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Introducing our actors…
A necessary act of discretion before the drama resumes.If you’ve made it through Inez de Vries’s infamous detention essay, you already know Saint Clare’s isn’t just any girls’ school—and Inez is not just any girl. Before we move into the staffroom files tomorrow (starting with a crisply worded concern from Mr. Green—whose tone might benefit from a small glass of sherry and a nap), I thought it worth pausing to formally introduce the cast.
I’ve always loved these sorts of pages—the dramatis personae tucked at the start of vintage novels, the ones that told you, with great precision and a glint of menace, that “Colonel Arbuthnot has a revolver, a past, and a scheduled appearance on page 243.” Agatha Christie did it especially well, and so did school stories of the mid-century: characters arranged like chess pieces before the game begins (or after it’s already started and someone’s flipped the board).
Saint Clare’s is no different. Everyone wears the same uniform—but no two girls wear it the same way. And the staff? Well. Let’s just say the prefects aren’t the only ones taking notes.
Here, then, is your guide to the players: the faculty, the form mistresses, the prefects, and the girls—sharp, slippery, loyal, watchful. You may already suspect their alliances. Tomorrow, you’ll see them in motion.
Welcome to the cast. Curtain’s up soon.
