First term at fernside, p.2
First Term at Fernside, page 2
‘Robin!’ She flung grateful, drowning arms round her cousin.
Robin stiffened and did not hug her back, and behind her she heard a scornful giggle.
‘I assume this is your cousin,’ said a cool, amused voice. ‘You didn’t say she was so – exuberant.’
Linnet gulped. ‘Oh – I’m not,’ she tried to explain. She had been so close to crying that her voice came out strangled and high. She took a deep, calming breath. ‘I’m usually very quiet. I was just relieved to see Robin.’
‘Clearly.’ A fair-haired girl with glasses, the owner of that cool voice, emerged from the crowd and looked Linnet up and down. ‘We don’t go in for that kind of thing at Fernside House.’
‘Babs!’ A girl with long brown plaits shook her head. ‘Don’t be horrible.’ She smiled at Linnet. ‘I’m Evangeline,’ she said. ‘This is Fran – she’s new too.’ Fran had red hair and a distracted air.
‘Let’s go, before Matron lectures us on loitering.’ Robin extricated herself from Linnet’s embrace and stalked off to Lilac dorm.
Linnet hovered. What should she do? Matron had sent her to the junior common room, but now that the others had arrived, was she meant to stay with them instead? Evangeline looked back and said, ‘Come with us, Linnet. Meet everyone properly.’ She took this as her cue and, dashing at her eyes to rub away those treacherous tears, scurried after the others.
So this was how the dorm felt with all the girls! Noisy and bouncing. Like living in an ant colony. Except ants were more businesslike. Also, if you lived in an ant colony you would be the same as everyone else; you would all be ants. Linnet looked from girl to girl as they unpacked, firing open drawers, banging wardrobe doors, all the time chattering, chattering, chattering, and she didn’t feel like one of them at all. Fran was unpacking with glum competence, not dropping anything. Robin was saying she would die without hockey, and Evangeline was saying it would be all right, and Robin was saying she didn’t see how, and Babs was saying good riddance to hockey as far as she was concerned.
It was a foreign language.
Linnet dared not think about her silent room at home, the window seat where she would sit for hours listening for birdsong and watching the bees and butterflies in the buddleia beneath.
It felt as if all the rush and chatter was inside her, and if she didn’t escape she would burst. But outside the dorm was even scarier. Swallowing panic, she dashed to the open window and yanked it up further so at least she could breathe fresh air. For a moment she only breathed, and then she looked.
The back garden: flowerbeds, a small shrubbery, vegetable patches, a tennis court. Then a high wooden fence and beyond it …
Green, green, green – a little wood of gnarled old trees, and thick shrubs and wildflowers, nothing but foliage sloping down to a dark line that she knew must be the River Lagan. And beyond that, the far bank was lined with hedgerows and then thickly wooded slopes.
Linnet closed her eyes, and when she opened them again the view was still there.
‘Oh!’ she couldn’t help crying out. ‘It’s wonderful!’
Robin joined her at the window. ‘I know,’ she said. ‘It’s one of the best things about school.’
‘But that’s not all Fernside House, is it? There’s a fence and a hedge …’
‘It’s not the school grounds, no,’ Robin explained, ‘but it’s right next door. It’s called Rowanbank. There’s a house – you can’t see it through the trees – and lots of old sheds and stables. Nobody lives there – it’s been empty for ages.’
‘And are we allowed to go there?’ Linnet hardly dared ask the question.
‘Not exactly allowed. But we do – there’s a gap in the fence. I’ll show you if you like.’
‘It looks like an enchanted wilderness,’ said Linnet.
‘I don’t know about enchanted wilderness,’ Robin said, ‘but it’s brilliant for hide-and-seek. Some of those trees are just begging to be climbed.’
‘There must be rowans. I always think they’re magical.’
‘I suppose so. I never thought about the name, actually,’ Robin said, which Linnet found very odd.
Babs joined them at the window and gave a low whistle when she saw the view. ‘Gosh!’ she said. ‘Mabel slept in Lilac last term. She said it had the best view, but I thought that was just Mabel showing off.’
‘And it’s one of the bigger dorms,’ Robin said.
‘I think it’s quite small,’ Linnet said, ‘for six people. If you calculated how much space each girl has, it’s probably only about—’
‘Why don’t you measure it?’ Babs suggested.
Evangeline said, looking up from her packing, ‘There aren’t six. Only five.’
Robin went to the empty bed on the other side of Linnet’s and read out the little card on the pillow. ‘Sadie Hayes. Do we know Sadie Hayes?’
‘She must be new,’ Evangeline said. ‘Miss Taylor did say we’d another new girl with us. Isn’t that nice?’ She beamed. ‘You’ll soon get used to everything,’ she said to Fran and Linnet.
Fran shrugged.
‘I don’t think I will,’ Linnet said.
Robin gave her a little frown. ‘Of course you will,’ she said. It sounded less a reassurance than a warning. Linnet felt a shiver, and then a spark of hope when she remembered what she had seen from the window. That wonderland beyond the fence! She couldn’t wait to explore.
Chapter 3
Strictly Out of Bounds
Evangeline lingered after dinner, taking her time to load her tray and take it to the trolley, glancing at Robin as if waiting to be noticed.
Finally, Robin gave in. ‘Hurry up,’ she said. ‘You’re holding us all back and if we’re late for Prayers we’ll be in trouble.’
Evangeline breathed hard through her nose. ‘That’s the thing,’ she said. ‘I’m taking Fran with me; I could take Linnet too only …’
‘Only what?’
‘Well, I thought you might want to. She’s your cousin.’
‘I know she’s my cousin, thank you.’
Evangeline looked pointedly down to the far end of the table, where Linnet, slowly and clumsily, was stacking her dishes. Robin could see that she had barely touched her dinner, even though first-night fare was always delicious – fat sausages, fried potatoes and cabbage, followed by tinned peaches and cream. Robin took it as a personal insult against Fernside House that Linnet had scorned hers. And did she need to look so – Robin searched for the right word – droopy? Her hair hung in ratty tails over her face, and her blue tunic, instead of stopping at her knees like most people’s, was streeling around her thin calves.
‘She looks lonely,’ Evangeline said. ‘I’d ask her to chum with Fran and me only I don’t want to get in your way. If you’re looking after her.’
Robin was about to say that she wasn’t looking after Linnet, and that Evangeline could chum with her until she was ninety for all she cared, but then Linnet met her eyes with an uncertain smile, and started to walk towards the trolley, balancing her tray very carefully, her tongue held between her teeth with concentration, and Robin remembered, with an unwelcome stab, what it had felt like a year ago, being new. How grateful she had been that the other new girl, Babs, had been keen to make friends. She made herself smile at Evangeline. ‘I’ll take her.’
‘You should have kept her a place at dinner.’
Robin’s teeth started to ache. That was the thing with Evangeline: she always went that bit too far along the path of righteousness. But though annoying she was also right.
‘I know. I was talking about hockey with Giulia and Mabel. Everyone’s shattered about the pitch. We don’t know what we’re going to do.’
‘But the new building looks lovely,’ Evangeline said.
‘Not as lovely as the hockey pitch.’
Robin retrieved Linnet, who looked relieved, as did Josie, the kitchen maid who couldn’t wipe the table while Linnet was faffing about. ‘Sorry I forgot to keep you a place,’ Robin said. ‘I got distracted.’
‘That’s all right.’ Linnet looked happier. ‘I get distracted too. Mummy says I’m like a butterfly. But I don’t think I am really. It’s more that I have a lot of interests, and sometimes I don’t know which one I want to think about. I don’t think it can really be like that for butterflies. I mean’ – she sounded very serious – ‘I don’t think they have interests, as such. They just fly about and pollinate things. Though I suppose that might be quite absorbing if you’re a butterfly. What do you think?’
‘I’ve never thought about it,’ Robin said honestly. What she did think, quite strongly, was that she hoped Linnet wouldn’t come out with too much of this kind of nonsense, and certainly not in front of people.
On the way to the hall she showed Linnet the places she would need to know. Linnet screwed up her face at every one, as if trying to commit it to memory.
‘Junior common room – where we live when we’re not in lessons or games or bed.’ Robin flung open the door to show a big, shabby room with bay windows, well-worn sofas and, on either side of the fireplace, shelves stuffed with games and books. ‘It won’t be so tidy in a day or so. We share it with the thirds and the upper fourths. The babies – first and second formers – have the room next door, but they always have a mistress or prefect with them.’
‘What about the big girls?’
‘Senior common room’s at the back. It’s supposed to be quieter for them to study, but I think it’s because it has French doors out to the garden, and they can be trusted not to sneak out.’
‘You mean we aren’t allowed in the garden?’ Linnet’s browny-green eyes widened in alarm. ‘But—’
‘Of course we are. We have gardening lessons – so dull. Babs says it’s just so Miss Rea can save on paying a full-time gardener. And we can go out at break, and for half an hour after lunch and an hour after afternoon lessons. And in the evenings after prep, but only in the summer term and September. And not on Mondays because of Activities.’
Linnet was looking more and more horrified, so Robin changed the subject. ‘Look,’ she said, pointing at a big oil painting. ‘That’s Miss Burn.’
‘Is she the headmistress?’
‘The founder. She was headmistress for donkeys’ years. She’s ancient now – sixtyish. Fernside House was just an ordinary house before. She was left it by her aunt and she decided to start a school.’
‘Like Jo March!’ Linnet clapped her hands childishly.
‘Who’s she?’
‘From Little Women? Well, she gets left the house in Good Wives, doesn’t she, but she doesn’t start the school until—’
Robin was not fond of reading, especially not books with soppy titles like Good Wives, so she hurried on. ‘Miss Burn retired a few years ago. The seniors remember her. Lucy says she was keen on hockey. Lucy’s the games captain.’
‘Oh, I know her,’ Linnet said with surprising confidence.
‘How could you know Lucy?’
‘She helped me with my trunk.’
‘I don’t know what she’s going to say about the state of the hockey pitch.’
Linnet looked at her blankly, and Robin said, ‘Never mind, we’ll hear all about it in Prayers I suppose,’ and as she steered Linnet left at the end of the passage, to the big hall they used for assemblies and entertainments, her tummy flipped. Were they to lose their hockey pitch, and therefore their hockey, forever? Miss Rea, the headmistress, had only been at the school for a couple of years, and was known not to care as much for games as Miss Burn.
It was always called Prayers, but they didn’t do much praying. A brisk thank you – ‘for bringing us safely back together after refreshing holidays’; a request for heavenly guidance ‘in all our work and play’; a quick ‘Our Father’ and then on to the serious business of the first night of term. Miss Rea was a tall, dark woman, her hair bobbed like a girl’s, wearing a university gown over her heathery wool frock. She blah-blahed about examination results – one of last year’s leavers was going to Queen’s College, one to Trinity College Dublin, and one, Margaret Stewart – Miss Rea’s voice became very impressive – had won an entrance scholarship to Newnham, in Cambridge. (Margaret’s younger sister Mabel tried and failed to look nonchalant.)
‘Modest results, girls,’ Miss Rea said, ‘but a start. As you know, Fernside House has always had an excellent reputation for games and deportment, but less so for academic achievement. We have been too content to let other schools – the Victoria Colleges and Methodist Colleges of this world – take the honours. But those days are gone.’ She sounded fierce.
Robin, who had perked up at the word ‘games’, drooped again as Miss Rea went on about qualifications and taking their places as modern young women in a new world. I don’t want a new world, Robin thought, I just want the old one with the hockey pitch in it.
‘Talking of new worlds,’ Miss Rea said, ‘I have both good and bad news about our new laboratory building.’
Babs pretended to expire from boredom which made Robin stifle a giggle, and Nell McGreavy, sitting at the end of their row, give them both stern looks.
‘As you can see, the building itself is finished, and I’m sure you’ll agree it’s splendid.’
The girls murmured politely.
‘However, we did encroach more than planned on the area formerly used as a hockey pitch.’
Robin didn’t like the sound of that ‘formerly’. ‘This was because of drainage – I won’t bore you with the technical details. The area will be filled in and landscaped and when it is finished it will look jolly well. Yes – Lucy?’
Lucy, looking very mindful of her position, stood up. ‘Please, Miss Rea, does that mean the hockey pitch will be – er, reinstated?’
All over the assembly hall, the sports-minded girls sat up and paid attention, none more so than Robin. Giulia and Mabel, the other lower-fourth boarders hoping to make the team, clasped hands and gave Robin meaningful looks. Surely Miss Rea would say that the pitch would be back to normal soon – by the following week at the latest?
‘I’m afraid not.’ There was a rumble of dismay; Giulia gasped, and Miss Rea put up a warning hand. ‘Girls! Show some self-control and allow me to continue. Giulia Caprini, if you interrupt Prayers again, you will have the distinction of being awarded the first bad conduct mark of the year.’
‘I beg your pardon, Miss Rea. I am so’ – Giulia searched for the right word – ‘devastata.’ Her dark eyes glittered and she clutched her chest.
‘There is no need for histrionics, Giulia. And the English word is almost identical so I’m sure you could have used it. Though I think disappointed would be a more appropriate alternative.’
But Robin thought Giulia’s Italian word devastata summed it up pretty well.
‘I will be looking for a new hockey pitch,’ Miss Rea went on, as if a hockey pitch were something you could pick up in Arnott’s department store. ‘In the meantime, you must keep fit with drill, and walking and gardening – the form gardens are looking rather sorry for themselves. And Miss Taylor has something which might cheer you up.’
Miss Taylor stood up. ‘Indeed. For those who crave team sports, I have something new.’ Most of the girls tried to hide their scepticism, because Miss Taylor, as broad as she was tall, did not look like a sporting pioneer. ‘Netball,’ she went on. ‘I stayed in a holiday camp this summer with some chums’ – Robin blinked at the idea of the Teapot having chums and going to a holiday camp – ‘and it became quite a craze. It’s a jolly good game, and it can be played indoors. Miss Rea has given me permission to order some posts, and Mr Connor is going to mark out a court in the gym. In the meantime, you can all learn passing and catching.’
She sat down, and the girls exchanged looks. It didn’t sound too bad, Robin thought – better than gardening. But oh, an indoor game couldn’t be a patch on hockey! Running like the wind down the pitch, the chill air stinging your burning cheeks, your lungs bursting with effort, the wonderful feeling of control when you dribbled the ball, the stick an extension of your arm, the excitement of tackling, the thrill of scoring, or even of helping to set up a goal, and the euphoria when you won! Even when you lost, you lost together. She had taken to hockey ‘like a duck to water’, Miss Curran, the games mistress had told her. What if she was no good at netball?
Miss Rea had moved on from games and was giving her usual start of term lecture about avoiding bad conduct marks. ‘Remember they count against not just the individual but her form – with obvious consequences for the Form Shield.’ She looked very stern as she surveyed them all. ‘I see several girls who still bear rather a holiday air. Plaits tomorrow, please, anyone who isn’t bobbed or shingled.’
Giulia tossed her long dark curls and sighed as if she were being asked to shave her head.
Well, that would sort out Linnet: she would have to plait all that straggly hair now.
Miss West, the senior mistress, stepped forward and whispered something in Miss Rea’s ear.
‘Ah yes. One last thing,’ Miss Rea said. ‘Rowanbank, the house next door, has been sold at last.’ There were some mutterings. ‘I haven’t yet had the pleasure of meeting the new owner – a Doctor Flynn I believe, but we must ensure that he never has cause to regret living beside a girls’ school. I know that some of you have been in the habit of treating Rowanbank’s grounds rather as an extension of our own, and I have never troubled to forbid it. But now of course that must change. Rowanbank is out of bounds.’
Robin looked at Babs in horror. Giulia screwed up her face. Even Linnet, too new to understand, looked shocked.
‘Strictly out of bounds,’ Miss Rea stressed. ‘And now, you must all be tired after your journeys. You may go to your common rooms until bedtime. I wish you all a most successful term. Good night, girls.’ She swept off the platform, followed by the rest of the mistresses, while the girls stood up and chorused, ‘Good night, Miss Rea.’
All except one. One girl scrambled halfway to her feet, then seemed to fall over them. ‘Ow!’ she cried out. ‘My feet have died.’ Miss Kavanagh, the third-form mistress, stopped beside her and said kindly, ‘I imagine they have gone numb from sitting.’ But Matron gave Robin a look that said, Please look after your cousin better.
