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ORIANA HAD MASTERED the art of opening and closing the heavy school doors gently and quietly. Her slender arms hid remarkable strength. As the staff meeting was about to begin, she held the staffroom door open just wide enough for us to slip inside inconspicuously. I sidled to the back corner of the room, intending to survey the assembled staff without them watching me.
But I couldn’t take my eyes off Miss Harnett. She was mesmerising. I’d only met her once before at my interview during the school holidays, and she’d left a powerful first impression on me.
The only other member of staff in school that day had been the Bursar, a bland little man in his fifties. He had shown me through to Miss Harnett’s ornate study, which he told me was the most lavish room in the house. Head’s perks. I’d have picked the same if I’d been her. There we found her seated in a cerise velvet armchair, one hand cradling a fluffy black cat as big as a dog, the other hand repeatedly stroking its head. The fur on its skull gleamed like the shiny patch on a bronze statue which tourists touch for luck.
Beckoning me to sit on the hard brocade sofa opposite, she immediately began her gentle interrogations. My careful preparations wrong-footed me for Miss Harnett’s line of questioning. She never once asked my views on the GCSE or A Level English syllabus, or the recent Nobel Prize winner for literature, or the current Poet Laureate. Instead she asked me about my parents and siblings, my attitude to animals and my favourite childhood memories. Her final question surprised me most: “In a burning classroom, if you had time to rescue only one child, how would you choose which girl?”
I thought fast. The one nearest the door, I told her, as I’d have the greatest chance of success – and every one of them would be some parent’s child, and most important in their eyes.
Then came a curious challenge: “Demonstrate ten different ways to use a pashmina.”
She threw me a fuchsia pink one that lay in the cat’s basket beside her armchair. Pretending I was a fashion vlogger, I improvised ten styles in quick succession, ending with a superhero cape for her cat.
The cat purred its approval, so I left the pashmina on its back and returned to my perch on the sofa. I sat in silence awaiting further instructions while she admired her modishly attired cat. So long was the pause that I wondered whether the interview was over. Then she broke the silence so suddenly that I jumped.
“The job is yours, my dear. The Bursar will be in touch with you about your contract, salary, conditions and so on, assuming you’d like to accept. I very much hope that you will.”
She fixed me with a winning smile.
“Yes, yes, I would, please. Thank you. Thank you so much. You’ve made me very happy.”
I hoped my rabid response didn’t seem phoney. She just smiled, raised her hand, and wiggled her fingers in the direction of the door.
“Good girl. Now you may go.”
I stood up stiffly and stumbled over the crumpled fringe of the rug as I made my way to the door, anxious to escape. As I put my hand on the doorknob, Miss Harnett called after me.
“Miss Lamb.” It was the first time I had been called that since teaching practice. The memory made me smile. “Do you know what clinched it for me?”
I assumed it was the cat’s cape.
“Your warmth, Miss Lamb, your warmth. How much you care for others.”
Just as well I hadn’t answered.
“It’s not academic qualifications that make the world worth living in. It’s human kindness. Did you know the modern structure of state education was originally devised to inculcate the Prussian Army into obedience and docility? Desks placed in military rows, uniforms to repress individuality, rote learning to stop you thinking for yourself – acts of cruelty and suppression, if you ask me.”
She leaned forward, tapping her chest. “I didn’t get where I am today by way of certificates. Do you know the most important thing I learned at prep school?”
I shook my head.
She beamed. “How to steam open an envelope. And at senior school?”
I shrugged. I didn’t dare guess.
“Not to sign anything I hadn’t read.”
She sighed and turned away, gazing out of the window at the stunning floral displays immediately outside her study.
“And at university?” I ventured, feeling braver now I’d got the job.
She swivelled back sharply. “My dear, university wasn’t necessary in my day.” She waved a finger at me. “Remember, kindness is all very well, but don’t forget to put yourself first when you need to. You matter too.”
I gave as big a smile as I could muster and fled before either of us could change our minds.
* * *
NOW I WAS IN THE STAFF room, buffered from Miss Harnett by my new colleagues, it was my turn to scrutinise her. I half expected her to be wearing the pink pashmina in one of my ten fetching designs, but instead she sported a substantial black fur collar, despite the morning sunshine. Then the fur collar moved, and I recognised her feline sidekick. No-one else seemed distracted by this odd fashion choice, all of them hanging on her every word as she began her start-of-term pep talk.
Halfway through, the cat jumped down from her neck, ambled across the floor and weaved around my ankles. Mavis, clutching a stack of new exercise books to her chest against a cardigan the colour of tumbleweed, shot me an envious look. I wouldn’t have put her down as a cat person.
Having finished her speech, Miss Harnett flashed a smile around the room, then swept past me, scooped the cat up into her arms and sailed out of the door.
“What did she call her cat?” I asked Mavis.
“McPhee,” said Mavis. “As in Nanny McPhee. You know, the children’s film in which the mysterious nanny turns up when you need her but don’t want her?”
But there was no time to ask any more questions. My first lesson was about to begin.
