The Glass Bird Girl (12 page)

‘Otherwise what?'

‘Otherwise I might have to run away.'

‘Well, if you do I'm coming too – but I'd sooner wait for the summer term, when it's a bit warmer,' Edie teased.

Anastasia looked at her affectionately. ‘Thanks, Edie. I don't know what I'd do if
you
didn't believe me.' She pushed back her covers, then got up and tiptoed over to fetch something from her chest of drawers. ‘Here, have this,' she said, pressing a small object into Edie's hand.

Edie gave a little gasp of pleasure. It was the glass bird that she had been caught holding on the first day of term. Anastasia gave Edie her torch so she could look at it more closely. It was even prettier than Edie remembered.

‘It used to be one of a pair, but the other one got broken.'

‘I can't have this,' Edie said. ‘It's yours.'

‘But I want you to have it.' Anastasia smiled. ‘You might as well. I'll only lose it.'

A Midnight Feast

M
iss Fotheringay pushed back the brocade curtains and peered into the motionless October night. The study window was open but there was no breeze. A pale lantern glowed below in the courtyard, and the moon showed the drive twisting through the park, ghostly white.

Edith Wilson and Anastasia Stolonov
. She sipped her whisky, murmuring the names as she walked slowly back to her desk. There she opened her ledger and read again her first impressions of Anastasia:
A confused home life has instilled an unusually heightened sense of order. She might need to be encouraged to let go
.

Miss Fotheringay smiled. The pensive child who had appeared in her study on that first afternoon of term had given no hint of the trouble she would cause.

Then she turned to the entry she had made two weeks ago under Edith's name:
A habit of defiant reserve . . . let the child be stripped free of time to think and she will have a chance of flourishing
.

‘A record of my mistakes,' she murmured. She paused a moment, before starting a new entry underneath:
Wilful, stubborn, obstinate and secretive . . . like her mother
. Miss Fotheringay bit her lip, her pen poised over the page, when a knock on the study door made her jump. ‘Ah, Diana,' she said, slipping the ledger into a drawer. ‘I was hoping you might have sent me a cowering child you'd discovered in the wrong dormitory.'

‘No such luck,' Miss Mannering said brightly, dumping a cardboard box on the desk. ‘But it's been a bumper evening for confiscations. Eight books, as many torches, three packets of sweets, and' – Miss Mannering's face puckered in satisfied indignation – ‘the beginnings of a midnight feast! The second-years were intending to celebrate a birthday but I pounced before the cake was cut.'

Miss Fotheringay tipped the box towards her, and peered inside. ‘I can only admire your rigour, Diana, but your enthusiasm for confiscating books would be questioned in some quarters. There is a school of thought which says children should be encouraged to read.'

‘Not after lights out.'

Miss Fotheringay smiled, and poured her a drink. Then she handed her a printed-out email. ‘From Prince Stolonov,' she said, in a tone of weary displeasure. ‘Wanting to know what happened to Ansti on the lacrosse pitch.'

Miss Mannering lowered herself into an armchair by the fire, and read it with arched brows. When she had finished she scrunched it up and threw it into the flames. Her face was flushed and indignant.

‘I hope you told him—'

‘I told him the truth, that it was an accident and that Anastasia was not hurt,' Miss Fotheringay said coolly. ‘And I also told him that such incidents are best dealt with by the school.'

‘Always best to keep the parents out of it,' Miss Mannering agreed, folding her spectacles back into her pocket.

‘And you are my most useful ally when it comes to that,' Miss Fotheringay said, looking at her affectionately. ‘When they say they only want to keep an eye on their darlings, I tell them that no one
could
keep a closer eye on them than my deputy.'

‘Parents don't watch,' Miss Mannering mused, sipping her whisky. ‘Some push and others worry, none watch. If they really wanted to keep an eye on their little darlings they wouldn't send them to us in the first place.'

‘You sound disapproving, Diana.'

‘Not disapproving, exactly, just . . .'

‘Realistic?' said Miss Fotheringay, smiling.

‘I do see that in some cases boarding is a child's best chance of a normal childhood, certainly in the case of someone as cosseted as Anastasia,' Miss Mannering conceded. ‘Anyway,' she went on, looking at Miss Fotheringay with a mischievous glint, ‘perhaps she'll be better able to stand up for herself now she's got the
stalwart little Edith as a friend.'

Miss Fotheringay did not rise to the tease. ‘Are they still friends? I wondered if they'd quarrelled after Edith walked out of the play—'

‘No one knows what that's about,' Miss Mannering said, brushing the issue aside. ‘But what I do know is that Edith Wilson is quite a promising historian. Look what I found
her
reading after lights out.' Miss Mannering delved into her confiscations box and held up a book for the headmistress to see. ‘I must admit I felt a moment's hesitation before confiscating it. I don't suppose one would find many first-years reading such a book by torchlight.'

‘Edith was reading this?' Miss Fotheringay took the book and looked at it curiously. It was a history of the Crusades: an old edition, with a faded green cover. Opening it, she saw the name
Anna Carter
inscribed in childish writing on the first yellowing page.

She put down her whisky and turned the book over in her hands, her eyes distant. But then something fell out – a plain postcard, covered in scrawled black writing. She saw the signature, Cousin Charles, and did not hesitate before reading the rest:

If we don't get some results by the end of term we might decide you're in the wrong job. I trust you've already pulled out of the play – the best servants remain invisible, and you weren't sent to Knight's Haddon to lark around onstage. I shall be telephoning your headmistress this week to keep myself informed.

‘
Results?
' Miss Fotheringay murmured.

‘Something of interest?' Miss Mannering enquired.

Miss Fotheringay replaced the card in the book and snapped it shut. ‘No,' she lied. She was silent a moment. ‘Are you on breakfast duty tomorrow?'

Miss Mannering nodded.

‘Good. You will kindly tell Edith when you see her that I have changed my mind about tomorrow's Latin lesson. We shall have it after all.'

Alone in her study Miss Fotheringay's expression was like stone.

‘Sophia? It's Caroline Fotheringay.'

It was ten years since they had last spoken, but the voice that answered had not changed: ‘Caro Fo-th-er-ingay. I was wondering when you'd call. When I looked up the school to which my niece had been spirited away and saw you were the headmistress, I knew it was only a matter of time before you put two and two together.'

‘When you say spirited away—'

‘Oh, never mind that. Tell me how you worked it out. Her peaky looks . . . her brilliant prose?'

Miss Fotheringay picked up a pen, and doodled the word ‘drunk' on her blotter.

‘I suppose you're waiting for me to ask how she is?' Sophia continued.

‘I was ringing to talk about her, yes.'

‘If she's in trouble you should speak to Charles. She's his responsibility now.'

‘It is her relationship with Mr Rodriguez that I wanted
to speak to you about.'

‘Don't you trust him?'

‘Do you?'

There was a peal of laughter, followed by the sound of something being splashed into a glass. ‘So – what's he been up to now?'

‘I'd like to know why he sent Edith here. Under the circumstances it seems unusually generous of him to undertake to pay the child's fees.'

‘He's doing it for Edie, not for Anna. He's always been fond of her.'

‘He hadn't met her until a month ago.'

‘And what else has she told you?'

‘Very little,' Miss Fotheringay replied. ‘But I think he's frightened her into pulling out of the school play. At Knight's Haddon we demand a free hand with the children. In my experience, outside interference—'

‘
Please
, Caroline. I have three children of my own, a leaking roof and two thousand acres to look after. I really can't be expected to take an interest in your school drama club.'

‘Nor, it seems, in your niece's welfare.'

‘That's rich, coming from you. I didn't see you taking any interest in Edie when she was orphaned.'

There was a brief silence before Miss Fotheringay hung up.

Midnight, and on the other side of the school, Edie's dormitory was waking up.

The feast had been Sally's idea after she had spotted
Lyle's chocolates hidden in Edie's sock drawer, and at first Edie had looked hesitant.

‘It's all right, Edie, we know you don't like sharing,' Phoebe said sarcastically.

‘It's not that. It's just that they're probably disgusting. There's nothing on the box to say what they are, but they look like violet creams.'

‘I
love
violet creams!' Sally said, her eyes shining.

Everyone else agreed that the feast was an excellent idea – even Alice seemed up for a bit of mischief. ‘It's only fair that we should have at least one midnight feast each term,' she said in a measured voice.

‘OK,' Sally said, taking charge, ‘the drill is I set my alarm for five to midnight and we all wake up and start eating on the stroke of twelve. And if you don't like violet creams, Edie, then all the more for us – but since you're providing the feast you'll be part of it, anyway. And if we're caught we're all in it together.'

Edie smiled. There was something comic about Sally's determination to have fun according to some rule book in her head.

At five to midnight, five sleepy girls congregated around Edie's bed. ‘Four each,' Edie said, counting out the chocolates and handing them round.

‘Not sure I'll manage more than one,' Alice said, examining her ration with a yawn.

‘Ready . . . steady . . . eat!' Sally whispered in a gleeful voice, as the school clock began to strike.

Edie watched sleepily as the others tucked in. But then Phoebe gave a strangled shriek, and Edie saw with
horror that her lips and tongue had turned pitch black. Her face seemed frozen, her mouth forced open in a silent scream.

Edie looked to the others for help but they had the same ghastly expression. ‘Wh-what is it?' she stammered, looking at the four blackened mouths in dismay.

Alice was feeling around her lips with her fingers. Then: ‘Water,' she gasped, sicking something into her hand.

Edie ran to the sink while the other girls all sat spluttering on the bed, coughing the swollen sweets out of their mouths.

‘Eugh,' Phoebe croaked, clutching her throat. ‘What . . . what was it . . . they . . . they sort of
exploded
!'

‘I'm so sorry,' said Edie, shaken. ‘It . . . it must have been a trick . . . I didn't know.'

‘Of course you knew!' Phoebe said furiously. ‘Don't tell me it was just a coincidence that you didn't eat one yourself! You might think it was funny but you nearly choked us. And what's everyone going to say tomorrow when we go down to breakfast with black lips?'

Edie stared stupidly at the empty chocolate box. She saw a bit of paper poking from beneath the scrunched foil wrappers, and pulled out a smudged note:

‘
Happy Trouble, coz!
' it said in Lyle's familiar, spiky hand.

‘It's all right, it comes off,' Anastasia said, washing her face in the mirror above the sink. ‘And anyway, it wasn't Edie's fault – her cousin gave them to her.'

Alice and Sally looked sympathetic, but Phoebe's face
was screwed with spite. ‘I'm going to tell Miss Winifred you tried to poison us.'

‘Don't be mad,' Alice said sensibly. ‘Then we'll all be in trouble.'

‘You're all in trouble anyway,' came a familiar voice, and Edie looked up to see Matron standing in the doorway, her arms folded across her chest.

The Plot Thickens

T
he black box lay open on Miss Fotheringay's desk. It was not a letter she took out this time, but a newspaper cutting stiff and yellowed with age. She unfolded it, and stared once again at the faded headline: ‘J
OURNALIST
A
NNA
C
ARTER
K
ILLED IN
M
OSCOW
' and at the greying photograph of a young woman smiling at the camera.

Miss Fotheringay lay the page on top of her Latin primer, and traced her finger over the ghost-like face. ‘I punished her,' she whispered slowly, ‘like you punished me. And now I am going to win her back.'

‘I am returning this,' Miss Fotheringay said, handing Edie the confiscated book with Cousin Charles's postcard tucked inside.

Edie looked up from the sofa, trying not to show her disquiet.

‘I have been thinking about your behaviour over the play, Edith, and it occurs to me that you may have been under pressure to act as you did,' the headmistress said, looking at her calmly.

Edie said nothing, her eyes shifting as Miss Fotheringay pushed Black Puss out of the way and sat down beside her.

‘Look at me, Edith, when I am speaking to you.'

Edie looked, but Miss Fotheringay didn't see the way she pinched the palm of her hand to keep the tears at bay.

‘Are you all right, Edith?'

‘Yes,' Edie replied, and found that it was true.

‘I saw that your cousin's visit last week upset you and I suspect that you are, for some reason, afraid of him.'

‘I'm not afraid of anyone,' Edie said quickly. It was like a religion with her, to state this as fact.

Miss Fotheringay smiled. ‘Let me rephrase that. You are not afraid of anyone, but your cousin is your guardian and this puts him in a position of power over you. It may be that on his visit here he used that power to make you give up your part in the school play. Why he should do this, I have no idea, but I do know that some adults have a foolish, ignorant belief that everything outside the classroom is an unnecessary distraction.'

Edie's eyes flashed agreement. Miss Fotheringay had echoed Charles's words exactly: ‘
It's a distraction, Edith, cut it out
.'

‘Does your Cousin Charles have no idea how strong you are, academically?'

Edie coloured with pleasure. This was the first such praise she had ever received from Miss Fotheringay. ‘He thinks that I must have some catching up to do,' she replied carefully.

‘Mmm. Nothing that Shakespeare won't teach you,' Miss Fotheringay mused. Then – ‘Would you
like
to go on with
Merchant
?' she asked suddenly, as if the thought had just struck her.

‘
Yes!
' Edie said, nodding her head energetically.

‘Then I shall fix it,' Miss Fotheringay said, her voice brisk. ‘I'll tell him you have no choice in the matter. You are under orders –
my
orders – and as long as you are in my care those are the only orders that count.'

Edie looked at her gratefully. She felt the peculiar force of Miss Fotheringay's personality, and was exhilarated to think that this time the headmistress was on her side.

‘You will apologise to Helen?' Miss Fotheringay enquired, pressing her advantage.

Edie nodded. She wondered if Miss Fotheringay would refer to the incident with Phoebe, and point out that this was not the first time she had been made to say sorry as a result of losing her temper – but it was not mentioned.

‘I imagine Portia will be pleased to have her maid back.' The headmistress smiled. ‘Miss Winifred tells me that you and Anastasia are now inseparable.'

‘Sort of,' Edie replied. Then, after a pause, ‘Something funny's going on with Anastasia. Everyone thinks she tries to get other girls in trouble but I know it's not like that. I think someone's trying to get
her
into trouble all the time, by taking her things and putting them back again as soon as she reports them missing.'

‘I see,' Miss Fotheringay said slowly. ‘And have you any evidence of this?'

‘Well, no, but . . .' Edie faltered. She could not accuse Phoebe without proof. And as for telling Miss Fotheringay her suspicions about Miss Mannering . . . she didn't dare. ‘I just meant that . . . well, Anastasia's not a troublemaker, and – and she's not mad,' she finished clumsily, wishing she had never begun.

‘Is there anything else you would like to tell me, Edith?' Miss Fotheringay asked.

‘No,' Edie said uneasily, shaking her head.

Miss Fotheringay waited, as if hoping she might change her mind, then stood up abruptly and walked to her desk.

‘I gather your dormitory had a midnight feast last night,' she said brusquely, retrieving something from a drawer. She returned holding the box of chocolates, which she placed on the table in front of them. ‘Well?'

Edie shifted uncomfortably. So she
was
in disgrace, after all.

‘Did you not feel you had been in enough trouble this term already, Edith, without involving your friends in such a childish prank?'

‘It – it wasn't my prank exactly,' Edie said, and told her about the encounter with Lyle.

Miss Fotheringay nodded. It was as though she already knew the story, but had needed to hear it from Edie's lips. ‘The world is full of danger, Edith. I can only make Knight's Haddon a place of refuge if my pupils abide by the rules, and one of my rules is that no pupil is to accept gifts from outside without them being seen by me first. I am the one who decides who and what enters this school, Edith, you would do well to remember that. And now we had better turn our minds to Latin.'

The following morning Anastasia was summoned to see the headmistress. As she left the common room Edie detected something knowing in Miss Winifred's expression, as though she expected that Anastasia's meeting would not be a pleasant one.

But when Anastasia returned, she looked happier than before. Edie could tell that she had been crying but it was as if the anxiety had been washed from her face.

‘I said that we – I – thought someone was hiding my things, trying to get me into trouble, and Miss Fotheringay – well, she didn't actually
say
that she believed me, but she sort of looked like she did,' Anastasia explained. ‘I was wrong about her, Edie. She was so nice about it all. She wasn't even cross about the money.'

‘I told you she wouldn't be,' Edie smiled. ‘And what about the – you know,' she said hesitantly, ‘the doctor?'

‘We did discuss it,' Anastasia said, sounding much calmer on the subject than before. ‘And she just said the option was there.'

Edie looked concerned. If Miss Fotheringay believed Anastasia's story, then why had she mentioned seeing a doctor? ‘What did she say she'd do – about all the things being taken, I mean? Did she say she'd look into it?'

‘She said that if anything else happens I'm to tell her or Miss Mannering. She didn't
say
not to tell Miss Winifred, but she sort of made it clear.
You must speak either to me or Miss Mannering
. I think she knows how upset Miss Winifred's getting about it, and she thinks Miss Mannering will be more sympathetic.'

‘But, Anastasia, you can't talk to Miss Mannering, I told you she—'

‘Oh come on, Edie. You can't still think that. Just because she does drawer searches it doesn't make her a thief.'

Edie looked doubtful. She had been watching Phoebe like a hawk, but to no avail, and Edie feared that her case against her was starting to wear thin. But her suspicions about Miss Mannering were mounting. Her drawer searches would provide her with the perfect opportunity to meddle with Anastasia's things, and it was unsettling to think Miss Fotheringay wanted to encourage Anastasia to confide in her. It was almost as though the head was in her deputy's power, but why? And why didn't she want Anastasia to talk to Miss Winifred?

‘I think Miss Mannering's much nicer than she pretends,' Anastasia went on. ‘You know she spends her weekends going to see people in prison?'

‘
Prison?
'

Anastasia nodded. ‘Alice told me. Alice's godfather's on the board of a prison somewhere not far from Oxford, and apparently Miss Mannering visits every Sunday.'

‘But – but why?' Anastasia spoke as though it were perfectly natural for a history mistress to know people in prison, but Edie thought it very odd.

‘I don't know,' Anastasia shrugged. ‘It's just a good thing to do, I suppose. It must be pretty lonely being in prison. Perhaps Miss Mannering cheers the prisoners up.' Edie looked incredulous at this suggestion. ‘Oh well, I agree she's not a patch on Fothy,' Anastasia smiled. ‘Miss Fotheringay's so easy to talk to. I can tell her things I wouldn't discuss with any other mistress.'

‘What sort of things?' Edie wondered.

‘Oh, you know, about my mother and the divorce and my stepfather and your cousin Charles—'

‘What did she want to know about
him
?'

‘Nothing really, she just asked if I'd spoken to him much this term – I don't know why. And when I said Mummy was taking me to London for the
exeat
she asked if we'd be seeing him, and I said no because he was more Papa's friend now.'

Edie was alarmed by Miss Fotheringay's interest in Cousin Charles. She sensed she distrusted him, and she feared her finding out too much. If she discovered he was using her as a spy, Edie was sure she'd be expelled immediately.

‘It would have been fun if Mummy and me could have come and seen Charles in London, then we could have spent some of the
exeat
together,' Anastasia said.

‘We're not going to London,' Edie said gloomily. ‘In his last letter Charles said he was going to take me back to Aunt Sophia's for the night.'

‘I wish you could come out with us,' Anastasia said kindly.

‘Maybe next time,' Edie replied – but she was dreading the
exeat
much more than Anastasia could have guessed. Since coming to Knight's Haddon, her short stay at Folly Farm had taken on the quality of a bad dream. The chocolates had been a reminder of Lyle's horridness. But it was seeing Cousin Charles that worried her most – he would be furious that she still had nothing firm to report.

Edie was glad that Anastasia seemed reassured by her meeting with Miss Fotheringay, and for the next few days the girls made the most of the respite from trouble, and threw themselves into the play with more vigour than ever. It impressed Edie that when Anastasia was rehearsing she never seemed distracted by her other concerns. Whenever something upsetting happened her acting seemed to become even more convincing.

‘That's what I like about acting,' Anastasia said suddenly, as if to herself, when she and Edie had been running through their lines in the common room after supper. ‘You can be a strong person when you're not, and you can be a popular person when you're not, and you can be happy . . . completely happy, even when . . . even when you're not,' she finished, laughing.

Edie smiled. The play offered her an escape too. She had been frightened that Helen might not be convinced by her apology, but when Edie had sought her out the head girl had simply dismissed the whole incident with one of her bewitching smiles. Edie had thought nothing could spoil her pleasure at being in the play again. But she couldn't help noticing that however hard she tried, it was always Anastasia who was singled out for praise.

‘I am lucky having you as Portia,' Helen said one evening, catching up with Edie and Anastasia in the corridor after a weekend rehearsal. ‘Miss Winifred said I was a fool trying to do Shakespeare with the first-years, but she'll take it back when she sees you.'

Anastasia glowed, but Edie felt a stab of envy. She longed for a shard of Helen's attention, and hated having to keep her admiration to herself, as if it were a guilty secret. She wished she could confide in Anastasia, and make a joke of it, but they had both become shy of the subject and Edie suspected Anastasia might be even more enamoured of Helen than she herself was.

On Tuesday morning, Edie suggested that they went through their lines together before lunch, but Anastasia looked embarrassed. ‘Helen wants to go through my soliloquy in Act Three – we're going to rehearse in the tower with a picnic,' she said, failing to hide her excitement. ‘But perhaps we can go through them tonight?'

‘Whatever,' Edie shrugged. She had never seen the tower; it was at the edge of the park, beyond the woods. It wasn't very far – only ten minutes at a run – but that whole patch was considered the prefects' territory, and none of the junior girls dared go near it. ‘I thought only prefects were allowed in the tower,' she said, trying to sound indifferent.

‘Prefects and their guests,' Anastasia replied, her eyes shining.