The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [21]
Soon I would discover that the main building of the school, like Gaul, had three regions. The hall where I had entered was in the grand part, which contained the dining-room, the library, several classrooms, and the rooms where the Bryants and the senior teachers lived. On the lower level was a warren of kitchens, cloakrooms, and, facing the garden, more classrooms. At the top of the house were the dormitories. But on that first day it was all confusion. Ross dragged me down a dark staircase and along a corridor to a room that smelled of shoes. She threw my coat on a peg, and dragged me along another corridor to the kitchen. Three broad-shouldered women—sisters, I later learned—and several girls were at work. Ross brought me before the largest of the women, who was standing at the stove, face flushed, bosom heaving, as she stirred a gigantic pot.
“Cook, here’s the new girl. What should she do?”
“Potatoes,” said Cook, without ceasing to stir.
In the scullery Ross handed me a grubby apron, tipped a mound of potatoes into the sink, and fetched two huge saucepans. Single-handed, I was to peel the potatoes for 120 people. I wrapped myself in the apron and set to work as Mrs. Marsden had taught me, washing each potato in the icy water, peeling it thinly (the vitamins were right below the skin), and carefully taking out the eyes. However many I peeled, the mound grew no smaller.
“Cripes,” said Ross, “you’re a slow-coach. These need to be on the stove by five sharp.” She pointed to the clock over the door—it was already four-thirty—picked up a knife, and began to peel potatoes in a slap-dash fashion.
“What happened to Montrose?” I asked.
“You don’t want to know.”
I tried another line of questioning. “Are you an orphan too?”
Ross hooted with laughter. “Shut up and peel the frickin’ potatoes.”
Claypoole had been built to be occupied by a few lords and ladies waited on by an army of servants. Now the proportions were reversed; a dozen working girls struggled to take care of more than a hundred regular pupils, and the teachers. Happily the laundry was sent out, but we were entirely responsible for the housework and we helped to prepare and serve meals. All the food had to be transported by lift up one floor to the dining-room, where portraits of men and women in evening dress gazed down benignly on girls in ugly uniforms, eating ten to a table. I was not among them. My job was to carry out plates of food as fast as I could. At first I felt shy in my role as waitress—Ross had set me to serve the younger girls—but they ignored me except when I accidentally slammed down a plate. At last everyone was served, and Cook handed me my portion of mince, potatoes, and turnip. I sank onto a milk crate too exhausted to eat. Only my limp pigtails testified that my breakfast with Veronica had taken place hours, not weeks, ago.
“Get a move on,” said Ross. “We clear the tables in five minutes.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“You’ll get nothing else till breakfast and that’s just bread and jam.”
When I still didn’t move she seized my plate and devoured the contents. I watched wonderingly. Whatever my tribulations at Yew House, meals had been a constant. Not so at Claypoole. Working girls got the last of everything. By the end of three days I had learned to eat at top speed. Someone was always hovering, ready to snatch whatever I left. Often I saw Ross and the other girls scooping food from the dirty plates the way I had done at Yew House for the dogs. But that evening all I wanted was to lie down and figure out how I had ended up here.
Before bed, however, came another Herculean task: the washing-up. A stout girl named Smith and I were assigned to the cutlery. “Hurry up,” she kept saying, and ignored my requests for a clean tea towel. Only when every plate and every knife and fork had been washed and dried and the tables laid for breakfast did Ross lead me to the Elm Room. The other dormitories—Beech, Poplar, Pine, Willow, Holly, Maple, Oak, Birch, Fir, and Lime—were filled by age, but the working girls were housed together, although I was