‘Oh my God, Alec,’ I said. ‘What a pair we make!’
‘Thankfully, it was Constable Reid,’ Alec said. ‘He went back on duty at six. So, I wasn’t clapped in irons but I don’t feel covered with glory.’
‘You poor darling,’ I said, laughing.
‘This would be Mr Osborne, I take it,’ came Miss Shanks’s voice from the doorway. I had forgotten to listen and, laughing with Alec, had not heard her come in.
‘Headmistress!’ I said. ‘I apol-’
‘Oh, no need, no need,’ said Miss Shanks. She sat down in the supplicant’s chair in front of her desk as though unconcerned that I was sitting in her place behind it. ‘Maybe ask another time, but don’t be sorry. And what ails Mr Osborne that makes you pity him so?’
‘Oh, nothing,’ I said. I was still dumbly hanging on to the earpiece and could hear Alec’s careful breathing while he listened to this odd exchange. ‘Just nonsense, really. We’re old friends and nonsense is our habit, I’m afraid to say. I shall be much more solemn in the classroom with the girls.’
‘Ocht away,’ said Miss Shanks. ‘The girls could do with a wee bit cheering up in the English classroom. Young Miss Lipscott was solemn enough for us all.’
7
My joy was unconstrained on learning that, while dining with the girls was a daily duty, breakfasting with them was confined to Sundays. On this Monday morning the other mistresses and I were to be served porridge, eggs and bacon – or in my case coffee and rolls – in a little breakfast room off the staff common room. Even better was the realisation that Miss Shanks was not amongst our number.
‘Oh, try dragging Shanks away from her girls in the morning!’ said little Miss Christopher, looking more mole-like than ever this morning in a dark-grey coat and skirt of velvety nap.
‘Well, I suppose that’s when any new sore throats and dicky tummies are most to the fore,’ said Miss Lovage, with a delighted nastiness I could neither put my finger on nor ignore. I stared as she raked back her black and white hair with a ringed hand, then I exchanged a look with Miss Glennie, who seemed just as puzzled as me.
‘You see, Miss Ivy Shanks wasn’t always a headmistress,’ Miss Lovage continued.
‘But she’s a fine headmistress now,’ said Miss Barclay, and set to buttering her toast so ferociously she all but tore it into rags. Her voice was clipped, her lips pursed, even her head of tight curls seemed tighter than before.
‘And,’ said Miss Christopher, ‘since it was your own dear Miss Fielding who elevated her I wonder at your sneering.’
‘I don’t sneer,’ said Miss Lovage, looking down her aquiline nose and curling her top lip, and so unfortunately producing a sneer which could have stood as the very definition in a pictorial dictionary.
‘What Miss Lovage is hinting at,’ said Miss Barclay, now trying to patch her toast back together again with globs of marmalade, ‘is the fact that when Miss Fielding and Miss Shanks, as colleagues, first conceived of their own school, Fielding was Latin mistress and Miss Shanks was on the less academic side of things.’
‘Miss Shanks was under-matron,’ Miss Lovage snapped. ‘Less academic indeed!’
‘A matron?’ I said, and once again caught Miss Glennie’s eye. She was no less surprised than me but, unlike me, she was trying not to look so.
‘And Mrs Brown was the cook,’ said Miss Lovage. ‘I’m only surprised she hasn’t stepped into Miss Fielding’s shoes to fill the vacancy.’
‘Dear Miss Fielding,’ said Miss Barclay, attempting a honeyed tone but failing rather miserably at it owing to her clenched teeth, ‘had a vision. For the girls’ education, of course, but not only that. She believed that good food and good healthy habits were just as important as what they learned in the classroom. It was absolutely her conviction that a matron was as important as a Latin mistress.’
‘And she believed in seeing the good in everyone,’ added Miss Christopher. ‘We should all remember that without Miss Fielding none of us would be here.’
‘It’s… um… wonderful that the school is thriving without her,’ I said. ‘If she was- I mean given that she was such a visionary. One could easily assume that her loss would change things.’
‘Oh, things have changed,’ said Miss Lovage. ‘Things have certainly changed. I’m not sure I should as readily have sunk my savings into a school run by a cook and a matron.’
I thought then about what Hugh had said, on the subject of single women and what they did with their money. It was interesting that Miss Lovage was more than just the art mistress here.
‘But Miss Shanks sees the good in people too.’ It was the first time Miss Glennie had spoken, and she did so with a tremor in her voice. ‘I mean, I think Miss Fielding sounds wonderful but it’s Miss Shanks I have to thank for my being here.’
‘My investment in St Columba’s was considerable,’ said Miss Lovage, clearly disliking to hear the absent Miss Shanks given all the gratitude.
‘You sound as if you’re suddenly regretting it, Anna,’ said Miss Barclay. ‘We don’t normally hear you casting it up to the rest of us.’ There was a warning note in her voice that I could not interpret.
‘It’s just gone a bit far, that’s all,’ said Miss Lovage. ‘Double duties here, an obliging vicar there and… well, agency staff.’ She gave Miss Glennie and me an unconvincing smile as she thus disparaged us. ‘Miss Lipscott was a scholar and a lady, and Mademoiselle Beauclerc was teaching the girls true Parisian French. And they both understood the artistic life. Without them, and without Miss Fielding, what does St Columba’s have to offer?’
Several of us took in a sharp breath at that. Miss Barclay expelled hers in a speech, delivered with great control, through white lips.
‘Geography and mathematics, to name two things,’ she said. ‘And art.’
‘Good gracious, Dorothy,’ said Miss Lovage. ‘I didn’t mean the girls! Who cares about the wretched girls – they’ll all just go off and get married anyway. I meant what does St Columba’s have to offer me?’
There was a stony silence after this remark, which gathered weight until it threatened to crush us. Miss Barclay, once again, got her wits about her first and broke it.
‘Let’s change the subject,’ she said. She did not, however, offer a subject to take up and the blanket of silence settled back down over us, except for the sound of Miss Christopher doggedly crunching on a rasher of very crisp bacon.
‘Well,’ I said at last, ‘not exactly a cheerful topic, but I’d like to ask you all to tell me what you can about Fleur Lipscott’s last few days here.’ I was aware of all eyes upon me but I looked unconcernedly out of the opposite window and sailed on. ‘It’s not nosiness – I know how much that offends at least Miss Lovage – it’s just that when I told her sisters she’d bolted they badgered me and badgered me for some explanation or assurance and I promised I would try to find something out for them.’
All of them, Miss Barclay behind her little glasses, Miss Christopher under her bushy brows, Miss Lovage inside her rings of black pencil, and Miss Glennie whose eyes were unadorned and so lashless and browless in that fair Scottish way as to make her face appear naked, all of them simply stared at me.
‘Explanation of what on earth was wrong,’ I went on, ‘or assurance that nothing was, but they can’t simply leave it as a mystery, shrug and pass on. She’s their beloved baby sister and if they don’t get some answers they’re likely to land here demanding them. They’re very worried about her. Taking off like that.’