October 1922, Winchester College
Bart hung his head over the toilet, a thick white nausea in the foreground of his senses, and considered his options.
Actually, he didn’t have any.
His diaphragm tensed with a jolt and more brown sick burst up and out, spattering the porcelain basin and leaving dots of coagulated matter like brown stars. It was the kippers, most likely. What a turd this ‘fine institution’ had turned out to be. The food wasn’t fit for a cockroach – yesterday there’d been a fingernail clipping in his porridge. He felt a spasm in his bowel and quickly stumbled to his feet and yanked his trousers down, dropping to the toilet just in time. He groaned, fog blasting out of his mouth.
No – certainly he had no options.
In forty minutes he was supposed to enter the cricket field, leading his team against Repton. It was an especially important match. Last February a few Repton fellows had sneaked into the dormitory in the early hours, kidnapped their best batsman, taken him to the cricket field, stripped him entirely naked and shaved off his eyebrows. Bart and his teammates had found the poor boy the next morning, pale and shivering, his penis so shrunken by the cold (and possibly genetics) that it had burrowed up inside his pubic mound and resembled a vulva.
Bart’s fag, Roger, entered the room with clean towels draped over his arm like a tiny waiter.
‘I don’t mean to be impertinent, sir, but it does appear that you mightn’t be well enough to play today.’ Spoken in such a stilted way that the little turd had probably rehearsed it.
Bart looked up with wretched eyes. ‘Well observed, genius.’ He wiped some drool from his chin and leaned back against the toilet. ‘It’s coming out of me like water, Rodge. I don’t dare get off the pot.’
Roger nodded sympathetically. ‘Is there anything I can do?’
Bart groaned again, his head rolling around on his shoulders. ‘No. Just try not to irritate me. Oh fuck, here it comes.’ He hunched over, elbows on his knees, hands covering his face as another cramp fist-squeezed his bowels and more liquid gushed out. ‘Don’t fucking look at me!’ he cried, weakly, and then his face slackened and lost all its colour – the little that was left – and he quickly parted his thighs and aimed a stream of bile into the gap. Another groan, this one longer and lower, like the cry of a mare suffering a breech birth. He had sick all over his pubic hair. Roger averted his eyes – breathing through his mouth, he stared at the white wall over the washbasin, listening to the drip of the tap which acted as a percussive metronome for the melodic score of Bart’s tortured moans.
October 1922, St Vincent’s School for Girls
Bettina’s only friend at school was Margueritte Finch, a French-born, Welsh-raised daughter of a nobleman father and prima-donna mother. Margueritte had framed photographs of her mother dating from the turn of the century, before marriage and child-rearing and all that fluff, and the woman was, thought Bettina, absolutely ravishing, with full, pouting lips and smoky black eyes. Though God knew what she looked like these days, after shooting out seven children. Margueritte often talked about her mother, usually disdainfully – ‘Honestly, she can be so pretentious and dizzy; she walks about in the garden at midnight all dreamy-eyed like some kind of Titania, it makes me want to vomit’ – but sometimes with reluctant praise, since she’d been a liberal mother who ‘pretty much let me run free to do as I wished’. Bettina, having a similar sort of mother (and also a Welsh father), found she had a lot to talk about with Margueritte (or Margo, as she called her) and often their conversations would be a battle of one-upmanship to see who had the most lenient mother, and consequently, the wildest childhood stories.
Margo boasted that when she was fourteen she’d filched two bottles of her father’s Bordeaux and gone off by herself camping in the woods, where she’d stayed for two days and one night, completely roughing it like a regular Huck Finn, and what’s more, had shared the wine with a most sensual and dashing man – an Irish conscientious objector – hiding out in the woods, and what’s more, she’d let him kiss her, but only kiss her, she wasn’t a tart or anything – ‘so get that idea out of your head’, and by the way, he had the most uncommonly clear blue eyes and his stubble felt just exquisite, so perfectly manly, and what’s more, she’d returned home after all this and her mother hadn’t batted an eyelid, probably because she was too preoccupied with her own debauched affair with the local magistrate. ‘So I got off scot-free and clean as a whistle, as they say.’
Bettina supposed that parts of this story might be true – perhaps Margo had indeed gone camping by herself, but only for a few hours, surely, and the business with the conscientious objector, well, perhaps she’d seen a man somewhere in the woods and had let her fancy run wild. But the fourteen-year-old daughter of a nobleman roughing it for two days and a night without attracting a search party – inconceivable. Nice try all the same.
In return Bettina told some embellished stories of her own. The night that Bart had kissed her, for example: she turned Bart into the gardener (Italian and tanned) and the pavilion into her mother’s rose arbour. It was late in the afternoon and her mother had been just around the corner – quite literally, she was mere steps away, talking to the chauffeur – and as a result the kiss was rushed and hurried and he’d grabbed her in such a passion that she’d found bruises about her body later. Aware that this story, with the bronzed Italian gardener and rose arbour, was sounding like the silly romantic fiction it was, Bettina quickly added some grounding details in order to imitate realism – the gardener had onion breath (as Bart had had) and their teeth clashed quite awkwardly. ‘I actually didn’t enjoy it as much as I thought I might.’ What was more realistic, after all, than dissolved dreams?
Margo leaned forward with flushed cheeks and huge eyes and whispered, ‘Did he get a stiff-on?’ And Bettina rolled her eyes as if Margo was the biggest simpleton ever to walk the King’s Isles and said, ‘Of course he did!’ She didn’t know for sure what a ‘stiff-on’ was. She guessed it was related to a ‘cock-stand’. But actually, she didn’t entirely understand what that was either. She imagined the penis stiffening in a downwards direction like the third leg of a camera tripod. One day she was going to ask Bart all about it.
Margueritte was a pale, plump girl with black hair down to her hips, which she wore in a thick, perfect plait. She had the tiniest yet poutiest mouth, brown-black eyes framed by thick, innocent eyebrows and no cheekbones to speak of. No wrists either – her forearms were as chubby as a toddler’s, swallowing any trace of bone, ending in tiny doll’s hands. Bettina thought she looked like a fat, young Theda Bara – well, that wasn’t entirely fair, to call her fat. She was soft and ample. To cuddle up to all that flesh would probably feel divine. Such thoughts as this came to her mind as objective, almost scientific conclusions. They were the thoughts she imagined a future father-in-law might have on behalf of his son, a sort of sizing-up. Bettina’s gaze was often drawn to Margo’s bosom, which was considerable, and again, she would imagine the future husband finding satisfaction with the pliant, squishy handfuls. Entirely objective.
They were sitting on Margo’s bed, sharing a box of Turkish delight that her mother had sent to her, alongside a new set of stays, two pairs of stockings and a packet of Harrods stem-ginger biscuits. It was a four-bed room which Margo shared with Dionysus, a sinister-eyed daughter of bohemian parents who collected her toenail clippings in a heart-shaped locket and posted suffragette literature around school; Daphne, a shy, almost mute girl; and a tall, mousey girl who Bettina found so dull that she’d never bothered to learn her name. This four-bed set-up was the privilege of the upper-school girls; previously, they’d had to share a twenty-bed dorm. Many nights, Bettina had fallen asleep to the sounds of blanket-muffled sobs and desperate, whispered prayers; some of the girls had been spoiled senseless by kind governesses and indulgent mothers, and coming here to unsweetened lumpy porridge, slapped knuckles and exhausting monotony was a cruel awakening. This was a girls’ school which prided itself on being just like a boys’ school. But whereas a boy might benefit from this hardening-up, especially one keen on entering the Forces or a cut-throat trade, it was entirely wasted on a girl, thought Bettina, who would only go on to get married and have babies, so what was the bloody point?
‘What makes you think marriage and procreation don’t require some sort of hardening of spirit?’ Venetia had said once, in reply to this argument. ‘In fact, I think I’d rather a year in the trenches over twelve hours of childbirth.’ Jonathan had dropped his spoon into his pudding bowl with a clatter and glared at his mother, before standing up and storming out of the room. ‘I don’t know what makes him think he has a monopoly on suffering,’ said Venetia. ‘After all, women die in childbirth all the time. You don’t see us having tantrums about it at the dinner table.’ Monty grinned at Bettina: ‘There’s that famous hardening of spirit!’
Bettina and Margo had the room to themselves; Daphne, Dionysus, Boring Nameless Girl and the rest of the upper school were playing hockey outside. Margo was excused from any physical activity on account of her chronic asthma and Bettina had complained of severe menstrual pains to get out of playing. Margo was lying on the bed, one cheek bulging with a large cube of Turkish delight – her customary way of consuming them was first to nibble off the pistachio slivers and then store the chunk, hamster-like, between teeth and cheek, letting it slowly dissolve. Bettina lay next to her, her head resting on Margo’s shoulder. She could hear the yells and collisions of the hockey players outside.
‘Do you think you’ll marry Jasper?’ she said. Jasper was Margo’s sometime beau at home. He was twenty-one and stupid to the point of idiocy, apparently; but, being the son of a baron and set to inherit a humongous estate in Surrey, he was a tasty prospect. Also he was good-looking, which helped – said Margo – to distract from his puny intellect.
‘I think I’d be foolish not to at least consider it,’ she said. ‘But I’m not counting on it. He might not want to wait for me. He might set his sights on someone else in the meantime.’
‘Do you think he’ll be a virgin on your hypothetical wedding night?’
Margo snorted. ‘Don’t be silly. Men are never virgins on their wedding night.’
‘That’s not at all fair.’
Bettina felt Margo shrug.
‘I mean,’ continued Bettina, ‘the man gets to have all this experience so that when it comes to it, he can proceed with confidence. Whereas the woman hasn’t a clue what she’s doing and simply lies there like a … well, like a paralysed swan.’
‘Speak for yourself.’
Bettina looked up. She could see Margo’s jaw clenching as she sucked on the shrinking sweet. ‘You mean you’ve done it?’
Margo angled her head to look down at her, frowning and two-chinned. ‘Of course not. But I know some things.’
‘What things?’
‘Well. My father has a copy of the Kama Sutra that he thinks is well hidden. But is not. Ho hoho.’
‘What’s the Kama Sutra?’
‘It’s an ancient Indian sex book full of illustrations. Brown people twisting themselves into knots really. It’s quite graphic. They’re doing all sorts of outrageous things.’
‘Like what?’
Margo sighed. ‘I recall “the licking of the rose petals” and the “sucking of the mango fruit”. Regarding the oral tradition.’ She giggled, causing Bettina’s head to wobble. ‘I don’t suppose my rose petals shall get any attention from a stuffy old bore like Jasper. He has no imagination. And from what I’ve been led to believe, a man gets that kind of pleasure from a tart and saves the most austere fundamentals for his wife.’
‘But what about the wife?’
‘The wife, if she has chosen a stupid enough husband, will take a lover and hopefully get away with it.’
Bettina laughed into the hollow of Margo’s collarbone. ‘You wouldn’t!’
‘I don’t know. Who’s to say how I’ll feel about things in the future?’
A meaty splash from outside – the cook’s assistant, tossing yesterday’s vegetable water into the potted geraniums.
Margo ran her tongue along her gums to dislodge the last of the sweet, swallowing loudly. ‘Can I tell you a secret?’ she said. ‘Only you’ve got to promise not to tell anyone.’
‘I can keep a secret.’
‘You’d better.’
‘I will. Go on, tell me.’
‘My great-aunt on my father’s side, if rumours are to be believed, was a gigantic sapphic.’
Bettina hesitated. She didn’t want to have to admit to yet another ignorance, after the Kama Sutra and the stuff about the rose petals and mangoes.
As if reading her mind, Margo said, ‘It’s quite all right, I didn’t know what a sapphic was either, until someone told me. It’s a woman who goes with other women. Comes from the poet Sappho, who was apparently inclined that way, though you’ll notice that Miss Roundpenny missed that bit out in lesson.’
‘Gosh. How awful.’
‘Isn’t it? Makes me feel quite sick to think about. My great-aunt supposedly refused to marry and she was obscenely beautiful and rich so there were millions of suitors drooling over her, a positive parade of stiff-ons, honestly. But she wouldn’t have it. Drove her parents quite mad. She ended up a spinster, living in a large Tudor cottage with no servants. Can you imagine? And it’s not as if she couldn’t afford servants.’
‘What a lonely existence,’ said Bettina, brushing a few ticklish strands of Margo’s hair away from her face.
‘Oh, she wasn’t lonely. She lived with another woman, a “friend”. Her lover, of course. And get this: this “other woman” dressed as a man. Honestly. She wore breeches and kept her hair short. Hunted pheasants supposedly. Quite outrageous – I don’t know how she escaped lynching, to be honest with you. They lived as man and wife in that cottage. One can only assume they shared a bed.’
‘Not with any certainty.’
‘Well, I haven’t told you the whole of it yet.’
‘Then do, tell me the whole of it, before I die of boredom.’
Margo gave Bettina a playful smack on the head. Bettina flinched, her nose prodding Margo’s pillowy breast. She was nowhere near bored.
‘My great-uncle – the sapphic’s brother – went to visit her one day, and since she had no butler or parlour-maid, he let himself in.’
‘Oh dear, I don’t like where this is going.’
Margo shook her head as if to say, ‘Me neither,’ and continued: ‘So he lets himself in and looks around the house but finds no one. They must be out, he thinks, naturally enough. So he goes upstairs to the master bedroom, because the reason he’d called by was to collect his mother’s wedding ring, which’d been left to the sister on her death, but since the sister had no need of it, being a gigantic pervert, it seemed reasonable that he should have it.’
‘I’m almost too afraid to hear this.’
‘Oh, grow up, Bettina. If you can hear about men dying in the trenches with their intestines coming out, then you can hear about a couple of women fucking each other.’
‘Margueritte!’
Margo laughed with wicked delight, her whole body shuddering. She clearly took great enjoyment in shocking Bettina, just as Bart did. Bettina didn’t mind the shock so much as the feeling of being made to feel like an innocent country child, a naive doe-eyed ingenue. It ran contrary to the image she was trying to cultivate.
‘So is that what they were doing in there?’ she asked.
‘Well, it wouldn’t be accurate to say they were doing that, because two women are physically incapable of that. But they were in sexual union, if you like.’
‘I bloody well don’t like! What were they doing exactly?’
‘Exactly? Oh, I don’t know. This story has been passed around the family’s men like an old dog-bone – who knows what’s been added and embellished? The version I heard, or overheard, since I was indeed eavesdropping on my cousins’ private conversation, the version I heard was that the two women were quite naked on the bed and one was gifting the other with – well, I believe I’ve already mentioned it. “The licking of the rose petals”, as the Kama Sutra puts it.’
Bettina was silent for a while. ‘Look, you’re going to have to spell it out for me. I have no idea what the rose petals signify. Don’t make fun of me.’
Margo pointed down at her crotch. ‘The labia minora. Look in a mirror one day, why don’t you? She was licking my great-aunt’s—’
‘Urgh! Yuck! Vile. Just vile. Oh, it makes me shudder.’
‘I know,’ said Margo. ‘I don’t even like to think of it.’
‘How did the brother react?’
Margo laughed again. ‘Apparently he said, “You sick mad wench, how will I ever unsee this?”’
‘How will I ever unimagine it?’ said Bettina. In her mind she saw a woman with short hair. An ugly woman – she’d have to be ugly. Yellow-toothed like some horrible matron. Would she have large breasts? How grotesque – a woman with short hair, dressed as a man, with a fat pair of breasts straining at the fabric of her waistcoat. Horrid.
The two girls lay quiet, their breathing loud in the spartan room, every small movement or sound amplified. Bettina, for some curious reason, was suddenly afraid to move, and her head now felt too heavy on Margo’s shoulder, her breath too forceful against her collarbone. She closed her eyes and tried to control her breathing, to soften it. She listened to the sound outside of birds singing and girls running and grunting and wooden sticks hitting other wooden sticks. Their own silence started to feel too heavy, too conspicuous, like a drowsy fug in the air.
‘Margo,’ she whispered, and now that the silence had been broken, so had the paralysing spell.
‘Hmm?’
‘Can I tell you a secret?’
‘Please do.’
‘You’ve got to swear not to tell,’ said Bettina, ‘because otherwise I’ll be in the absolute worst trouble.’
‘Come off it,’ said Margo. ‘I’ve just let you in on my family’s most guarded, ugly secret. Well, one of them.’
‘The thing is, my friend Bart – you remember Bart, I’ve told you all about him. Last week he sent me a bottle of brandy and a case of cigarettes and I’ve got them hidden in the boiler room.’
Margo sat up with a jerk, dislodging Bettina’s head. ‘Bettina! You dark horse!’
‘Well, Bart is the dark horse really. It was him who—’
‘How did it get past The Barren One?’
The Barren One was Miss Cameron, the house mistress (so called because she was so averse to children that it was highly conceivable she ovulated sand). It was rumoured that she checked all packages the girls received. So as to avoid precisely this sort of thing. Probably not true, Bettina thought, but you never knew – some of the women here at St Vincent’s were complete psychopaths.
She shook her head, bewildered. ‘Maybe she was too busy sacrificing tiny infants to—’
Margo bounded off the bed with explosive excitement. ‘Well, why are we wasting our time here, stuffing sweets and gossiping like a pair of ole fishwives?’
‘You want to – now?’
‘Does the Pope wear a hat?’
Bettina stared at Margo’s face, trying to think of a witty comeback. But she could think of nothing, and besides, the opportunity had passed, so she got off the bed, took her friend’s hand and together they left the room and began the exhilarating slow creep through the school’s narrow passages.
The boiler room had a dark, heavy air, even when brightly lit. Black mould spread up the whitewashed walls, forming curious patterns, and the last time Bettina had been down here, to hide the drink and cigs, she’d sat on an old wonky piano stool, chin in hands and elbows on knees, trying to find shapes in the mould as one finds shapes in clouds (it was always dragons, continents and old men’s faces).
When, at thirteen, she’d first started at St Vincent’s (reluctantly, of course, and only because her father refused to submit to her year-long campaign of passive-aggressive resistance), the older students – all bitches – gleefully passed down the inevitable ghost stories, claiming that St Vincent’s was well-known to be haunted, had in fact attracted spiritualists and macabre loners from all over the world on thrill-seeking and fact-gathering pilgrimages. The boiler room, they said, was the most malignant place in the whole building, the source of all the paranormal energy and telekinetic phenomena (Bettina had no idea what ‘telekinetic’ meant, and wasn’t about to ask), and home to the Black Nun. The Black Nun had died in a fire in the boiler room some ninety years ago, back when the school was a sanatorium for the criminally insane (it never was, Monty told her later – it had been a great manor house belonging to a Norwegian whoremonger who frittered away his whole estate on opium, tarts and lavish orgies), and some nights, even now, her ghost could be seen gliding silently and footlessly along the corridors.
Only now did she understand the reason for this story. The necessity of it.
When she crept down to the boiler room that first time after receiving Bart’s package there were countless traces of previous visitations – chocolate wrappers, pen ink, lipstick-kissed napkins, even a discarded pair of woollen knickers with dried blood on them. This was the place, she realised, where the older girls went to escape the oppressive prim cloud that hung over them; a place of cautious freedom. In one corner, concealed behind a dusty pile of broken musical instruments (on top of which a stringless, scratched harp was placed, leaning precariously) was an empty wine bottle – a dessert wine of the sort her parents served with plum pudding – and poked into the cracks of the wall’s plaster next to the hot boiler tank were a few squashed cigarette ends.
She hid her own items with neurotic care. She also collected the cigarette stubs and various other leftovers and dropped them inside the tubed hollow of a rolled-up rug.
‘Rather funky smelling in here,’ said Margo, pulling a face like a fine lady wandering through a fish market.
‘My most humble apologies,’ said Bettina. ‘Would you rather I set out a chaise longue for you in the headmaster’s office, on which you can enjoy our contraband items?’
‘Oh, shush,’ said Margot, smiling. ‘I am merely making a comment. I wasn’t expecting the Ritz.’
There was a dented violin missing three strings in the pile of broken instruments. Bettina gently lifted it so as not to disturb the intricate structure, and there underneath was the bottle and cigarettes Bart had sent. She presented them to Margo with a self-conscious ‘ta-da!’ and Margo clapped her hands.
‘My father has this,’ she said, looking at the bottle. ‘It’s supposed to be good.’
‘Have you ever tried it?’ said Bettina.
‘No. I’ve never had the inclination.’
‘You mean you’ve never drunk?’
‘Of course I have. Wine and port and so forth at dinner parties. In moderation, bien entendu. But never men’s drink. I imagine it’s ghastly.’
‘It is.’
‘Well, I don’t care. Right now it seems like just the ticket.’
Bettina nodded, bringing a lit match towards the cigarette between her lips, aware that Margo was watching her with reserved awe. She inhaled, tilted her head and let out the smoke through her nostrils. ‘Bart is always making me drink spirits. He delights in getting me drunk.’
‘You’d better watch out for him then!’
‘Oh, I do, he’s a perfect scoundrel. Listen – don’t you think we ought to be very careful? Suppose someone smells it on us at supper.’
‘Oh, don’t worry.’ Margo opened the bottle and sniffed, pulling a face, before taking a sip and wincing. ‘Acha vee!’ She handed the bottle to Bettina, who took a huge swallow, fighting the urge to grimace. A man would never grimace. ‘We’ll have our little party,’ said Margo, ‘and then we’ll immediately brush our teeth and take ourselves to bed with hot water bottles. We’ve already a great cover story after all – you’ve got the curse and I’m an asthmatic weakling.’
‘And if I fall over I can always blame it on an iron deficiency.’
Margo took the bottle back. ‘Exactly.’ She pinched her nose with one hand and tilted the bottle into her mouth, draining an inch.
‘Steady on, girl,’ said Bettina, in a voice she didn’t recognise.
‘“Come into the garden, Maud, for the black bat, Night, has flown!”’ Margo had one chubby leg up on the piano stool, her skirt hoiked up to reveal the stays of her stockings, like a bawdy cabaret performer. She was singing in a ridiculous man’s tenor. ‘“Come into the garden, Maud, I am here at the gate alone.”’
‘Oh God, you’re not going to sing the whole thing, are—’
Margo lifted a finger to shush her. ‘“And the woodbine spices are wafted abroad, and the musk of the roses blown.”’ She lifted the hem of her skirt and, flapping it, said, in a shrill cockney accent, ‘How’s the musk of my rose, dear?’
‘Shhh!’ said Bettina, before collapsing over in a fit of giggles.
Margo brought her leg off the stool and attempted to kick it away, but missed, lost her balance and fell onto her hands and knees. She looked up at Bettina, her back arched and her eyes pure carnival. Shrieking with laughter, Bettina rushed over and helped her up. Margo fell against her. She snatched the cigarette out of Bettina’s mouth and, awkwardly tweezering it between her fingers, took a tiny puff. Her other hand lay just above Bettina’s breasts, the hot palm pressing into the bony ridge of her chest. It was unnecessary, that hand, and it lingered.
‘We’re such good friends,’ Margo said, smiling up at her.
‘Of course we are.’
The hand crept higher, finding Bettina’s red-flecked throat. The fingers gently squeezed.
‘They’re all such terrific wasps, the others, such vicious, stinging wasps,’ said Margo. She was looking at Bettina’s mouth. ‘But you’re not. Well, only a smidge, and in the funniest way. I think you’re wonderful actually.’
Bettina smiled foolishly, her eyes focused on Margo’s hairline. ‘I should think so.’ Their bodies were pressed together. She could not meet her friend’s eye, it was bizarre. And she was so terribly drunk – drunker than she’d ever been in her life. And that warm small hand squeezing her throat. Just so.
‘We’re such good friends,’ Margo repeated, in a whisper now, bringing her mouth to Bettina’s ear and softly, so, so softly, kissing the point where jawline meets ear, then a little lower – the neck. Higher – the chin, higher still – moving up with the soft kidskin lips bumping, brushing, rubbing, preceded by little hot breaths – up up up, slowly, clumsily, to her own lips, and beyond that, all reason left her.
Old Roundpenny. Halfway down the stairs. Frozen with one foot on the step below, hands curled in front of her, rodent-like. Such an expression; that of Jesus spying the money-lenders in the temple. Eyes made fantastically huge by her spectacles, and the horror therefore made fantastically huge within.
Margo had her back to the door, and for a long, tormented moment, Bettina’s eyes were locked with Miss Roundpenny’s while Margo’s hand continued its slick see-sawing and her mouth continued its frenzied sucking.
‘Get off, get off,’ said Bettina, pushing Margo’s mouth away from her nipple – dear God it was glossy with spit and sticking up like a peanut – and twisting her hips so as to dislodge her fingers. Margo looked down at Bettina, her mouth slack and her eyes still half glazed, and seeing her expression, turned her head to follow her gaze. A small gasp.
Bettina closed her eyes, wishing for unconsciousness. She didn’t know at that moment what was worse – that they’d been caught, or that they had to stop.
You’re a sick, mad wench, she told herself.
The brandy bottle and the half-smoked packet of cigarettes were placed neatly on the desk in front of Miss Cameron – The Barren One. She was sitting devil-straight with her hands folded on her lap. A mole the size of a sweetcorn kernel was stuck to her jawline and from it grew three curly hairs – a witch, an absolute witch. Her eyes were large and protuberant, the space between brow and eyelid deep and cavernous so that were she to have water tipped onto her face while in a horizontal position, a small moat would form around each eyeball.
Margo wept snottily in the chair next to Bettina. ‘Please don’t tell my father,’ she was saying in a little girl’s voice. ‘Please – anything – but please don’t tell my father. He’ll kill me – literally, he’ll kill me. Please don’t tell my father.’
Miss Cameron picked up the thick leather-bound bible placed in front of her, walked around the desk and brought the book with a slam into the back of Margo’s head. Her face hit the wood. She lifted her head, nose dribbling blood, and stared straight ahead, all emotion wiped away.
‘Have you quite composed yourself?’ said Miss Cameron.
‘I have,’ said Margo, swallowing and nodding calmly.
Miss Cameron placed the bible back in the centre of the desk, poking it until the edges were aligned with the sides of the desk, and re-took her seat.
‘Bettina Wyn Thomas and Margueritte Morgan.’ It was not a question, but both girls nodded.
She picked up her teacup delicately and sipped from it, her eyes never leaving the girls. ‘You understand the severity of your crimes?’
Bettina glanced sideways at Margo. ‘Yes, Miss,’ she said. ‘Yes, Miss,’ echoed Margo.
‘What Miss Roundpenny had to witness …’ She pursed her lips over her teeth. ‘A hideous thing for anyone to look at, but especially someone as tender-hearted as Miss Roundpenny.’
Bettina’s eyes bulged at this. Miss Roundpenny had once cut a girl’s hair off for wearing rouge and she’d smiled while doing it.
‘While I am beyond disgusted – nay, horrified – at this perverted tomfoolery, it is merely the cherry on the proverbial cake.’ She glanced down at the items on the desk. ‘Drinking on school grounds? Smoking? How could you be so stupid?’
Bettina looked down at her clasped hands. Her sinuses were aching with the beginnings of a headache.
‘All I need do is report this incident to the headmaster and that’s it – you’re finished here. Goodbye, bon voyage.’ Miss Cameron took another sip of her tea and returned it to its saucer, causing only the slightest clink. She stared at the girls down her pore-dotted nose, the nostrils like an extra pair of pious eyes. ‘But I shan’t be resorting to this measure today.’
Bettina let out a thin breath through dry lips. Again she side-glanced at Margo, who sat very still.
‘Instead, I am giving you both a two-month suspension. Miss Wyn Thomas, you will pack your things and leave tonight. I have booked you a ticket for the last train and I will, of course, bill your father. Miss Morgan, you will leave tomorrow on the eight-fifteen train.’ She snarled her lips into something resembling a grin. ‘You appreciate why I am putting you on separate trains?’
Margo nodded. Blood was dripping from her chin onto her bosom – too terrified to make a move to wipe it away, most likely. She looked like she had a pistol trained on her.
Miss Cameron licked her lips with a small darting tongue-tip and picked up her teacup again. ‘Bettina. Miss Roundpenny was looking for you for a reason.’ A long whistling sip, the liquid forced through the gaps in her teeth. ‘I received a telegram from your mother today. A friend of yours, a Master Bartholomew Dawes, has been taken ill with Spanish flu.’
Bettina made a small noise and gripped the desk edge, before quickly returning her hands to her lap.
‘It is quite serious.’ Was that a trace of pleasure in her tone? It was – it bloody was!Witch. ‘He’s been brought home and is supposedly near death.’ She returned the cup to its saucer once more. Bettina stared at it, at the gleaming whiteness of the china. ‘You have my sympathies. Now please, get out of my sight.’