CHAPTER 3

A GABARDINE SCHOOL RAINCOAT DAY

It was with an undisguised amused chuckle that Daphne Larkspear held up the raincoat for the two girls’ inspection. It was regulation style double-breasted gabardine school mackintosh typical of the early 1960s. Manufactured in a light grey rubberised fabric and lined in a thick glossy bottle-green dominated tartan fabric it was fitted with a buckle belt supported by two keepers attached to the mackintosh one on either side of the waist.

From the shoulders hung an attached hood with a square back and top, a common style on girl’s school raincoat hoods of that era. The hood had a similar lining, and both a buttoned flap that fastened under the chin, and two long tapes that could also be secured tightly under the chin. The thing was clearly quite heavy, smelled heavily of rubber and rustled with the slightest movement, the latter two characteristics testifying to the extra waterproofing layer of rubber that lay between the outer gabardine skin and the inner lining.

Mrs Larkspear held the mackintosh up for Angel to slip into first, the stick-thin, flat-chested girl obediently slipping her arms back into the sleeves as the stern teacher-governess held it open for her. Moving around in front of the red-cheeked Angel as Alice looked on, a growing look of distaste crossing Alice’s face and a petulant pout forming on her lips, Mrs Larkspear fastened the buttons up to the girl’s neck before threading the belt through the grey plastic buckle and pulling it tight around Angel’s tint waist, pausing to secure the button at the end of the belt before stepping back to admire her handiwork.

“I don’t envisage either of you being well behaved enough to be allowed out of the house other than very seldom, but if I should on occasion accord you this privilege, then you will wear your school uniform gabardine raincoat, fully buttoned up to the neck, tightly belted and with her hood up - whether rain or shine and without argument.” There came a unison groan from both girls. “Well, it’s up to you - personally I don’t care if either of you ever see the sun or the sky again. The raincoat is part of your school uniform, a school uniform that is both to my liking and Alice’s stepmother’s and we have both agreed that it will be very strictly enforced - at all times and for all occasions and functions. If you are going to be allowed outdoors, however briefly, we will insist that you wear a good, smart gabardine to go with your uniform. It’s either that or you don’t ever leave the confines of your dormitory and the schoolroom - I would think it over carefully if I were you. After all is said and done; I think I can honestly say that Lady Marchment and I really do know what is best for you children.

Alice felt her fists clench, her nails - what there were of them - digging in to her palms, gouging her flesh as she’d like to gouge the woman’s eyes. She was bristling, but more with impotent frustration than with anger; she wanted to scream out that she wasn’t a child; she was a biologically grown woman, capable of having children of her own. But between them, her stepmother, her stepmother’s doctor friend and now this schoolteacher woman, they had her over a barrel - and that powerlessness was slowly stifling her, grinding down her rebellious spirit; her flame was gradually going out.

She had been so free once, but she had taken that freedom for granted, failed to see it for the privilege it undoubtedly was. Now most days were squandered on her behalf, putting her through eight hours of written impositions. Home schooling consisted of drearily protracted lessons, copying out dictionary pages or writing punitive lines by the thousands, punctuated by breaks, with her pert nose pressed into the corner, or corporal discipline on those occasions when her posture is deemed to be anything less than perfect. Even using the ‘cloakroom’ was regimented, permitted only at set times, unless of course she wanted to use a commode chair set up front before the teacher’s desk.

Then there was Angel, her only peer connection, if she could call that pathetic dried, wilted dispirited thing a peer. The girl had been reduced to an automaton with terror-filled eyes that would do anything to avoid displeasing her mistress, the domineering Mrs Larkspear, or ‘Miss Daphne’ as the two of them were humiliatingly obliged to address her as.

“Pay attention, girl!” Mrs Larkspear’s harsh tones brought Alice back to reality with a start. “You’re not here to daydream. In fact you should think of yourself for all intents and purposes as back at school.”

At 18? To Alice, her eyes momentarily locked angrily on the old-fashioned looking schoolmarm figure in front of her, it sounded ridiculous, impossible. And yet her eyes averted involuntarily, Alice finding herself unable to meet the woman’s stern gaze, her head bowed and her hands clasped themselves submissively in front of her school skirt as if having a will of their own, or rather as if under her teacher’s will.

“I can guess what you are thinking. But you should see yourself as actually being very fortunate to be getting this chance to start anew. Perhaps you can make a success of your schooling this time... Hmmm? Now slip your arms into the sleeves of your school raincoat and we’ll get your gabardine all buttoned up and belted and your hood up ready for our little stroll out - what a lucky, lucky girl you are!” Alice felt her nose wrinkle with distaste as she felt her arms being guided back into the long sleeves and the cuffs being buttoned at her wrists. Over the top of the long-sleeved fully buttoned school cardigan she had on the gabardine raincoat felt hot already - and it wasn’t even buttoned up yet, let alone once the hood was put up and tied under her chin; Alice could only guess at the discomfort she would have to suffer then.

This was to be the day’s exercise period, a walk around the enclosed gardens in the spitting rain, dressed like an absurdly out of date schoolgirl. It wasn’t destined to last too long. Alice had spotted an avenue to freedom and was determined to use it. The trouble was that her governess was equally observant; and every bit as determined.

“You stupid, stupid girl, Alice; don’t you ever do that again! Do you hear me?” Daphne Larkspear slapped Alice twice around the face, the dour Scot then grabbing her by the ear, twisting it painfully until the girl buckled at the waist. Alice, stunned and determined not to cry, did not resist as she was dragged back towards the main body of the house.

“Not content with defacing the quadrangle’s walls - did you think I wouldn’t see, you little fool? ...” A white knuckled finger stabbed angrily to where a brick fragment, doubtless loosened by frost from the edging of one of the flanking raised flowerbeds, had been used to scratch a spidery orange-scared entreaty; faint but legible enough if one were kneeling, perhaps tending the shrubs and border plants that ranged in deceptively informal profusion. A sort of sneer of derision bracketed the continuation of the tirade: “... You had to start throwing stones up at the house - I watched you doing it, as soon as you thought my back was turned - I saw you tossing little pinches of gravel up at that window over the annexe, there.” She gave a little laugh: “I was tipped off.”

She suddenly smiled up the figure that had first caught Alice’s eye, to where a dumpy, middle-aged woman in a lilac zip-fronted nylon overall, her grey-flecked tawny hair tied up in a lilac and white headscarf and clearly standing on a chair or set of steps now filled the offending frame. Brandishing a glass bottle containing a similarly lilac-hued substance in one hand and a yellow duster in the other, the woman was describing smeared sweeping mauve half-circles on the inside of the glass before polishing off with a practiced flourish using a second cloth plucked from a hip pocket in her work dress. The cleaning woman paused mid-sweep, acknowledging Mrs Larkspear’s smile with a cheery good-natured wave and smile of her own - the sort of sympathetic, understanding smile that told of the folly of a young girl’s hastily-built hopes structured too quickly around the unexpected appearance of a stranger in their midst.

Alice’s governess called out, nodding pointedly towards the now flustered Alice: “Sorry about that! Take no notice of her; she’s a delicate girl, as I said, and not long released from hospital I’m afraid.” The woman silently mouthed her understanding from the other side of the pane she was presently polishing, a beaming smile of comprehension that instantly quenched any hope either girl held of recruiting an ally from that direction or of getting word out. Now indicating Angel, Mrs Larkspear called out again: “This other one, here, has no such excuse; she’s just a little simple-minded and prone to a little obstinacy, is all. But I’ll soon nip that in the bud; a little discipline is all she needs!” The enthusiastic grin returned from the other at the window came perhaps a little too readily, the woman’s response to the latter implication perhaps a little too unfazed to be taken entirely as natural - not that either girl would likely have noticed, given the circumstances.

Their tutor cum governess urging Angel impatiently along from behind and leading the yelping Alice by her twisted ear - the latter bent double and bordering on tripping as she struggled to keep step - the two girls were bustled along the now slippery colonnaded walkway. Reaching the point from where they had originally entered the courtyard gardens - quaintly termed ‘The Quadrangle’ - Alice found herself released from the woman’s unrelenting grip, only to be then thrust forward with such venom that she almost tumbled.

With Angel to the fore, she was briskly ushered down the short flight of damp, stone steps to where the double doors of the ‘rear parlour’ gave out on to the short exterior basement run, the latter area’s ground level ceiling of iron bars and surround of black-painted square railings doing nothing to deter the driving rain. There came a grinding of hinges and a ringing metallic clang as the heavy iron-railed gate that stood guard at the top of the steps was slammed shut by Mrs Larkspear behind them, the clattering of the woman’s keys as she turned the lock soon joined by her hard edged voice ordering them indoors - “or else!”

Raindrops were splattering against the French doors as they were slammed closed behind them, the glass rattling in its panes. The diamond sectioned concertina security gate was drawn across in a jiffy, the steel grille expanding and gliding smoothly and near silently in it runners. There was just the vaguest rattle as, reaching the end of its travel, the security gate shuddered as its catch mated with the steel surround and lock tumblers briefly clattered with reassuring confidence. Then the heavy, lined, ruby-red velvet ‘blackout’ curtains were drawn across and the inclemency of the world outside was reduced to a distant muffle.

Alice’s stepmother exchanged glances with her ex-teacher as the latter followed the two girls into the room, bringing up the rear. Smiling she was swinging the key to the steel shuttering she had just slammed across the French doors around her finger as she led the way across to the door that led on to what had now become, in her mind at least, the ‘dormitory area’.

Mrs Larkspear met her employer’s eyes with an unmistakeable sparkle in her own, her voice, though, filled with gravitas and betraying not one loose thread of irony or hypocrisy as she spoke: “The ‘Corporal punishment of schoolgirls of your Alice’s age is not something one should take lightly but I fear here is a girl in danger of becoming completely out of hand unless curbed.” She was toying with the plaited leather riding switch hanging from her broad, elasticated belt as she spoke, her intention unvoiced, but clear enough to Alice’s stepmother nonetheless.

There was nothing especially noteworthy about a residential premises fitted with floor to ceiling sliding window gates nowadays, nothing that might draw unwanted curiosity; that was something else Karen Lamberton - Marchment had found she could thank the stalled economic climate for - the ever accelerating crime rate. Burglaries were on the ‘up and up’ and as the representative from the company she had called in had said: ‘Modern collapsible security gates were aesthetically pleasing whilst providing security from intruders’.

Of course ‘security ‘was a two-way-street and ‘intrusion’ was open to interpretation. In Karen Lamberton - Marchment’s interpretation ‘intrusion’ was any potential encounter with, or meddling interference from, her stepdaughter outside the home - whether directly or indirectly through interfering if well-meaning intermediaries.