Good Girls Lie(6)

But her mother screwed up everything, so instead, here Ford is, hiding in the attics, dreading the start of term as she has the past nine autumns. She can hear Jude’s voice echoing through the chambers of her mind.

It is expected of you, Ford. It is your role in life to be the dean of this school, as I and your grandmother and hers were before you.

Ford doesn’t like doing what is expected of her. And yet, she does it anyway.

A Westhaven has held the top position since the school opened, in the early 1800s, as an Episcopal-run home for wayward girls. Girls who needed to disappear. Girls who’d disgraced themselves and their families. Girls who would have otherwise ended up in bawdy houses, as prostitutes, or worse. Decidedly not Goode girls.

Ford’s namesake was a nun who served the school when it opened in 1805. Sister Julianne was a radical who thought all women should be educated. She felt the poor, lost girls of Virginia who found their way to Marchburg needed to serve a purpose and started teaching them to read and write. Quietly, stealthily, she turned the ones who were capable of change into ladies. Some even managed to return to Virginia society, though most moved west and started over under new names. The illegitimate children were adopted out or put into service at the plantations in the area.

The school’s mission changed in the late–nineteenth century, when Sister Julianne, then Mother Julianne, ancient and bent, stubborn still, was given a gift. One hundred thousand dollars from the father of her own illegitimate daughter, bestowed to them upon his death. With this absolute fortune, she bought the school outright, a legacy for her child.

All girls who entered the gates were good, in her mind, no matter the sin they’d committed. She, too, was capable of sin. She changed the name of the school to reflect this opinion and created a new mandate—the school would take in needy girls and turn them into governesses and schoolteachers. Her descendants would run it, using the Westhaven name. The name of her illicit lover.

Soon enough, The Goode School, as it was known, became a destination for young women who wanted to break free of societal norms. Goode gave the girls who landed there a chance at an extraordinary life, a contradiction to anything they’d been taught or thought before.

When Mother Julianne died, her wishes were followed to the letter. Her daughter—a woman with Julianne’s own gray eyes and her father’s name—took over the school.

And so it went, generation to generation, a matriarchal line who took it upon themselves to educate the daughters of the land. To teach them how to be self-sufficient women, teachers and influencers in their own right. Seven generations committed to carrying on the school, its mandate as an all-female powerhouse, and the Westhaven name, of course. It is their brand as much as the school’s.

Each class has fifty girls, hand selected by Ford herself. Fifty brilliant, impressionable girls, all there to be molded into Ford’s own image, all of whom go on to college. A full 90 percent go traditional Ivy. The remaining grads either attend specialized programs—Rhode Island, Julliard, Oxford, MIT—or the approved Southern schools that are understood to be their own Ivy system.

It is a laudable record. Goode accepts only the best, guarantees a serious return on investment. And in turn, expects blood, sweat, and tears. And future endowments. Elitism costs.

Ford successfully shot down an attempt last year to admit a male student. She led the fiery charge and won, though the board wasn’t as adamant. More students meant more revenue.

But Ford made them understand the power of an all-female education, how admitting boys would affect the tenor of the day-to-day, would alter the very mission of the school. If girls can focus on their studies exclusively, she argued, without the distraction of having boys in the classroom, their grades are better, their confidence soars, and they are more effective in and out of school. Their eventual insertion into the real working world with this focus means higher paying jobs, more influential roles. Goode creates strong female leaders. Full stop.

They listened.

And unlike her mother, Ford has been blessed with a tenure free of heartbreak, free of scandal. Oh, there have been a few little things here and there, mostly girls caught with cell phones or cigarettes, marijuana in their vape pens. Beer. Shoplifting. Little transgressions, things that in the grand scheme of things don’t matter. Non–life altering. Nothing like what Jude dealt with, thank God.

Goode is a success under Ford’s stewardship.

She runs through her upcoming speech in her mind. She’s given variations on the theme every year to kick off the term, been the recipient of several as a student herself under her grandmother’s reign. Her words are echoes of her past, spoken in the voice of her ancestors.

The girls will beam, reveling in being the chosen ones. They will do anything to please her, as Ford and her classmates would have done anything to please their masters.

She notices the black town car pulling into the drive. Another congressional or ambassadorial child—those parents always too busy to see their darlings to the doors of Goode sent them in style. She is drawn, for some reason, to the shadowy figure inside.

From the car emerges a tall, thin blonde. It takes Ford a moment to place her, then she realizes she is seeing Ash Carr—no, it’s Carlisle, she reminds herself, they’re keeping her identity private, for now—in the flesh for the first time.

Poor dove. The trauma of the girl’s past few months almost derailed the application process, and the subsequent lack of funds was a serious issue, but something about her spoke to Ford, especially in their interview. The girl has a certain spark, is appealing on many levels. Ford allowed her acceptance to stand and, with the blessing of the board, granted one of the school’s rare private scholarships to bring her from England to Virginia.