“I have no family,” I answered without thinking.
“Surely you must have a provider, or you could not afford to attend Lowan Bridge School.”
“Yes, I am very grateful to my aunt,” I replied, recovering my wits, “but she is not fond of me. She means to keep me away.”
“Oh, Miss Steele . . . and to impart a sound education to you, surely?”
This, I was coming to realise, was undoubtedly true—for had my absence been Aunt Patience’s whole design, I might have landed in a Yorkshire sty and been left to moulder there. Meanwhile, the rush of footsteps and the jostling of elbows all around us unnerved me; most of the girls murmured words I could not catch, as if fixing something in their minds, whilst the few who were silent cast brushing looks at me like the scrape of minnows in a shallow brook.
“Here we are.” Having reached the dormitories on the topmost level, Miss Lilyvale pushed a door open.
She revealed a long rectangular room furnished with two rows of double beds, several pine tables with basins and unadorned white pitchers thereon, unlit fireplaces at either end, and a window granting us a view of fragmenting clouds. The ceilings were high and imposing, the air as chill as it ever is within a stone tower, where we were to be kept prisoner like dozens of forlorn princesses. Suddenly weak with fatigue, I clutched the nearest bed frame, all but dropping my poor trunk.
“Goodness! That was a very brave show, but now I see the way of it,” Miss Lilyvale tutted as she snatched the luggage from my trembling fingers. “Take off your shoes and lie down for a while. Here is your bed, and later you will meet your bedmate, Sarah Taylor, but for now no one should disturb you until I return to fetch you for supper at half six. Till then, rest quiet, dear, and remember to thank God for your safe arrival.”
Miss Lilyvale departed. The bedclothes, though cheap and stiff, were clean, and the bed suitably big for the unknown Sarah to share henceforth. I wondered whether she was a good girl, a bright one, a pretty one; I wondered whether Nick would remember the potted rabbit if I ever required precipitate escape.
Sleep was finally weighing down my lids when I spied a ghost in the stark bedchamber.
Gasping, I tightened my loose grip upon the coverlet.
A lump of sheets had transformed into a child who could not have been above six years old—a blond apparition with a pale, freckled face and a tiny mouth. She regarded me stoically with her head on her palm.
“Miss Lilyvale told you to give prayers of thanks, and you haven’t done.”
Her voice was high even for her age—queerly so, like the tinkling of a bell.
“Why aren’t you at lessons?” I returned.
“Ill.” Indeed she looked it, for her skin was nigh transparent and her eyes dull, apart from the green circles of her irids. “You’ll own up to it and not be angry with me? You forgot your prayers after Miss Lilyvale reminded you?”
“Yes,” I agreed, nettled. “What of it? I’m Jane Steele. Who are you?”
“Rebecca Clarke. Call me Clarke, that’s the way of it here. And thank you.” She let her pale curls fall back to the pillow. “I couldn’t have stood another day of this. I’ll tell it as mild as I can, I promise.”
“Tell what?”
“Tell Mr. Munt you lied about your prayers.”
“But why—”
“You can report me in a week, when I’ve recovered. Fair is fair, after all.”
“Report you where?” I demanded as my sluggish pulse sped.
“At Mr. Munt’s daily Reckoning,” Clarke chirped before burrowing back under the linens and effectively vanishing once more.
SIX
“Madam,” he pursued, “I have a Master to serve whose kingdom is not of this world; my mission is to mortify in these girls the lusts of the flesh; to teach them to clothe themselves with shame-facedness and sobriety . . .”
A soft hand on my shoulder woke me, and I dragged sleepy eyes open to view the blurred face of Miss Lilyvale. My slumber had been thin and fitful; rising, I glanced about for the mysterious Rebecca Clarke, but her bed was now neatly made.
“Wash up, Steele, and we’ll be off.”
The shock of the cold water was reviving, and I used my wet hands to smooth the countless ripples from my hair. When I turned back to Miss Lilyvale, she took my arm companionably and we quit the dormitory for the stairs, muddied evening sunlight trickling through the high, grimy exterior windows. The cracks of blue had retreated whilst I slept, beaten back by regiments of austere cloud banks. I watched a great line of girls emerging from a wing of classrooms, marching in pairs towards the open timber doors we approached.