A No-nonsense Young Woman
Title: A No-nonsense Young Woman
Series: (Pamela Cox as) Enid Blyton's Malory Towers
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Miss Nicholson rather likes what she can see behind Miss Lacey's haughty façade. Based on Goodbye Malory Towers by Pamela Cox.
Only when they were safely in their own study, with the door shut behind them, did Miss Lacey break the silence, saying, ‘You told the Head a lie to get me out of trouble. Why did you do that?’
The last car roared down the grand drive and away from Malory Towers. As it rapidly gathered speed, Miss Nicholson caught sight of a most startled June at the passenger window. The driver was Alicia, that quick-thinking young woman who had spotted the vital link in Daisy’s chain of malice. Miss Nicholson wasn’t silly enough to thank the back of a departing vehicle, but she thought warmly of Alicia all the same. In fact, she had liked all the old girls. They were jolly and sensible, and the reunion ended very merrily indeed. Miss Nicholson enjoyed their company - and not only for the expression it conjured on Miss Lacey’s face, quite different from the haunted look she wore too often lately.
Without the chatter and movement of 250-odd girls, the school felt rather sombre. Miss Nicholson welcomed the quiet. There had been altogether too much excitement over the last term. One more night, and then she and Miss Lacey and all the other mistresses would scatter to parents, brothers, sisters, or somebody else, perhaps. Some would remain nearby, of course. Miss Grayling kept a charming cottage by the coast, so she had heard in the staff common room.
She herself would return to her parents’ house, taking the train tomorrow to London, and then the branch line home. Miss Lacey, she understood, would do the same.
Hooves clopped suddenly behind her. Miss Nicholson turned to see two young women on horseback coming from the direction of the stables. Bill and Clarissa were also former schoolfellows of Miss Lacey. Of course, more than that, she heard their names frequently on the lips of some of the more horse-mad girls. They spotted her then, and Bill raised a hand in greeting.
‘Hallo! Everybody’s gone now, I suppose.’
Miss Nicholson grinned. ‘Yes, you’ve just missed the last of them. Young June looking rather ill in the passenger seat, I must say.’
‘I hope Alicia still carries paper bags,’ said Bill, eyes twinkling.
They laughed, and then silence folded over them once more. All three looked up at the still, solemn fortress towering above. The sea could be heard quite clearly that afternoon, and the mewling of the gulls on the wind.
‘Awfully queer without the girls, isn’t it?’ said Clarissa, giving a little shiver.
One of Bill’s hands left her reins to squeeze Clarissa’s arm, and the young woman looked back and smiled. Miss Nicholson felt unaccountably awkward then, as if she might have stumbled onto some private scene. But then, hand-holding and embracing did not come naturally to her as it seemed to other women. Of this, she felt acutely aware when Miss Lacey pulled her into her bedroom, face pale and tears threatening, to show her the scene of ransack and ruin. Miss Nicholson wanted so badly then to wrap her arms around her friend - to let her cry into her blouse until the fabric was translucent with tears. Smooth her golden hair, kiss her head, and tell her that everything would be all right after all.
The closest she had managed was a hand on the shoulder, and a gruff, red-faced offer to help replace the stolen cufflinks. ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be’ rang her mother’s voice through her head, and for the first time, she ignored it. As expected, Miss Lacey refused the loan, though the look on her face made Miss Nicholson’s heart thump noticeably faster - a curious mixture of gratitude and wonder.
‘Well, have a good hols,’ said Bill, turning her horse around. ‘I hope we might see you next term. Do you ride?’
‘Only in the most rudimentary fashion,’ replied Miss Nicholson, rather apologetically. It seemed almost an insult when said to such devoted horsewomen, but she was nothing if not honest.
Neither appeared put off by it.
‘Jolly good,’ said Clarissa warmly. ‘Come over to Five Oaks, then, and we’ll arrange a horse for you.’
And with that, both nudged their horses and moved off, the clop of hooves echoing across the drive. Bill’s white teeth flashed in her tanned, rather square face. Clarissa’s auburn hair flew in waves behind her. Miss Nicholson couldn’t help thinking how handsome a pair they made, truly worthy of one another. Oh, not that looks made friendships - she didn’t believe that in the slightest - but certain people fit together so magically, their friendship seemed the stuff of some higher design, rather than mere, mortal chance.
She turned and trudged up the steps to the entrance. In her heart, Miss Nicholson knew she didn’t pair well with Miss Lacey. The other mistress was pretty and refined, where she was plain and robust. ‘Well’ was the term people used to describe her.
‘Aren’t you looking well?’ her father always said when she returned from boarding school as a girl. Then from teacher’s college - and now school once more.
But plain she was, and nothing could change it. She didn’t see the point in curling hair or pinching cheeks. Quite apart from anything, she had a strong suspicion that she would look ridiculous at the end of any such process. She long ago made peace with the unfairness of it - that some girls, like Miss Lacey, had luminous pale blue eyes, and others made do with ordinary hazel ones. She could only be what she was - plain, hearty, and far too sensible to fret over it.
She liked Miss Lacey, though, more than perhaps she would have thought possible. Everything about the other mistress appealed - the sheer desperate pride of her! Brooches worn like battle armour. The tiny sighs she stifled over those letters with the flowery handwriting. The rigid set of her back, first glimpsed at morning prayers and remaining so until she slipped from the common room at night. Almost as though she had her own posture to live up to. By evening, many of the mistresses, Miss Nicholson included, found their shoulders flagging under the strain of leading by example. But Miss Lacey still moved with ramrod precision. Miss Nicholson wondered if, in her bedroom, in the pale pink nightdress she had seen peeping from under the pillow, she kept her perfect bearing. In bed, did her spine lay so amazingly straight? If Miss Nicholson were to curl around her, arms enfolding Miss Lacey from behind, would she stay firm - or bend and soften in response?
Miss Nicholson blushed, but the image persisted, and she couldn’t honestly call it unwelcome. There was nobody about to question her pink cheeks. What did it matter what thoughts ran the circumference of her head - sometimes in dizzying marathons?
She knew it must have taken Miss Lacey a great deal of courage to return to Malory Towers and work amongst her former instructors. Some pupils would be welcomed with joyous smiles and claps on the back - like young Felicity Rivers, or her sister Darrell, whom Miss Potts had greeted warmly. That had not been the case with Miss Lacey, however. Miss Nicholson saw how she skirted around the older mistresses in the common room, as if she were still a pupil. For their part, they treated her cordially, but without affection.
Sometimes Miss Lacey would take her tea to their study in the evening, rather than attempt to bridge that cavernous gap. Then Miss Nicholson saw pursed lips and cold eyes as the other women dismissed Miss Lacey as stand-offish, vain, silly - something like that. Anger flared inside of her, and yet she couldn’t say a word. She too had been new that term and as such, had no authority to take anyone to task over slights - real or imagined. She didn’t know, of course, what sort of pupil Miss Lacey had been. Yet were she the laziest, most spiteful, thoughtless girl ever to cross the threshold at Malory Towers, surely they could see how hard she was trying now. Did they not care? Or were they simply blind to the tremor in her voice, the pink in her cheeks?
Miss Nicholson saw them all right. She wanted to say something comforting, something hearty and familiar to lift her friend’s spirits - that Miss Lacey shouldn’t worry about the other mistresses, and how in time they would all be good friends. But she couldn’t, of course, because Miss Lacey would be humiliated that anybody had noticed. In fact, it would be a terrible intrusion to assume she knew anything about Miss Lacey at all.
But she did know something - that somewhere not too far beneath the surface, her friend was bruised and raw. The confident, sophisticated persona lay as light and brittle upon her as glass. Behind it, through it, Miss Nicholson saw a young woman terribly anxious to be accepted, terribly anxious to prove her worth. Miss Nicholson wanted to demonstrate her abilities too that first term, but it ran deeper than that with Miss Lacey. A sadness trickled through her that Miss Nicholson couldn’t fathom.
She arrived then at the little study that the two of them shared. Pushing open the door, she felt a rush of pleasure at the sight of her friend. Miss Lacey looked up as the door creaked, and then a smile, rather sweet in its honesty, lit up her pale, lovely face.
‘Oh, I’m glad you’re here,’ Miss Nicholson said, trying to quell the rising in her chest. ‘I’ll ring for some tea, shall I? Miss Potts told me that we might, since there are still plenty of maids about.’
Miss Lacey’s smile faltered.
‘Actually, would you mind terribly if we didn’t? I don’t think I can face any of the maids just yet.’
‘No, I don’t mind a bit,’ Miss Nicholson said, though she felt rather surprised.
She eyed Miss Lacey carefully. The smile had faded, and now the other mistress simply looked pale and forlorn. One or two nights of unperturbed sleep had apparently done little to ease the grey about her eyes. Miss Nicholson frowned, and took a step closer.
‘I say, none of that business was your fault, Miss Lacey. I do hope you realise that. It was pure spite on Daisy’s part, that’s all.’
‘Yes, I know that,’ said Miss Lacey, soft and unhappy. ‘But I can’t pretend that I’m blameless either. If I hadn’t been such a beast back then, Daisy would never have turned on me now. So, you see, I’ve only reaped what I’ve sown, haven’t I?’
And then to Miss Nicholson’s considerable dismay, thick, streaming tears spilled from Miss Lacey’s large eyes and ran down her cheeks.
‘Miss Lacey!’
‘I’m so sorry. Please excuse me.’ She clumsily patted at her cheeks with a crumpled handkerchief. Miss Nicholson realised that it must have been used several times already that day.
‘I quite understand if you don’t wish to be friends with me any more,’ Miss Lacey went on in a low little voice. ‘After all, you’ve heard for yourself how dreadful I was - and I was dreadful.’
Words gushed out of her faster than the tears, and Miss Nicholson didn’t know what to do. She simply stood and stared, paralysed by her friend’s anguish.
‘If I hadn’t pushed Daddy so hard, he mayn’t have become so ill. It’s him I feel most wretched about. After all, I deserve this, but he doesn’t. He manages to stay cheerful, even on days when he’s as weak as anything. And do you know, he never complains or asks for much. I don’t know how he can bear me.’
Miss Lacey gulped, and the sound of it stuck in Miss Nicholson’s own throat.
‘I’m so glad I can give him those cufflinks after all.’
She fell silent then, blotting her cheeks with the rumpled handkerchief. Miss Nicholson pulled herself together, strode across to Miss Lacey, and caught her hand. She could do better than a clap on the shoulder. She would do better. Besides, it hurt her heart to see the shabby ball of cloth dragged across her friend’s smooth face. She brought out her own clean handkerchief, and gently patted Miss Lacey’s cheeks with it.
‘I can’t think of anyone I should want more for my friend,’ she said. Her voice sounded rough, as it always did when she spoke of intimate matters, but she couldn’t help it. ‘You say you were dreadful and perhaps you were, but remember this - you were the same age as young Felicity and June, and Susan.’
Miss Lacey stared at her, so surprised that the tears stopped.
‘Would you wish them to carry a lifelong burden for something they did wrong now?’
‘Of course not!’ exclaimed Miss Lacey.
Miss Nicholson let her hand slip from Miss Lacey’s cheek to her shoulder. It felt frail, shivering slightly. She massaged the muscle between her fingers in slow, gentle movements.
‘There you are, then. I’m quite certain that you don’t deserve the burden you carry now.’ She paused, wondering whether she ought to say it, and then, ‘I’m awfully glad you did come back to Malory Towers, though. You’re the highlight of my days, don’t you know?’
She meant it to sound jolly and natural, but with her red face and gruff voice, it sounded a great deal more serious. Sentimental, even. She shuddered, utterly appalled at herself.
Curiously, Miss Lacey didn’t shudder or pull away. Instead she slipped a small, pale hand up to cover the other woman’s own on her shoulder. Miss Nicholson felt sure she must by now resemble a pillar box, so warm did her face feel.
‘You know,’ Miss Lacey said in a thoughtful voice. ‘I never quite understood why Clarissa became friends with Bill. I mean, horses aren’t enough, surely.’
‘Well, they both seem very keen on them,’ managed Miss Nicholson, glad and yet disappointed at the sudden turn in conversation.
Miss Lacey shook her head. Her soft, fluffy hair brushed the edge of Miss Nicholson’s hand, making her stomach clench. The sensation was at once wonderful and terrifying.
‘Yes, but that’s not all. You see, I was Clarissa’s friend in her first term here - but I expected her to be a particular way, and I didn’t want her when she turned out quite differently.’
Faint blotches of pink appeared in Miss Lacey’s cheeks, though whether from embarrassment at the memory or the closeness between them now, Miss Nicholson couldn’t tell.
‘It makes you feel frightfully glad, you know, to have someone you can always rely on, someone who doesn’t expect you to be anything other than who you are. That’s what Bill did for Clarissa - and still does, I imagine.’
Her large pale blue eyes searched Miss Nicholson’s plain face. The young mistress sat against the edge of the desk, frozen. Her hand under Miss Lacey’s seemed to prickle and chafe, though it was quite still. It seemed to her that if she dared even to breathe, she would somehow ruin what Miss Lacey wanted to tell her, and she couldn’t allow that under any circumstance.
‘You’ve done that for me, Miss Nicholson, and you have made me frightfully glad. I’ve never had a friend like you. I don’t know how I shall ever manage without you in the hols.’
She gave a little laugh, more nerves than mirth, it seemed.
‘How will you spend your hols?’ Miss Nicholson said abruptly.
Not suitable, but anything to prevent a silence during which Miss Lacey might move her hand away, or regret speaking so frankly. At that moment, Miss Nicholson could not think of what words she might say to make herself even remotely worthy of Miss Lacey’s esteem. Yet she felt closer to her than she ever had. The notion of leaning across to kiss her small pink mouth didn’t seem absurd then - in fact, it seemed worryingly possible.
The other mistress looked down at her hands. ‘I shall go home, of course, to my parents.’
‘I’m sure they’re looking forward to seeing you very much,’ said Miss Nicholson. She was still aware of the horrible gulf between Miss Lacey’s fine words and her own stilted conversation.
‘Well, I shan’t see them immediately. My uncle has arranged for Mother and Daddy to spend two weeks in Switzerland. It will be wonderful for them - Daddy can recuperate in the clean air, and Mother…’ she paused to bite her lip ‘..shall enjoy it too.’
A spark of an idea leapt across Miss Nicholson’s mind. She suddenly seized both of Miss Lacey’s small, white hands, and held them firmly in her own, startling the other young woman very much. Her eyes shone, and Miss Lacey could see she was most excited about something. She asked what it was at once.
‘We could go away together!’ Miss Nicholson grinned and Miss Lacey stared at her. ‘You needn’t go home right away, and nor I. We’ve had such a busy term, and there have been some horrid moments to it as well. I think it would do us both good.’
Her happiness was so infectious that a smile broke across Miss Lacey’s pale, harassed face.
‘Where shall we go?’ she asked.
Ah! Miss Nicholson furrowed her brow. She thought of the little guesthouse along the cliff road, and decided not to mention it. Surely Miss Lacey could not justify such an expense for herself - and then she might dismiss the idea entirely . The prospect of that happening was too awful. Now that Miss Nicholson had conceived they might go away together, she wanted it more than anything. There must be some solution.
‘We could stay here,’ she said suddenly.
‘Here? At the school, you mean?’
‘Yes, why ever not? There’s no rule about leaving for the holidays - we have our own rooms and things. And we are by the sea. It should be jolly nice to walk along the shore, go into the village for tea without having to worry about the girls or anyone else.’
Miss Lacey looked doubtful. ‘Miss Grayling might not like it.’
‘Then I shall go ask her this very minute!’
Miss Nicholson sprang to her feet and rushed off before the other woman could change her mind - or she lost her own courage.
Of course, before she even reached the end of the corridor, her mind produced a hundred obstacles to their success. Perhaps there was a rule after all - an unspoken one - about staff staying on in the holidays. Perhaps there would be workmen clattering about. Perhaps Miss Grayling would simply say no, and give no reason.
But the same fierce determination that propelled her to the Head’s office only a week earlier surfaced once more. It raised her hand to knock on the cream door and lent her a confidence she didn’t feel as she put her request to Miss Grayling.
‘For how long do you propose to stay?’ the Head asked, after a moment’s pause.
‘No more than two weeks, Miss Grayling. We shall both return to our families after that time.’
Miss Grayling nodded slowly, bright eyes lingering over Miss Nicholson’s round face. The young mistress felt distinctly uncomfortable. Had the Head found out somehow that she had lied during her last visit to this office?
‘Very well. You and Miss Lacey shall remain at Malory Towers for another two weeks. As the domestic staff complete their duties, certain parts of the school will become closed, but that should not affect you.’
They talked a little while longer, Miss Grayling asking that they might telephone her with the details of their departure once it had been arranged. It transpired that one or two other mistresses might also stay beyond the exodus tomorrow, but only for a matter of days. Then it would simply be Miss Lacey, Miss Nicholson herself, and the domestic staff emptying the dormitories and sweeping the classrooms.
‘I am very pleased that Miss Lacey should have found a friend in you, Miss Nicholson,’ said the Head.
The young mistress, almost at the door, stopped, turning back. ‘Yes, Miss Grayling.’
Honestly, she felt like one of the girls! Still, she was far closer to their age than Miss Grayling’s.
‘Things have not always been easy for her, as I’m sure you are aware. However, the comfort found in friendship makes life’s burdens easier to carry.’
Miss Nicholson blinked at the remarkable aptness of the headmistress’s remarks. But then, seeing her piercing blue eyes, so different from Miss Lacey’s, she realised it was wisdom and not coincidence that prevailed.
Torn between uncertainty and pleasure at Miss Grayling’s praise, she left the calm of the office overlooking the sea. Outside, her excitement caught up with her. Two glorious weeks stretched ahead. How marvellous! She dashed back to the study, almost running in the corridors like some naughty first-former.
Miss Lacey rose to meet her as she burst through the door, and one look at Miss Nicholson’s gleeful face told her of the Head’s decision.
‘Oh, is it true?’ she cried.
‘Yes, absolutely true.’
Miss Lacey rushed towards her friend and flung her arms about her neck in sheer delight. Miss Nicholson stopped still. The breath went from her body. She stood there, stunned and not moving for several seconds, and then she slipped her arms around Miss Lacey in return. Her friend’s back, so rigid and unyielding, felt astoundingly soft beneath her fingers. She savoured the sensation for a brief moment, then pulled back before Miss Lacey could.
‘So, it’s settled. We shall have a holiday at school. What a change that will make, Miss Lacey.’
A frown appeared on the other mistress’s pale face. Miss Nicholson’s heart stopped. Surely, surely she hadn’t changed her mind!
‘You can’t keep calling me Miss Lacey,’ she said. ‘You must call me Gwen.’
Gwen. Gwendoline. It meant fair or white or something, Miss Nicholson remembered. How absolutely fitting.
‘Very well,’ she said, trying to control the excitement sparkling inside of her. ‘Then you must call me Jane.’
Gwen smiled her approval and extended one small, white hand.
‘How do you do, Jane?’ she said.
Her poise equalled that of any Swiss finishing school graduate. Jane grinned, and grasped the hand with her own large freckled one.
‘How do you do, Gwen?’
And as the two young women walked out of the gates of Malory Towers together, Gwen reflected that she had never had a real friend in all her years as a pupil at the school. Perhaps, now that she had returned as a teacher, she had finally found one.
END
Series: (Pamela Cox as) Enid Blyton's Malory Towers
Rating: PG-13
Summary: Miss Nicholson rather likes what she can see behind Miss Lacey's haughty façade. Based on Goodbye Malory Towers by Pamela Cox.
Only when they were safely in their own study, with the door shut behind them, did Miss Lacey break the silence, saying, ‘You told the Head a lie to get me out of trouble. Why did you do that?’
The last car roared down the grand drive and away from Malory Towers. As it rapidly gathered speed, Miss Nicholson caught sight of a most startled June at the passenger window. The driver was Alicia, that quick-thinking young woman who had spotted the vital link in Daisy’s chain of malice. Miss Nicholson wasn’t silly enough to thank the back of a departing vehicle, but she thought warmly of Alicia all the same. In fact, she had liked all the old girls. They were jolly and sensible, and the reunion ended very merrily indeed. Miss Nicholson enjoyed their company - and not only for the expression it conjured on Miss Lacey’s face, quite different from the haunted look she wore too often lately.
Without the chatter and movement of 250-odd girls, the school felt rather sombre. Miss Nicholson welcomed the quiet. There had been altogether too much excitement over the last term. One more night, and then she and Miss Lacey and all the other mistresses would scatter to parents, brothers, sisters, or somebody else, perhaps. Some would remain nearby, of course. Miss Grayling kept a charming cottage by the coast, so she had heard in the staff common room.
She herself would return to her parents’ house, taking the train tomorrow to London, and then the branch line home. Miss Lacey, she understood, would do the same.
Hooves clopped suddenly behind her. Miss Nicholson turned to see two young women on horseback coming from the direction of the stables. Bill and Clarissa were also former schoolfellows of Miss Lacey. Of course, more than that, she heard their names frequently on the lips of some of the more horse-mad girls. They spotted her then, and Bill raised a hand in greeting.
‘Hallo! Everybody’s gone now, I suppose.’
Miss Nicholson grinned. ‘Yes, you’ve just missed the last of them. Young June looking rather ill in the passenger seat, I must say.’
‘I hope Alicia still carries paper bags,’ said Bill, eyes twinkling.
They laughed, and then silence folded over them once more. All three looked up at the still, solemn fortress towering above. The sea could be heard quite clearly that afternoon, and the mewling of the gulls on the wind.
‘Awfully queer without the girls, isn’t it?’ said Clarissa, giving a little shiver.
One of Bill’s hands left her reins to squeeze Clarissa’s arm, and the young woman looked back and smiled. Miss Nicholson felt unaccountably awkward then, as if she might have stumbled onto some private scene. But then, hand-holding and embracing did not come naturally to her as it seemed to other women. Of this, she felt acutely aware when Miss Lacey pulled her into her bedroom, face pale and tears threatening, to show her the scene of ransack and ruin. Miss Nicholson wanted so badly then to wrap her arms around her friend - to let her cry into her blouse until the fabric was translucent with tears. Smooth her golden hair, kiss her head, and tell her that everything would be all right after all.
The closest she had managed was a hand on the shoulder, and a gruff, red-faced offer to help replace the stolen cufflinks. ‘Neither a borrower nor a lender be’ rang her mother’s voice through her head, and for the first time, she ignored it. As expected, Miss Lacey refused the loan, though the look on her face made Miss Nicholson’s heart thump noticeably faster - a curious mixture of gratitude and wonder.
‘Well, have a good hols,’ said Bill, turning her horse around. ‘I hope we might see you next term. Do you ride?’
‘Only in the most rudimentary fashion,’ replied Miss Nicholson, rather apologetically. It seemed almost an insult when said to such devoted horsewomen, but she was nothing if not honest.
Neither appeared put off by it.
‘Jolly good,’ said Clarissa warmly. ‘Come over to Five Oaks, then, and we’ll arrange a horse for you.’
And with that, both nudged their horses and moved off, the clop of hooves echoing across the drive. Bill’s white teeth flashed in her tanned, rather square face. Clarissa’s auburn hair flew in waves behind her. Miss Nicholson couldn’t help thinking how handsome a pair they made, truly worthy of one another. Oh, not that looks made friendships - she didn’t believe that in the slightest - but certain people fit together so magically, their friendship seemed the stuff of some higher design, rather than mere, mortal chance.
She turned and trudged up the steps to the entrance. In her heart, Miss Nicholson knew she didn’t pair well with Miss Lacey. The other mistress was pretty and refined, where she was plain and robust. ‘Well’ was the term people used to describe her.
‘Aren’t you looking well?’ her father always said when she returned from boarding school as a girl. Then from teacher’s college - and now school once more.
But plain she was, and nothing could change it. She didn’t see the point in curling hair or pinching cheeks. Quite apart from anything, she had a strong suspicion that she would look ridiculous at the end of any such process. She long ago made peace with the unfairness of it - that some girls, like Miss Lacey, had luminous pale blue eyes, and others made do with ordinary hazel ones. She could only be what she was - plain, hearty, and far too sensible to fret over it.
She liked Miss Lacey, though, more than perhaps she would have thought possible. Everything about the other mistress appealed - the sheer desperate pride of her! Brooches worn like battle armour. The tiny sighs she stifled over those letters with the flowery handwriting. The rigid set of her back, first glimpsed at morning prayers and remaining so until she slipped from the common room at night. Almost as though she had her own posture to live up to. By evening, many of the mistresses, Miss Nicholson included, found their shoulders flagging under the strain of leading by example. But Miss Lacey still moved with ramrod precision. Miss Nicholson wondered if, in her bedroom, in the pale pink nightdress she had seen peeping from under the pillow, she kept her perfect bearing. In bed, did her spine lay so amazingly straight? If Miss Nicholson were to curl around her, arms enfolding Miss Lacey from behind, would she stay firm - or bend and soften in response?
Miss Nicholson blushed, but the image persisted, and she couldn’t honestly call it unwelcome. There was nobody about to question her pink cheeks. What did it matter what thoughts ran the circumference of her head - sometimes in dizzying marathons?
She knew it must have taken Miss Lacey a great deal of courage to return to Malory Towers and work amongst her former instructors. Some pupils would be welcomed with joyous smiles and claps on the back - like young Felicity Rivers, or her sister Darrell, whom Miss Potts had greeted warmly. That had not been the case with Miss Lacey, however. Miss Nicholson saw how she skirted around the older mistresses in the common room, as if she were still a pupil. For their part, they treated her cordially, but without affection.
Sometimes Miss Lacey would take her tea to their study in the evening, rather than attempt to bridge that cavernous gap. Then Miss Nicholson saw pursed lips and cold eyes as the other women dismissed Miss Lacey as stand-offish, vain, silly - something like that. Anger flared inside of her, and yet she couldn’t say a word. She too had been new that term and as such, had no authority to take anyone to task over slights - real or imagined. She didn’t know, of course, what sort of pupil Miss Lacey had been. Yet were she the laziest, most spiteful, thoughtless girl ever to cross the threshold at Malory Towers, surely they could see how hard she was trying now. Did they not care? Or were they simply blind to the tremor in her voice, the pink in her cheeks?
Miss Nicholson saw them all right. She wanted to say something comforting, something hearty and familiar to lift her friend’s spirits - that Miss Lacey shouldn’t worry about the other mistresses, and how in time they would all be good friends. But she couldn’t, of course, because Miss Lacey would be humiliated that anybody had noticed. In fact, it would be a terrible intrusion to assume she knew anything about Miss Lacey at all.
But she did know something - that somewhere not too far beneath the surface, her friend was bruised and raw. The confident, sophisticated persona lay as light and brittle upon her as glass. Behind it, through it, Miss Nicholson saw a young woman terribly anxious to be accepted, terribly anxious to prove her worth. Miss Nicholson wanted to demonstrate her abilities too that first term, but it ran deeper than that with Miss Lacey. A sadness trickled through her that Miss Nicholson couldn’t fathom.
She arrived then at the little study that the two of them shared. Pushing open the door, she felt a rush of pleasure at the sight of her friend. Miss Lacey looked up as the door creaked, and then a smile, rather sweet in its honesty, lit up her pale, lovely face.
‘Oh, I’m glad you’re here,’ Miss Nicholson said, trying to quell the rising in her chest. ‘I’ll ring for some tea, shall I? Miss Potts told me that we might, since there are still plenty of maids about.’
Miss Lacey’s smile faltered.
‘Actually, would you mind terribly if we didn’t? I don’t think I can face any of the maids just yet.’
‘No, I don’t mind a bit,’ Miss Nicholson said, though she felt rather surprised.
She eyed Miss Lacey carefully. The smile had faded, and now the other mistress simply looked pale and forlorn. One or two nights of unperturbed sleep had apparently done little to ease the grey about her eyes. Miss Nicholson frowned, and took a step closer.
‘I say, none of that business was your fault, Miss Lacey. I do hope you realise that. It was pure spite on Daisy’s part, that’s all.’
‘Yes, I know that,’ said Miss Lacey, soft and unhappy. ‘But I can’t pretend that I’m blameless either. If I hadn’t been such a beast back then, Daisy would never have turned on me now. So, you see, I’ve only reaped what I’ve sown, haven’t I?’
And then to Miss Nicholson’s considerable dismay, thick, streaming tears spilled from Miss Lacey’s large eyes and ran down her cheeks.
‘Miss Lacey!’
‘I’m so sorry. Please excuse me.’ She clumsily patted at her cheeks with a crumpled handkerchief. Miss Nicholson realised that it must have been used several times already that day.
‘I quite understand if you don’t wish to be friends with me any more,’ Miss Lacey went on in a low little voice. ‘After all, you’ve heard for yourself how dreadful I was - and I was dreadful.’
Words gushed out of her faster than the tears, and Miss Nicholson didn’t know what to do. She simply stood and stared, paralysed by her friend’s anguish.
‘If I hadn’t pushed Daddy so hard, he mayn’t have become so ill. It’s him I feel most wretched about. After all, I deserve this, but he doesn’t. He manages to stay cheerful, even on days when he’s as weak as anything. And do you know, he never complains or asks for much. I don’t know how he can bear me.’
Miss Lacey gulped, and the sound of it stuck in Miss Nicholson’s own throat.
‘I’m so glad I can give him those cufflinks after all.’
She fell silent then, blotting her cheeks with the rumpled handkerchief. Miss Nicholson pulled herself together, strode across to Miss Lacey, and caught her hand. She could do better than a clap on the shoulder. She would do better. Besides, it hurt her heart to see the shabby ball of cloth dragged across her friend’s smooth face. She brought out her own clean handkerchief, and gently patted Miss Lacey’s cheeks with it.
‘I can’t think of anyone I should want more for my friend,’ she said. Her voice sounded rough, as it always did when she spoke of intimate matters, but she couldn’t help it. ‘You say you were dreadful and perhaps you were, but remember this - you were the same age as young Felicity and June, and Susan.’
Miss Lacey stared at her, so surprised that the tears stopped.
‘Would you wish them to carry a lifelong burden for something they did wrong now?’
‘Of course not!’ exclaimed Miss Lacey.
Miss Nicholson let her hand slip from Miss Lacey’s cheek to her shoulder. It felt frail, shivering slightly. She massaged the muscle between her fingers in slow, gentle movements.
‘There you are, then. I’m quite certain that you don’t deserve the burden you carry now.’ She paused, wondering whether she ought to say it, and then, ‘I’m awfully glad you did come back to Malory Towers, though. You’re the highlight of my days, don’t you know?’
She meant it to sound jolly and natural, but with her red face and gruff voice, it sounded a great deal more serious. Sentimental, even. She shuddered, utterly appalled at herself.
Curiously, Miss Lacey didn’t shudder or pull away. Instead she slipped a small, pale hand up to cover the other woman’s own on her shoulder. Miss Nicholson felt sure she must by now resemble a pillar box, so warm did her face feel.
‘You know,’ Miss Lacey said in a thoughtful voice. ‘I never quite understood why Clarissa became friends with Bill. I mean, horses aren’t enough, surely.’
‘Well, they both seem very keen on them,’ managed Miss Nicholson, glad and yet disappointed at the sudden turn in conversation.
Miss Lacey shook her head. Her soft, fluffy hair brushed the edge of Miss Nicholson’s hand, making her stomach clench. The sensation was at once wonderful and terrifying.
‘Yes, but that’s not all. You see, I was Clarissa’s friend in her first term here - but I expected her to be a particular way, and I didn’t want her when she turned out quite differently.’
Faint blotches of pink appeared in Miss Lacey’s cheeks, though whether from embarrassment at the memory or the closeness between them now, Miss Nicholson couldn’t tell.
‘It makes you feel frightfully glad, you know, to have someone you can always rely on, someone who doesn’t expect you to be anything other than who you are. That’s what Bill did for Clarissa - and still does, I imagine.’
Her large pale blue eyes searched Miss Nicholson’s plain face. The young mistress sat against the edge of the desk, frozen. Her hand under Miss Lacey’s seemed to prickle and chafe, though it was quite still. It seemed to her that if she dared even to breathe, she would somehow ruin what Miss Lacey wanted to tell her, and she couldn’t allow that under any circumstance.
‘You’ve done that for me, Miss Nicholson, and you have made me frightfully glad. I’ve never had a friend like you. I don’t know how I shall ever manage without you in the hols.’
She gave a little laugh, more nerves than mirth, it seemed.
‘How will you spend your hols?’ Miss Nicholson said abruptly.
Not suitable, but anything to prevent a silence during which Miss Lacey might move her hand away, or regret speaking so frankly. At that moment, Miss Nicholson could not think of what words she might say to make herself even remotely worthy of Miss Lacey’s esteem. Yet she felt closer to her than she ever had. The notion of leaning across to kiss her small pink mouth didn’t seem absurd then - in fact, it seemed worryingly possible.
The other mistress looked down at her hands. ‘I shall go home, of course, to my parents.’
‘I’m sure they’re looking forward to seeing you very much,’ said Miss Nicholson. She was still aware of the horrible gulf between Miss Lacey’s fine words and her own stilted conversation.
‘Well, I shan’t see them immediately. My uncle has arranged for Mother and Daddy to spend two weeks in Switzerland. It will be wonderful for them - Daddy can recuperate in the clean air, and Mother…’ she paused to bite her lip ‘..shall enjoy it too.’
A spark of an idea leapt across Miss Nicholson’s mind. She suddenly seized both of Miss Lacey’s small, white hands, and held them firmly in her own, startling the other young woman very much. Her eyes shone, and Miss Lacey could see she was most excited about something. She asked what it was at once.
‘We could go away together!’ Miss Nicholson grinned and Miss Lacey stared at her. ‘You needn’t go home right away, and nor I. We’ve had such a busy term, and there have been some horrid moments to it as well. I think it would do us both good.’
Her happiness was so infectious that a smile broke across Miss Lacey’s pale, harassed face.
‘Where shall we go?’ she asked.
Ah! Miss Nicholson furrowed her brow. She thought of the little guesthouse along the cliff road, and decided not to mention it. Surely Miss Lacey could not justify such an expense for herself - and then she might dismiss the idea entirely . The prospect of that happening was too awful. Now that Miss Nicholson had conceived they might go away together, she wanted it more than anything. There must be some solution.
‘We could stay here,’ she said suddenly.
‘Here? At the school, you mean?’
‘Yes, why ever not? There’s no rule about leaving for the holidays - we have our own rooms and things. And we are by the sea. It should be jolly nice to walk along the shore, go into the village for tea without having to worry about the girls or anyone else.’
Miss Lacey looked doubtful. ‘Miss Grayling might not like it.’
‘Then I shall go ask her this very minute!’
Miss Nicholson sprang to her feet and rushed off before the other woman could change her mind - or she lost her own courage.
Of course, before she even reached the end of the corridor, her mind produced a hundred obstacles to their success. Perhaps there was a rule after all - an unspoken one - about staff staying on in the holidays. Perhaps there would be workmen clattering about. Perhaps Miss Grayling would simply say no, and give no reason.
But the same fierce determination that propelled her to the Head’s office only a week earlier surfaced once more. It raised her hand to knock on the cream door and lent her a confidence she didn’t feel as she put her request to Miss Grayling.
‘For how long do you propose to stay?’ the Head asked, after a moment’s pause.
‘No more than two weeks, Miss Grayling. We shall both return to our families after that time.’
Miss Grayling nodded slowly, bright eyes lingering over Miss Nicholson’s round face. The young mistress felt distinctly uncomfortable. Had the Head found out somehow that she had lied during her last visit to this office?
‘Very well. You and Miss Lacey shall remain at Malory Towers for another two weeks. As the domestic staff complete their duties, certain parts of the school will become closed, but that should not affect you.’
They talked a little while longer, Miss Grayling asking that they might telephone her with the details of their departure once it had been arranged. It transpired that one or two other mistresses might also stay beyond the exodus tomorrow, but only for a matter of days. Then it would simply be Miss Lacey, Miss Nicholson herself, and the domestic staff emptying the dormitories and sweeping the classrooms.
‘I am very pleased that Miss Lacey should have found a friend in you, Miss Nicholson,’ said the Head.
The young mistress, almost at the door, stopped, turning back. ‘Yes, Miss Grayling.’
Honestly, she felt like one of the girls! Still, she was far closer to their age than Miss Grayling’s.
‘Things have not always been easy for her, as I’m sure you are aware. However, the comfort found in friendship makes life’s burdens easier to carry.’
Miss Nicholson blinked at the remarkable aptness of the headmistress’s remarks. But then, seeing her piercing blue eyes, so different from Miss Lacey’s, she realised it was wisdom and not coincidence that prevailed.
Torn between uncertainty and pleasure at Miss Grayling’s praise, she left the calm of the office overlooking the sea. Outside, her excitement caught up with her. Two glorious weeks stretched ahead. How marvellous! She dashed back to the study, almost running in the corridors like some naughty first-former.
Miss Lacey rose to meet her as she burst through the door, and one look at Miss Nicholson’s gleeful face told her of the Head’s decision.
‘Oh, is it true?’ she cried.
‘Yes, absolutely true.’
Miss Lacey rushed towards her friend and flung her arms about her neck in sheer delight. Miss Nicholson stopped still. The breath went from her body. She stood there, stunned and not moving for several seconds, and then she slipped her arms around Miss Lacey in return. Her friend’s back, so rigid and unyielding, felt astoundingly soft beneath her fingers. She savoured the sensation for a brief moment, then pulled back before Miss Lacey could.
‘So, it’s settled. We shall have a holiday at school. What a change that will make, Miss Lacey.’
A frown appeared on the other mistress’s pale face. Miss Nicholson’s heart stopped. Surely, surely she hadn’t changed her mind!
‘You can’t keep calling me Miss Lacey,’ she said. ‘You must call me Gwen.’
Gwen. Gwendoline. It meant fair or white or something, Miss Nicholson remembered. How absolutely fitting.
‘Very well,’ she said, trying to control the excitement sparkling inside of her. ‘Then you must call me Jane.’
Gwen smiled her approval and extended one small, white hand.
‘How do you do, Jane?’ she said.
Her poise equalled that of any Swiss finishing school graduate. Jane grinned, and grasped the hand with her own large freckled one.
‘How do you do, Gwen?’
And as the two young women walked out of the gates of Malory Towers together, Gwen reflected that she had never had a real friend in all her years as a pupil at the school. Perhaps, now that she had returned as a teacher, she had finally found one.
END