The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [12]
“Oh, Gemma. Those must be the forms from the school Dr. Shearer recommended. If you do well in the exams they’ll give you a scholarship. They even have provision for girls to stay during the holidays. Will and Louise can help you study.”
The loving friend vanished. Instead I was torn between delight about the school and irritation at the notion that my doltish cousins could teach me anything. But both these feelings also fled when something almost as unusual as the arrival of a letter occurred: my aunt put her arm around me. Unthinkingly I curved my shoulders to fit her embrace. It was so long since anyone had touched me with even a semblance of affection.
My teacher that year was Mr. Donaldson. He had moved to the village only last August and was still a figure of mystery. A tall, saturnine man, some days he arrived in the classroom just as the bell rang and gazed out of the window, scarcely seeming to remember whether we were studying geography or arithmetic. Other days he was rapping his ruler on the desk as soon as assembly was over. “Page sixty-two. Who can describe the events leading up to the invasion of the Spanish Armada?” Behind his back the older girls sang, “Donald, where’s yer troosers?” but we were all a little afraid of him. He wore a fat gold ring on his little finger, which Isobel, the brainiest girl in our class, said was a sign that he belonged to a secret society. He was one of the few bachelors in the village whom my aunt never invited to dinner.
The day after the letter arrived I stayed at my desk when the final bell rang. I was waiting for Mr. Donaldson to notice me, but he was having one of his vague days, staring out of the window at the slate roofs and the lemon-coloured sky. That morning during history—we were studying the quarrel between Mary, Queen of Scots, and Elizabeth I—he’d announced that in Switzerland women still didn’t have the vote. Now, in the silence following the other girls’ departure, I could hear him humming faintly through his yellow teeth.
Finally I approached his desk. “Mr. Donaldson,” I said, offering the envelope. At last his eyes left the window and took in my presence. Silently he reached for the letter. I stood watching as he read, confident that he would know what needed to be done.
“Whose idea was this?” he said.
“Dr. Shearer’s. My aunt thinks it’s a good plan. She wants me to be independent as soon as possible.”
“But you’re only nine.”
“Ten. I need someone to watch me take the exams else I won’t get a scholarship.”
Mr. Donaldson was pushing back his chair. “I’d like a word with her.”
He fetched his raincoat and briefcase from the staff room and I collected my coat, the last one hanging in the cloakroom. I had inherited it from Veronica, and it was already worn down to the nap at the elbows and cuffs. As we crossed the playground, I saw that Mr. Donaldson’s coat was almost as shabby; a button dangled from one sleeve. He led the way through the village, his long legs scissoring. I trotted beside him.
“Remind me, Gemma,” he said, “how did you end up with your aunt?”
Breathlessly I explained about the deaths of first my mother and then my father and how my uncle had brought me to Yew House.
“He sounds like a remarkable man,” said Mr. Donaldson.
“He was,” I said, pleased as always when anyone praised my uncle.
His pace did not slow when we reached the outskirts of the village and we hurried past the cows. My favourites, Marie Antoinette and Celeste, were near the fence. Silently I promised them extra handfuls of grass tomorrow.
“Do you always walk home by yourself?” said Mr. Donaldson.
“Yes. My cousins go to the school in Perth.” I did not add that my aunt drove them to the bus stop