School for Skylarks Read online

  ‘Hello.’ It was Cat. She’d seen Lyla was alone and she’d come over from wherever she’d been just to sit with her.

  Lyla raised her eyes.

  ‘Faye Peak What a Sneak?’ asked Cat.

  Lyla nodded.

  ‘Take no notice of her. Anyway, Faye would never be brave enough to take a horse upstairs.’ Cat squeezed Lyla’s hand.

  Lyla looked up at her, grateful but uncertain whether she herself would indeed be brave enough when it came to actually taking Violet upstairs.

  ‘Come on,’ said Cat.

  Lyla, with the soggy carrots and the apple in her pocket and Bucket up her sleeve, stood up, smiled at Cat and together they left the room.

  ‘Good luck,’ said Cat.

  Lyla eventually found Violet wandering loose on the old grass tennis court. Lyla called to her and, because Violet had never known any unkindness, she padded trustingly towards her. Lyla opened the gate and patted her pocket to tell her there were interesting things in it, and Violet bent her head and nuzzled Lyla’s skirt.

  So far, so good, thought Lyla. She led Violet along the path between the yew hedges, eyeing the door ahead with some trepidation. It was low and, for so grand a house, narrow. First the door, she told herself, then the stairs. The stairs will be the trickiest, so I must keep the apple in reserve.

  Violet, a fine-boned and delicate horse, made her way through the doorway as though she were entirely accustomed to entering ancient stone houses. Everything was quiet. The girls were all in the Undercroft with Pigeon; the staff still probably lunching in the Housemaids’ Parlour; Ada and Solomon probably in the Billiard Room. Stretching her neck towards Lyla’s pocket, she trotted across the hall, picking her way around the wingback chairs and occasional tables.

  At the foot of the stairs, Lyla, remembering how Cat trusted her to be brave enough to do this, stood on tiptoe and whispered, ‘Do this for me, Violet, please.’

  Lyla stepped on to the first tread and tugged gently at Violet’s mane, and was already thinking of how, later on, she would be telling Cat all about it . . . but Violet hesitated.

  ‘Come on,’ hissed Lyla, holding out some apple and putting her left foot on to the second step. Violet pawed the stair and snorted, then pawed it again. Lyla went up higher, holding the hand with the apple just out of Violet’s reach. Violet placed a hoof on the first step.

  ‘It means I can go home,’ begged Lyla.

  Violet stretched to the apple and snorted with frustration to find that it should still be beyond reach. Lyla had begun to think of all the Form IV girls doing gym in the Undercroft while she, Lyla Spence, happened for some reason to be trying to coax an elderly mare up a flight of cantilevered stairs, when suddenly Violet lunged forward. There was an unnerving skidding as she placed first one foreleg then the other on the stairs. Lyla, trembling, held out her hand, and Violet, despite the inconvenience of being half up and half down, chomped the apple. Fumbling about for more apple, Lyla stepped backwards. With a terrific clattering, finally both of Violet’s forelegs were on the tread and she reached the apple and munched noisily.

  Lyla took another slice of apple from her pocket as she stepped backwards up another step, and whispered in a shaky voice, ‘Yes, good girl, come on – we’ve got to be quick.’ It was frightening to have a horse partway up a staircase. Violet’s rear-right hoof lifted and searched clumsily for the tread. She snorted and pawed at the stairs, and Lyla, unnerved, stepped back up again, and at that very moment Violet suddenly got the idea into her head that it was easier to take staircases all in one go, and she lurched and staggered and lunged all the way to the top making a frightful racket, legs all at awkward angles, clumsy and clattering. Lyla, terrified, raced full tilt upwards, keeping just ahead of Violet.

  Now Violet was on level ground, she trotted determinedly after Lyla and the apple, while Lyla backed hurriedly down the corridor, the apple in her outstretched hand. ‘Not so fast, yes, yes, in here,’ she whispered urgently. Lyla backed into the Maharajah’s Room, and Violet followed. Shutting the door firmly behind them, Lyla collapsed flat against it, puffing and panting.

  ‘Phew. Well done, clever girl,’ she whispered. ‘Now you can have all the apple you want.’ She emptied her pockets on to the crewel-work bedspread, and Violet nudged and calmly sorted out the best pieces as though all her life she’d eaten sliced apple from a maharajah’s bed. ‘Aunt Ada has twenty-eight bedrooms, so when she notices you’re gone, it’ll take her forever to find you.’

  She opened the windows for Violet, then left, closing the door behind her, turning the lock and pocketing the key, rather pleased because now she could go and tell Cat that Violet was installed in the Maharajah’s Room.

  28

  REAR-END BUCKETS

  Lyla was supposed to be doing Prep in the Red Library, but since she had no intention of drawing diagrams of Celtic hill forts, she decided instead to wander about and see if Great Aunt Ada had noticed that Violet was missing.

  She spied Ada in the knot garden, an embattled, faded sort of hat on her head, a basket over her arm. She was taking cuttings in a scientific kind of way from the roses, and making precise notes in a mildewed logbook. Lyla watched, very tempted to mention Violet’s name in a casual, offhand kind of way just to see if Great Aunt Ada had noticed that her horse was missing. Then, growing hungry, she began to wonder if it was nearly dinner and almost Welsh Rarebit o’clock.

  The gong sounded from the hall. Ada raised her eyes to the courtyard clock, saw that it was indeed seven, and, with a sigh of satisfaction, set down her basket. The last echo of the gong died and, at that point, Lyla heard a whinny that issued from a first-floor window.

  Ada looked about distractedly. Lyla, panic-stricken, crept behind the potting shed. Violet whinnied again, and Lyla could see her nostrils flaring, and her eyes wide in astonishment – that she should find herself so far above the grass. Lyla flapped her arms about as if that might quiet her, but Violet whinnied once more, at which point Ada looked upwards and saw the horse peering in an interested, intelligent sort of way out of the maharajah’s window – alarmed, it seemed, that the trees should be below her.

  Everything had gone wrong. Now Ada knew exactly where her horse was and she’d never fulfil her part of the deal.

  Lyla eyed her great aunt and saw that a tender, motherly smile had formed on her lips, as though Violet were a charming and mischievous child.

  ‘Ah, Violet,’ Ada hollered up, ‘there you are.’ At the sound of her mistress’s voice, Violet’s ears twitched, and she quietened and turned her head in the direction of Ada, who continued, ‘Good, good, very sensible, yes, the Maharajah’s Room is as safe a place as any to spend a war. Most resourceful of you, Violet – I do wonder you thought of that all on your own. Resourceful. Accomplished. Daring. Determined.’

  As Lyla wondered if Great Aunt Ada were entirely serious in thus addressing her horse it came to Violet’s attention that the top of a rowan tree came conveniently up to the first floor, and she nuzzled it and began to eat the soft tips of it.

  ‘Very good, Violet, very good. Marvellous, marvellous. I shall send you up a climbing rose. A Rambling Rector perhaps, a hydrangea and a clematis – yes, a vigorous clematis. You should like that, shouldn’t you? – yes, a clematis will romp up there in a week or two.’ Aunt Ada chuckled merrily, then, turning to look about, she located Lyla and fixed those laughing, gold-flecked sorcerer eyes upon her.

  ‘She’ll have to take her morning exercise in the ballroom, you know, and up and down the corridors . . . I am not sure you ever took Violet’s happiness into consideration, did you? You will find life easier if you don’t think only of yourself, you know.’

  ‘I don’t think only of myself,’ said Lyla sullenly. ‘I think of Mop. That’s who I think of. All the time.’

  Lyla was stung at the injustice of Ada’s comment, so she began to slink and creep away from her towards the house, cross that everything had gone wrong. AGAIN.

  She
stomped into the State Dining Room, chose a chair in the furthest corner, scraped it into position and sat there with hunched shoulders. The rest of the girls began to file in after her and take their places. Finally Cat entered the room and saw Lyla. She rushed over and pulled out the chair next to her.

  ‘Did you do it?’ Cat whispered.

  ‘I did, but it all went wrong.’

  ‘Violet is upstairs? Actually upstairs?’ whispered Cat.

  Lyla nodded and glared into the thick skin that lay, as usual, across the surface of Prudence’s pink blancmange.

  ‘Great Aunt Ada knows, and she just thinks it’s funny and doesn’t mind at all, and Violet doesn’t mind because there’s a tree to eat outside the window, so it was all for nothing.’

  Cat grinned, delighted by the whole adventure, but Lyla was still cross that it had all been in vain, so she put down her spoon and was about to leave when Great Aunt Ada steamed in. Lyla sat down again very quickly.

  Heads turned, but Great Aunt Ada smiled and announced breezily to all the room, ‘Violet’ll need hay, of course. In the maharajah’s bedroom at 8 a.m. and 4 p.m., please.’ Her eyes found Lyla, and she continued sweetly. ‘Lyla, she’ll need a bucket too, for her rear end. Three times a day for the rear-end bucket down; twice a day for the front-end bucket up.’

  Lyla’s cheeks reddened and she scowled into her blancmange.

  Rear-end buckets down? Hay up? Up and down all those stairs so many times a day?

  Cat giggled, so Lyla scowled at her too and hissed, ‘Well, it was your idea.’

  The Pinnacle appeared from the opposite door and the two women faced each other across the room, like opposing armies, the light of battle in their eyes.

  ‘Am I right in thinking that there’s a horse in the house? I was never given to understand there’d be a horse on the premises.’

  ‘My dear Pinhead,’ answered Aunt Ada, ‘this is my house, and my horse, and I shall put them just wherever I want them.’

  ‘Pinnacle.’

  ‘Of course, Pinnacle, quite – but, as I say, this being my house and Violet being my horse, I’ll do as I like with them both.’ With that, Ada sailed out of the room.

  Lyla, with a hurried scraping of her chair, rose and pushed her way across the room and ran down the corridor after her aunt. She caught her up outside the Billiard Room.

  ‘I could always bring Violet down again?’ she volunteered.

  ‘Out of the question. She’ll never make it down again, d’you see? It’s the way their hips and knees are made – they don’t like down because they can’t see where they’re putting their feet – horses do very much like to see where they’re putting their feet.’

  ‘Never?’ asked Lyla, such an eventuality not having occurred to her. She stalled, until with a flash of inspiration, she said, ‘I know. We can build a ramp.’

  ‘You may have noticed,’ said Aunt Ada, peering dimly down at Lyla, ‘that in a war there tends to be a great shortage of men about the place to build ramps for horses that find themselves upstairs. Besides, I intend to give Violet the full run of the place. I should like her to come and greet me of a morning, and we could turn the ballroom over to lawn, there’s plenty of rot and damp in that sprung maple floor and – you never know – horses may not actually be at all averse to oriental luxury in their sleeping quarters, silk rugs and so forth. Not to mention the luxuriant new growth of my favourite rowan tree.’

  Without another word, Great Aunt Ada turned on her heel and marched away.

  29

  TOOTH-BRUSHING

  A shrill whinny reverberated down the corridor. Violet was ready to make her morning visit to Great Aunt Ada’s room.

  Lyla glared at the unicorns and at the white hares and then at the writing table and then at everything else, furious with everything. Now there was Violet as well as Mop to worry about.

  Violet began to clip-clop about in the excitable manner that announced she would like her door to be opened. Lyla, thinking of the silky floor coverings that maharajahs liked to walk over barefoot, grabbed her toothbrush and went to keep Violet company, but Violet only turned and flicked her tail and trotted to the window.

  They stood together at the open window, Violet first sniffing the dew then nuzzling the climbing hydrangea and plucking off its lace-cap flowers and swishing her tail and appearing very pleased that a delicious plant had come all the way up to a first-floor window. Lyla brushed her teeth. Tooth-brushing was, in fact, less boring in the company of a horse.

  Next, Lyla took an ivory-backed hairbrush from the washstand and began to groom Violet’s coat. Tending to a horse was altogether a less alarming affair than worrying about Mop. She stood on tiptoe and told Violet, ‘I’ll write to Mop today because my letters are getting lost in the post, or perhaps Winnie is forgetting to pass them on. You see, Violet, letters are a bit like prayers, quite haphazard really – you can’t be sure they’ll actually arrive.’

  ‘You see, I told you she’d done it.’

  Lyla froze at the voice and turned crimson. She’d been caught red-handed talking to a horse. She turned to see Cat and Imelda in the doorway.

  ‘Actually, I have to talk to Violet because she can’t go downstairs because horses have the wrong kind of knees,’ Lyla snapped.

  Cat grinned with amusement at the sight of a horse amidst oriental rugs and silk hangings. Imelda stared open-mouthed and then ran off, probably to tell everybody about Violet but Cat lingered at the door.

  ‘I’m still so impressed you did it, you know.’

  ‘But it didn’t work,’ said Lyla.

  Cat paused, then said, ‘I talked to Solomon, you know, about your letters from your father. He’s very sad about you not reading them, and I am too.’

  With that, Cat turned and ran off down the hallway.

  Lyla bowed her head. She wanted a letter from Mop. That was what she wanted more than anything else. She ran her fingers over Violet’s soft muzzle and whispered, ‘She doesn’t understand what it’s like to be me. No one understands what it’s like to be me.’

  She decided to head back to her room, for it was time to write another letter to Mop.

  Furlongs

  Ladywood

  Devon

  Dearest Mop,

  You have to have so many different bits of uniform – Summer Knickers and Winter Knickers and even Outer Knickers, which are for gymnastics. Because of the uniform I suppose I LOOK quite like everybody else, but still I don’t FEEL like everybody else.

  The bad thing about my uniform is that it is all only hand-me-downs from a fifth-former called Jo Wicker who left. Faye thinks it’s funny I have to wear Wicker’s uniform, because Wicker was the most unpopular girl in her year. Faye gets lots of letters from her family, but everyone likes her because she’s pretty and does whatever the teachers say.

  Miss Threadgold is the maths teacher and the form teacher, but they call her Threadlegs because she looks like she’s made of pipe cleaners. She is always telling me off for being late. ALSO, she made Bucket wait outside double maths because she found Bucket inside her handbag and that upset her a great deal because she thinks ferrets are dirty and unpredictable, unlike numbers, which behave in a clean and predictable way.

  Art is with Miss Primrose and we draw on brown wrapping paper because you can’t get any white paper any more. You would like Primrose. She reads poetry while we draw because poetry stops your head getting in the way of your heart and that’s important because feeling in drawing is more important than accuracy. Imelda says Primrose is FAST. You can tell that because she cuts her hair short and in a straight line like a lampshade. I know that’s not true because your hair is short and quite like a lampshade too, but I didn’t tell Imelda that.

  Also, Great Aunt Ada doesn’t have enough bathrooms or hot water so we have to queue and share our baths and are only allowed SIX inches of water, and Miss Macnair the Matron is very fierce about that, and even G. A. Ada has the six-inch line on her bath. If you fill
it up more, someone is sure to tell on you, especially someone like Brenda. Brenda is always on her own because she doesn’t have any friends. She doesn’t have a mother, only a father, and he is in the Far East. Sometimes I feel sorry for Brenda, but I don’t really like her.

  Imelda is always pretending to be sick so she can lie about in the San, because the San has its own fire and its own bath and you can have as much hot water in it as you like. Tomorrow I am going to give Bucket a new ball of string as he hid the last one in a laundry basket and it got ruined in the wash. Also Aunt Ada says she is going to give me some writing paper to write to you because I am running out, but paper is very hard to get in a war.

  Are you doing war work, like knitting? Lots of Garden Hill Mothers do that AND they write lots of letters and everyone reads their letters to each other at break-time. Every day I wait for a letter from you and it never comes.

  Oh, Mop, I am no good at anything because of being taught by Winnie. Winnie doesn’t know any of the things you learn in school. I have done everything I can to get home, but nothing works out and it just goes wrong all the time, and now Violet is stuck upstairs in an Indian bedroom and everyone sees me with her rear-end buckets and stares at me so PLEASE DON’T LEAVE ME HERE. I don’t know how to make friends so I only have Bucket to talk to mostly. Cat tries to talk to me, but she asks so many questions and I find them difficult to answer.

  Please don’t forget my birthday, because everyone gets presents on their birthdays, and please, please write because it makes me sad and scared when you don’t and maybe one day I will be too sad to ever write to you again.

  All my love,

  Lyla

  30

  LETTERS AND NUMBERS MIXED

  ‘Late, Lyla Spence.’ Threadgold put a tardy next to Lyla’s name. Lyla had already collected several tardies for not being in the right place at the right time as well as a SCEL for bringing a horse into the house. A SCEL was a very alarming thing, short for ‘sceler’, which was a word for wicked in an ancient language and meant you got a big black mark by your name on the noticeboard.