Like a bruise, thought Tally, but a very expensive one.
“And we have to have regulation nightclothes, too: some schools are sloppy — they let you wear what you like at night — but not St. Barbara’s. Even the slippers are regulation — and on Sundays we wear special dresses: green velvet with lace collars; I can’t show you everything because the maid is still sewing on name tapes. But here’s my satchel — we have to have proper leather ones with our names stamped on, and hymn books, of course, and a lunch box.”
But even Margaret, who seldom noticed other people, saw that Tally was beginning to look worried and now she said, “The school will send you a list of the things you need and your aunts will help you buy them. Only you must have absolutely the right things — a girl came last term without her Sunday shoes and she got into awful trouble. Being different is the thing you mustn’t do.”
At this point Roderick came into the room. He was nearly two years older than Margaret — a fair, good-looking boy who seldom spoke to girls if he could help it. Roderick’s school was so famous and so grand that he didn’t really need to show off about it, but since Tally wasn’t usually easy to impress he mentioned that the Prince of Transjordania was in the class above him and that this term they were expecting a boy who was related to the family of the ex-emperor of Prussia.
“But we don’t treat them any differently than the other boys at Foxingham,” he said carelessly.
The rules at Foxingham were of course even stricter than those at St. Barbara’s — there was hazing and caning — and it was a famous rugby school, which had beaten Eton at the game.
“Have you bought your uniform, too? ” asked Tally.
“Of course,” said Roderick.
For a moment he hesitated. Then he went to his room and came back with his brand-new blazer, his tie, and his cap.
All of these were striped fiercely in red and yellow. Walking out together the boys, thought Tally, must have looked like a swarm of angry wasps or ferocious postmen. The motto on Roderick’s blazer was: OUT OF MY WAY.
“I’ll lend you some books if you like,” said Margaret. “School stories. I want them back of course, but I’ve read them millions of times. They’ll give you an idea of what to expect.”
She went to her bookcase and took out Angela of the Upper Fourth and The Madcap of the Remove and gave them to Tally, who thanked her warmly.
Aunt Virginia came in then and told them to come down to the dining room because tea was ready.
“You needn’t bother to do that,” said Margaret as Tally began to gather up the clothes on the bed. “The maid will do it.”
But after tea, just as Tally was getting ready to go home and was alone with her cousins, Margaret said: “By the way, what’s the name of your school? The one you’re going to.”
“It’s called Delderton.”
Margaret and Roderick looked at each other. “Delderton? Are you sure? ”
“Yes. Why? ”
There was a pause.
Then: “Oh, nothing,” said Roderick, shrugging his shoulders. “Nothing at all.”
But as the maid opened the front door to let her out, Tally heard them titter. The titter turned into full-scale laughter — but the door was shutting, and Tally was out in the street.
CHAPTER THREE
The Train
Aunt Hester and Aunt May had always done their best to share in Tally’s life. When Tally was six years old and had been cast as a sheep in the nativity play they had read books about agriculture and sheep farming and taken Tally to the zoo to watch the way the cloven-footed mammals moved their feet — and Tally’s performance on the day had been very much admired.
So now they tackled Angela of the Upper Fourth and The Madcap of the Remove and enjoyed them very much, though they were a little worried about how Tally would get on, having to say “spiffing” and “ripping” all the time, and shouting, “Well played, girls!” on the hockey field.
What they couldn’t do, however, was get Tally’s school uniform together, because no list came from Delderton.
“You mustn’t worry, dear,” said Aunt May. “The school will let us know in good time and then we’ll go and fit you up. They’ll pay — it’s a full scholarship.”
“Yes… but there are so many things… Eight pairs of shoes; I’ll get muddled. And a liberty bodice… I don’t really know what that is,” said Tally.
She was worried, too, about the rules: the curtsy to the headmistress and remembering to call her ma’am. And if the rules were going to be difficult, breaking them in the right way was going to be difficult, too. The midnight feasts in the dorm, for example… What if she stepped on an open tin of sardines and brought Matron running?
Because Aunt May’s letters in violet ink were apt to be rather emotional and Aunt Hester’s in green ink were almost impossible to read, Dr. Hamilton asked his receptionist, Miss Hoy, to write to the school asking for a list of the things Tally would need.
But before they got a reply Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, and after that no one had time to worry about braided blazers and green knickers with pockets in them, let alone about feasts in the dorm.
The milkman’s son got his call-up papers for the army and Dr. Hamilton spent more and more time at the hospital, where they were arranging for the evacuation of patients to the country; posters appeared telling people to grow vegetables and DIG FOR VICTORY, and Aunt Hester said she wanted to go and entertain the troops.
“I know I’m not young,” she said, “but my voice is still good.”
Then, just a week before the beginning of term, a letter came from the school secretary at Delderton announcing the departure of the school train from Paddington Station at ten o’clock on April 13. There was still nothing about the school uniform or the rules and regulations.
“They’ll probably fit you out when you get there, like in the army,” said the aunts consolingly.
And Tally tried not to panic because she was going to an unknown place without any of the right things and without knowing how to behave at all. After all, men were joining the army or going to fight in airplanes or drown in ships, and here she was fussing about liberty bodices and stepping on sardines.
Two days later there was a phone call from Aunt Virginia. Margaret was not starting school till the day after Tally, but Roderick’s school, Foxingham, which was also in the West Country, started the same day and his train left Paddington at almost the same time.
“So we could take Tally to the station,” she said. “There’s plenty of room in the Rolls.” To her husband she had said, “It would be nice for the girl to arrive in a decent car instead of that old crock her father drives. First impressions are so important.”
Tally looked in anguish at her father. “Oh please, I want you to take me.”
“Don’t be foolish,” said Dr. Hamilton. “You don’t suppose we’d let anyone else see you off? ”
Because of course May and Hester were coming, too. Actually, rather a lot of people had wanted to come and see Tally off: Kenny and Maybelle; the receptionist, Miss Hoy; Sister Felicia from the convent… but Dr. Hamilton had persuaded them that Tally would do best with only her immediate family to say good-bye.
Paddington Station on the morning of April thirteenth was in a state of bustle and confusion. Parents towed their children to what they hoped was the right barrier; loudspeakers crackled, announcing changes of platform; porters with their trolleys tried to avoid the passengers who asked them things they didn’t know. From time to time a waiting train would hiss fiercely and a group of agitated mothers or worried children would vanish in a cloud of steam.