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And we’re back in 1955. Sorry about the time traveling. We will get back to Ned and Honour soon.
Context is in Foreword below.
The story of Inez de Vries unfolds through a constellation of documents—some official, drawn from the prim and unforgiving files of Saint Clare’s School for Girls; others more intimate, taken from the journals, letters, and scribbled notes of the girls themselves. Some will appear typed and orderly; others retain the texture of handwriting, rendered in a cursive-style font.
Readers are invited to step into the role of archivist, assembling the story from these traces, and imagining the lives that fill the gaps between pages—the tensions, the alliances, the secrets too dangerous to write down. Not everything will be explained. But Inez is watching. And she remembers.
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Foreword
From the Archivist
If the Prologue shows Miss Williams after a disastrous morning at the Institute, the present entry shows the three days that led to it—days filled with small offences, smaller triumphs, and domestic tensions that simmered steadily from the 8th to the 12th. Birchwood is not a large house, but it proves more than large enough for misadventure.
When last we left Miss Gladys Williams, it was the night of 11 July 1955, as she lay awake in a fury: raw from her first morning at the Domestic Institute, smarting under Gerald’s tight-lipped decrees, and dreading the next day’s return to Saint Clare School for Girls.
Before we press on to the events of the 12th (where the scenes in the Headmaster’s office still leave Miss Kelley wincing in her private journal), we must step back. Gladys’s bewildered anger in that entry did not spring from nowhere. It was the culmination of several small misadventures, misjudgments, and more than one melodrama by post.
Readers may wish to revisit:
The Elwood Files — the failed attempt to slip Inez’s letter past the school authorities.
The Lady and the Headmaster — in which Lady de Vries learns just enough to become dangerously perceptive.
The Secret Letters, Part I — where Gladys first involves herself in a correspondence she might have been wiser to avoid.
Melodrama by Post — ending in Clarissa’s own very revealing postscript.
Heard in the Charrington Household — Miss Gladys, hauled home from Scotland, is made to “answer for herself.”
Gladys in Trouble — Gerald’s formal terms, Gladys’s formal compliance, and the informal tears that followed.
Yet between her 7 July return and that prophetic line on the 11th — “Apparently 25 is still old enough to be spanked by circumstance” — lies a small but significant gap: three too-warm, sticky, uncomfortable days during which
- Mrs Fielding’s patience was tested,
- young Elsie was driven to tears (twice),
- the milkman did not cometh,
- the vicarage was pressed into service for stamps,
- the Institute visit loomed like a thundercloud,
- and Miss Gladys Williams of St Albans ricocheted between fury, sulks, and the sort of despair that leads a young woman to accuse, with more heat than prudence, a certain lady of having set the entire chain of events in motion.
The documents that follow: Mrs Fielding’s notes, Elsie Turner’s account, Gladys’s own private scribblings, and an unfortunately not-so-private letter, restore that missing chapter. Together, they illuminate why the 11th felt to Gladys like a trap snapping shut, and how the stage was set for the catastrophe of the following day.
For the most attentive readers, it may also be worth glancing back at the 1938 Honour’s Game series:
- Honour’s Lesson – Young, newly-married Lady Gwen discovers her Darlington’s limits.
- Honour’s Game – This story goes back to 1938 and tells the story of Inez’s parents in the earliest days of their marriage.
Connections grow clearer in hindsight, though none of the players in 1955 yet understand how far the past reaches into their present.
Some of the documents reproduced below are drawn from the Blue Room Archives at Saint Clare, specifically from the Lady Gwen de Vries papers and from the Charrington household files.
The Notes of Mrs Dorcas Fielding, Housekeeper
8 to 11 July 1955, St Albans
Friday, 8 July 1955
Since Mr Charrington and Miss Gladys came home yesterday, the house has been all upheaval. Miss Gladys stayed in her room most of the day, resting from her journey. Breakfast tray sent up at eight; returned at ten with only the toast disturbed. Luncheon laid in the dining room; untouched. At half past three she rang for tea and something sweet, then refused the scones as too dry.
Her untouched meals made me want to cry. It is a sin to waste good food.
Young Elsie Turner has been up and down the back stairs carrying trays that come back as full as they went up. I warned her not to show temper. It is not for us to say what a lady ought to eat. But I did begin reducing the portions. There is only so much that can be scraped into the pig bucket before it weighs on one’s conscience.
Mr Charrington kept to his study. He did not speak of Miss Gladys or ask whether she had come down to meals.
Foreword
This tale follows 
(This part of the text comes from the end of 
He sat at his desk while sh slept. He could not silence her — Honour was not a woman who could be silenced, or remain chastened for long without planning rebellion. She was too beautiful not to be noticed, even had she been inclined to play the wallflower — and her debut season had already proved she was anything but.
The story of Inez de Vries unfolds through a series of documents—some official, pulled from the prim and unforgiving files of Saint Clare’s School for Girls; others are more intimate, drawn from the journals, letters, and scribbled notes of the girls themselves. Some will appear typed and orderly; others will retain the texture of handwriting, rendered in a cursive-style font. Readers are invited to step into the role of archivist, assembling the story from these traces, and imagining the lives that fill the gaps between pages—the tensions, the alliances, the secrets too dangerous to write down. Not everything will be explained. But Inez is watching. And she remembers.
At Saint Clare’s, it is a truth universally acknowledged (at least by 
Trusting his indulgent understanding, Clarissa poured out her grievances to “Papa,” only to find he had abruptly transformed into “Father,” replying with all the ponderous dignity of the House of Commons. Clarissa, meanwhile, revealed a transformation of her own: the once devoted daughter emerged as a haughty, stroppy teenager, indignant at every turn and grandly refusing the hundred lines set for her. What might have remained a minor school punishment swelled into a correspondence campaign. 
Most Fourth Form girls, after receiving a tawsing, a detention, and a caning, learn to keep their heads down. Inez de Vries, however, reached out to her mother. Her account of the affair travelled through the post as a stowaway, arriving at Hollingwood Hall with the stealth of a midnight feast.
