The Glass Bird Girl (7 page)

Anastasia smiled and changed her expression into one of comic anxiety. She tapped Edie on the arm like a fussy old man, before taking her watch from her wrist and shaking it up and down.

‘“It's gone horribly wrong,”' she said, in a quavering voice. ‘“You should never butter a watch with a bread knife. Some crumbs must have got in at the same time. And by the way, if you knew Time as well as I do, you wouldn't talk about wasting
it
. It's
him
.”'

‘See what I mean?' said Alice to Edie, smiling. Anastasia made a gesture, as if doffing a hat, then switched back into being herself as suddenly as she had changed into being the Mad Hatter.

Edie followed them from the dormitory, feeling she had learnt something interesting. Anastasia clearly loved acting, and just from the few lines she had flung out, Edie could see that she was very good at it. But she didn't suppose that was what Sally had meant when she had called her a drama queen.

Was it possible that Anastasia had been causing all this fuss simply to create a dramatic role for herself? There had certainly been a sense of drama in the classroom this morning. But then Edie thought of Anastasia's face when she had found the bird on her chest of drawers. There had been something fearful in her expression, which Edie could not believe she was putting on.

Striking Down

A
 notice on the door of the common room announced that this year's play was to be
The Merchant of Venice
, directed by Helen Greyling, the head girl.

‘Shakespeare,' Alice groaned.

‘It's a wonderful play,' Anastasia said, her eyes shining. ‘Papa took me to see it in Stratford last year.'

‘What's it about?' Edie asked.

‘Choosing husbands,' Anastasia said, knowingly.

‘We won't all get speaking parts,' Alice whispered as they went in. ‘Some of us will just be attendants and things. But I only want a small part – I've got lacrosse matches every Saturday afternoon so I'd miss half the rehearsals anyway.'

Edie had no desire to be cast as a ‘thing'. She experienced a sudden glimmer of determination, which
surprised her, then saw Helen sitting at the far end of the common room, and felt a rush of nerves.

Everyone was handed a short passage from the play, and had to step up in turn to read it out loud while Helen took notes, watching with one of her amused smiles. It struck Edie there was something detached in Helen's manner, as if she thought it were all a game that she was too grown up for. It was almost as though she had left school already, and was coming back to visit.

Everyone seemed much more confident than Edie. But it was Anastasia's performance that startled her. As she stepped up to the front, all her dreaminess seemed to disappear:

‘
If to do were as easy as to know what were good to do, chapels had been churches, and poor men's cottages princes' palaces
,' she recited in her strange, resonant voice.

This time there was none of the hostility Edie had noted in class. Everyone watched in admiring silence. ‘Very good, Anastasia,' Helen smiled when she had finished, making Anastasia blush. As soon as she stopped reading, Edie noticed, she became shy again.

Then Edie heard her own name being called. ‘Just read it slowly and clearly, there's no rush,' Helen said kindly, but as Edie held her page up in front of her she was dismayed to find her hands shaking. As she read out loud her voice sounded strange and uncertain, and she stumbled twice.

‘Thank you, Edith, that was good,' Helen said sweetly, but Edie felt sure it hadn't been, and she worried about
it all evening, wondering if her reading had sounded as bad as she feared. As she lay awake after lights out she felt a little rueful, reflecting how different her concerns were from the night before.

The following afternoon, when the cast list was pinned up outside the dining room, Edie arrived to find a large crowd of first-years all searching eagerly for their names. Anastasia was standing to the side of the group, looking quietly pleased.

‘I'm playing Portia,' she said, turning to Edie. ‘And you're playing Nerissa! That means we do most of our scenes together.'

Edie looked at the list in disbelief, astonished to have been given a speaking part. Anastasia's name was at the very top, so Edie supposed Portia must be the lead role.

She was glad to see Anastasia happy again after her miserable morning. When she had told Miss Winifred about finding the glass bird, she had been made to stand in front of the whole class and admit her mistake. She had looked so embarrassed Edie had found herself squirming.

‘Who
is
Nerissa?' Edie finally thought to ask.

‘She's my maid,' Anastasia said innocently.

Edie recalled Cousin Charles's warning in the car: ‘
More secret servant than secret service
.' She had not much liked the idea of being Anastasia's servant in real life but in a play it felt like a good omen. ‘I think it will be cool to play your maid,' she said, smiling.

But Phoebe, who was standing nearby, gave a derisive snort. ‘Trust you to have a maid, Anastasia! I'm
surprised your father doesn't send you one from Russia!'

Everyone laughed. But Anastasia looked as if she had been struck and Edie felt a flush of anger on her behalf. ‘It's only a play, Phoebe,' she said shortly. ‘There's no need to be like that.'

‘I think Phoebe's jealous,' Belinda teased. ‘
She's
just a gaoler!'

‘Oh, shut up, Belinda,' Phoebe said spitefully. ‘We all know why Helen's made you a Venetian magnifico – because you're fat!'

Belinda's face crumpled.

‘That's horrid,' Rose said quietly.

‘Oh, shut up, clinging Rose!' Phoebe said tauntingly. ‘It's a good thing Belinda's so fat – if she was any smaller you'd smother her!'

‘Lay off, Phoebe,' Edie said in disgust.

But Phoebe had not finished. ‘And we all know why you've been cast as the maid, little Edie,' she sneered. ‘It's because you're
like
a maid. Anyone can see you don't belong here.'

Then, ‘Ouch!' Phoebe cried, as she was silenced by a resounding slap.

Everyone gasped. But Edie looked more startled than anyone. She stood staring stupidly at her hand, as if it were something quite separate from her.

‘
Edith Wilson!
' came a voice that made her heart turn. The Man had appeared. Her face was dark red, and her eyes looked even more protuberant than usual. ‘Come here,' she said.

Edie walked up to her, wondering what was going to
happen next. She had an unusual feeling that the whole incident had nothing to do with her, as though she were merely watching a scene in a play.

‘What provoked this?'

To tell or not to tell? Edie said nothing. The other girls watched uneasily, for Miss Mannering's expression did not bode well. But then Anastasia spoke up.

‘It wasn't Edie's fault, Miss Mannering. It was Phoebe who started it. Edie was only trying to stick up for me.'

‘Phoebe? Have you anything to say?' Miss Mannering asked briskly.

Phoebe shook her head, nursing her cheek theatrically. ‘I don't know what it was about,' she lied.

Miss Mannering looked doubtful. ‘I suspect there was more to this altercation than meets the eye. But in this school we do not settle our differences with physical violence. Edith,' she said, folding her arms, ‘you will apologise to Phoebe immediately.'

Edie turned to Phoebe, but when she saw Phoebe's satisfied smirk her throat burned with anger.

‘Edith?'

Edie glowered. She wasn't sorry. This time she couldn't lie.

‘Very well, I have no option but to report this incident to Miss Fotheringay,' Miss Mannering said coldly. ‘And meanwhile, to help you reflect on your behaviour, you will look up in your Bible the twenty-ninth verse of the fourteenth chapter of
Proverbs
, and write it out one hundred times. You will have plenty of time in which to do so – until you have proven to me that you can control
your temper you will be gated on Saturdays. And for the rest of this week you will go without cake at tea.'

The other girls looked shocked. Edie supposed that even by Miss Mannering's standards this punishment was harsh. She burned with humiliation. She didn't care about cake or gatings – she'd be out of here soon enough – but the thought of going to see Miss Fotheringay worried her more than she cared to admit.

As they filed into the dining room for tea Edie was aware of the other girls looking at her. She sensed they all felt she had gone too far.

‘Poor you,' said Sally, sitting next to her and watching as Edie picked at her slice of buttered bread. ‘The Man's not usually as bad as that. It may be the . . . you know, the thing I told you about. But I bet she'll lift the punishments when you apologise.'

But Edie was still simmering. She would not apologize to Phoebe, not after the things she'd said. And if Miss Mannering wasn't usually so bad, then why had she come down on her so hard? Edie was starting to suspect the deputy headmistress had developed a particular dislike for her after the incident over the shoe box.

‘Edie, you – you
will
apologise, won't you?' Sally asked anxiously.

‘No,' Edie replied.

‘But you
must
. If you don't say sorry the Man will gate you until the end of term. You've only got to
say
it, you don't have to mean it.' Sally lowered her voice. ‘You can just lie!'

Edie shook her head. Even the thought of an insincere apology was more than she could bear. Sally seemed puzzled by her refusal to give in, and when tea was over Edie found herself walking to prep on her own. But as she was about to enter the classroom, Anastasia came hurrying up.

‘Thanks for sticking up for me with the Man,' Edie said gloomily.

‘That was nothing,' Anastasia said, looking at her shyly. ‘Thank
you
for shutting Phoebe up. She's always going on and sometimes I want to kill her, but – oh, Edie, I'd never have dared hit her like that!'

‘That's because you're more sensible than me,' Edie said, reflecting that it was she who had behaved like the drama queen, not Anastasia.

‘I don't know,' Anastasia said thoughtfully. ‘Sometimes words have to be backed up by actions, that's what Papa says, but I'm just too much of a coward. And anyway, no one would be on my side. The others all think that because— Oh, you know, they just think it's all right to tease me.'

‘Well,
I
don't think it's all right,' Edie said.

‘But now you're going to be in trouble with Miss Fotheringay, and all because of me. I hope she isn't
too
cross.'

‘Oh, I'm not worried about her. And she's certainly not going to make me apologise to Phoebe,' Edie said bullishly.

Anastasia looked at her with interest. ‘You are brave,' she said.

Hidden Meanings

E
die might have felt less brave had she seen Miss Fotheringay's expression when Miss Mannering reported her offence. The headmistress stood resting her hand on the mantelpiece, her eyes cold as steel, not a shadow of emotion crossing her face.

‘If you take my advice, Caroline, you'd make her give up her part in the school play,' Miss Mannering said. ‘Children start as they mean to go on and if you don't bring her to heel, her behaviour will get worse.'

‘So,' Miss Fotheringay murmured, ‘the child has a temper, like her mother.'

‘Her mother? I thought she was an orphan.'

‘Even orphans have mothers, Diana. They just happen not to be alive.'

‘You are saying that you know something about Edith
Wilson's mother?'

Miss Fotheringay shrugged. ‘I know something about her. Her name is – or was – Anna Carter. We were at school together.'

Miss Mannering looked surprised: ‘Wasn't she the one—'

‘Yes,' said Miss Fotheringay abruptly. ‘She was the journalist who got herself killed in Moscow eleven years ago.'

‘Really, Caroline, you make it sound as though it was her fault.'

‘We were no longer in touch at the time of her death,' Miss Fotheringay replied tersely. ‘I know very little about the circumstances.'

‘What an extraordinary coincidence.'

‘I can assure you, Diana, I knew nothing about the connection until I discovered it by chance from a photograph in the shoe box you confiscated on Edith's first night. I've had nothing to do with the family since . . .'

‘Since you were accused of wanting too much that wasn't on offer?'

‘I don't know what you mean.'

‘I only know what you've told me, Caroline. But I must admit that your having the child at Knight's Haddon bodes ill for—'

‘She has been delivered to my care,' Miss Fotheringay returned sharply. ‘I did not seek her out.'

‘All the more reason for you to resist the temptation to revisit the past. You have always maintained that boarding school should provide every child with a clean slate.'

Miss Fotheringay did not reply. She turned and stoked the fire with a pair of brass tongs.

‘I am due to take lower-school prep,' Miss Mannering said with sudden briskness. ‘I assume you will send for the child?'

Miss Fotheringay hesitated. Then: ‘Of course,' she said quietly. ‘Send her to me at six.'

Miss Fotheringay waited until the door had clicked shut before crossing the room and running a hand along the secret compartment in her bookshelf. She took out a black box, which she placed on her desk and proceeded to open carefully, drawing out a faded letter from inside. As she unfolded it her mouth hardened. It was her last communication from Anna Carter – written six weeks before Edith was born. Miss Fotheringay turned by force of habit to the second page, and read again the hate-fuelled words that had haunted her for eleven years.

‘
Leave me alone . . . this child has nothing to do with you
.'

‘We'll see about that,' Miss Fotheringay whispered, returning the letter to its box.

Edie was in prep when the summons came.

‘Edith Wilson,' Miss Mannering said, barely looking up from her marking. ‘You are to report to Miss Fotheringay.'

Edie packed away her things, aware of everyone staring at her. By now there could not be a single girl in the whole school who did not know she had slapped
Phoebe, and as she walked out of the classroom something in their watching faces told her she should fear the worst. When she knocked on Miss Fotheringay's door, her hand was shaking.

‘Come in,' said a familiar voice from inside.

Miss Fotheringay was sitting at her desk, with the shoe box placed in front of her. The fire was lit, but there was no tea this time, and no cat.

‘I gather that you and Phoebe Phillips have had a difference of opinion, Edith,' Miss Fotheringay said, steering her to the sofa. ‘Perhaps you would like to tell me what happened.'

Edie flushed. She had felt hot and angry all afternoon but now she could hardly remember what Phoebe had said. In her mind the whole drama had been reduced to one single scene – that of her arm lashing towards Phoebe's face, and the smack that had silenced the whole corridor.

‘I slapped her,' she mumbled.

‘Yes, I gather that much from Miss Mannering. But I am interested to know why. I am assuming you don't slap people every time you have an argument, Edith. Or perhaps you do?' Miss Fotheringay seemed interested, as if they were discussing a painting, or a poem they had both read. There was no reproof in her voice. ‘I would like to know what Phoebe did to upset you, Edith,' she went on. ‘I imagine there must have been some provocation?'

‘Phoebe was being nasty to Anastasia,' Edie replied at last, squirming at how babyish the whole affair now
sounded. ‘She said she was stuck up, and that she should have her own maid, and she said that I'd been cast as her maid in the play because I . . . don't belong here.'

‘Background trouble,' Miss Fotheringay surmised, in a tone of sudden impatience. ‘What is the matter with you all? Can't you see that Knight's Haddon is a chance to leave your old identities behind? I had put this hour aside to teach you some Latin, not to read you the riot act on losing your temper. I view it as an unwelcome change to my timetable.' Miss Fotheringay paused, and Edie wondered if the riot act was over or if it was about to begin. ‘What is the point, Edith, of learning Latin?' the headmistress asked.

‘So you can speak it?' Edie ventured.

Miss Fotheringay smiled. ‘No one speaks Latin, Edith. But those who know Latin speak their own language better. Words have roots, like trees, and in English the roots are often Latin. Unless you can dig to the roots you will often mislay a word's true meaning.'

Edie frowned, not sure she was quite following, but there was something conspiratorial in Miss Fotheringay's tone which made her listen very closely.

‘Let us take the word temper,' Miss Fotheringay went on. ‘It comes from the Latin verb
temperare
, meaning to moderate. We also have the verb “to temper”, meaning to soften. And yet you probably think of temper as something hard and uncontrollable.'

Edie nodded shyly.

‘You need to keep both meanings in mind, Edith. You
will learn to temper your temper, and you will, of course, apologise to Phoebe.'

Edie did not protest.

‘Meanwhile Miss Mannering has suggested that I exclude you from the play.'

Edie's face fell.

‘But under the circumstances,' Miss Fotheringay smiled, ‘I feel that might be a little severe. Tell me,' she added, as though the thought had only just struck her, ‘did Miss Mannering take any action herself?'

Edie nodded. ‘She's gated me on Saturday afternoons, and I'm not allowed cake at tea time, and I have to write out the twenty-ninth verse of the fourteenth chapter of
Proverbs
one hundred times.'

‘I see,' Miss Fotheringay said. ‘I'm not sure I remember the twenty-ninth verse of the fourteenth chapter of
Proverbs
. Perhaps you could remind me.'

Edie could, for she had already written it out fifty times during prep. ‘“He that is slow to wrath is of great understanding: but he that is hasty of spirit exalteth folly,”' she recited in a bold, unhappy voice.

‘Very apt,' Miss Fotheringay murmured. Then, ‘Are you hungry?' she asked, and without waiting for an answer she stood up and disappeared through a small, internal door at the back of her study. She returned with a tray laid with a teapot and the remains of a marbled cake. ‘You might as well eat some now, if Miss Mannering intends to starve you,' she said, cutting Edie a large slice.

Edie was honoured to be part of this plot. She wondered if Miss Fotheringay had cooked the cake herself,
and who had eaten the rest of it.

‘Now,' Miss Fotheringay said briskly. ‘Latin.' She placed a book in Edie's lap, and pointed to a line at the top of the page. ‘Read that.'

The strangeness of the words brought a flush of panic to Edie's face. ‘F . . .
fas
. . .
e . . . est et ab h . . . hos . . . d . . . do . . . doc
,' she stammered.

‘
Fas est et ab hoste doceri
,' Miss Fotheringay corrected her. ‘“Right it is to be taught, even by the enemy.” You will do well to remember those words, Edith, during your time at Knight's Haddon. Although I hope you do not consider yourself to have any enemies among my staff, Edith?'

Edie thought of the Man, and was startled to realise her thoughts were being read.

‘If you wish to establish better relations with Miss Mannering, Edith, I would advise you to prove yourself in class,' Miss Fotheringay said.

Edie chewed her cheeks. Despite her reservations about the Man, she had enjoyed her first history lesson. The only history Babka had ever taught her had been to do with Poland. Her grandmother had remembered her country's historic sufferings bitterly, banging her fist on the kitchen table while recounting the wickedness of the Nazis and the Communists. Miss Mannering's lessons were much more fun. She talked about the past as an exciting story which had to be pieced together from clues, and Edie always found herself wanting to know more. But she hadn't yet put her hand up to ask a question, suspecting how much the Man disliked her.

‘Knight's Haddon might seem strict in comparison with a day school, Edith, but we all want to help you settle in,' Miss Fotheringay said.

Edie looked guarded, feeling guilty about having so much to hide.

‘I am always here if you need to talk,' Miss Fotheringay added, and Edie felt even worse.

It was almost a relief when they returned to Latin. But when Edie opened her pencil case and took out her green fountain pen, she noticed Miss Fotheringay's eyes fix on it. ‘It belonged to my mother,' Edie said awkwardly, sensing an explanation was required. ‘It's got her initials on it, A.L.C. – or . . . or at least they used to be her initials before she got married and became a W.' She wondered if Miss Fotheringay was going to say that tortoise-shell fountain pens engraved with parents' initials were against the school rules, for she was giving it very close attention. ‘I don't have many things belonging to my mother,' she heard herself saying instead. ‘My parents lived abroad and after they were— after they died, everything got left behind. There aren't even many photographs left and I haven't got any of my mother's letters or—'

Edie stopped. She tended never to discuss these things, and she wondered if Miss Fotheringay would show impatience, as Babka would have done.

But Miss Fotheringay had put the Latin books to one side. ‘How much do you know about your mother?' she asked.

‘Not as much as I would like. Babka is my father's mother and she never really talks about my mother. Nor
does Aunt Sophia, even though she was her sister. And I don't even know who her friends were.' Edie frowned. ‘Maybe she didn't have many – she was a war correspondent, so she was always travelling. But then sometimes I wonder if . . .'

‘What?' Miss Fotheringay prompted.

‘Sometimes I wonder if there are things Babka doesn't want me know.'

Miss Fotheringay was silent a moment, as she sat examining a gold ring on her right hand. ‘What about your Cousin Charles?' she asked eventually. ‘Have you talked to him about your mother?'

‘He says he hardly remembers her,' Edie said. ‘He saw her a bit as a child, I think, but not after she grew up. They're not close cousins. He'd never even met me before he came to supper at Aunt Sophia's.'

‘Had he not?' Miss Fotheringay paused, as if to take this in. ‘How do you get on with him?' she asked unexpectedly.

Edie hesitated. Cousin Charles had warned her never to trust anyone. But she thought with a sudden longing what a relief it would be to tell Miss Fotheringay the truth – that his pretence at being a loving guardian was all a sham, and that she wasn't really his ward, but the prince's plant.

Miss Fotheringay, as if anticipating a confession, quietly got up and went to stand by the window.

‘Cousin Charles, he's not . . . oh, he's all right,' Edie said hurriedly.

A bell clanged, signalling the end of prep. Miss
Fotheringay got up and returned holding the shoe box. Edie knew, as it was handed back to her, that its entire contents had been gone through.
How dare she?
But her silent protest was insincere. Edie didn't care. As she looked up, into her headmistress's eyes, she was aware of some force she had no will to resist.

‘I have removed the mobile telephone. As I'm sure you know, they are strictly forbidden.'

‘I know, I'm sorry, It was just—'

‘Everyone tries it on in the beginning,' Miss Fotheringay said dismissively. ‘No one succeeds. You'll find, in the end, that it's a relief not to be in touch with the outside world. Knight's Haddon is your world now, Edith. So long as you are here, in my care, there is no other.'