LITMIR.BIZ

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Kelda could remember twice going to Edinburgh.

      Their journeys had seldom been very comfortable, but it had been an excitement to be on the move.

      More than anything else it had been a thrill to be in a foreign country, to ride on the back of a camel or a stubborn mule or to sail in a small boat with a large sail up a river to places that could not be reached by any other means.

      ‘Oh, Papa, I miss you,’ Kelda said beneath her breath.

      She knew that the eight years since he had died had been a nightmare from which she half-believed she might still awake.

      To look back made her remember that, while Yvette was not yet eighteen and was going out into the world for the first time, she would be twenty-one in July.

      And Kelda supposed that her life would never alter from what it was at the moment.

      She often wondered to herself, if she left the Seminary, if she would be able to find other employment of a more congenial nature.

      Although she had often considered it, she thought it was unlikely and in a way she clung to Mrs. Gladwin because with her she was with girls who came from cultured families.

      It was not that they or Mrs. Gladwin considered her to be their equal. She continually reminded her that she came from an orphanage and was nothing but a ‘charity child’.

      At first Kelda had resented it, feeling that she must reply that her father was a gentleman and her mother a lady, even if they had very little money.

      Then she decided that such retorts only made the situation more difficult than it was at the moment.

      Mrs. Gladwin liked humiliating her because unlike the servants she could not leave nor would she answer back as the Governesses could do.

      She therefore taught herself to always control her feelings, to try not to listen when Mrs. Gladwin found fault incessantly and expected her to be eternally grateful for having a roof over her head and food to eat.

      She was certainly paid little enough for her services a quarter of what any of the servants received but she knew that if she was dissatisfied there was nothing she could do about it.

      Even these meagre wages were overdue and, because Kelda loathed having to ask for what she was owed and being told once again how grateful she should be for being where she was, she had not even mentioned the fact to her employer.

      She crossed the room to shut the wardrobe door and, as she did so, looking at the gowns hanging inside it, many of which Yvette had only worn two or three times.

      Kelda remembered how pretty her mother had always looked, despite the fact that she could never afford anything expensive.

      “It is not only what you spend,” she had said once, “it is having good taste and knowing what suits one’s real self.”

      ‘Perhaps if I had the chance,’ Kelda thought, ‘I too would have good taste.’

      She had only to look in the mirror to realise that the grey gown that she wore, which was made of coarse cotton, was unbecoming and appeared, as indeed she was, poverty-stricken.

      It was, of course, chosen by Mrs. Gladwin, who ever since she had come to the Seminary had insisted on repeating the same grey garments she had worn in the orphanage rather than buying her dresses of a brighter and more cheerful colour.

      “Please, Madam,” she had asked a year ago, “as I am having a new gown, could it be in blue or green?”

      “I consider both those colours quite unsuitable for your position,” Mrs. Gladwin replied acidly. “What is more, they would show the dirt.”

      “I wash my gowns every week,” Kelda countered quickly.

      “I should have thought that was unnecessarily often,” Mrs. Gladwin replied, determined to find fault. “And the uniform I choose for you is what I permit you to wear and there will be no arguments about it.”

      She was dismissed and as she left the study Kelda knew that it had been a forlorn hope anyway that she might be allowed to look more attractive.

      Now, as she closed the wardrobe door, she thought of what she would buy if she could afford it. She was sure that blue and pale green would be becoming to her, as they had been to her mother.

      She had the same fair golden hair, the same large blue-grey eyes that were the colour of the morning mist and her skin was transparently clear, although she was pale and far too thin from overwork.

      She caught a glimpse of herself in the mirror and turned away from it.

      What was the point of pretending? She would wear grey and the years ahead would be grey too.

      If Yvette only knew it, she was very lucky to be able to escape to Senegal or anywhere else in the world.

      There were innumerable duties that kept Kelda busy until supper time.

      One of the jobs that had been thought up for her by Mrs. Gladwin was that she should wait on the Mistresses who had supper in their own rooms.

      They took it in turns to supervise the pupils in the large dining room where everybody had to eat at luncheontime.

      The Mistresses insisted that in the evening those who were not on duty should be served in their own sitting room, where they could add to the school fare delicacies that had been purchased either by themselves or sent to them by relatives.

      At first Mrs. Gladwin had resisted such an innovation. Then when she found that there were no reasonable arguments she could use against it, she assuaged her pride by saying that the servants were too busy, but that Kelda could wait on the Mistresses, bringing their meals in from the kitchen and washing up afterwards.

      Kelda had not really minded for as a result she often enjoyed titbits that the Mistresses left, which was a change from the school meals that were repeated in monotonous rotation from week to week with no variations.

      Tonight, when she entered the staff room. it was to find an animated conversation taking place.

      “I said to her,” Miss Dawson, one of the older Mistresses, was declaiming, “‘I have no intention, Madam, of spending my holiday by travelling to some outlandish part of the world. I dislike the sea and always have and I have no plans for ever leaving these shores again’.”

      There was a burst of laughter as Kelda put the heavy tray down on a side table.

      “What did she say to that?”

      “She merely dismissed me and sent for Miss Jenkins.”

      “Did you accept her proposition?” someone asked. “Tell us, Jenky. We are all ears.”

      “Of course I did not,” Miss Jenkins, who was the sporty Games Mistress, replied. “I am spending all my holiday with my fiancé at his home. I would not give that up for a trip to Heaven and back again!”

      Again there was laughter as Kelda ladled out the soup and set it down on the table in front of each of the Mistresses.

      “Who did she try next?” someone questioned.

      “I think she has been through the lot of us,” Miss Dawson said. “I know Ashton told me before she went out this evening that she had refused and I think Miss Hart has said ‘no’.”

      “Madam is so keen on pleasing this Nobleman,” Miss Jenkins said, “that I cannot think why she does not go herself or alternatively she could send Kelda.”

      Kelda started at the sound of her own name and they all laughed.

      “As a matter of fact,” Miss Jenkins said, “I actually did.”

      “You didn’t!” Miss Dawson exclaimed. “You must have been feeling cheeky. We all know what she thinks of Kelda.”

      “She was furious. That is why I said it,” Miss Jenkins laughed. “She knows we are all aware that Kelda is the only one in this

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