Pegasi and Prefects (18 page)

And. . . well, Rosalind’s been doing Diana’s work all evening. A small mean part of myself thinks it’s good for Rosalind to be the one to be the one feeling left out for once.

Of course, by bedtime, I’ve completely repented of doing anything that might have hurt Rosalind’s feelings in any way whatsoever. I make sure I stop by her bed for a word and to elicit a promise of a ride together, if I can be spared for a moment from other duties. The softened look on her face is reward enough.

Given the way my heart lurches in response, perhaps it’s for the best that, given extra prefect duties and games and reading lines with Esther, I don’t spend much time alone with Rosalind at all.

I make the most of the time I have. When we can, we ride. When we can’t, we talk. About horses, particularly pegasi and unicorns, at first.

Then we talk about—well, about me, to be truthful. Rosalind still doesn’t talk about herself much, even with me. That hurts me, a little. I feel that we should be close enough by now that even a private person like herself should open up to me a little.

Once I ask Rosalind about her old school. She shakes her head, plaits flying.

“There’s not much to say, truly. It was much stricter than Fernleigh Manor. I was never really clever enough, or any good at games, to shine. Not that games were so important, there.”

“What about your friends?”

Her pointed face seems pointier, somehow. “I had one. Not any longer.” She looks up at me, almost smiling, in a way that seems oddly pathetic. “Not like you.” A hot warmth floods my heart. She spoils it, a second later, by adding, “Or Di and Val.” This time it’s me who drops the subject.

But it is new, and wonderful, to feel that I have a friend I can tell anything to, and be listened to earnestly and sympathetically, with none of the teasing that would accompany confidences to Esther or even Cecily.

I even, when we manage to get away from school for a bit one afternoon, find myself telling her about Roy’s kiss, and how uncomfortable it made me feel. I confide in her how worried I feel that I detested my first kiss so much.

“There might be something wrong with me,” I say, slowly. We’re sitting on the wooden railings of a gate to one of the fields at Briar Stables, watching the horses. I swing my dangling legs back and forth, watching them, long and lanky in their thick lisle stockings. It has rained heavily the night before; the grass is wet and bright green and smells of fresh mud, one of the loveliest smells in the world. All the world feels wholesome and clean. For the moment, even I do, and it almost seems possible to tell her part of what I am thinking. “Maybe I’m not like other girls,” I say. I can feel the other unspoken words hovering there.

“He’s obviously not the right one for you,” she says, simply. “You’re only a schoolgirl, Charley. There’s no need to worry because you don’t want to marry the first boy who tries to kiss you.”

“I’m not sure I want to marry any boy,” I say, carefully. Part of me wants to shut up quickly and end the conversation, before I confess to her everything, how twisted and different my feelings are, how I feel that the right one for me isn’t any boy at all, but this skinny little thing with grave blue eyes sitting beside me. The other part. . . oh, I don’t know what I want. Just that it would be both a relief and a disaster to have it out. I feel reckless and terrified, both at once.

I’ve read books in which girls exchange promises not to marry, and to live together in quiet spinsterhood forever. It seemed a nice idea, at the time. Perhaps, when we are even closer friends… but then, one girl or other always wants to leave and get married. It’s better to stick to my plans to make sure Rosalind chooses a safe husband.

I have the stupid, ridiculous impulse to show her what I really mean. She’s so gentle and forgiving, perhaps it really wouldn’t be so disastrous if I tilted her pointed little face up to mine, and kiss her, softly and sweetly, and see how different I know it will be from the awkward, terrible experience of Roy kissing me. That’s the problem, of course. I think of flinching away from Roy kissing me, and of Rosalind reacting the same way to my kiss.

I should have had more sympathy for him.

Rosalind’s quiet so long that I turn to look at her. She’s staring at her own feet, encased in sensible school shoes. I could fit two of her feet in one of my shoes.

“I don’t quite know what to say,” she says, eventually. “I can’t see into your heart, Charley. I’m no good with understanding humans the way I can understand fabled beasts. Even with you.” She says that last very quietly, so much so that I can hardly catch it.

“Maybe I should ask Cecily, then,” I say lightly. I have an odd feeling of relief, as the possibilities of the conversation evaporate in the sunlight. “She can always tell what I’m feeling, even when I can’t tell myself.”

Rosalind’s lips tighten, just a little, and I can’t repress a twinge of glee. She’s jealous of Cecily and Esther, I’m almost sure, and it makes me unabashedly happy that she cares. After all, she has Diana and Valerie.

Cecily’s Sensitivity is not something to joke about, truthfully. For all I try to convince Rosalind not be be frightened of my friends, I find I am not quite comfortable being around Cecily and Rosalind at the same time myself. Sometimes Cecily looks at me with worry showing in her warm eyes, and I suspect that I have given myself away somehow, when the light has caught cold silver flame in Rosalind’s hair or the set of her small mouth is particularly sweet. It’s wearisome and doesn’t, somehow, feel quite straight, trying to guard my emotions around my friends. I never tried to deceive Cecily, before Esther harried up my soul and Rosalind completed the job.

CHAPTER EIGHT

ROWS AND REVELATIONS

For the next few weeks, Diana pretty much has Rosalind to herself, or at least only to share with Valerie or Frances. I’ve embarked on a series of inter school matches with schools with a decent reputation for hockey. The planning and training takes up a lot of my time. I’m playing in the First, of course, and it’s my happy duty to be there to cheer on the lower forms. There are two away matches in immediate succession, one a hard-fought draw, the other a runaway victory.

I adore away matches, the trip on a hired coach with everyone in good spirits, the teas afterwards with cakes and buns and noisy, excited chatter between ourselves and our opponents. When I make a goal from halfway down the field in the last seconds of the second match my loyal group of followers in the lower school respond as if I’ve cinched an Olympic medal. Cecily’s own admirers group adoringly around her; she has made two goals to my one, but Corona from West House, who has been utterly brilliant in goal, is the true heroine and is treated accordingly. They’re such nice kids, the lower formers, so enthusiastic and open-hearted. It’s an exciting time to be Games Captain. I should be much more grateful to Miss Carroll for the privilege.

It’s been nice, too, having the extra time to spend with the other three in our quartet, all of whom play in the First Eleven. I’ve really enjoyed the practices and the matches with them.

It’s just that as we head in the direction of the pavilion where tea is set up that I find myself wishing, a little depressed, that Rosalind had seen me take that last minute goal. Perhaps she would have been proud of me for saving the match from a draw. I could be wrong, though. She’s never shown any interest in games and it must be a shame for her, being out of them. How long does pneumonia last, in any case?

I look up to see Esther watching me. She looks younger than usual with her bronze hair tied back for hockey, shivering in the cold, her air of mocking sophistication gone for the moment. Just a schoolgirl dressed for hockey.

“Missing someone?”

I shrug, as carelessly as I can. “Oh, you know. It’s just a shame that we can’t bring girls who don’t play along with us to away matches. The home team always has the advantage in support.” I wave at the crowds who have turned up to cheer against us.

“Any girl in particular?” I don’t answer. Esther takes my arm so that her face is close to my ear. “You
are
taking care, aren’t you, Charley?”

“I don’t know what you mean,” I say, honestly.

Esther makes an odd little one-shouldered shrug with her free arm. “Oh, I’m glad to see a spoke put in dearest Di’s wheel, don’t get me wrong. It’s just that you need not take it too far.”

“I don’t understand what you’re saying,” I say, less honestly. I’m afraid I understand only too well. If I cursed, I would curse Esther, who always sees too much and doesn’t have the sense to shut up about it.

“What’s the hold-up, girls?” Gladys asks, turning back to us, arm-in-arm with Cecily. “Hurry it up. I’m freezing and starving.”

“Nothing,” Esther says, lightly. “I’m just being a jealous beast, that’s all. Your fault, Cecily dear, for always being so very upright.”

“You’ll get a goal too next time, Esther,” Gladys says, briskly. “You just need to put more practice time in. And be ready when you’re passed to!”

“That, of course, must be it,” Esther murmurs.

Cecily looks at first Esther, then Gladys, in laughing confusion. “Come on, girls, our Gladys is not the only one who is starving, and we’ll be left with bread and butter if we don’t hurry up.” She hooks her free arm through Esther’s and the four of us go in together.

I do wonder, a little, devouring an excellent tea and looking at Cecily’s open face, if she is far less confused than she seems. She never intentionally pries, it’s not in her nature, that’s not what I’m thinking. It’s just that a Sensitive simply can’t help feeling other people’s emotions sometimes, and I must be radiating uncontrolled emotion all over the place near Rosalind and Diana these days. Perhaps she’s even said something to Esther, and asked her to speak to me about it.

I only wonder later why Esther chose to call herself jealous.

Only one serious incident occurs to mar the second half of term. Unfortunately, it is the most terrible incident imaginable. It starts out in such a lovely way, too.

My parents prove more than willing to have Rosalind to stay for part of the holidays. I knew they approved of her: a nice, ladylike friend for me. A real lady, I suppose, to be old-fashioned about it. Good with fabled beasts, too, which is important to my family.

Rosalind, when I ask her to come home with me, turns pink and white in rapid succession. “Really? You want me? Even without Sunflame?”

I laugh at her astonishment and pleasure, happiness warming my own heart. “We’re friends, aren’t we?”

“Yes. If you want me,” she says, uncertain, and I laugh again because she is so unsure of herself after all this time, and because she obviously has no idea what goes on in my heart and just how much I like her and it’s a little funny, as well as strangely hurting.

“Of course I want you, you darling idiot,” I say, and she goes red again. It makes me wonder if I’ve said too much; but then, the other girls call everyone dear and darling. Not just Esther, who drops brittle endearments like congealed honey to her own little circle, but perfectly sensible girls like Cecily or Frances, out of fondness and kind feeling. Rosalind inarguably
is
a darling, anyone would think so once they got to know her.

“I’d like to, very much,” she says, and I squeeze her arm.

“You’ll love it. Briar Stables have nothing on home,” I tell her. “Oh, Harry says we have a new brood of dragonlings that will be hatched in time for Christmas, the boys are sleeping in the stables with the eggs, and Walter rolled over too close to the enclosure and one set fire to his sleeve.” The rest of the short break between breakfast and prayers is entirely taken up with stable talk.

I’m rather glad that Rosalind has no idea that I’m plotting for Harry to fall in love with her. The very idea seems idiotic to me when I face it in the daylight, watching Rosalind, small and demure, in tie and gym slip, the perfect schoolgirl. At night, it seems inevitable, even without my help. I lie there and ruthlessly play over watching them become closer and closer and eventually Rosalind coming to me, blushing and glowing, to tell me of their engagement, until I want to turn my head into my pillow and howl like a first former on her first night at school. I tell myself it’s what I want, more than anything. Rosalind will be my sister and I’ll never have to let her go completely.

Whether my plotting works or not, I have the prospect of a precious holiday with Rosalind, away from lessons and preparation and games. A holiday of riding and cosy chats. I beam at everyone and lavish the second team with quite unearned praise at before school practice.

It’s only afterwards, after morning lessons, that everything starts to go wrong. Rosalind is held up to discuss a rather disastrous piece of translation. To my astonishment, Diana of all people takes my arm, and propels me into a spare classroom.

“What do you want?” I eye her with suspicion. Diana and I are not precisely on the kind of terms on which she’s likely drag me away for girlish confidences.

“Rosalind tells me she’s spending the first week of the holidays with you, mucking out gryphons.”

I hoist myself onto a desk and turn the developing scowl into a grin. “She’ll love every moment.”

“Everyone pretends they don’t know what you’re up to.” Diana’s mouth folds up into a tight line. “It’s no good, you know. You might as well give it up. We have two more terms, and then what? You think Rosalind’s family will be amused once she leaves school if she keeps playing at childhood sweethearts with a boy in a dress?”