ shed.
Later in the dormitory Charmie cried again at the sight of Sheila’s smooth, unnaturally flat bed, and the others clamoured for more of the story. Charmie said it would cheer her up, so Constance went on:
‘So you remember from last time, Sohrab and Rustum are getting ready to fight each other without knowing who each other really is. Rustum’s in plain armour with just a scarlet plume on top of his helmet, but his army, that’s the Persians, know him because of his horse …’
‘Tell us about his horse,’ said Fiona, forever homesick for her ponies.
‘Well, he’s got this awfully famous horse called Ruksh, who follows like a dog at his heels, because Rustum found him when he was just little, just a baby, a colt beneath its dam—’
‘Isn’t that a bit cruel?’ whispered Fiona, but was shushed.
‘What
sort of horse was he?’ asked Anne.
‘All it says is that he was a bright bay with a lofty crest,’ said Constance.
‘Arab,’ said Anne. ‘Obviously. Must have been.’
‘Well, anyway don’t interrupt. I’m telling it. Rustum walks out in front of the Persian host, followed by Ruksh, his faithful Arab, and none of the Tartars know who he is. And at the same time Sohrab comes out of his tent all done up in magnificent armour and then there’s a wonderful bit where it says’ - Constance shut her eyes to remember the beautiful words exactly - ‘oh, yes, I’ve got it:
For very young he seemed, tenderly reared
Like some young cypress, tall and dark and straight
Which in a queen’s secluded garden throws
Its slight dark shadow on the moonlit turf,
So slender Sohrab seemed, so softly reared.’
There was no reaction from the others and, slightly embarrassed, she went on: ‘And he looks so young that Rustum feels sorry for him, so he beckons him over and warns him not to fight. He asks Sohrab instead to come back to Persia and be like his son, which is kind of funny, you see, him not knowing. And Sohrab is so touched by this that he actually falls down before this old unknown warrior and says, “But aren’t you Rustum?” Only this makes Rustum suspicious, and he thinks, maybe it’s all a trick for him to beat me without having to fight, and then the Persian army would have been shamed. That’s why he refuses, and they have to fight. And there’s another good bit, listen, when Sohrab says, “For we are all, like swimmers in the sea,/Poised on the top of a huge wave of fate,/Which hangs uncertain to which side to fall.’’’
‘Are you sure this is a proper story?’ demanded Charmian. ‘It sounds more like a soppy old poem to me.’
‘It’s a story,’ said Constance firmly. ‘And they’re just about to fight, father and son, and I’ll stop now or Peach’ll catch us.’
‘There, Charmie, look what you’ve done …’ somebody grumbled; but it was late and they soon slept, even Constance.
Mrs Birmingham slept too, and dreamed of chandeliers; of chandeliers and smooth parquet floors, of young men who moved stiffly and smiled vacantly; of dance floors and night clubs, frenetic with chatter and malachite cigarette-holders; of flappers, thin as waifs, insubstantial; or herself, always a weighty woman, sitting at the edge of the floor under the circling coloured lights, left out, watching as the maimed young men and sparkling girls receded further and further into a haze of jazz and cigarette smoke.
‘Come back!’ cried Henrietta, ‘Don’t go!’
She woke to hear Lionel muttering uneasily, ‘What is it?’
She reached a hand across to him. ‘You’re there. Never mind. Just a dream. Go back to sleep, dear.’
In the darkest and most silent dead of night, when the house within which children and teachers, matrons and servants, the happy and the unhappy, all slept deeply, when the very house seemed to breathe evenly in and out, Constance clambered up through layers of sleep woken by something at the edge of her consciousness. Her eyes opened, closed; opened, and then, like a kicked swing-door, were suddenly wide and staring.
Silhouetted against the deep dark-blue of the night she could see Fiona on her hands and knees, while behind her, also on her knees, Anne rocked rhythmically back and forth. Tiny snickerings were being forced out of Fiona, which Anne, stifling her giggles, tried to hush. She seemed to have one hand under Fiona’s tummy. They were obviously playing horses, but why in the middle of the night?
Constance was about to sit up and say, ‘Hey, you two, what’s going on?’ when for some reason the words of that horrid song Charmie had told her went through her mind - ‘He jumped on her till her tits bounced out’ - and she blushed so deeply in the darkness that she could feel herself getting hot and tingly all over. Ugh, she thought, how horrid! and shut her eyes firmly.
The noises went on for a bit, till Fiona made a sort of long, whinnying ‘Whoo-hoo-hooo …’ and then Anne squeaked several times, excited squeaks, after which she got back into her own bed and everything fell silent.
Constance stayed awake for a while, trying to work it out. Somehow she couldn’t get out of her mind the idea that it had something to do with the curse, which was what made you a woman. Anne and Fiona both had the curse, so they were both women, so they played these peculiar games. Mummy and Daddy had always been modest and none of them ever saw one another naked around the house. In fact until she came here, no-one had seen her without her clothes on since she was a little girl and Mummy used to bath her. She had been taught to knock on her parents’ bedroom door and wait for them to say ‘Come in’, and Daddy never came into the bathroom when she or Stella were in there. She knew that bodies and what they did were often indecent, although it was never discussed at home, just as you didn’t talk about what happened in the lavatory. She felt that if she let herself go on thinking about it she would be led down strange paths of the imagination into the future, and she preferred not to follow them. Yet the sight of Anne and Fiona playing horses had stirred something deep and uncomfortable, and it was quite some time before she could get back to sleep.
Eight
‘You know, Charmian,’ began Mrs Birmingham, ‘why you are here? Why I have asked you to see me?’
‘Yes, Mrs Birmingham.’
‘Why?’
‘Because someone thinks it’s me that’s been stealing things.’
‘Yes. Have you?’
‘I don’t know.’
This was a surprise. The other two had both said no, Michaela Simpson with proud indignation, Constance King with a clever and convincing analysis of why she might be suspected (new girl, hence outsider, hence victim and scapegoat). The Head was beginning to wonder herself if the evidence might not point to Charmian as the culprit. She was prepared for the child to deny it with a flourish of offended vanity, and yet she had allowed herself to hope she might confess, in a storm of tears and remorse, after which they would pray together for God’s forgiveness. Then Charmian would repent; would agree to confess, first to Miss Valentine and then to her form, and then …
‘You don’t know, Charmian? You must know …’
‘Well, of course I don’t think I took them. But if the staff say I did, and I know some people in my form, like f’rinstance Constance King, if they think I did, and now you believe I did - well … I don’t know. I just can’t say absolutely no any more. ‘Cos if everyone thinks I’m the thief, them maybe I am. Maybe I did it and forgot. Maybe I sleep-walked. Maybe the devil tempted me …’
This is hysteria, thought Mrs Birmingham. The child sounds as though she has stepped straight out of the witches of Salem. This kind of thinking is dangerous. If it spreads, then I’m facing something a great deal more serious than childish stealing.
‘Charmian!’ she said abruptly. ‘Stop this silly nonsense at once. I asked you a perfectly straightforward question and I want a simple, straightforward answer: yes or no. Did you steal Miss Peachey’s necklace, and the photograph frame, and the pen, and the scrapbook and so on, or did you not?’
There was a pause. Charmian’s turquoise-blue eyes looked blankly back at her. Then she heaved her shoulders up and down once, and sighed.
‘I don’t think so,’ she said. ‘But it’s all been so sort of muddled this term. I mean, what you told me about Mummy and Daddy, which I don’t understand a bit, I still don’t, and then the awful thing of Sheila’s mother, which is all so ghastly, and oh, Mrs Birmingham …’ Charmian blinked several times and began to breathe fast and heavily.
‘Sit down, dear. On that chair there. That’s right. Sit down. Have you got a handkerchief? Good girl. Blow your nose.’
Charmian took her handkerchief and shook it as she had seen her father do, into a large, all-enveloping square, and buried her nose in it. Behind its folds she thought, Shall I cry or not cry? She thought of the rabbit’s bloodshot eyes every time she jerked a whisker out, and of how its front paws scrabbled frantically, and her own ey
es seemed to swell and overflow.
‘Is there nobody you can talk to?’ the Head asked.
‘I used to talk to Sheila,’ said Charmian. ‘We used to meet up by Pets …’ and her eyes filled up again.
Dear God, who knowest the heart of this Thy child, prayed Henrietta, give me Thy wisdom and Thy infinite understanding, that I may help her find her way down this troubled path. She smiled with great tenderness at the bowed little figure in front of her.
Charmian watched the smile and thought, Phew! Done it! She stored away the knowledge, for the rest of her life, that even the apparently omniscient couldn’t tell if you were lying, as long as you kept your nerve. She smiled tremulously back.
Ten minutes later, having listened wide-eyed to the Head’s attempt to explain why some mummies and daddies couldn’t stay married, and had to get what was called a divorce, Charmian escaped from the soft pastel warmth of the drawing-room. As she walked sedately down the hall she thought to herself, She doesn’t know much about it! She didn’t say anything about them not having the same bedroom any more. She hasn’t the foggiest clue. On an impulse, she turned and raced up the three flights of back stairs to a top-floor dormitory. In seconds she had swept half a dozen bulging-eyed glass animals off the top of lockers, stuffed them into her handkerchief, and was walking sedately down again. This is fun, she thought, and it’s easy-peasy. You just need to believe no-one will see you, and they don’t. And even if they did, I’d say I’d been to see the Head and she told me to go and get a clean hanky. Which is true anyway. Easy as pie.
The staff-room during Break was a hubbub of nerves and noise. It smelt of cheap clothes, warm bodies, powder and chalk dust. Untipped cigarettes added their stale grey smoke to the thick air. Miss Valentine’s clarion indignation cut through several flustered conversations in different corners of the room.
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