Goodbye, Ms. Chips Read online

  “Nothing, really. I was just remembering a girl named Philippa Boswell. She was a year ahead of me. Her older sister had been head girl a few years before and it was expected that Philippa would follow suit, but she got in hot water—was unjustly accused of something she didn’t do”—my head was beginning to throb—“and that was the end of that.”

  “Tough on the kid, but I don’t suppose she died of a broken heart.”

  “No. I heard she became a waitress.”

  “Hardly a fate worse than death!” He grinned at me.

  “In one of those seedy backstreet places where the male patrons think a good tip is a pinch on the bottom. London—or it may have been Liverpool. According to my source, her parents disowned her.”

  “An exaggeration, surely.”

  “I’m not so sure. I saw Mama and Papa on a couple of speech days, and they both looked as though they were under doctor’s orders not to smile. They twitched every time their older daughter—Veronica, I think, was her name—shifted a foot without asking permission. She looked nice and was attractive in a sensible tweedy sort of way. But Philippa was so lovely and full of laughter, everyone else seemed to fade a little when she was present. And always so nice to people, even girls she didn’t know well—like me. She had a boyfriend, a young medical student whose father was the local doctor.”

  “Did he ditch her when she became a waitress?”

  “It was off before she left school. The last I heard—which was ages ago—Papa was saying that if Philippa didn’t get a proper job he’d march her off to a convent.”

  “Can’t blame the Vatican if it liked the sound of that.”

  “And I sympathize,” I said. “Recruiting these days can’t be easy. It’s not like the good old Middle Ages, when parents would toss an unmarriageable daughter through the convent door with less thought than dropping coins in the collection plate.” Again I recalled the legend of the Gray Nun. “It puts the church in a pickle, having to rely on true vocations, doesn’t it?”

  “Back to the boyfriend.” Ben drew me closer. “Did he shy away from a girl who’d blotted her school copybook?”

  “Philippa was the one who broke things off.”

  “By the way, what was she accused off?”

  “Absenting herself from school property without permission.”

  “To meet said boyfriend.”

  “That was the story.” Knowing me as he did, Ben must have gleaned from the terseness of my reply that I didn’t want to enlarge on this. Indeed, I regretted having mentioned Philippa Boswell. Faced with returning to St. Roberta’s, I’d thought it advisable to try facing down my demons ahead of time, but the familiar sick feeling had returned full force.

  “The Gray Nun was hurled through the convent gates by her ireful parents in the sixteenth century,” I murmured into his shoulder.

  “Who?”

  “All the St. Roberta’s pupils were steeped in the legend of the Gray Nun.”

  “A local girl?”

  “A novice who, despite being dragged by the hair into the convent, subsequently defended it with her life. Her ghost is said to haunt the ruins on the edge of the grounds.”

  “Highly romantic. I can see the appeal to impressionable schoolgirls.” Ben continued stroking my hair. “Remind me to lock away any books on the lives of the saints when Abbey and Rose reach that age. I don’t think I could bear saying goodbye to them forever at the convent gate.”

  “I won’t forget.”

  “No need to choke up, sweetheart!”

  He was right, I told myself, but I was picturing Philippa playing the part of the Gray Nun in the outdoor summer pageant. She’d been really good, gliding across the lawn with an ethereal grace and fixed stare that seemed to melt into transparency. It was happening again: the suffocating lump in my throat, the feeling that I would never again be able to get enough air in my lungs. Surprisingly, I had not yet broken out in a cold sweat. Progress of sorts, but I’d pushed things far enough. Time to put the mental screen back around her. Mistake. That was the worst possible image, conjuring up as it did the dividers placed around hospital beds when a patient is dangerously ill.

  Not that there had been anything seriously wrong with Philippa the afternoon of my silent involvement long ago. Her ailment had been a headache. She had been sent to Matron, given an aspirin, and told to lie down on one of the beds in the sick bay—known as the San. And there she had stayed, left alone when Matron bustled out. I knew this for certain, having an excellent view of the entire room from the window of my secret hideaway. Not once had Philippa got up, let alone crept through the French doors that opened onto the grounds and made off to meet her boyfriend as she was soon after accused of doing. Mine was the voice that could have put things right for her. Instead, in cowardly fashion I had thought of what was at stake for me and squeezed my mind shut. Just as I did now when I heard the murmur of Ben’s voice against my cheek asking if I were awake.

  “Yes.” The word came out quite easily. “But I rather fancy an early night.”

  “Any particular reason?” I could hear the laughter in his voice.

  It must say something about my hardened disposition that I was able to dismiss all unpleasant memories of my school days at St. Roberta’s as Ben and I made love that evening to the rapturous accompaniment of the Royal Philharmonic Orchestra. We turned on the radio, but we could have made music just as well on our own. The soaring notes transported me to a glorious place on the outskirts of consciousness. Had I wasted time thinking, I might have made the excuse that this grown-up behavior provided necessary reassurance that I was a mature woman capable of confronting my schoolgirl demons.

  Rising early the next morning, I packed a small suitcase and took a brisk shower. Dressed in a fern-green linen suit that I hoped Mrs. Battle would be unable to fault, I studied myself in the bedroom mirror. Ben came up behind me and kissed my neck. Perhaps it was the lovely aftermath of intimacy that gave my skin a glow and added an extra shine to my hair as I wound it into a chignon. I know it was the reason my gray eyes sparkled.

  “You look wonderful,” he said, as I turned into his arms.

  “Presentable.”

  “Modesty becomes you.” His mouth closed over mine. He hadn’t yet shaved, and the prickle of dark stubble intensified his bedroom-bandit appeal. Unfortunately, the day called. We could hear the children bounding down the stairs and Dorcas’s voice rising above theirs, calling for order. Time to get breakfast organized. Ben saw to the porridge and bacon and eggs while I made a pot of coffee and wrote down phone numbers that he might need while I was gone, along with a short list of reminders of activities and appointments.

  “Don’t let Tam talk you out of taking him to the dentist on Thursday,” I was saying, as I got into the front passenger seat of Dorcas’s lime-green Volkswagen Beetle, “and be sure Abbey and Rose send thank-you notes for the dresses your parents sent them.”

  “Relax! If we can’t manage, I’ll call on one of my four hundred other wives.” Having stowed my suitcase along with Dorcas’s overnight bag in the rear, he gave me a kiss through the window and stepped back alongside the children.

  “Mum, you’re not going to Mars!” Tam called out consolingly.

  “Or into a dark and horrible dungeon,” Abbey contributed.

  “But I expect they’ll make you eat the school lunches, and they’re yuck!” Rose hopped gleefully from one foot to the other.

  “Thanks for all the cheering up!” I laughed and waved to a chorus of “Goodbye, Mum! Goodbye, Dorcas. We love you!” The car bounced to life as if startled out of a heavy sleep. Momentarily confused, it shot backward, but Dorcas wouldn’t let it take the blame.

  “Sorry, Ellie, wrong gear. Always get emotional when leaving here. Second home and all that. Family!” She dabbed at her eyes with the back of her hand before steering cautiously down the drive. She gave the cottage just inside the wrought-iron gates, home to my cousin Freddy, a tearily sentimental glance before headin
g out onto the coast road that would take us into Chitterton Fells, through the towns of Pebble Beach and Brynhaven, and thence onto the motorway. The journey to Lower Swan-Upping should have taken three hours at most, but Dorcas believed in always giving other motorists a sporting chance to pass her, even if this meant moving into a lay-by to be completely fair. As a result we failed to make the best time, something I didn’t mind in the least.

  That morning she was wearing a sweater in a particularly virulent shade of mustard, but what bothered me about her appearance was how worried she looked the couple of times I brought up Ms. Chips’s name.

  “Dorcas, dear,” I finally said, “I can imagine the difficulties involved in taking over the post of a longtime games mistress who had a tremendous record of success with the lacrosse team. A period of readjustment on the part of the players would seem inevitable. But there’s no saying that even had Ms. Chips been at the helm this year, St. Roberta’s would have won the championship again and got to keep the Loverly Cup.”

  “Kind of you to say, but sure I could have done more to uphold past glory.”

  “What else has you so upset?” I asked.

  Her hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Afraid suspicion regarding Loverly Cup will veer in the wrong direction. Always people eager to point the finger at a convenient scapegoat. A life destroyed, often the most vulnerable party … reputation ruined.” Dorcas choked up. “Doesn’t bear thinking about.”

  I thought of the false accusation against Philippa Boswell.

  “Spent a sleepless night, Ellie. Not the bed: great mattress. Thing is: believe if this beastly business isn’t cleared up soon, there could be the most awful tragedy. Silly of me, but can’t shake feeling of impending doom.”

  Laying a hand on her arm, I said, “Ellie Haskell to the rescue.” It would have been pointless to press her to tell me who it was she feared might be blamed for taking the Loverly Cup. She’d be afraid of influencing me for or against. My sympathy, and finally my curiosity, was aroused. Could there be more going on at St. Roberta’s than schoolgirl mischief? I found myself wishing that Mrs. Malloy were with us. For her there would be no emotional involvement, making for clearer insights than were possible for Dorcas or even myself.

  The miles lumbered by. Dorcas described the splendors of the new gymnasium. “Twice the size of the old one, Ellie. Vaulted ceiling. Superb climbing equipment. Great lighting. Mr. Bumbleton, on Board of Governors, went all out to please.”

  “Is he as much of a pompous ass as ever?”

  “Haven’t had any dealings with him. Man can’t help looking like an overstuffed cushion.”

  Dorcas kept her eyes on the road. We were passing through Tingwell, a shifty-eyed town with glimpses of dark passageways and barred windows on many of the buildings. The place was made even more depressing by the sight of vagrants shuffling out of doorways to approach pedestrians.

  “Hate to think of anyone living that sort of life, Ellie! Somebody’s once near-and-dear.”

  “It’s awful for all concerned: wanting to help without being an enabler if there’s a question of drink or drugs. What agonies of mind some people face.”

  She took a hand off the wheel to grip mine. A few miles farther on, we stopped at a roadside café for lunch. The hard chairs and weak coffee providing no incentive to linger, we soon pressed on. Within a very short time the scenery changed, becoming less urban and more delightful by the moment, softly pastoral with gentle hills rising beyond fields of grazing sheep and idly stepping horses with the sun on their backs. A bronze and sun-gold brook bubbled over tiger-eye rocks, and a willow dipped its lengthy tendrils into the water in the manner of a reincarnated Greek nymph. Wildflowers embroidered the hedgerows. Summer, I thought, was at home here. And suddenly I realized we had reached the vicinity in which I would be planted, for the next few days at least.

  We entered a traffic circle and took the exit marked LOWER AND UPPER SWAN-UPPING. Memory was stirring. There was the Green Swan to our right, a public house of the Tudor period. My parents had taken me to lunch there on one of their visits. We’d sat at an umbrella-shaded table in the shrubbery-surrounded garden. I’d had two glasses of wonderfully fizzy ginger beer while Mother and Daddy had sipped cider from champagne glasses and toyed with candy cigarettes bought from the little sweetshop across the road. Life for them had always been something of an amusing play, with themselves as both actors and audience. Dressing for their parts constituted a big slice of their amusement.

  That day Mother had been in her tragedy-queen role, wearing a stark black dress, shadowy picture hat, and sunglasses. Daddy had sported a striped waistcoat and jauntily tipped straw boater. They had adored each other and me. And despite the fact that their love for me seemed at times peripheral, I wouldn’t have exchanged them for any parents on earth.

  They hadn’t sent me to St. Roberta’s to get me out of the way; they had succumbed to my pleading that I be allowed to go to boarding school. This had followed my devouring Cilia of Chilterns’ Edge by Mabel Esther Allen. Had I been expelled and packed off home, Mother would in all likelihood have inhaled deeply of one of the candy cigarettes while Daddy resorted to throwing himself down on the chaise longue and begging for the smelling salts. But I knew they wouldn’t have carried on about the wasted expense and the bank loan from Mr. Shark, let alone the disappointment and sorrow of having spawned an only child with an ungrateful tooth, or however it goes. They would have rallied after a couple of theatrical sighs to concede that life had been rather dull of late and that a good part of a daughter’s reason for being was to perk up the excitement once in a while. A visit to the fish-and-chip shop would have been considered a wise way of proceeding. And that, more or less, would have been that.

  A row of creamy stone cottages came into view. I remembered the one with the thatched roof and the wisteria around the door. My friend Susan Brodstock’s grandparents had lived there, and I’d been invited to tea several times. For the first time since Dorcas had dropped her bombshell and the prospect of this trip had become a reality, I acknowledged that my three years at St. Roberta’s had not been one long stretch of unremitting misery. I had done well in art and history, made happy use of the excellent library, and in addition to Susan had another friend named Ann Gamble.

  When the three of us learned that a clique of the more popular girls, including the bullying Rosemary Martin, had formed a secret society, we instituted one of our own, calling ourselves the Triangle. We liked the name because we thought it combined simplicity with the sinister. Our object had not been to instill terror in others, only in ourselves. It was to fulfill this thrilling prospect that we had crept out of our dorm one night and made our way out onto the grounds by way of a rear door. Delighted with our daring, we had crossed the lawn to a twisty flight of centuries-old stone steps named the Dribbly Drop, cut into the steep embankment. Even on the driest, sunniest day, it looked dark and slick—a wrenched ankle, or worse, waiting to happen.

  We made it down the steps safely that night and thence across the pathway to the ruined convent separated from the main road by a pathway known as Lilypad Lane. All that remained of the building aboveground was the roofless refectory, with steps even more precarious than the Dribbly Drop leading down to the crypt. We decided to wait before descending them. Our tremulous courage required a boost. Seated on the remnants of a stone bench against a fragmented section of wall of the refectory, we ate the chocolate biscuits and fish-paste sandwiches we had saved from that afternoon’s tea. Ann also contributed some Licorice Allsorts; they were fuzzy with pocket lint, which Susan meticulously picked off. My contribution was a bottle of watered-down still lemonade.

  As midnight feasts went, this one was enormous fun, although the three of us did admit to being horribly disappointed when, after an hour of reacting to every shift of moonlight, we failed to catch a glimpse—not even the vestige of a veil—of the Gray Nun. Once a carefree maypole-dancing girl, her life had taken a bleak turn on the day
she ran off to wed a man not of her parents’ choice. Having followed in enraged pursuit, they dragged her by the scruff of her ruff back down the church aisle while explaining in ragged gasps that she would begin her novitiate that day. Was it any wonder that, knowing her beauty was doomed to fade with every cloistered hour, she never much cared whether her wimple was straight or crooked?

  Perhaps it was a mercy she did not languish long in the shadows of the cloister. The dratted Reformation intervened, and she met her end at the hand of her would-be husband. He had arrived, looking handsome as ever, clanking his sword and stomping his spurred boots, to denude the convent of its treasures, because Henry VIII had decided that if anyone should wantonly enjoy them it was he. After all, what was the point of being king if you couldn’t put the pope off his mead and potatoes? The Gray Nun, her plucky spirit renewed, had declined to tell the former light of her life where the lady abbess had hidden the gold chalice and other sacred objects from the chapel.

  She had fled to the crypt, where the erstwhile bridegroom caught up with her and drew her into his arms before running her through with his blade. Hell hath no fury like a man in tights and a doublet. It was said her initials were engraved on the hilt of his sword, along with a forget-me-not. Inevitably, the legend asserted that the imprint of this flower was seen from time to time on the crypt floor where her blood had spattered.

  Susan was the one to confess that even the Licorice Allsorts hadn’t made her more enthusiastic about going down to the crypt. It would have been different if there’d been the smallest chance of our finding the chalice, but the stories of failed searches were legion. If it had ever been hidden there, it was long gone. We told each other we didn’t regret our escapade and were bitterly disappointed that the Gray Nun had not put in an appearance. The chill night air, coupled with increasing sleepiness, was driving us back to our beds. Truth be told, I was not only scared but terrified, not of an unearthly apparition finally drifting our way with the offer of a clammy embrace but because I was belatedly considering the awful consequences should our nocturnal escapade be discovered.