angled up the lid to peer inside the teapot, the tea now a deep copper.
‘Shall I pour?’ she said. The thought of Miss Lott’s decline brought to the surface the mangled pain of her father’s death, her brothers’ too, anguish she supposed she’d always have to live with.
Miss Lott rhythmically stroked the dog, shifting him on her lap. His head tilted upwards. He licked the end of her nose, making Miss Lott wrinkle her face with delight.
Meanwhile the tea slipped through the strainer and purred into the floral bone-china cups, the steam unfurling into the spring morning. Once she was finished, she looked down at the playing field ahead. She had to say something to Miss Lott, but what?
‘The rose garden is shooting up,’ was the best she could do.
Below the white-spindled frontage of the balcony was the Principal’s own private garden. In two large beds, framed by shin-height box hedges, the new season’s rosebush shoots shouldered fresh burgundy leaves.
The truth about the severity of Miss Lott’s illness had been right in front of her. The soil hadn’t been dug over; the tubers hadn’t been planted out. Instead, deep-toothed dandelion leaves and a ground covering of bindweed had taken advantage of her weakness and were overrunning the beds and the bricked pathway.
Mrs Lancaster, her secretary, entered with two squat tumblers on a tray, ice cubes chinking, the soda water fizzing and the whisky staining the water a thin amber. She set the glasses down with an appraising glance at Natalie. She must have known that Miss Lott was going to break the news to her today – the whisky the medicine to help the sadness go down. Perhaps, she thought, a dull Sunday wouldn’t have been such a bad thing after all.
‘Bottoms up, ladies.’
Natalie took a large gulp.
‘I’ll be off to the village to get the newspapers then.’ Mrs Lancaster left them to it.
As comforting as cocoa, the whisky warmed her up and left her feeling alive and awake and tired and ready for a rest all at the same time. It also relaxed her tongue and mind almost instantly.
‘None of the words that I can think to say sum up my gratitude to you…and my devastation that you won’t be here.’ Still, I can’t be honest. Still, I can’t tell you how frustrated I’ve become here. If I am, you’ll think me ungrateful.
Miss Lott’s breathing came in a pattern of shallow snatches of air.
‘Words can do that, can’t they? Language is so rich and expressive and yet so insubstantial and hollow at times.’
On the playing field the girls began their Sunday bowling practice with Miss Hollands in the mid-morning sun. Murray spotted the red cricket ball as the batswoman rolled it over her shoulder. He jumped down to put his nose through the bars, yapping at the ball.
‘Murray! Murray!’ Miss Lott called. ‘Cricket isn’t for you, I’m afraid. You must know by now that you need to be a female to join in our games.’
*
Natalie wiped her nose, catching a glimpse of its red tip and her blotchy eyes in the mantelpiece mirror as she headed for her study door.
Mr Wilkins, the girl’s father, shuffled in, hat in hand. He was tall in his brown woollen suit, with salt and pepper hair smoothed down, but only in places.
He looked first at Natalie’s made-up face, no doubt noticing that the tears had streaked her powder, and then her Sunday attire of taffeta bows stitched to her shoulder seams, her silk skirt. She was used to this preliminary assessment by now. She worked hard to not fit the expected schoolmarm bill of tweeds and sensible shoes, and it often unsettled the parents.
People wondered who she thought she was making the effort for, thought that she was deluded and wasting her time, but she’d heard stories of love creeping up unexpectedly on other women of her age. Why not her? Why not someone like Jack? Don’t be silly. You know why not.
Behind him came Mrs Wilkins, a black silk scarf wound around her head with chestnut wisps creeping on to her face. Her matching black silk kaftan billowed behind her as she swept in, the fabric as iridescent as a scarab beetle. She dodged Natalie’s hand and instead kissed her on the cheek, planting the scent of patchouli beneath her nose. She curled into one of the chairs Natalie had placed on the hearthrug, her legs up from the floor, feet tucked beneath her.
She waited for Mr Wilkins to drape his folded mackintosh over the back of his chair and saw that despite the silk tie, his suit was fraying at the cuffs and was worn on the elbow and knees.
‘You know our trustee Lord Lacey, I hear?’ Natalie asked as he tossed his hat on to her desk.
‘That’s right. He’s one of our Heathfield Players.’
Natalie lifted her shoulders in question.
‘Gerry runs the local am-dram society.’ Mrs Wilkins’s shoes clattered from her feet to the rug. ‘Lacey is always trying out for the male lead.’ She rolled her eyes. Natalie suppressed her smile. She could well imagine it. ‘Can’t act for toffee…but he doesn’t let that…’
‘Now, now, Clarissa.’
‘Well…’ Her false eyelashes tickled her powdered cheek as she winked at Natalie and wedged a cigarette into a slender black holder.
‘You both act.’ Natalie said it more as a statement. It was coming back to her now: their first meeting at Miss Wilkins’s assessment. She’d been too distracted with the task in hand to really register how out of place the family were and consider whether their daughter would fit in.
‘I write too,’ Mrs Wilkins explained, ‘some of the scripts for the Heathfield Players that our dear ham Lacey murders on stage.’
‘I see,’ said Natalie, understanding now the source of Margaret’s bohemian tendencies.
‘He earned us a terrible review in the Heathfield Times.’ She lowered her head and Mr Wilkins put his hand on her arm.
‘Well, anyway, thank you for coming here today to discuss Miss Wilkins – Margaret, that is.’
Mrs Wilkins lit her cigarette and filed the smoke into the air. Natalie had previously moved her chair out from behind her desk so it was opposite the parents’ chairs. She’d liked the idea of meeting them in an open space. She’d thought it would be less confrontational for their delicate discussion, but now she wished she was tucked behind the safety of her desk.
‘Oh look.’ Mrs Wilkins stood, her cigarette cocked at her shoulder, as she walked barefooted to the window. ‘Is that our Margaret out there? Taking a class on a Sunday?’
The three of them stood and moved to the bay of the window to watch the girls line up on the fir-tree-backed playing field.
‘Just an hour of drills for the first years. It’s quite an impressive sight, isn’t it?’ Natalie said, resting her hand on the windowsill.
Margaret, their nineteen-year-old daughter, in the front row, was easily marked out by her black-rimmed glasses and chin-length thatch of hair.
Mrs
