Celandine (20 page)

‘Yes, miss.’

The silence held whilst the girls put on their nightgowns. Celandine dumbly copied the actions of those around her; folding her tunic neatly and laying it on top of her locker, taking her sponge-bag from the top drawer, carrying her shoes out into the corridor and placing them at the end of the row, ready for cleaning. She followed the subdued procession to the huge brightly lit washroom, took her turn at one of the great square porcelain basins, studied the crazed patterns of blue cracks in the enamel as she lowered her head to brush her teeth. Still nobody spoke. She waited in line for an available lavatory cubicle, looked at the initials scratched on the outside of the mahogany panelled doors, and then at more initials scratched on the inside, as she sat alone and wondered how much more alone she could ever feel.

Perhaps she could sit here for ever and never have to come out and face the world again. Perhaps she could just stare at the scratched lavatory door for the
rest
of her days. ‘
DH is a sneak
’. Who was DH? It could stand for Dinah Howard – Freddie always called her Dinah. What was Freddie doing now, at his school? Was he as miserable as she was?

Something had happened outside the cubicle. The silence had changed. It wasn’t simply the lack of talking – all movement had now ceased as well. There was no brushing of teeth, no swill of water in the basins, nothing but the rhythmic drip of a cistern in one of the other cubicles . . .
pip . . . pip . . . ta-pip . . . pip
. What was happening? Celandine stood up, listening intensely, fully expecting that the door would burst open and that she would be attacked.

Another sound, very faint and distant, and Celandine felt herself flinch instinctively. Again. And again. The sounds drifted up from far below, whispered through the corridors, vibrated along the water pipes of the hushed washroom;
shwack . . . shwack
 . . .

Celandine gently opened the cubicle door. Pale and motionless they stood, the Hardy dormitory girls, frozen into random poses around the central block of washbasins. Pink tooth powder foamed at their lips and trickled down their chins unheeded, giving them the grisly appearance of hungry animals, poised for the kill. And their eyes – dark eyes, pale eyes, blue and brown – all of them were wide open, and all of them were looking at her.

Still nothing was said. The whole room was listening and waiting.

And now here was another sound: uneven
footsteps,
hurrying, half-running along the empty corridors. The spell was broken and the girls seemed to come back to life. Heads turned towards the doorway as the twins appeared – one behind the other, their tear-strewn faces screwed up into identical expressions of pain, shoulders hunched forward and forearms crossed, fists pressed into their armpits.

‘Here, Chloe!’

‘Daph – over here! Over here!’

The twins stumbled across the washroom and plunged their hands into the basins of cool water that the other girls had prepared for them. With heads hanging down, they jiggled from one foot to the other, gasping and choking as the group gathered round them.

‘Nan – over here! Quick!’

The ‘scent spray’ girl had entered the room in a similar state, and Celandine watched as she too was helped towards a waiting basin, her long auburn hair obscuring her face as she leaned forward to thrust her hands into the water.

Celandine saw that Nina Jessop stood apart from the rest, clutching her sponge-bag. How frail and vulnerable she looked. Her eyes were cast downwards, staring at the green linoleum that was now wet with splashes from the overflowing basins. She seemed to have cut herself off from what was happening around her – or perhaps she was contemplating the enormity of what she had done. For Celandine was now more certain than ever that it had been Nina who had tidied
up
her locker and distributed the contents among those who had tried to get her into trouble. Why would she risk such a thing, though? They were hardly friends.

Mary Swann was in the room. Celandine hadn’t seen her come in, but here she was – surrounded, as the others had been, by willing helpers.

‘Here’s a basin, Mary! Quickly – over here!’

But Mary would have none of it. She shrugged off the arms that reached out to comfort her, and ignored the washbasin that had been filled in readiness.

‘I’m all right.’

Instead she stood with her hands raised to her mouth and gently blew onto her open palms, taking her time. The two spots of colour on her broad cheeks were the only indication of any pain that she might have been feeling.

Celandine waited, knowing that Mary would eventually look her way, and that trouble would surely follow. Mary did indeed look at her, but only momentarily – a dark flash of bitterness over the top of her hands as she continued to blow on them. Then the vengeful gaze shifted away from Celandine and beyond her, to where Nina Jessop stood.

‘I know it was you, Ninky.’

Celandine looked around at Nina. The girl was plainly terrified, her face pinched and pebble-white. Her cotton nightdress was too big, and it made her seem thinner than ever, the square yoke hanging precariously on her slight shoulders. Nina made no
sound,
and no movement, but still kept her eyes fixed on the wet floor in front of her.

Celandine turned towards Mary Swann once more and was struck by the contrast between the two girls. It seemed hardly possible that they were of the same species, let alone the same age.

Mary, broad and sturdy, still dressed in her dark school tunic and heavy black shoes, moved forward. She was now threateningly close to Celandine, but she continued to look at Nina.

‘I
know
it was you, Ninky, so you might as well confess. Not that it’ll help you much. Shall I tell you what I’m going to do?’

‘I don’t know what you’re talking about,’ muttered Nina. Her head was down and her words were only just audible.

‘Don’t you? I think you do. See that basin of water? I’m going to push your stupid head into that basin,
Jessop
, and I’m going to hold it there. Yes, and I shall keep on holding it there until you jolly well drown. I’m going to drown you,
Jessop
, like a rat in a bucket. I shall—’

‘No you shan’t.’

Celandine heard herself say the words. They were out before she’d had chance to think about it, before she had even begun to consider the consequences.
No you shan’t
. Then, to make matters worse, she said, ‘And anyway, it wasn’t Nina. It was me.’

Mary Swann gaped at her, the scowling eyebrows rising into an arch of astonishment.

‘What?’

Celandine edged sideways a little, so that she was in between Nina and Mary. ‘I said, it was me.’

She found that she wasn’t afraid. She
ought
to be afraid, but she wasn’t – and the hesitation she now saw upon Mary’s ugly face made her bolder still.

‘
I
put those things in your lockers – and it serves you right, too.’ She stretched her luck yet further by taking a deliberate step towards the big girl. ‘You tried to get me into trouble on purpose – telling me that I was to keep food in my locker, and . . . and the money . . . and making me do everything wrong. You did everything you
could
to get me into trouble – and so I did exactly the same to you. And now you can’t blame
me
if Miss Belvedere gave you the switch, or the swash, or the swish, or whatever the stupid thing is.’ A couple of the girls sniggered at this.

Mary had stepped back a pace, an instinctive reaction to Celandine’s advance, but now began to recover herself.

‘
You?
How could it have been you? I don’t believe you.’

‘I don’t care whether you believe me or not. It was me.’

‘Well
when
, then? You were at supper with everyone else. When would you have had the time?’

‘It doesn’t matter when. It was me.’

Mary Swann was plainly unused to any such confrontation. She was big and she was strong, and smaller weaker girls simply did not behave towards her in this manner. She looked confused. And yet, with her classmates around her, watching her, it would be
impossible
for her to back down. She nodded her head slowly, as if coming to a decision, and some of the other girls moved in a little closer.

Celandine forged blindly ahead, relying on heaven knew what instinct.

‘So perhaps you’d better try and drown me instead. Go on then, if you like. Try it.’

It was a bluff – but such tactics had been known to work. Many a time Celandine had watched one of the skinny farm cats see off Cribb, the great lurcher, just by standing its ground and hissing defiance. Yes, she had seen it succeed. But she had also seen it fail – for where Cribb might be deflected, the other dog, Jude, would not. Nothing would stop Jude.

Celandine stood with her arms straight by her side. She clenched her fists and saw Mary glance down at them, as if gauging her determination. A moment of hesitation perhaps, but only so that the coming attack could be better judged.

‘Get her, Mary . . .’ a whispered urge of encouragement from one of the other girls – Alicia perhaps – and once again Mary nodded. Celandine clenched her fists tighter.

She had one more gambit, one last barricade to hide behind, and there was no time to consider what might follow.

‘You know why I was sent to this place, don’t you, Mary?’ Already she was regretting her hurried decision, but it was too late to stop. ‘I was sent here as a punishment. Do you know what I did?’

Mary Swann, caught off-guard again, was obliged to answer.

‘No. What?’

‘I stabbed my governess.’

The words bounced off the walls of the washroom, and the echoes quickly faded into a horrified silence. She had said it. The awful phrase hung there, still audible somehow, long after its departure.
Pip . . . pip . . . ta-pip . . . pip
. The drip of the cistern crept into the empty space and danced its solemn jig. Nobody moved. Celandine pressed home her advantage – there seemed no point in backing out now.

‘So if you think that I’m frightened of
you
, Mary Swann . . .’ She looked about the room, hearing the shock of her own voice, booming back at her, ‘ . . . or of any of you . . .’

The girls seemed to emerge from their trance, and the ones who had moved in closer now shrank back. Yet still they were silent. This was the unknown. They were on dark and unfamiliar ground, with a creature that apparently dealt in acts of violence far beyond their imagining. They looked at her in wary speculation, as though she might have knives or daggers concealed beneath the thin folds of her nightgown – weapons that might be drawn forth and used upon them at any moment.

One of Celandine’s feet felt damp. Water from the washroom floor must have seeped through the thin leather soles of her carpet slippers. She should move, yet she found herself unwilling to do so – as though it might break the spell.

‘Most commendable.’ The loud voice made everybody jump. Miss Belvedere was standing in the doorway. ‘I see that for once my words appear to have had some effect, and that you have finally understood that silence means silence. Perhaps my toil is not in vain, after all. You girl – Howard – is there any reason why you should be standing in a puddle? No matter. Back to your dormitory, all of you. Lights out in four minutes. Go.’

Miss Belvedere remained half in and half out of the doorway, and every girl automatically ducked as they brushed past her.

As she clambered into her unfamiliar bed, Celandine remembered Nina’s curious warning about the ‘apple-pie’. She cautiously wriggled her legs down between the chilly sheets, half expecting to find herself up to her ankles in sticky fruit and pastry, but all seemed normal. She caught an exchange of glances between Mary and the twins, and it was clear that some other plan of theirs had been foiled. By Nina?

Nina still would not meet her eye. Either she was protecting herself by refusing any contact, or she was as horrified as everyone else by what she had heard in the washroom.

Miss Belvedere had followed the silent troupe of girls to the dormitory and waited whilst the four she had lately ‘interviewed’ got changed into their nightgowns. She stood near the door with her hand on the electric light switch. Where once it had been necessary to extinguish the gas mantles one by one, it was now
miraculously
possible to turn all the lights out with a single movement.

‘Who is on bell duty this week?’ she asked.

Molly Fletcher, the girl by the door, spoke up. ‘I am, miss.’

‘Well, don’t forget that it’s Sunday lie-in. First bell at seven-thirty.’

‘Yes, miss.’

‘And I very much hope that I shall not have occasion to speak to any of you before then. Absolute silence,
if
you please, between now and first bell.’

Miss Belvedere took one last long look around the room, making sure that all heads were on pillows, and that all eyes appeared to be closed. ‘Very well. Good night, Hardy.’

‘Goodnight Miss Belvedere.’ A last sorrowful chant, and in an instant the room was dark.

There was a faint creak from the door-hinge, but no sound of the latch clicking into place. Miss Belvedere might be lurking outside even now, and consequently there was no talking or whispering.

Celandine lay curled up on her side for a while with her eyes closed, yet knew that she wouldn’t sleep. The bed was as lumpy and uncomfortable as she had supposed it would be, and the strangeness of her surroundings was impossible to ignore. She eventually rolled over onto her back and rested her hands behind her head, staring upwards into the shadowy darkness. The heavy wooden shutters had been drawn across the high windows, but a little light still penetrated here and there. It was only early
September,
and not quite dark outside. Celandine could just make out the black lines of the roof beams, and the shape of a redundant gas fitting mounted on the wall above her bed.

What was she doing here? She listened to the sighs and rustles and muffled coughs of the other girls, and it felt as though her own quiet room at Mill Farm was a million miles away, and that she had left it months ago, rather than hours. For that was all it had been, a dozen hours, and in that time she had probably succeeded in making a dozen enemies. Could any day have seemed longer, or gone more badly? Yes, she thought – the day that Tobyjug had died. That had been worse than this. And the day that she had attacked Miss Bell had seemed longer – the day that began so horribly, and yet ended so magically.