I say,” she said. “You will replace her. You will become her.”
“Silence!” she shouted, slamming her fist down on her desk like an auctioneer’s gavel. “Scarlet’s place needs to be filled, and it is fortuitous that we have someone to fill it. We shall not have the good name of Rookwood School tarnished by unfortunate circumstances. We’ve put the absence before summer down to a bout of influenza, which you, Scarlet,” she looked at me pointedly, “have recovered from well.”
I was lost, reeling, and the room span around me. Perhaps this was a nightmare, and in reality I was in a tormented sleep back at my aunt’s house.
“But …” I protested. “You didn’t accept me for the scholarship! Only Scarlet passed the entrance exam.” I had never forgiven myself for that. I’d been up all of the previous night fretting about it, and I was sure I hadn’t studied enough.
“That is irrelevant, child. The fees are already paid. You will take your sister’s place for the sake of the greater good. From now on, you are Scarlet. Ivy might not have passed the entrance exam, but you did.”
I wanted to shout at her, but my lips were quivering and my breathing was shallow and panicked. “P-please, why do I have to do this?”
She held out a finger to silence me, the tip of her nail long and sharp.
“It does not concern you. These are adult matters, and we shall deal with them as we see fit. You don’t want to trouble the other pupils with this, do you?” She leant back and looked away from me.
“D-does my father know about this, Miss?” If everyone at the school was clueless, I hoped there was a chance that Father had been deceived as well.
My hopes were shattered when she replied, “Of course he does. We have his full permission. He understands that it’s the best way. Now,” she continued, “we’ve kept your room for you. Breakfast is at seven thirty.” She started tapping her fountain pen, and talking in a flat voice as though she were reading from an invisible blackboard. “Lessons start at nine.” Tap. “The matron’s office is at the end of our corridor.” Tap. “No loitering in the hallways.” Tap tap. “Lights out at nine o’clock …”
I should have been listening to the rules, but I couldn’t help being distracted by the items on Miss Fox’s desk – a lamp, a telephone, an inkwell, an ivory paperweight, a chequebook, a small golden pill-box and – oh no – a stuffed Chihuahua with a mouth full of pens.
“Pay attention, girl!”
My eyes darted back up. “Yes, Miss Fox,” I replied.
Miss Fox gave an exasperated sigh. “Here, take this –” she handed me a map and a list of the school rules. “Remember, you are Scarlet now. There is no more Ivy.”
She got up from the chair quickly, and waved at me to follow her.
It’s quite a thing to be told that you don’t exist any more. It took me a moment to stand, my legs were shaking so much.
I felt like one of the sad dogs on Miss Fox’s walls. Their glassy gazes penetrated my back as I walked out of the office, trying to leave Ivy Grey behind.
I trailed after Miss Fox, along the corridors and up some dark, claustrophobic stairs to the first floor. The walls were lined with regimental rows of little green doors with numbers pinned on. We stopped at one bearing the number thirteen. Of course, Scarlet’s favourite number. She laughed in the face of bad luck.
Miss Fox unlocked the door, thrust the labelled key back into the depths of her dress and left me standing in the corridor with nothing but a “get changed, girl” over her shoulder. The door was left swinging uncertainly on its hinges, and I peered inside with trepidation.
The dorm room was not unlike our bedroom at home, with two iron beds standing side by side.
In my mind, I saw Scarlet dashing in, bouncing on the mattress and untucking the bed sheets – she always said it made her feel like she was in a sarcophagus if they were too tight. She would blow a dark lock of hair from her eyes and tell me to stop looking so gormless and bring in our bags.
I stared down at my feet. There was just the one bag there, its sides slumping on the hard wooden floor.
Shaking my head, I picked it up and walked into the room, the ghost of Scarlet evaporating from my mind. I had to calm down, to pull myself together.
Sort out your room. Unpack your things. Don’t forget to breathe!
Out of habit, I immediately went for the bed on the left, before realising that Scarlet would have gone for the right. I had no idea if anyone would notice such things, but I dutifully crossed to the other bed, set down my bag and looked around.
The whitewashed room contained a big oak wardrobe, a wobbly chest of drawers and a dressing table with a chipped mirror. I caught sight of myself in it. Scarlet and I had the same dark hair, same pale skin, same small features like a child’s doll. Only on her it had always seemed pretty. It just made me look lost and sad.
“Scarlet,” I whispered. I stepped forward and held my hand out towards the mirror. When we were younger we used to stand either side of the downstairs windows and copy each other’s movements, pretending to be reflections. I would always do it backwards by accident, and she would collapse in fits of laughter. Yet now, as I waved my hand at the mirror, the image in the glass followed it exactly.
My head hurt.
In one corner of the room there was a washbasin with a sink and plain porcelain jug, with white flannels laid out next to it. Even though this room had belonged to Scarlet in the previous year, there was no sign of her.
I began to wonder what they had done with all her possessions. If they weren’t here, where were they? Where were her clothes and her books? Where was …
Her diary.
When we were little, she always showed me the contents of her diary. Sometimes she would let me write in it too. A new one every year. She would fill it with drawings of us, identical stick figures living in a gingerbread cottage with the evil stepmother. But as we got older she became more secretive, always hiding it. Not that I would have read it. If there were thoughts in there that she couldn’t share with me, her twin, I didn’t want to know them.
Scarlet’s precious diary could have been destroyed or lost or tossed away by a maid, and that thought made me shudder. But there was a small chance that Scarlet had hidden it too well for it to be found.
And if it was still here – all that was left of my sister – I desperately wanted it.
The wardrobe,
