The Flight of Gemma Hardy by Margot Livesey Page B

said, was famous for its woolen mills. His wife worked at one that produced lovely cardigans; they cost a pretty penny. Then he told me how to get to the school and, thinking I would need to reverse this journey someday, I paid close attention. First we drove five miles to the village of Denholm. There we crossed the river Teviot and drove two more miles to the village of Minto. Claypoole had been the ancestral home of Lord and Lady Minto until both their sons died in the war, the older in North Africa, the younger on an Atlantic convoy. They had sold the estate in 1946 and moved to Edinburgh. The school was owned by Miss Bryant, the headmistress—Mr. Milne’s voice underlined the name—and her sister-in-law, Mrs. Bryant, who’d been widowed a few years ago. “I’ve never known a woman,” he said, “who can make a shilling go further.”
    When I left Yew House that morning there had been snow on the stony hills and frost whitening the fields. Here the hills were green and softly rounded, and the fields were surrounded by hedges rather than stone walls. Even the sheep were larger and cleaner. In Denholm crocuses and snowdrops bloomed in the gardens of the whitewashed cottages. On the far side of the Teviot a line of willows led to a crossroads; we turned right up a hill. Almost at the top we swerved into a driveway, past a little gingerbread house. “That’s where we live,” said Mr. Milne. “In the lodge.”
    The house that came into view around the next bend rewarded all my daydreaming. Claypoole was built of a pleasing light grey granite. The two wings of the school stood at right angles to each other and were linked by a curving balustrade supported by elegant pillars. Row after row of windows shone. Mr. Milne parked beside a flight of steps. These led down to the back door, which, he explained, I would normally use. Today, however, we would enter by the front door. He rang the bell and led me into a large oak-panelled hall. Several armchairs were grouped around the fireplace, and at the far end a beautiful, red-carpeted staircase spiralled up to a glass dome. How grand everything looked, and how comfortable. A girl, dressed in a green tunic and brown knee socks, appeared. I stared at her wonderingly while Mr. Milne asked her to tell Miss Bryant that the new working girl was here.
    She hurried away through the nearest door and he pointed out the picture over the fireplace; it showed the house as it had been in 1900. “You can still see the remains of the carriage house,” he was saying when something made me turn. A tall, grey-haired woman wearing a beautiful navy suit was descending the spiral stairs. Miss Bryant, I was to discover, liked to make an entrance. I glimpsed a high, bony forehead, an elegant nose, and scarlet lips, the upper unusually thin, the lower unusually full. Later I heard one girl claim that she was fifty; another that she was barely thirty. Both seemed plausible.
    â€œThank you, Mr. Milne,” she said. “The suitcase goes to the Elm Room.”
    Without a backward glance he disappeared. “So you are Hardy,” Miss Bryant continued. Her accent, like her age, was elusive, neither Scottish nor English but some blending of the two. “Your aunt has warned me that you are prone to lying and daydreaming. At Claypoole you will find that, between your lessons and your other duties, there is no time for either. You understand that you are here as a working pupil?”
    â€œMy aunt should have not said that.”
    â€œStop glaring at me, and address me as Miss Bryant. Let me ask again: Do you understand that you are a working pupil?”
    â€œYes, Miss Bryant. But my aunt—”
    â€œIt is up to you to prove her wrong and to prove us right in offering you a place. Your work does not begin to pay for your board, let alone tuition. Ross will show you what to do. You’ll start in Primary Seven on Monday.”
    I