‘This Hall,’ said Deborah, laughing. ‘At least, Mrs Bradley says so.’
‘Does she, by Jove!’ Miss Topas put a buttered finger on the bell. ‘Elsie,’ she said to the maid, ‘bring me the Hall list from the Senior Common-Room notice-board. I’ll brood over the question,’ she went on, when the maid had gone, ‘and get out a selection of felons for Mrs Bradley to choose from. Of course, in a Hall like this, where all the students are well over the average age and so forth, an ill-disposed person could hide under the spotted, unless she was unlucky enough to run into somebody who already knew her.’
‘Yes, I can see what you mean. As a One-Year anybody could take up residence here. Do let me know what conclusions you come to.’
‘Not a word to the Warden, then. She’d have a fit if she thought I was snooping into the antecedents of the students here, poor wretches. Imagine having spent a blameless and patriotic existence as an Uncertificated Teacher for ten or fifteen years, and then being hounded by the authorities into getting your Certificate, complete with College training, in twelve miserable, uncomfortable, fish-out-of-water months! Because, they are fish out of water, many of the poor wretches here — except the Third-Years, of course. They’re bred and born in the briar patch, but t’others hate every minute of it, and those who live near enough to go home leave us most week-ends, even if it means going back to digs and the motherly bosoms of their landladies. My heart bleeds for them. It does, really.’
Deborah giggled unfeelingly at this soulful picture, and then licked butter off her thumb.
‘By the way,’ she said, ‘I’ve been notified that I’ll have to do School Practice supervising. “What exactly does that entail?’
‘Fancy reminding me of what exactly it entails!’ said Miss Topas with a hollow-sounding groan, ‘but, if you must know, I’ll tell you. Bend closer.’
‘ “Come on my right side, for this ear is deaf,” ’ said Deborah. ‘Shades of Laura Menzies,’ she added apologetically.
‘And before I tell you about School Prac. I would say one word of warning,’ Miss Topas continued. ‘Your Mrs Bradley has a nice choice in words. She didn’t say girl. She said woman. Therefore, presumably, she meant woman.’
‘Yes. Well, your students here — ’
‘All right. Let it go, please. Now, then: School Practice…’
She leaned forward and poured into Deborah’s terrified but receptive mind the hateful and exacting nature of the task which would confront her during the ensuing weeks.
‘And don’t forget,’ she added earnestly, ‘that you are not responsible for keeping order. If you go into the classroom of a student who’s obviously got the class completely round her neck, you take care it stays there. Don’t help her. I recollect the case of a lecturer at my old shop who went into a Craft lesson — she was a geographer, by the way, and ought to have known better than to interfere in a mystery which was outside her scope, but some of these people are apt to be conceited — and found the usual howling mob and an unfortunate student trying to give out scissors. Not only did she end up by bringing the headmistress into the room to quell the disturbance, but it was discovered that one child had cut two other children’s frock’s, that two others had cut each other’s hair, and that another had been sick after eating most of the paste prepared for the lesson.’
‘Golly!’ said Deborah, laughing. Miss Topas wagged her head.
‘I’m speaking for your own good,’ she admonished her. ‘Never rush in where angels fear to tread. And never let yourself in for critting a P.T. lesson. You’ll probably have to watch one or two, but that doesn’t matter. Step stately out of it, and leave it to Pettinsalt or Betsy. They can’t bear having the uninitiated initialling their students’ notebooks.’
‘Really?’
‘Really. Always something a bit inverted about these P.T. wallahs. I don’t know why it is, but they always get it up the nose, with a few exceptions I could quote you. There’s something horribly unnatural about physical training. Too much muscle warps the intelligence, I expect.’
As though this were her last word, she consumed the last piece of toast at a gulp, kicked off her slippers, put her feet up, lay back and closed her eyes. Deborah prodded her suddenly and painfully with the toasting fork.
‘Wake up, slacker, and continue your idiotic but, possibly, invaluable remarks,’ she said.
‘No, no. You tell me why you’ve turned down your young man,’ said Miss Topas firmly.
The ghost of Athelstan commenced operations on the following Friday night — a well-chosen time, Mrs Bradley was compelled to admit, taking into consideration both day and hour.
It had been an exasperating Friday. Deborah had had a very full time-table, and to add to it and to her troubles, she had been compelled to deputize at six-thirty for the Senior English lecturer, who had contracted another of what Deborah called, unjustly, to Miss Topas, one of her ‘useful colds.’
This lecture, which was the third and last of a series on King Lear, lasted until twenty-past seven, and left Deborah exactly ten minutes in which to get back to Athelstan, wash, change and arrive in the dining-room. She was, of course, late. Mrs Bradley looked sympathetic and ordered her to avoid the cottage pie and to concentrate on soup and fish. Deborah, determined to be contrary, asked for cottage pie, did not care for it, left more than half, and got up from table hungry and irritable.
At half past nine she went to bed; not because she wanted to, but because there was no alternative except to sit up and correct English essays, which she was determined not to do.
She went to sleep remarkably quickly, and was awakened by the ghost at precisely two-fifteen in the morning.
She did not realize, at first, what sound it was that she had heard. All she knew was that she had been dreaming about pigs, and that one must have been killed. She started up, sweating with the horrible heaviness of nightmare, and, to her extreme horror, heard the sound again. To her credit, terrified though she was, she leapt out of bed, switched on the light, and, opening the door, called out: ‘What’s the matter? What’s going on?’
Mrs Bradley’s voice replied in comforting accents, and the head of the house appeared, electric torch in hand, just as more than half the students came crowding on to the landings, asking, as they huddled together, what was the matter, what had happened, who was it, and making other and similar useless and irritating inquiries. Even as they were asking the questions, the horrible sounds came again.
‘Disconcerting,’ remarked Mrs Bradley. At this inadequate comment Deborah began to protest, but her observations were terminated by a banshee wail which put all the previous disturbances in the shade. Deborah unashamedly clutched Mrs Bradley’s dragon-strewn dressing-gown, and there were excited and frightened exclamations from the students.
Mrs Bradley, alone among those present, seemed entirely unimpressed by the manifestations.
‘Put on coats or dressing-gowns, and come down to the Common Room,’ she said. ‘If there are any students still asleep, please wake them and bring them with you.’
There was some laughter at this, and the students came trooping down. Mrs Bradley called the House Roll when the assembly was complete, found that there were no absentees from the muster, and then gave instructions that no one was to go out of the room on any pretext until she herself had returned and granted permission.
Deborah followed her to the door, but Mrs Bradley whispered to her that one of them had better remain in the Common Room. Leaving Deborah, she descended alone to the basement. Outside the servants’ rooms she stood and called the maids by name.
‘We’re all here, madam,’ said the cook, opening one of the doors and appearing in curlers in the doorway. ‘The girls didn’t like the sounds, so we all collected ourselves in here. Did you wish to speak to anyone, madam?’