The Flight of Gemma Hardy_ A Novel - Margot Livesey [38]
“She seems healthy,” he said, “except for the bruises. Perhaps she fell on the stairs? Or perhaps someone scared her. People sometimes become mute from shock.”
“Perhaps she saw . . .” Matron’s painted eyebrows rose.
“The Claypoole ghost? Actually I was thinking of her fellow pupils. Let’s keep her in the infirmary for a couple of days.”
“But she’s a working girl.” His suggestion had surprised her into a complete sentence, and now it was the doctor’s turn to be surprised.
“A working girl?” he said. “She’s what, nine? Ten at the most. Even the Victorians didn’t send children to work so young.”
Matron explained how hard it was to find working girls these days.
If you didn’t talk, I began to realise, people assumed you couldn’t hear.
An hour later I was deep in Catherine and Robert’s adventures when I looked up to see Miss Bryant herself approaching, her eyes narrowed, her thin upper lip almost invisible.
“I don’t know what’s going on in your head,” she said in a soft voice, “but playing dumb isn’t going to get you anywhere. You have no broken bones, no serious illness. You may have one more day in the sickroom and then it’s back to work.” Before I could not answer, she turned on her heel and left the room.
That night I woke to the tick of bare feet on floorboards. I was bracing myself for a battle with Ross, or some other girl, when I caught a familiar wheeze.
“Gemma, are you all right?”
“Miriam.” I pulled her down beside me. The bed was just wide enough for the two of us. I could smell her shampoo, sweet and flowery, lingering in her thick hair. Her father, she’d told me, had said her hair was like a horse’s tail, and when I stroked it, it was surprisingly coarse. “How did you know I was here?”
“I heard the girls talking. They said the working girls hit you so hard you couldn’t talk.”
“I can talk, but I decided not to. There’s nothing I want to say to anyone but you.”
“Did they hurt you? What happened?”
Even to Miriam I could not describe the girls’ attack. To remember it was to relive it and to relive it brought me back to that excruciating edge. Instead I said she had been right about Ross. I had been stupid not to understand that, like Mr. Milne, her allegiance was to Miss Bryant.
“That makes sense,” said Miriam thoughtfully. “Even if someone is cruel to you, if they’re the only person in your life, you’ll love them.”
How could that be? I wondered. I had hated my aunt and now I hated my tormentors at Claypoole. “But you don’t love your father,” I said indignantly.
“Maybe he’s not cruel enough.”
This was so bewildering I pretended I hadn’t heard. “Did you get my messages?” I asked.
“What messages? Oh, you mean telepathy. I think that only works for a very few people. Your parents may have been among them. Or maybe they were just sending the same message over and over.”
Her voice was gentle and I knew that, once again, she was remembering my age, but I didn’t stop to argue. I told her my idea that her father should invite me to stay in July. We could be together, we could grow flowers and read, and I could try to find Mr. Donaldson. I had pictured her exclaiming with pleasure, saying why hadn’t she thought of that, but she said nothing. I sat up, trying to make out her expression in the darkness.
“I wish it were that easy, Gemma. I can ask, but he’ll probably say no. He thinks children are a bother and more children are more of a bother.”
As she spoke her breathing grew louder, her voice fainter. I had noticed before that the hand often squeezed her chest when we spoke about her father. “Do you have your inhaler?” I said.
She shook her head. One of the worst things about the asthma attacks, she had told me, was that she couldn’t call for help. I jumped out of bed and pulled her to her feet. Slowly I led Miriam, limping and gasping, through the dark corridors