Charlotte Says Read online

  “I’m very sorry,” I said. “But the boat was delayed and—”

  “I will overlook it this once but a second occurrence will lead to your wages being docked. Am I clear?”

  “Abundantly,” I replied coolly.

  “I will show you to your room,” she said. “The servants have retired for the night. Your trunk will be carried upstairs in the morning.”

  She kept her eyes fixed on me and I could tell that she wanted me to protest. There were things in my trunk I needed – my nightdress and my slippers and my wash kit – but I refused to give her the satisfaction so I simply said, “Very well.”

  The schoolmistress turned away to pick up a candlestick from the sideboard, lighting this before she extinguished the lamps.

  “This way,” she said, already heading for the staircase, guarding the candle’s flame with her hand.

  The heels of my boots seemed to click too loudly on the wooden boards as I followed her up to the first floor. I glanced at the balustrades as we went past, but the girls had obviously hurried back to bed and I wasn’t about to get them in trouble by mentioning them.

  “My quarters are here.” Miss Grayson gestured to a nearby room. “The girls sleep in a dormitory at the far end.” She pointed into the gloom. “Your room is located there as well, at the top of the servants’ stairs. This will enable us to keep an eye on the girls between us, in case anyone gets it into their head to start running around the place at night.”

  “Is that something that happens often?”

  “Last week I caught some girls trying to sneak down to the kitchen to steal food,” Miss Grayson said. Her thin mouth tightened. “Needless to say they were all whipped and sent to bed immediately. Dishonest behaviour will not be tolerated here.”

  You horrid old shrew, I thought, disliking the schoolmistress even more intensely. We are not going to get along at all.

  Miss Grayson led the way down the corridor and opened the door to my room, the bare wooden boards creaking under her slippered feet as she stepped inside. By the light of her candle I saw that the little space was every bit as spartan as I had expected it to be, simply comprising of a washstand, a bedside table, a chest of drawers, a dressing table, a rickety chair and a narrow bed. A single coal smouldered in the fireplace but the room was icy cold.

  “The fire was made ready for your arrival but I’m afraid you’ve missed the benefit of it, given your tardiness,” Miss Grayson remarked.

  If she expected me to apologize a second time for something that was not my fault then she was going to be disappointed. I walked into the room behind her. “Thank you for showing me up, Miss Grayson,” I said, peeling off my wet cloak. “Please don’t let me keep you from your bed any longer.”

  Seeing my bombazine mourning dress, trimmed in itchy black crepe, Miss Grayson pursed her lips and said, “Please accept my sympathies for your loss, Miss Black.”

  I inclined my head but said nothing. I couldn’t talk about it, not without breaking down, so I was relieved when the schoolmistress let the matter drop and lit the candle on the bedside table with an obvious show of reluctance. “You’ll be provided with one candlestick per week,” she told me. “If your use exceeds this then you must pay for any additional candles from your own private funds. I’d urge you to do without as far as you can. Candles lead to wax drips on the floor and they are also, of course, a fire hazard.”

  I gave her a sharp look, wondering if this was a reference to my past. Surely news of the fire would not have carried as far as the Isle of Skye? That was part of the appeal of coming here in the first place, after all. To leave all of that behind.

  “You will have one day off per month, on the last Sunday,” Miss Grayson went on. “The bathroom is down the corridor, the third door on the right. And there is a chamber pot beneath the bed. Lessons start at eight and breakfast is at seven. Please present yourself for a prompt start.”

  “Of course.”

  At the mention of breakfast, hunger rumbled again in my stomach and I briefly considered asking Miss Grayson whether it might be possible to get some refreshment sent up from the kitchen. But she’d already told me the servants had retired for the night and I couldn’t bear to receive another lecture about my lateness.

  “If that’s all, then I’ll wish you goodnight, Miss Black.”

  And with that she was gone, leaving me alone in the room.

  I headed straight to the fireplace, hoping to add some more coal to the fire, but the scuttle was empty. Clearly this was another thing that was rationed. I sighed. There was nothing for it but to go to bed.

  By the feeble light of the single candle, I struggled out of my wet clothes, draping them over the chair by the fireplace so they could start to dry out. Once I had stripped down to my undergarments, my teeth immediately started chattering. But mere physical discomfort barely had the power to touch me any more.

  I sat on the edge of the bed and ran my fingertips lightly over the many cigarette burns that scarred my arms and wrists, all the way up to my shoulders. My arms were a mess of scar tissue – ugly, ruined skin that felt tough and leathery to the touch. I recalled how some of the original burns had become infected, bleeding and weeping, and these scars were even uglier. As they’d healed, the skin had tightened around the scars, which now made it difficult for me to bend my arms at the elbows. I couldn’t properly feel the material of my mourning dress, or the touch of my fingertips brushing over the scarred surface.

  I tried to think back two weeks, to the night of the fire but almost at once I could feel my heart speeding up, my breath turning shallow in my throat, my chest constricting as if an iron weight were pressing down on it, hard enough to crush my ribcage.

  Don’t be frightened yet, his voice whispered in my mind once again. So clear and close and loud that it was like he was really there in the room, taunting me. I’ll tell you when it’s time to be frightened…

  I tasted cigarette smoke on my tongue, breathed in the overpowering scent of his hair’s Macassar oil, felt fingers digging into my skin hard enough to leave bruises. The smell of blood filled the air.

  Sit here, the voice went on inside my head. And hold this doll—

  “Shut up! Shut up!” I gasped. “You are not here. You are not here.”

  I opened my eyes, pushed Whiteladies from my thoughts and concentrated on breathing slowly until my heart rate finally returned to normal. I was out of London now, escaped from that dreadful place. Jemima Black was not a medium any longer, she was a schoolmistress, and life was to be plain and ordinary from now on. Completely plain and ordinary.

  I went over to the washstand and poured icy water from the jug into the bowl, then quickly splashed it over my face. Crawling between the freezing sheets, I wrapped my arms round the black grief I carried with me everywhere, trying not to mind the sting of its claws and teeth as I cried myself to sleep.

  Chapter Two

  Isle of Skye – January 1910

  The cold woke me early the next morning – it felt like my tears had frozen to my face during the night. It was still dark outside so I knew it must be early and yet I was ravenously hungry. As I climbed out of bed I wondered whether there could be anything more wretched in all the world than having to get up, shivering, in the early hours by the light of a single candle, especially when that candle was cheap and greasy and filled the room with the scent of animal fat.

  The school had an air of misery about it and I was reminded of my grandmother telling me that buildings could be haunted by human sadness as well as by ghosts. Unlike my mother, who cheerfully accepted she was a fake, Grandma had believed herself to be a genuine medium right up until the day she died. She was quite convinced that she regularly conversed with the dead and that she had once even made contact with a demon.

  It was trapped inside a painting, she’d told me. A painting of an old woman in a wedding dress. The family were terrified of that painting, Jemmy, because sometimes the old woman would weep and wail, and scrat
ch at her face at night. She moved around inside the frame, too. They thought they should just toss the painting straight on to the fire but luckily I was there to stop them. Destroying the painting would have released that devil and who knows where we would have been then? The only safe thing was to lock it up in a trunk and toss away the key.

  Oh, Mother, don’t scare Jemima with those bedtime stories! my mother had said with her customary laugh.

  I sighed and pushed all thoughts of family from my mind. Instead I gazed around the little bedroom. No servant had been to light the fire and, when I went over to last night’s washing water, I saw that it had frozen in the bowl. My eyes went to the bell pull behind the bed and I wondered whether I was permitted to ring it to call a servant. Finally I went over and gave it a firm tug. Even if a fire was not allowed, I needed to ensure my luggage was brought up so I could change into a suitable dress for the day.

  No one came and I had to ring the bell twice more before the same blond girl from yesterday finally knocked at my door. She scowled at my requests but I was firm with her and felt a petty sense of victory when she finally left, taking with her my wet clothes from the night before to be cleaned.

  I was forced to break through the ice in the bowl in order to wash. After that there was nothing to do but wait for my luggage to arrive, my sense of triumph rapidly turning to panic. It was almost seven o’clock, the hour when I was supposed to present myself for breakfast. I tugged at the servants’ bell again but it was another twenty torturous minutes before my trunk finally arrived.

  I dressed as quickly as I could, pulling on another black mourning dress, but then there was the problem of my hair. I had always worn it loose or in a simple plait but this would be improper now that I was seventeen. I was not yet accustomed to putting my hair up myself, there had been servants for that at Whiteladies, and it took me several clumsy attempts before I managed a half-decent chignon, secured with a jet hair comb. Upon looking at my pocket watch, I was horrified to see that it was now a quarter to eight.

  I hurried downstairs, back into the entrance hall, wondering where the breakfast room was and how I was supposed to get there, cursing myself for not asking Miss Grayson last night. I finally located the main hall just as the girls were filing out of it, looking neat and tidy in their matching dresses, all giving me curious looks as I passed by.

  I entered the room and saw that the blond maid was clearing away the porridge bowls. It was a vast space, cold as an icebox, with large windows that would let in plenty of light once the sun finally came up. The smell of burnt toast lingered in the air and the odd plate of blackened bread remained on the two long trestle tables that took up much of the room.

  Miss Grayson was standing beside a raised stage at the far end. Her hair was fashioned in the same fussy pompadour as last night, only now she wore a high-necked blouse and long skirt instead of a dressing gown. A vicious-looking tawse dangled from a loop round her wrist.

  The mistresses at my own school had used canes to punish the pupils but Henry had mentioned in one of his letters that Scottish schools seemed to prefer the tawse – a long strip of leather with the striking end split into thick individual strips. These strips, I noticed, were not edged, meaning that they could easily draw blood if enough force was used.

  “Very kind of you to join us, Miss Black,” Miss Grayson said as soon as she saw me. Her mouth twitched, just slightly, and I wondered whether she was suppressing a smile. She was probably delighted to have this opportunity to reprimand me again so soon.

  I walked slowly over to her, preparing myself to take whatever was coming.

  “There was a delay in my luggage arriving in my room,” I began. “I couldn’t get dressed until—”

  Miss Grayson fixed her gaze on me and I instantly fell silent. There was nothing in her expression but anger and it was startling to be looked at with so much open dislike.

  “Miss Black, I will tell you the same thing I tell the girls,” she said. “I am not interested in excuses or hearing you blame others for your own shortcomings. I thought I made myself quite clear on the issue of punctuality last night. You are late for the second time in a number of hours and your wages will be docked accordingly.”

  I gritted my teeth against the injustice of it. What would she have had me do? Come down in my petticoats?

  “I will be frank with you, Miss Black. It was not my idea to have an assistant mistress here,” she went on. “I told the board I thought it unnecessary. Besides which, I have enough to do looking after the students, without adding another girl into the mix.”

  “You won’t have to look after me, Miss Grayson,” I said. “I’m willing to work hard and I—”

  “Do not interrupt me, miss!” the schoolmistress replied, her nostrils flaring. “I will not tolerate rudeness. Furthermore, I have been informed that you continuously rang the servants’ bell in your bedroom this morning and kept the servants from their duties with your various demands.”

  I glanced over at the maid, who smirked at me before disappearing out of the door with the empty bowls.

  Miss Grayson’s pompadour wobbled as she drew herself up to stare down her nose at me. “I fear you’re under a great misapprehension if you think the staff are to be at your beck and call. I understand from your friend, Mr Collins, that you were accustomed to a rather grand lifestyle before you came here, but you’ll have to drop all of those airs and graces if you hope to maintain your position. Our generous benefactors employ the servants to take care of the school and its pupils, not to cater to your personal whims.”

  I felt a slow pulse of anger deep in my stomach and lifted my chin to meet her gaze. “Miss Grayson,” I said firmly, “I’m sorry, but it simply was not like that. I rang the bell because I needed my clothes brought upstairs and could not leave my room dressed only in my petticoats, as I’m sure you will concede. I apologize if I delayed the servants this morning, but I really don’t know what else you could have expected me to do in the circumstances. If there was an alternative course of action that would have been more appropriate, then by all means let me know so that I might bear it in mind for the future.”

  For a long moment there was utter silence as the schoolmistress and I stared at each other. Perhaps I should simply have accepted her chastisement meekly, saying nothing, but I had faced down worse monsters than Miss Grayson.

  She didn’t blink once and yet her eyes remained as watery as ever, while my own seemed to burn with dryness. Finally the silence was broken by a scuffling from the doorway and we turned to see a few of the girls standing there, watching the scene eagerly.

  “Go to your classroom and take your seats,” Miss Grayson snapped.

  The girls fled.

  “Hold out your hand,” she said, the moment they’d gone.

  “What for?” I asked, startled.

  “Hold. Out. Your. Hand,” Miss Grayson repeated in a low, harsh voice, “or pack your bags and leave the school this instant.”

  Slowly I held out my hand. The schoolmistress gripped it at the wrist, turned it over so that it was palm up and then administered three sharp strikes of her tawse across the soft skin of my palm. It smarted and stung like anything, leaving several angry red welts, but I refused to let any trace of pain cross my face. She could whip me for speaking my mind but she couldn’t stop me from speaking it, and I would rather take a hundred thrashings than allow myself to be bullied. I’d said what I wanted to say, I knew I was in the right, and nothing she said or did could take that from me.

  Miss Grayson dropped my hand and took a step back. “An ignoble beginning, Miss Black, I’m sure you’ll agree,” she remarked. I noticed she’d gone white around the lips. “I fear your career here is destined to be a short-lived one. While you are here, though, and taking payment, you will do your fair share of the work, I assure you. Please accompany me to the classroom and we will begin.”

  She turned and strode from the hall. I followed, trying to get control of the anger that wa
s bubbling up inside me, threatening to burst out. Hunger did not improve my mood; I had missed dinner last night and now breakfast, too, but like it or not I needed this job. I had no formal training as a governess and, if I was not to be a medium any more, then poorly paid work at an industrial school was the best I could hope for. The alternative was to rely on the charity of some poorhouse for destitute women.

  I followed Miss Grayson down the corridor to a large classroom, filled with individual roll-topped desks. A big blackboard stood at the front of the room, and the windows were set high enough to prevent the pupils from looking out and becoming distracted. A small fire burned in the grate but it was still chilly, and the place smelled of paper, chalk and cold wood. The tall desk by the blackboard must be Miss Grayson’s. I noticed that it had a big brass bell on it, presumably to ring for quiet, but the schoolmistress didn’t even need to look at it. I’d expected a bustle of activity as we entered but the room was silent, with all the girls sitting at their desks, facing forwards, pens in front of them ready to begin.

  “Good morning, girls,” Miss Grayson said.

  “Good morning, Miss Grayson,” they chorused back at her.

  “This is Miss Black,” the schoolmistress said, gesturing at me. “She will be helping you with your lessons. One at a time, I’d like you to stand up and introduce yourselves. Starting with you, Felicity.”

  A girl of about seven stood up. “My name is Felicity,” she said in a soft whisper. “And the magistrates sentenced me to an industrial school because I was found begging in the streets.”

  She sat down and Miss Grayson pointed to the girl next to her, who stood up and said, “My name is Olivia and the magistrates sentenced me to an industrial school because I was found wandering in the company of reputed thieves, which they said was one of the worst things for a girl of my age.”