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This sequence draws from the Charrington Papers and the less officious corners of Saint Clare’s—those neat staff reports never meant to withstand scrutiny; the household logs written with a pointed, domestic hauteur; and the diaries, margins, and illicit notes in which the girls record rather more than their elders imagine. Some documents are respectably typed. Others arrive in the swift, unsteady cursive of someone writing under pressure, or in a place she very much oughtn’t be.
Readers are invited to take up the archivist’s task, and the investigator’s pleasure, of weighing the School’s polished accounts against the smudged, contradictory recollections of those who actually lived the day. Much will be implied. Little will be stated outright. And attentive readers may notice that Miss Gladys Williams’s file, though she left Saint Clare more than five years ago, has begun to grow again—curiously, and on no official authority whatsoever.
The archive remembers. And so, of course, does Inez.
Comments are warmly welcomed. While I enjoy seeing them on Bluesky and Twitter, those left here become part of the archive proper, where they may—quietly—shape what follows.
Saint Clare November: 26,997 / 50 000 words
The MP Visits Saint Clare continues. The earlier parts are:
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.
Note: Comments are read and much appreciated. Much as I like reading them on Twitter and Bluesky, I love getting them here, and promise to respond. Moreover your ideas and reactions also join the archives, where they may quietly shape what comes next.
Foreword (From the Archivist)
Those who have read the entry for 11 July 1955 will recall that the day ended in no small amount of sulking, slammed doors, and the sort of tense household quiet that staff notice before anyone else. Indeed, Mrs Dorcas Fielding—Housekeeper of Birchwood Grange and long-suffering witness to Miss Gladys Williams’s moods—noted in her report that she was “glad to see the back of them both” when the party departed the next morning.
With that cheerful blessing, we arrive at 12 July, a date that would prove no gentler for anyone involved.
This first instalment follows Gladys’s own account of the journey from London to Saint Clare: the damp gloves, the Lyons tea, the spitefully packed hamper, and the slow, piercing recognition that she is returning not merely to a school but to the last place her life made any sense.
It is worth remembering, as the Rover crawls toward Oxford and tempers fray, that the true calamity of the day has not yet occurred. Gladys feels it coming—in the rustle of Gerald’s papers, in the heaviness of her own hunger, and in the sinking of her heart as the familiar silhouette of the school rises before her.
For now, though, it is enough to follow her into the motor just after nine o’clock, with Mrs Fielding watching from the doorway and thanking Providence that whatever awaits them in Wales will, at least, be elsewhere.
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 nor even tea 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 High Street tea shop 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. At least she has this moment. of ignorance.
Afterword (From the Archivist)
The records show that no fatalities resulted from the Lyons buns, the lemon-curd biscuits, or the airless Rover. Nevertheless, one must admire Gladys’s conviction that she was being slowly and deliberately poisoned by Mrs Fielding’s hamper. History provides no evidence that such was the case – though anyone familiar with Dorcas Fielding’s methods may form their own conclusions.
What follows in the next instalment, “Part III – Gladys Williams’ Return” will make it abundantly clear that the true ordeal of 12 July began not on the road, but the moment Mr Charrington rapped upon the Headmaster’s door.
“Of course the men loved tongue. Don’t they always.”
Now I am thoroughly convinced this miss could benefit from a smacked bottom, five and twenty though she might be.
Not because she is, wrong. She’s not, is she? Not because she mayn’t write what she pleases in her diary. She may, of course. But because, even writing in her private papers, she demonstrates her profound cheekiness, and disrespect, not only for the head of her household but with regard to a loyal family retainer who is merely doing his job. This sort of sullen, superior, sneering flood of attitude needs stemming.
Five or ten minutes over Gerald’s knee being reaquainted with salutary effects of wooden hall brush enthusiastically applied to the seat of her pants would go a long way to setting her back in her place.
Oh. Also? Harrumph.
*laughing* Indeed. She’s even starting to get on MY nerves. Also, I mean, Gladys, Clarissa, Inez, Ronnie… is anyone EVER going to get whacked? Seriously.
Stay tuned. I have it on good authority that the next diary entry is *not* one of Gladys’.
Thank you so much for reading and commenting. I’ve taken all this way too seriously, no doubt, but am having so much fun writing.