And—”Here we are!” said Valerie, at last. And there was the school in the distance. Ever since she had accepted the post Susan had wondered what the school might look like, and the reality of it was that it was small and flat and rather unassuming. She felt some relief, and also a little disappointment.
Valerie explained that, its name notwithstanding, the school had really very little to do with H___. It was simply the closest town, and no one could agree what the name of this bit of countryside precisely was. The children were taken from the various villages and hamlets around, sometimes to a distance of fifteen miles—all the communities who didn’t quite belong to anyone else, they could fit in here. Most of the children boarded; it was simply too much effort for them to go back to their parents very often. There were never more than a hundred pupils in the school at any one time, and they were divided into three classes. The youngest, and largest, were the eight to ten year olds, who’d be taught by Miss Cowley. The middle class was for the ten to twelves, taken by Miss Bewes herself. The remaining class ranged all the way from twelve to seventeen, and Mrs Phelps was in charge of them. That said, very few of the children were seventeen; in fact, very few of the children stayed at the school once they were teenagers.
“And what happens to them after that?” asked Susan.
“Oh, Lord knows. They probably go off and marry each other! I don’t think there are any pupils from H___ Priory who have ever amounted to much. They come from the countryside, they just drift back into it again.” Valerie laughed. “No, they’re fine, they’re good kids, mostly.”
Bordering the school was the little cottage that Susan and Valerie would share. Valerie seemed to think Susan already knew and had agreed to this arrangement, and Susan had no desire to disabuse her. “It’s nice and homely,” said Valerie. “Shared bathroom, shared kitchen, shared personal area, you know, all mod cons. Separate bedrooms. Let me show you your bedroom.”
The bedroom was plain. It was not as pretty as her bedroom at Exley Hall, or even her bedroom at home. The bed looked hard, the single pillow lumpy. The walls were bare.
“It just needs to be lived in a bit,” said Valerie. “It’s wonders what you can do with a few pictures around. I’ll show you my bedroom, later, if you like.”
Valerie offered to make them both some supper, she had soup on the stove. Susan declined, but thanked her. Valerie said that she would introduce her to Mrs Phelps the next day, and then to the children.
“All right,” said Susan. “Thank you. Good night.”
Valerie laughed, and said, “My darling, whatever must you have done to end up here!”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Oh, I don’t mean anything by it! I’m sorry. But as if anyone would choose to come here. Most of them can’t get away from the place fast enough. Like Miss Fortescue, good riddance, the miserable old trout. Oh, I tell you, my darling, it’s going to be so much more fun living with you than it was with her!”
The Bewes woman left her then, mercifully, but not before once more offering Susan her hand to shake. And Susan got undressed, and lay on her bed, and propped her head up on the pillow as best as she could, and stared up at the ceiling, and listened to the rain, and tried not to dream about Edwin this time.
In the morning it was still raining hard, and Susan and Valerie had to run from the cottage to the school, Valerie whooping with joy as if it were some great game.
Susan was introduced to Mrs Phelps. Mrs Phelps did not shake her hand. Mrs Phelps had no interest in her hand whatsoever.
“The headmaster and I are sure you’ll be most suitable, Miss Cowley,” she said. “I doubt we’ll have much cause to speak again, we’ll be in different classrooms, of course.”
“Of course.”
Susan wondered whether she was going to meet the headmaster as well. Valerie laughed, and said she hadn’t seen Mr Phelps in simply ages; he stayed in the house, bedridden most likely, and passed on instructions through his wife. “Or maybe he’s run away,” she joked. “Or maybe he’s dead! Anything rather than live with that old dragon.”
Valerie took Susan to her own classroom. The children were already inside.
“Just don’t let them know it’s your first time,” she said.
“How do you know it’s my first time?”
“Oh, my dear, it’s so obvious! To me, I mean, not to them. Just try to keep them occupied. There’s a whole stack of books in the cupboards, get them reading, that eats up the time. And if anyone misbehaves, just strike them with the cane.”
“Oh!” said Susan. “No, I couldn’t!”
“You’ll be doing them a favour,” said Valerie. “That way they’ll know you’re in charge. You’ll be doing me a favour too, I’ll be inheriting some of these kids next term! The cane is your friend. Miss Fortescue, she got through half a dozen of them, we had to get in a fresh supply!”
“Yes,” said Susan. “All right.”
“Don’t you worry, you’ll be wonderful. You’ve got just the face for it! The children will adore you. And tonight I’ll make us some nice supper, and you can tell me all about your adventures.”
Susan entered the classroom then, and shut the adult world out. She immediately felt calmer. She looked out across the children, all of them eyeing her warily. Little girls in pretty blouses, boys big before their time with dirty faces and dirty fingernails.
“Good morning, class,” she said. And they all got to their feet then, and mumbled good morning back. She hadn’t expected that. She rather liked it. She hoped she’d kept it off her face, that surprise, and that pleasure. She was sure she had.
“My name is Miss Cowley,” she told them. “And I’m here to look after you.”
She looked through the cupboards. The children helped her. There were the books, as Miss Bewes had promised. There was also a map, as big as the blackboard. There were drawing pads. There was a whole colony of wooden abacuses.
She put the map up on the wall. It was an old map, and she knew some of the countries didn’t exist any more, not since the war. The children were still able to point out some of the better ones, like France and Spain, and show her where England was. Afterwards, she set the children on to the drawing pads, told them they could draw whatever they liked, and use crayons to colour the pictures in. Some of the drawings were really rather good, and she took the map down and put the drawings in its place.
After lunch she asked the children what subjects they most liked, and they all said they liked stories, and that meant history. So she told them an Arthurian legend. The children listened, quite spellbound, as if they’d never even heard of Sir Gawain or his green knight, and at one point the realisation that these thirty young strangers were hanging on her every word made Susan freeze with stage fright; they waited patiently; she recovered; she began to enjoy herself. Already in her head she was planning other stories she could share with them the next day, and the day after that, and all the days following.
It only went wrong towards the end of the afternoon.
Susan suggested they move on to mathematics. She was pleased that none of the children groaned, or looked unhappy at the prospect; by this point, it seemed, they would have followed her anywhere, even into the realms of simple arithmetic. “Why not show me what you already know?” she said. “Who here would like to stand before the class, and recite the times tables with me?”
No one volunteered. But then, no one resisted either. “How about you?” she asked a little girl sitting near the front, and the little girl got to her feet quite happily.