"Come in," she ordered, and stepped back. I threw a glance at Mrs. Randle, who lifted her eyes and then lowered them instantly, as if looking at me was as deadly as it was for Lot's wife when she looked back at Sodom and was turned into a pillar of salt.
I walked into the office. Mrs. Ironwood shut the door behind me and marched to her chair.
"Sit down," she commanded. I took my seat and waited. She threw me a hard look and began. "By this time it would not be unreasonable of me to expect that one of my new students had read the Greenwood School handbook, especially if that new student was scholastically outstanding," she said. "Am I correct?" she asked.
"Yes, I suppose so," I said.
"You've done so?"
"Yes, although I haven't committed it to memory," I added, perhaps too sharply, for her eyes narrowed into slits and her face whitened, especially at the corners of her mouth. Her frown deepened before she continued.
"I don't ask for it to be committed to memory so it can be recited word for word. I ask that it be read, understood, and obeyed." She sat back and snapped open a handbook tearing back the pages and then slapping the book open.
"Section seventeen, paragraph two, regarding leaving the Greenwood campus. Before a registered student can leave the school boundaries, she must have specific, written parental permission on file with the administrative office. This must be dated and signed.
"The reasoning behind this is simple," she went on, looking up from the manual. "We incur certain liabilities when we accept a student. If something terrible should happen to you while you are not under our supervision, we would bear the brunt of the blame if we permitted you to gallivant about at your every whim.
"Normally, I don't find it necessary to explain our reasoning, but in this case, with your particular history, I have done so just so that you understand I am not, as some of your type are bound to claim, picking on you.
"Your teacher should have known better than to take you in her automobile. She has already been reprimanded and her indiscretion noted in her file. When her renewal comes up, it will be one of the considerations."
I stared at her. It was difficult to breathe, to not be drowned by everything that was happening so fast. Mrs. Penny had obviously betrayed me, I thought, and after she had promised she wouldn't. Now she had gotten both me and Miss Stevens in trouble.
"That's not fair. She only wanted to provide me an opportunity to paint. We didn't go anyplace terrible. We . . ."
"She took you to lunch too, didn't she?" she demanded, her eyes hardened to rivet on me.
"Yes," I said. Something hard and heavy grew in my chest, making it ache.
"What if you had gotten sick from the food? Who do you think would be blamed? We would be blamed," she replied, answering her own question. "Why, we could even be sued by your parents!"
"It wasn't a dirty little restaurant. It was—"
"That's not the point now, is it?" She sat back again and fixed her gaze on me with those cold steel eyes. "I know your kind," she said disdainfully.
Daring her scorn, I fired back: "Why do you keep saying things like that? I'm not a 'kind.' I'm a person, an individual, just like anyone else who attends this school."
She laughed. "Hardly," she said. "You are the only girl with a rather depraved background. Not one of my other girls has a blemish on her family history. In fact, over eighty percent of the girls in this school come from families that can trace their lineage back to one of the hundred Filles a la Cassette or 'Casket Girls' who were originally brought to Louisiana."
"My father can trace his lineage back to them too," I said, even though I didn't place any value on such a thing.
"But your mother was a Cajun. Why, she was probably of questionable mixed blood. No," she continued, shaking her head, "I know your kind, your type. Your bad behavior is more insidious, subtle. You learn quickly who are the most vulnerable, who have certain weaknesses, and you play to those weaknesses, like some sort of swamp parasite," she added. My face flushed so hot I thought the top of my head would blow off. But before I could respond, she added what I realized was her real reason for calling me in.
"Just like you somehow managed to take advantage of my poor cousin Louis and get yourself a dinner invitation to my aunt's home."
The blood started to drain from my face.
"That's not true," I said.
"Not true?" She smiled coyly. "Many young women have dreamed of winning Louis's heart and becoming the one who would inherit this vast fortune, this school, all this property. A young blind man is hardly a catch otherwise, is he? But he is vulnerable. That's why we have been so careful about who he has as company up to this point.
"Unfortunately, you managed to make an impression on him without my aunt's knowledge, but don't think anything will come of it," she warned.
"That was never my intention. I didn't even want to go to dinner at the mansion," I added. She widened her eyes with surprise, her lips curled in a skeptical smile. "I didn't, but I felt sorry for Louis and . . . ″
"You felt sorry for Louis? You?" She laughed coldly. "Don't worry about Louis," she said. "He'll be just fine."
"No he won't. It's wrong to keep him encased in that house like a caterpillar in a cocoon. He needs to meet people . . . especially young women and—"
"How dare you have the impudence and audacity to suggest what is pod for my cousin and what is not! I will not tolerate another syllable from your lips about him, is that clear? Is it?" she shrilled.
I looked away, my eyes burning with tears of anger and frustration.
"Now then," she continued, "now that it is well known on this campus, I'm sure, that you have violated section seventeen of our behavior code, it is appropriate that you be punished. Such a violation carries twenty demerits, which automatically invokes a two-week denial of all social privileges. However, since this is your first real offense and since your teacher bears some of the blame, I will limit the punishment to one week. From today until the end of the sentence, you are to report directly back to your dorm after school hours and to remain there throughout the weekend. If you violate this for so much as one minute, I will have no alternative but to expel you from Greenwood, which I am sure will impact on your poor crippled sister as well," she said.
Icy tears streamed down my cheeks. My lips quivered and my throat felt as if I had swallowed a lump of coal.
"You can return to your class now," she concluded, slapping the handbook shut.
I stood up, my legs wobbly. I wanted to shout back at her, to defy her, to tell her what I really thought of her, but all I could see was Daddy's disappointed face and hear the deep sadness in his voice. This was just what Daphne would like, I thought. It would reaffirm her accusations about me and make life even more difficult for Daddy. So I swallowed back my indignation and pain and left her office.
For the remainder of the day, I felt numb. It was as if my heart had turned to cold stone. I went through the motions, did my work, took my notes, and walked from class to class with my eyes fixed ahead, not looking from left to right, not interested in any conversations.
At lunch I told Abby what had happened.
"I'm so disappointed in Mrs. Penny," I concluded. "She must have been frightened into it," Abby said. "I suppose I can't blame her. The Iron Lady could scare the tail off an alligator."
Abby laughed.
"I won't go anywhere this weekend either," she told me. "You don't have to do that: to punish yourself unfairly just because I'm being punished unfairly."
"I want to. I bet you'd do it for me," she added wisely. I tried to deny it, but she just laughed as if I were speaking gibberish. "Besides, I don't consider spending time with you a punishment," she put in. I smiled, my heart full at making such a good friend so quickly.