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Gladys’s Diary
12 July, on the road to Saint Clare
We left London at nine sharp, Gerald, punctual as a firing squad, calling to me when I was still buttoning my gloves, so no breakfast for me. St Alban’s was wrapped in mist, drizzle spotting the windscreen, my gloves clammy already. Gerald plonked himself down with his papers the instant we were in the Rover, and poor Fowler set off steady as a metronome. Judgment and disapproval rolling off Gerald like steam off a pudding. Every rustle of his notes made me feel like I’d committed a fresh crime.
By Oxford my stomach was ready to stage a mutiny. We stopped at Lyons Corner House, thank heaven, though it was hardly salvation: tea weak as dishwater, buns hard enough to kill a pigeon, but at least something hot. Gerald read The Times while pointedly checking his watch every five minutes. Typical. I chewed gloomily and imagined eggs and bacon at the Dorchester.
I would have smoked to take the edge off, but that, too, is forbidden me. Gerald says I ought to “begin as I mean to go on”, since the Institute won’t allow cigarettes and I had better be quit of them now, mentioning that, given my changed allowance, I should refrain from setting money on fire. As if I were some horrid addict to be weaned, instead of a perfectly normal woman who likes a fag with her tea. What utter rot.
Back in the Rover, the skies grew brighter, hedges flashing green in the sun. I asked if we might lower the windows, let in a bit of air, but Gerald said it disturbed his papers. So I sat and baked while he rustled and sighed. “Why didn’t you bring a book, Gladys? You might have taken along that new one from the Institute, as I believe I suggested.”
Bore. I told him I preferred to look out the window at our lovely English countryside… though all there was to see was a lot of cows and sheep. Always sheep.
By half one I thought I should expire from hunger. At last, the hamper. But my relief was shortlived. Why? REVENGE. Dorcas Fielding made it plain yesterday she blames me for the loss of her holiday, and, should I have been in any doubt, she packed the trip’s hamper to prove it. Egg and cress gone slimy, tongue like shoe-leather, cheese already sweating through the paper. And the biscuits, usually my favorite part of any lunch, alas! Lemon curd, my sworn enemy. Dorcas must have spread it with a trowel and a smirk. I pictured her chuckling away, beastly woman. Rather like Matron used to, when she caught us whispering after lights-out.
Gerald, of course, ate like we were at Claridge’s, nodding sagely and pronouncing it “thoughtful” that we needn’t stop for luncheon. Thoughtful! He munched and nodded, passing sandwiches up to Fowler, who accepted with pleasure. Of course the men love tongue. Don’t they always?
I begged for a proper tearoom stop. Gerald’s reply, icy as a prefect’s glare: “This is not a country weekend, Gladys,” his words coolly reminding me of all I am missing in the Highlands. The blow nearly finished me. My only reprieve came when I insisted on the need for a convenience, being explicit enough to embarrass them both. Good. That won us five minutes and a thimble of tea at some miserable roadside café before he buried himself in his papers again and we were off.
So there was little to do but scribble in this book, look occupied and avoid hearing more lectures on how I waste my time. Gerald peered at me once, over the top of his spectacles, and muttered that note-taking was at least more industrious than sulking. I nearly threw the whole hamper at him.
From then on it was hedges and sheep, sheep and hedges. Gloucester. Hereford. Shrewsbury. I dozed and woke and dozed again, but the sheep and endless green fields never changed. By the time we reached Shrewsbury the sky was bright and my head ached from staring at the same hedgerows. I was so cross I almost welcomed Gerald’s glare, just for the company.
And then, quite suddenly, the hedges fell away, we turned into the small hills, and there it was. Saint Clare. The turrets, the soft yellow bricks covered in ivy, glowing in the late afternoon sunshine.
I spent nearly all my childhood here, came at just seven, left at eighteen, and everything I gained and lost in this life is bound up with it. Maggs was so happy when I arrived, took my hand, and for two years she showed me every stone and every corridor. I had no Father or Mother left, but I had her, and she made the school into home. I stood here when I’d heard she’d married Gerald. And it was here, too, that I first heard she was, when I first heard of her accident. When I found out she was gone.
Girls playing hockey, no, lacrosse, somewhere, shouting “Cradle!” in voices that carried on the afternoon breeze. The urge to run, to find and join them, to be a Saint Clare girl again rather than an Old Girl, was overwhelming. I felt it as a pain in my chest. After all the drear and humiliation of this past week, the wish to return to my house, my room, my dormitory almost flattened me. Even with all I knew was coming, I confess I envy Clarissa, even with what I know is coming. At least she has this moment. of ignorance.
Return to the illustrated version.