Jane Steele(17)

A block of twenty or so girls rose, looking as if they had been asked to face the Spanish Inquisition.

“If you will not volunteer further information, it is my honour-bound duty to call upon you,” Vesalius Munt said reluctantly. “Please raise your hand if you were the highest scoring student in Miss Werwick’s class?”

An awkward older girl with a belly slightly wider than her hips and a queer shoulders-backwards posture lifted what resembled a flipper.

“I scored nineteen points out of twenty, sir,” she said tragically.

“And do you think you ought to escape punishment for your triumph, Robinson?” Mr. Munt persisted.

Robinson took a long pause. Her classmates regarded her as one might a crouching lion being sighted down a rifle barrel—frightened, threatened, still dangerous.

“Yes.” She set her teeth; the others flinched. “Yes, I think that earning so high a mark means I ought not to be punished.”

“Oh no,” whispered the lacklustre girl called Fox.

“Well, that won’t go at all well,” Taylor echoed in a singsong fashion, though she sounded more intrigued than appalled.

“What—” I began.

“Enid Robinson,” Mr. Munt boomed, his facial creases deepening to holy fissures, “do you think that vanity relieves you from the shame of having failed to assist your fellows?”

Robinson jerked, a hare caught in a trap. “No, sir.”

“Perhaps you imagine that worldly accomplishments will cause God to overlook the sin of self-satisfaction?”

Perhaps Robinson meant to reply to this last, but she was prevented.

“An example must be made!” Mr. Munt’s soldierly command rang through the hall, and his ever-roving grey eyes glinted. “Robinson, please lead the queue of girls being punished for Latin infractions and waste no time about it—in addition, you can replace luncheon with prayer in the chapel for the following fortnight.”

Robinson paled but ducked her chin. I watched as the hapless Latin students picked up their bowls and carried them to the cauldron; one by one, they dumped the stew back into the vat. They then strode out of the dining hall.

This, I thought, is very much worse than I supposed.

Suddenly several hands shot into the air, a giddy springtime of sprouting fingers. They seemed to belong to the most peakish of the girls, the ones on whom I would not have laid money should they challenge a dandelion to a duel.

“Clarke,” Vesalius Munt called out gladly. “Yes, go on, my dear—lean on Allen there, you seem fatigued, though you deserve no less for having stolen from the poorest of God’s servants.”

Rebecca Clarke, who only managed to pull herself to a standing position by means of the better-fed Allen, raised her leaf-green eyes. Several teachers (including Miss Werwick) stared on with pleasure as if this were some grotesque circus, whilst others (including Miss Lilyvale) concentrated all their attention upon ceiling beams and bootlaces.

I had not been mistaken in my hazy examination of Clarke—she was no more than seven years old if she was a day, and affecting an uncanny look of forced piety, the one I suppose scientists adopted when strapped to a stake and asked whether or not the Earth was flat.

“What happens if you refuse to throw your supper away?” I whispered, horrified.

“Hsst.” Fox shot me a jaundiced glance of warning.

“Clarke, allow your natural urge towards repentance guide you.” Mr. Munt’s eyes roved, hither and thither, tinsel glints seeking out his victim’s victim; I knew who was to be led to the chopping block and felt a contrary surge of pride.

“Poor little mouse has been on a diet of water and brimstone for four entire days now, after the larder raid,” Taylor explained, sounding bored.

“The new girl,” Clarke’s tiny voice called. “Please don’t punish her, for I hardly know her name. Steele, I think, and she was very tired, as she only arrived today. Miss Lilyvale told her to say her prayers, and she . . . didn’t, sir. She fell asleep.”

Dozens upon dozens of eyes swept to me as I stood; Mr. Munt frowned happily, returning his attention to Clarke.

“You have redeemed yourself, my child!” he cried. “Clarke, you may eat.”

No wild dog ever set upon any limping deer’s frame as assiduously as Clarke attacked her stew. She had been reduced to pearly teeth and pink tongue and soiled fingers; I pitied the sight even as my stomach growled.

Miss Lilyvale, a red flag flying across her cheeks, pressed her palm against her stomach and refused to watch.

“Steele, please step forward. You shall not be punished in the usual way, as you are new,” Mr. Munt declared, “but you must learn the value we place here upon obedience.”

Stepping over the bench, I advanced towards the teachers’ table. Scuff, scuff, scuff went my shoes and thud, thud, thud went my heart as I advanced to be caned or set on a dunce’s stool or adorned with a chalkboard or have my hair shorn off.

Mr. Munt smiled as I approached. He extended his hands; Miss Lilyvale, I noted, turned a striking shade of caterpillar green as Vesalius Munt glanced back at her.

“Miss Lilyvale has of late begged me to embrace forgiveness alongside justice, and I hereby publicly grant her wish,” he declared.

Mr. Munt is in love with Miss Lilyvale, I thought feebly as his fingers gripped my still-bruised wrists. That cannot lead to good. Mr. Munt tugged me so hard that my knees struck the stone floor in front of him.