The Dragonfly Pool (6 page)

“Ah, Talitha Hamilton, is that right? And they call you Tally.”

“Yes.”

Clearly this wasn't a curtsying situation, though the headmaster sat behind an impressive desk, so Tally smiled instead and put out her hand.

The headmaster had a headache. He always had a headache for the first three days of term, but for a moment the throbbing grew less. For this child was actually on the list, she was expected, she looked intelligent—and she had taken notice of the cedar tree. And this was important because she was on a scholarship and he couldn't console himself with thinking that she brought much-needed money with her. One child, however awful, provided the salary for a teacher for a term, or a year's worth of books. He shouldn't of course have given any more scholarships, but his friend Professor Mayfield had spoken so enthusiastically of the selfless work done by Tally's father that he had agreed.

“Now,” he said, when he had welcomed her to Delderton, “have you any questions you wanted to ask me? ”

“Well, I do have. I mean, I thought I was coming to an ordinary school where girls lived in dorms and shouted, ‘Well played, Daphne!'—and all that . . . but this isn't like that, is it? ”

“No.”

“I'm not reproaching anybody, but what is it exactly? People say it's a progressive school and I know what progressive means—at least I think I do. It means going from somewhere to somewhere else. But where to? ”

“Ah yes.” The headmaster for a moment looked sad. “That is a good question. I suppose we want children to take responsibility for their own lives. To choose what is right rather than to have it forced on them.”

“Yes, I see. Of course, one would have to know what is right.”

“Don't you think one does know? ”

“I suppose so. Usually. But oughtn't . . . the
whole school
to be going from somewhere to somewhere else? To somewhere better . . . if it's being progressive? I mean, the world isn't very good, is it, with this war coming and everything.”

Daley was silent. The child was certainly right about the state of the world. For a moment he saw what she saw: a whole school marching like an avenging army on the side of The Good.

“We do what we can to help: we take a lot of children from abroad. Staff, too, and many of the people who help with domestic work come from oppressed countries. And there's a council meeting every other Monday: if you have any ideas you could put them forward then.”

Tally nodded, screwing up her face. “I expect it's more difficult than I realize.” And then: “Is it true we don't have to go to lessons? ”

“You don't have to, but I hope you will. We have some excellent teachers.”

“So it's all right to go to lessons? We don't
have
to be free if we don't want to? ”

The headmaster smiled. “No, Tally, you don't have to be free.”

But Tally had another question. “I was wondering about Augusta Carrington. Did anyone find her? ”

“Yes, they did,” said the headmaster, looking pleased. “She's turned up at a school in Wales. She got on the wrong train at Paddington—it happens from time to time.”

He looked down at the note he had made on his writing pad. All the children had a tutor chosen from among the staff, whom they saw once a week and to whom they could take special problems. Next to Tally's name he had written: “David Prosser.” There was nothing wrong with the chemistry teacher; he was a perfectly sensible and responsible man. But now he crossed it out and wrote a different name.

“Your tutor will be Matteo von Tarlenheim. He takes biology . . . and other things.”

Now why did I do that? he wondered when Tally had gone. He usually kept Matteo for difficult boys or for children like Julia Mecklebury who had a special problem—and Tally was in neither of these groups.

But he did not change his mind.

When she got back to her corridor Tally found that Julia had finished unpacking and arranging her room. She had tacked up two posters of landscapes—an autumn wood and a rocky beach—and plumped up an embroidered cushion on the bed. Everything looked cheerful and nice, except for the photo of Gloria Grantley, the film star with sausage curls and pouting lips, which was in a silver frame by Julia's bed.

“Is she a friend of the family? ” asked Tally, but Julia just shook her head, and Barney came in then to say he was going to settle the axolotl in his proper tank in the pet hut and, if they came with him, Tally could see where everything was.

The pet hut was behind the gym, which was a separate building set in trees. On the wooden steps leading up to it sat a small, very pretty girl talking in French to an enormous white rabbit that drooped down on either side of her slender knees.

Inside, the hut was full of cages from which came the squeals and snuffles of various rabbits and mice and guinea pigs. In one corner, however, there was an unexpected pet: a large striped snake, which opened one gummy eye as it felt the vibration made by their footsteps. It looked unhealthy and dry.

“That's Verity's,” said Julia. “She's an awful show-off. You wouldn't catch Verity with anything as ordinary as a guinea pig.”

Verity, it turned out, was the girl who had been barefoot in Paddington Station.

They decanted the axolotl into a bigger tank and gave him some bloodworm pellets and he settled down at once and began to eat—but Barney was still worried because he hadn't got a name for him.

“It's so rude having pets that aren't called anything,” he said.

But it was difficult. The axolotl's head, with its piercing black eyes and feathery gills, could have been called something Mexican and royal-sounding, like Protaxeles, but his legs were not royal at all. They were short and bandy—and if you had been naming his legs he would have been called Cyril or Alf.

“It'll come to you suddenly,” said Tally. “Probably in the middle of the night.”

After that they took Tally on a tour of the school buildings. As the school had grown, classrooms and workshops and studios had sprung up outside the courtyard in places that had been part of the gardens of the old hall. There were only a few gardeners and groundsmen left now, so that creepers grew up the side of the gym and there were patches of moss and wildflowers between the paving stones. In the early-evening light everything looked dreamy, like an illustration in a book of watercolors.

They went down a sloping field to look at the school farm: a huddle of sheds with three goats, a cow, a handful of sheep, and some chickens which an African boy called Borro was shutting up for the night. As they made their way back they passed the open door of the art room and saw Clemmy bent over some dishes, mixing powder paints. She looked serene and happy—and Tally saw what Barney meant when he said that she should not be in charge of trains. Last term's paintings were still on the wall: monkeys swung through jungles, underwater creatures wreathed and coiled . . . and in one corner was a bloodred painting of excited workers carrying sickles and hammers toward a palace gate.

“That's Tod's picture,” said Julia. “He's sure the revolution will come soon, and that will be the end of tyrants and kings.”

Julia had not been exaggerating when she said that Magda was not good at making cocoa. When they had washed and put on their pajamas, all the children in the Blue House met for cocoa and biscuits in Magda's room. Magda had a little kitchenette adjoining her room and she disappeared into it, emerging with a huge jug and a tray of cups.

The cocoa she poured out was quite extraordinary—blackish and grainy with a thick layer of skin—but she seemed so relieved when she had made it and poured it into the cups that even the rowdiest children said nothing. Then she played a Mozart sonata on her gramophone and everybody went to bed.

“You see what I mean about the cocoa,” said Julia.

“Yes, I do. Perhaps something could be done,” said Tally.

Julia looked surprised. “How could it? She always makes it like that.”

“Maybe we could make it? ” suggested Tally.

But now, as the lights went out, the homesickness that had been lying in wait for Tally gathered itself together and pounced.

She thought of the aunts, waiting for her as she came home from school, eager for every detail of her day. She thought of her friends in the street—Maybelle and Kenny, and Primrose in her stable.

But above all she thought of her father. Coming in from the surgery asking, “Where's Tally?” as soon as he entered the house . . . teasing her about something foolish she had said . . . walking with her along the river on a Sunday, while they talked about anything and everything on earth.

It would be months before she saw him again and they had scarcely been separated for a day.

The lump in her throat was growing bigger. She groped for a handkerchief.

And then she heard the sound of sobbing. The sobbing grew louder, was muffled, then grew louder again.

Tally had expected tears from Kit but he had gone to sleep at once, his thumb in his mouth, and anyway his room was at the other end of the corridor. She waited, but the crying went on. It was none of her business, really—but she had not been brought up to ignore distress. She got out of bed, opened her door, and listened.

The sobbing came from a door opposite. She knocked very quietly, then pushed it open.

She was in the housemother's room. Magda was sitting at her table, which was piled high with manuscript paper. Clearly she had intended to work on her book about the philosopher with the difficult name, but she wasn't. Her head had fallen forward and she was crying bitterly; strands of hair lay on the paper and there was ink on her face.

When she saw Tally she sat up suddenly and blew her nose. “Is anything the matter? ” she asked. “Are you homesick? ”

“No . . . well, not really. But are you all right? ”

Tally's inquiring face, tilted in concern, brought on another attack of weeping.

“Yes . . . yes. Of course. I'm not starving or being shot at, so of course I'm all right.” Magda sniffed and dabbed at her eyes. “You must go back to bed—you'll be so tired in the morning.”

But Tally knew what one had to do when people were in trouble; her father had told her often enough. One sat quietly beside them and waited. And indeed, almost at once, Magda began to speak.

“It's just . . . when everything's quiet, one can't help remembering. You see, I studied in Germany, in Weimar. It's such a beautiful city, the old squares, the gardens . . . so peaceful, so full of interesting people and everyone so well-behaved. Scholars, professors . . . the lectures were remarkable. There was a young professor there . . . Heribert. I was going to go back to Germany to live when I had finished my book, and I thought that we might get married. But not now. Not with the Nazis marching about in jackboots spoiling everything—and anyway, I have a Jewish grandmother. But for me,” said Magda, and her eyes filled with tears again, “Weimar will always be home.”

“Yes, I see.” Tally put out a hand and laid it on Magda's arm. “I'm so sorry.”

She stayed for a while, and before she left Magda's sobs had died down. She even offered to make Tally another cup of cocoa.

Back in her bed, Tally found she was too tired to go on with her own longings. She had expected anything except to go to a school where it was the
teachers
who were homesick—and almost at once she fell asleep.

P
erhaps it was a pity that the first lesson on the timetable the next morning was drama. Tally had thought that drama was about doing plays and had been looking forward to it, but it wasn't. It was taught by a woman with gray hair called Armelle, wearing a leotard, and took place in the hall.