concerned, they jolly well did a prison make. Sitting down at one of the long tables to chunks of tube-filled liver with lumpy mashed potatoes and soggy cabbage, or stinky boiled cod with wallpaper-paste sauce and grey leather-
skinned broad beans, she thought longingly of her grandmother’s clever ways with rations and homegrown vegetables.
As she had foreseen, the lack of privacy and spare time was even harder to bear. The only spot of time the boarders had to themselves, between the end of ‘prep’, the time to be spent on homework, and bedtime, provided nothing else had been organized, had to be spent in the din of the Junior Common Room, with its sagging sofas and odours of sweat and digestive biscuits and ink. This was the time for the hazing of new girls, the other girls discussing them as if they were not in the room.
On her third day there, Gillian surfaced from Jane Eyre at the sound of her name.
“She’s never got her nose out of that stupid book.” Pamela Bingham, a chunky Upper Fourth girl, was exclaiming. “And did you ever see such hair? Like Harpo Marx! Touch of the old tar brush, if you ask me!” This raised snickers, and a remark about gooseberry eyes. “And those legs! Like broomsticks! But it’s her parents I feel sorry for. I mean, wouldn’t it be absolutely the pits to have a drippy daughter like that! But I expect the Welsh aren’t so fussy.”
Gillian looked up to see a semicircle of fourth-formers
staring at her, shaking their heads.
She stood up. “I’m sure my parents would prefer it to having a greasy-haired, pimply-faced daughter, with legs like tree trunks, who can only read things like,” she picked a dog-eared book off the table, “ Mad-cap Moll of the Lower Fourth.” She dropped the book, brushing her fingers together, and left the room.
Life was more tolerable in the dormitory. The other girls: Anita, with her blonde curls and dimples, sturdy, athletic Diana, her short black hair cut in a dead-straight line above her equally straight eyebrows, and lanky, round-shouldered Chris, the obsessive piano player, her hair dangling in thin brown plaits, all seemed to know each other and get on well, leaving the two new girls alone; Gillian to read, and Fiona to cry. Chris and Anita arranged each other’s hair, and Diana talked non-stop about games. All three of them discussed the teachers and prefects, at which times Gillian gathered they did not like Camilla Worthington any more than she did. They politely tried to include her in their conversation a few times, but finding they were no competition for Jane Eyre they soon gave up the effort.
During her first two weeks at school, Gillian hid in the library during break, tried unsuccessfully to persuade Matron she was sick, and even managed, with a little help from Anita, to conceal herself inside the vaulting horse in the gym in order to be left alone with her book, but nothing worked. Finally she decided she would have to read in bed, after lights out, using Tommy’s torch.
Bed was the one place in all this whirling commotion where she felt safe in her own space, and where she did not have to do anything, or answer to anyone.
That night, snuggled into the coarse sheets, heavy blankets pulled over her head to conceal the torchlight and shut out the sound of Fiona’s sobbing, she was riveted by the approaching death of Helen, Jane’s saintly friend, at terrible Lowood School.
“Are you going somewhere, Helen? Are you going home?” Jane was asking.
Gillian turned the page, her heart beating fast in grief and dread.
“Yes; to my long home—my last home.”
Gillian felt the shock of bedclothes being pulled away. Back for a moment at Maenordy, she put her arms around her head, waiting for the slaps.
“No reading after lights out, Gillian. You need your sleep.” Matron spoke softly so as not to wake the others. “I’m sorry, but I’m confiscating these.” After a few quiet words with Fiona, she slipped away
skinned broad beans, she thought longingly of her grandmother’s clever ways with rations and homegrown vegetables.
As she had foreseen, the lack of privacy and spare time was even harder to bear. The only spot of time the boarders had to themselves, between the end of ‘prep’, the time to be spent on homework, and bedtime, provided nothing else had been organized, had to be spent in the din of the Junior Common Room, with its sagging sofas and odours of sweat and digestive biscuits and ink. This was the time for the hazing of new girls, the other girls discussing them as if they were not in the room.
On her third day there, Gillian surfaced from Jane Eyre at the sound of her name.
“She’s never got her nose out of that stupid book.” Pamela Bingham, a chunky Upper Fourth girl, was exclaiming. “And did you ever see such hair? Like Harpo Marx! Touch of the old tar brush, if you ask me!” This raised snickers, and a remark about gooseberry eyes. “And those legs! Like broomsticks! But it’s her parents I feel sorry for. I mean, wouldn’t it be absolutely the pits to have a drippy daughter like that! But I expect the Welsh aren’t so fussy.”
Gillian looked up to see a semicircle of fourth-formers
staring at her, shaking their heads.
She stood up. “I’m sure my parents would prefer it to having a greasy-haired, pimply-faced daughter, with legs like tree trunks, who can only read things like,” she picked a dog-eared book off the table, “ Mad-cap Moll of the Lower Fourth.” She dropped the book, brushing her fingers together, and left the room.
Life was more tolerable in the dormitory. The other girls: Anita, with her blonde curls and dimples, sturdy, athletic Diana, her short black hair cut in a dead-straight line above her equally straight eyebrows, and lanky, round-shouldered Chris, the obsessive piano player, her hair dangling in thin brown plaits, all seemed to know each other and get on well, leaving the two new girls alone; Gillian to read, and Fiona to cry. Chris and Anita arranged each other’s hair, and Diana talked non-stop about games. All three of them discussed the teachers and prefects, at which times Gillian gathered they did not like Camilla Worthington any more than she did. They politely tried to include her in their conversation a few times, but finding they were no competition for Jane Eyre they soon gave up the effort.
During her first two weeks at school, Gillian hid in the library during break, tried unsuccessfully to persuade Matron she was sick, and even managed, with a little help from Anita, to conceal herself inside the vaulting horse in the gym in order to be left alone with her book, but nothing worked. Finally she decided she would have to read in bed, after lights out, using Tommy’s torch.
Bed was the one place in all this whirling commotion where she felt safe in her own space, and where she did not have to do anything, or answer to anyone.
That night, snuggled into the coarse sheets, heavy blankets pulled over her head to conceal the torchlight and shut out the sound of Fiona’s sobbing, she was riveted by the approaching death of Helen, Jane’s saintly friend, at terrible Lowood School.
“Are you going somewhere, Helen? Are you going home?” Jane was asking.
Gillian turned the page, her heart beating fast in grief and dread.
“Yes; to my long home—my last home.”
Gillian felt the shock of bedclothes being pulled away. Back for a moment at Maenordy, she put her arms around her head, waiting for the slaps.
“No reading after lights out, Gillian. You need your sleep.” Matron spoke softly so as not to wake the others. “I’m sorry, but I’m confiscating these.” After a few quiet words with Fiona, she slipped away
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