HOUSE RULES – part two

By

Claris­sa

Pen­i­tent or arro­gant won­dered Miss Sven­son as she sur­veyed the tall blonde fig­ure of Miran­da Spears stand­ing before her study desk. Well, maybe not quite the usu­al arro­gance, she not­ed; but cer­tain­ly not penitent.

‘I am going to give you one chance to answer this ques­tion, Miran­da,’ began Miss Sven­son, ‘so think about your reply carefully.’

The girl dropped her eyes to the floor.

‘Where did you go this afternoon?’

The school girl looked a lit­tle per­plexed by this ques­tion, then replied ‘I went with the hare and hounds.’

‘Yes,’ rejoined Miss Sven­son, ‘but where did you go? Did you stay on the course? LOOK AT ME IN THE EYE!’

There was a slight pause, then the girl looked up. ‘No,’ she responded.

‘No, Miss Sven­son!’ retort­ed the headmistress.

‘No, Miss Svenson.’

‘I’m still wait­ing for an answer to my ques­tion,’ con­tin­ued Miss Sven­son, ‘Where did you go this afternoon?’

The girl shuf­fled slight­ly before her, then fixed her eyes on the head.

‘I went into the vil­lage, to Cam­ston, then came back to school the long way, rejoin­ing the race just before the fin­ish line.’ She looked down abruptly.

‘I see,’ said Miss Sven­son. ‘Can you think of one good rea­son why I should not expel you on the spot?’

The girl kept her eyes on the ground, ‘No, Miss,’ then, look­ing up deter­mined­ly, ‘except if I can explain it was some kind of protest.’ She start­ed to trem­ble slight­ly. ‘Ever since you sent me to Dr Rudd for pun­ish­ment I have not felt part of the school. It wasn’t so much the actu­al strap­ping, but the fact it was giv­en by him, in his study, not yours.’

Miss Sven­son flushed slight­ly; ‘Well, I am not going to jus­ti­fy my rea­sons for that pun­ish­ment, but I can assure you that nei­ther you, nor any oth­er girl, will be pun­ished by Dr Rudd again.’

The girl looked up briefly, then returned her eyes to the floor.

‘But you still haven’t answered why I shouldn’t expel you,’ con­tin­ued Miss Svenson.

Silence from the girl.

‘It is because you haven’t lied’ assert­ed Miss Svenson.

The girl seemed to draw a sigh of relief.

‘Of course, this doesn’t exempt you from pun­ish­ment for your dis­grace­ful behav­iour on the fox and hounds. Cheat­ing in the race is, I believe, essen­tial­ly a House mat­ter, and I will leave it up to Tara Watts, head of house, to deal with you on that. How­ev­er, going out-of-bounds also requires pun­ish­ment: six strokes on the bare with the senior cane.’

No response from the girl.

‘It will be a severe pun­ish­ment, Miran­da, but I hope you agree a fair one. And, I can assure you, it will be admin­is­tered by me. Now go and fetch the cane!’

House Rules – part one

By

Claris­sa

One of the things of which Miss Sven­son, head­mistress of Cams­ford House, was most proud was not the school’s rep­u­ta­tion for aca­d­e­m­ic excel­lence or high dis­ci­pli­nary stan­dards – both cher­ished as they were – but for some­thing more intan­gi­ble; what she liked to call esprit de corps: a spir­it of team work and fair play amongst the girls, a spir­it which, for Miss Sven­son, was exem­pli­fied by the annu­al com­pe­ti­tion for the House Cup.

Held over a week­end dur­ing the Win­ter Term, the four hous­es at Cams­ford – Drake, Hawkins, Raleigh and Grenville – would chal­lenge each oth­er for the hon­our of the Cup across six events, cul­mi­nat­ing in a cross-coun­try ‘hare and hounds’, held on the Sun­day. For this, the two lead­ing heads of house (or, more fre­quent­ly, their nom­i­nees) would act as hares, set­ting off in good time ahead of their pur­suers. This year, Miss Sven­son had not been sur­prised to learn that Miran­da Spears, the long-legged fifth-for­mer, had been select­ed as the hare for Drake.

So, here she was, see­ing off the hares into the dull light of a Novem­ber after­noon. Set over the exten­sive grounds of Cams­ford, the win­ner should come home with­in an hour and a half. All should be well and tru­ly home with­in two.

As the hares ran off to the cheers of sup­port­ers, Miss Sven­son chat­ted warm­ly to staff and pre­fects, and await­ed the return of the vic­tors. At ten to three, Sara Hodge, wear­ing the dis­tinc­tive green sash of Grenville, came into view and tore back over the line, fol­lowed by the first of the red-sashed Hawkins hounds. A cou­ple more hounds fol­lowed then, at about three o’clock, Miran­da Spears, the Drake hare, came into view. Although not the win­ner, she had seem­ing­ly evad­ed the hounds, and was greet­ed by whoops of delight from the Drake con­tin­gent. By half past three, every­one had been account­ed for and every­one had retired to the din­ing hall for tea.

Miss Sven­son went round the room con­grat­u­lat­ing Greville’s head of house, and her hound, on win­ning the Cup, before seek­ing out Drake. Strange­ly, she couldn’t seem to find Miran­da Spears, but she would catch up with her lat­er no doubt.

By five o’clock, Miss Sven­son had returned to her study to pick up mes­sages. She read through the list left by her sec­re­tary, not­ing only one unex­pect­ed num­ber: that of Mrs Sweet­ing at the vil­lage shop in Cam­ston. She picked up the tele­phone and dialled.

Her call was answered immediately.

‘Is that Miss Sven­son?’ came the voice. ‘I’m so glad you’ve rung. I don’t want to be a busy-body or any­thing, or tell tales after school, but I thought I should let you know I think I saw one of your girls in the cof­fee shop here in the vil­lage; I wouldn’t have noticed her – she looked so grown up – except she was wear­ing some kind of a sash, and I know it’s the House Cup today.’

‘Could you tell me the colour of the sash?’ asked Miss Sven­son. Now, no doubt, she would hear it was the red or blue of one of the pur­su­ing hounds – gone dis­as­trous­ly off track.

‘Yes, it was orange.’

‘Are you sure,’ con­tin­ued Miss Sven­son, ‘not red?’

‘No, orange, I’m sure. Does it make a difference?’

‘Yes it does,’ con­tin­ued Miss Sven­son, ‘thank you very much for let­ting me know.’

She replaced the receiv­er and let her head rest momen­tar­i­ly in her hands: there was only one pupil enti­tled to wear orange that day, and that was the rep­re­sen­ta­tive for Drake house – it’s hound, Miran­da Spears.

Regrets

By

Claris­sa

It was only a short dri­ve back from the boys’ school, Till­wood, to the main school at Cams­ford House, but for Miss Sven­son it had seemed like an eter­ni­ty; indeed, the cul­mi­na­tion of a thor­ough­ly dis­agree­able afternoon.

Not only had she had to wit­ness the pun­ish­ment of one of her pupil’s, Miran­da Spears, at the hands of anoth­er – a resound­ing six of the best with the strap from Tillwood’s head­mas­ter, Don­ald Rudd – but she had also had to endure Rudd’s excru­ci­at­ing com­bi­na­tion of  syco­phancy and self-regard. Yes, she had assured him on the phone that morn­ing, she was ful­ly aware of his prowess with the cane (enough to bring the hardi­est sixth for­mer to tears in three strokes); of his dis­dain for the strap (less painful); and of his unerr­ing trust in her abil­i­ties and judge­ment. Yes, yes, yes.

And, of course, the pun­ish­ment itself had not been pleas­ant. Miran­da Spears had not com­plained undu­ly, but it felt wrong for one of her charge to be pun­ished by anoth­er, par­tic­u­lar­ly a man, and par­tic­u­lar­ly a man such as Rudd.

Now, to cap it all, she was hav­ing to dri­ve the silent, tear-stained school girl back to school.

Miss Sven­son had thought about under­lin­ing to the girl the deserved­ness of her pun­ish­ment dur­ing the brief jour­ney back, but as the car pulled onto the grav­el dri­ve, she realised she had said noth­ing. Com­ing to a halt, the school girl’s hand poised impa­tient­ly on the inte­ri­or door han­dle, Miss Sven­son sim­ply heard her­self say­ing ‘You are of course excused prep, Miran­da. Feel free to go back to the dorm and recov­er your­self; I’ll send along matron shortly.’

As expect­ed, the girl did not reply, but mere­ly pulled back the han­dle and head­ed out of the door. Miss Sven­son watched as the tall fifth-for­mer made her way slow­ly across the grav­el, stop­ping only once to flick back her long blond hair; a ges­ture of seem­ing defi­ance for which Miss Sven­son sud­den­ly felt unac­count­ably glad.

A painful memory

By Claris­sa

The fan on her desk shud­dered to its sec­ond unsched­uled halt of the morn­ing, and Miss Sven­son was assailed by the heat of the day. It had been a record May, with tem­per­a­tures reg­u­lar­ly reach­ing into the eight­ies: even her nor­mal­ly cool office was start­ing to stul­ti­fy. She took the fan in her hands and shook it gen­tly, but this time it remained unmoved. She stood up with a sigh, not­ing with dis­plea­sure that the leather strap that hung by her office door had some­how loosed from its moor­ings. She picked up the strap and start­ed tap­ping it uncon­scious­ly against the palm of her hand.

Sud­den­ly, she was back 30 years, back at Blue Mead­ows, a school for the daugh­ters of ex-pat colo­nials and diplo­mats, some 20 miles out­side Nairo­bi. There she was, stand­ing at the front of the class, as the geog­ra­phy teacher, Miss Hen­der­son, bran­dished a tawse before her. ‘Hold out your hand, Elsa,’ then whoosh, whoosh, whoosh. She curled back her fin­gers in sympathy.

Now she was in the office of the head­mistress, a grey-head­ed Scotswoman called Miss Firth. ‘Bend over, girl’; ‘Bend over; Bend over; Bend over.’ Three times she had been in Miss Firth’s office that term, and on the fourth, she was suspended.

‘So, what have you been binned for this time?’ asked her step­fa­ther cool­ly, tak­ing a swig from his large tum­bler of whisky.

‘For swear­ing – in Swahili.’

‘Well, we can’t have you talk­ing like a local can we?’ he con­tin­ued, slam­ming his glass down on the table.

Wham, wham, wham. She couldn’t remem­ber how many times he rained down the cane, nor the colour of the dress she was wear­ing, nor the weave of the fab­ric into which she clenched her fists, all she could remem­ber, she thought with a pang, was the sound of his cold, venge­ful anger.

Miran­da part three

by Claris­sa

Miss Sven­son regret­ted her words almost as soon as she had uttered them. Yes, Miran­da Spears was a par­tic­u­lar­ly obsti­nate pupil, and might well respond to the dou­ble humil­i­a­tion of being dis­ci­plined by a man, but it was a prac­tice of which Miss Sven­son did not gen­er­al­ly approve. But Spears’ inso­lence had got to her; so there it was, she couldn’t change it.

She sent the girl out of the room while she pre­pared to make the phone call. As she con­tem­plat­ed her options, an image of Don­ald Rudd, head­mas­ter of Till­wood, came to mind. Although now in his late-fifties, and in need of con­stant glass­es, he was well known for still being able to lay down a par­tic­u­lar­ly pow­er­ful can­ing, some­thing of which he was inor­di­nate­ly proud. She picked up the phone.

‘Hel­lo again Elsa,’ came Rudd’s voice, ‘have you had any luck with my lit­tle prob­lem?’ ‘Yes indeed,’ replied Miss Sven­son, ‘I have iden­ti­fied the offend­ing fifth for­mer.’ ‘That’s excel­lent news,’ came the reply, ‘may I ask what you pro­pose doing with her?’ Miss Sven­son cleared her throat then went on, ‘Actu­al­ly, Don­ald, I was won­der­ing whether a dose of med­i­cine from you might be more effec­tive in this instance, with the offend­ing boy a wit­ness to her trou­ble.’ Before she had time to catch her breath, Rudd came back with an enthu­si­as­tic ‘That’s a splen­did idea – six of the best with the senior?’ Miss Sven­son hes­i­tat­ed; no doubt this is what he had giv­en the cap­tain of the rug­by XI, indeed, twice that num­ber, but it was not what she want­ed for Spears. ‘No, Don­ald, I think six with the strap from your strong arm should work won­ders.’ ‘You’re too kind,’ replied Rudd immod­est­ly, ‘of course, I agree.’

Miss Sven­son put down the tele­phone and called in the girl. She had no doubt Miran­da Spears would resent her more than ever, but it was a nec­es­sary pun­ish­ment and, she knew in her heart, a just one.