Madam Read online

  This ebook published in 2021 by

  Quercus Editions Ltd

  Carmelite House

  50 Victoria Embankment

  London EC4Y 0DZ

  An Hachette UK company

  Copyright © 2021 Phoebe Wynne

  The moral right of Phoebe Wynne to be

  identified as the author of this work has been

  asserted in accordance with the Copyright,

  Designs and Patents Act, 1988.

  All rights reserved. No part of this publication

  may be reproduced or transmitted in any form

  or by any means, electronic or mechanical,

  including photocopy, recording, or any

  information storage and retrieval system,

  without permission in writing from the publisher.

  A CIP catalogue record for this book is available

  from the British Library

  HB ISBN 978 1 52940 872 0

  TPB ISBN 978 1 52940 873 7

  EBOOK ISBN 978 1 52940 875 1

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters,

  businesses, organizations, places and events are

  either the product of the author’s imagination

  or used fictitiously. Any resemblance to

  actual persons, living or dead, events or

  locales is entirely coincidental.

  Ebook by CC Book Production

  www.quercusbooks.co.uk

  For all the young women that crossed the threshold of my classroom

  ‘Courage calls to courage everywhere’

  Dame Millicent Fawcett

  Πῦρ γυνὴ καὶ θάλασσα, δυνατὰ τρία

  ‘Fire, woman and sea, the mighty three’

  Aesop

  Contents

  Madam

  Title

  Copyright

  Dedication

  Epigraphs

  Prologue

  MICHAELMAS TERM

  1.

  2.

  3.

  ANTIGONE

  4.

  DIDO

  5.

  6.

  7.

  LUCRETIA

  8.

  AGRIPPINA

  9.

  LENT TERM

  10.

  11.

  12.

  DAPHNE

  13.

  14.

  15.

  MEDEA

  16.

  17.

  18.

  SUMMER TERM

  BOUDICCA

  19.

  20.

  MEDUSA

  21.

  22.

  23.

  24.

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgements

  About the Author

  Prologue

  Summer 1993

  The merriment of moments before had dissolved into panic; chairs were dragged back, wine glasses tumbled to the floor. Soft silk dresses moved quickly as the wall of smoke drew nearer, thick with heat and tails of flame.

  Slim girlish arms pressed urgently at the wide door frame as others streamed past in an attempt to escape. But the main passageway had already given itself up to the fire, the scorched wood and stone falling away beneath their feet. Dazed parents were grasping at any girl, whether their daughter or not; other guests pushed forward in a bold effort to save themselves. Teachers dispersed among the others, losing their grip on authority, reality, sanity – searching for a plan of escape on the Headmaster’s shocked face.

  The hall’s windows shattered into hot shards; the cool sweet air of the night swirled high above them as if in mockery.

  A voice cried out, ‘Who did this?’

  Another rasped, ‘Why was there no alarm?’

  The person at the door was missing. Everybody was out of place but somehow, that empty spot read as a particular betrayal.

  A few passages away in a smaller hall, the windows shattered too – this time by force, in a small boarding house where escape seemed likely, and where the waking girls were more alert than those at the party. Heavy doors had been forced closed against the smoke while small hands punched at windows, using the curtains to push around the glass.

  In another part of the school, younger girls in pyjamas hurried about, while their housemistresses and matrons slept soundly above.

  The school building felt none of this urgency, standing firm despite its burning injury, holding fast as it was eaten from the inside out.

  The cold black seawater danced all around the peninsula. Lapping waves flashed red with complacency as the reflected fire burned. A wreck of seabirds flew away, silently and very fast.

  From the office of the Headmaster

  Caldonbrae Hall

  Est. 1842

  Friday, 8th May 1992

  Dear Jane,

  Further to our meeting last week and a discussion with the board of governors, we have concluded that your employment at Caldonbrae Hall must be terminated.

  Your final lessons have now been taught and you must depart from the school’s premises by Sunday, 17th May. You will be required to vacate your classroom, the Classics office and your apartment. As per the terms of your contract, after this date you will be banned from the school’s premises, and from contacting its occupants, particularly any girls you have taught. May I also remind you of the terms that forbid you from discussing the school anywhere outside its grounds, and the severe repercussions should you do so.

  Considering the value of the twelve years’ service you have given the school, and due to the short notice of this termination, you are assured that both I and the governors will see to your future professional and personal situations. Caldonbrae Hall will always be by your side.

  We shall be searching for a replacement head of Classics, without the need for your involvement.

  Yours,

  Headmaster

  Summer 1992

  Rose leaned on the wall behind her and spoke in a rush. ‘Mum, I had to phone you. Sorry, I know it’s a bad time, but … the thing is, I got the job.’

  ‘At Caldonbrae?’ Her mother was breathless; Rose didn’t know if it was from disbelief or the illness.

  ‘Yes, I got a letter,’ Rose insisted. ‘I can’t believe they’ve offered it to me.’

  ‘That’s excellent.’ Her mother heaved an elated sigh. ‘Exactly what we needed.’

  ‘I knew you’d be pleased.’ Rose bit her lip, wanting to tear the words back as soon as she’d spoken them.

  ‘When would you start?’

  ‘Really soon. September.’

  There was a cough. ‘Yes.’

  Rose frowned. ‘You don’t sound too good today.’

  ‘I’m fine, contrary to what the nurse tells me. Just some tingling in my hands.’

  Rose could hear an echo behind her mother’s voice; she wondered which room they’d put her in. ‘They do know best, Mum.’

  ‘Not here they don’t. You can put me up in a proper place, now that you’re moving up in the world.’

  Rose winced as she continued: ‘I don’t know about accepting it, though … I’ve only been teaching a few years, and the other staff will probably be at least twenty years older than me. I’m not sure if I can really—’

  ‘Nonsense, child. They’ve chosen you. Your record is outstanding.’

  ‘Yes, maybe, but the school’s so … grand. It’s a boarding school, Mum, and it’s all girls.’ Rose looked out at the
glow of a street lamp in the rain; it was darker than it should have been on this low June evening. She hadn’t switched on any of the lights in the flat – she’d been too astonished after spotting the letter on the doormat, tearing it open and rushing to the phone. Her flatmate was obviously still out. No one to celebrate with except her sickening mother at the other end of the line.

  ‘Caldonbrae Hall is grand. It’s what we deserve, you just have to get on with it.’ Her mother’s hoarse voice rang with victory. ‘I’ve fought for things like this all my life. This is excellent for us.’

  For me, Mum, Rose pleaded inwardly. ‘I still don’t know …’

  ‘Sorry?’

  ‘It’s just mad, really,’ she carried on, ‘coming through that recommendation from a colleague. Then their visit here and the interview – strange to think I haven’t even been to the school at all.’

  Rose remembered how the two impossibly stuffy and elegant women in their late forties had shuffled into her messy Portakabin of a classroom: the deputy head, Vivien, and another Classics teacher, Emma. Rose wondered at the time why she hadn’t been given the head of department role – Emma had been at the school for more than a decade. After they’d left, Rose felt certain she’d never hear from anyone at Caldonbrae again. ‘They haven’t hired anyone externally for years, apparently. It seems so weird – they’ve barely seen me teach.’

  ‘Well,’ her mother’s voice was strong, ‘the recommendation was enough. Clearly that’s how they do things. Besides, nepotism is how Britain is run, so why shouldn’t we benefit from it?’

  Rose frowned again, twisting the curled cord of the phone around her fingers; it pulled at the unit on the side table.

  ‘But I don’t like that. And you’ve always argued against—’

  ‘Times have changed,’ her mother said coolly. ‘Open your eyes, dear.’

  ‘It’s just overwhelming!’ Rose sputtered out. ‘And it’s so far away, such a huge change from everything I have here.’

  ‘You have nothing here but me, Rose.’

  Rose felt a rush of heat in her cheeks. ‘That’s a bit harsh, Mum. And it’s not true.’

  Her mother heaved a heroic breath in response. ‘You’re right that Caldonbrae Hall is far, no more of your weekend visits. I’ll come and visit you instead, with a carer. You’ll pay for it, of course.’

  ‘Oh, well …’ Rose leaned against the side table. ‘I don’t know whether that’s—’

  ‘A palatial establishment like that? Of course I will.’ Rose glared into the phone as her mother continued. ‘Will they give you somewhere to live?’

  ‘Yes, they do that for all the staff apparently,’ Rose replied, relieved at the change of subject. ‘The letter says they’ll give me a flat above one of the boarding houses.’ She took a moment to squint across the dark sitting room, scanning her few bits of furniture and slotting them out in her mind from the ones her flatmate owned.

  ‘Well, lucky you. Once you’re in, they’ll take proper care of you. My Rose.’ Her mother’s voice lifted with emotion, and something like pride. ‘Head of Classics, at one of the most famous schools in England, in our family.’

  ‘It’s in Scotland.’

  ‘None of that, please,’ her mother rasped, coughing again. ‘Listen to me, Rose. This is the best thing that has ever happened to us. I can’t wait to tell the others here. Stop dawdling and accept the job!’

  Rose cast her eyes over the letter; the school’s emblem seemed to catch the dim light of the street lamp through the window.

  ‘I suppose …’ Rose’s tongue danced on the words before she spoke them, ‘Dad would have been pleased, wouldn’t he?’

  There was a difficult silence before her mother answered: ‘You are exhausting. Call them now.’

  Rose dropped the receiver onto the phone unit and picked up her letter again, searching for something to soothe her trepidation. She traced her finger over the emblem, reading the neat ribbon of Latin beneath it. PUELLAE MUNDI – girls of the world.

  The ancient words were calling to her and she nodded back.

  Scotland was far, more than five hundred miles from here in Kent. She wouldn’t be paying for her mother to visit – the woman could revel in her gushing satisfaction where she was.

  Rose dared to wonder whether five hundred miles was far enough for the ties between her and her mother to stretch tight and finally snap.

  MICHAELMAS TERM

  Caldonbrae Hall’s four traditional guiding qualities are:

  confidence, courteousness, charm and courage.

  Caldonbrae Hall prospectus, 150th anniversary edition

  1.

  Rose dragged a finger under one eye; the slam of the train doors and the yell of a guard jogged her forward. She held her suitcase close to her, nudging her handbag to the side, pulling her dark hair into a thick twist before tucking it into the collar of her tweed jacket. The warmth and stench of the station was suddenly invigorating; she was grateful for it.

  As the train had slowed for its entry into Edinburgh, she’d glimpsed the sloping hilltop of Arthur’s Seat, surprisingly soft-looking and uneven, as if Zeus himself had pushed and moulded the hills with his enormous hands. The carriage had been warm with the late summer sunshine and Rose’s eyes had wavered along with the train’s long mechanical trundle. She’d kept her hand as a bookmark in the pages of the school’s heavy prospectus, and given up on the Cat Stevens tape in her Walkman. The headphones given to her by a friend were no good – the ear pads were so thin that Rose worried about the other people in the carriage hearing her music.

  The prospectus had arrived a week before, attached to a letter with a few kind words from the Headmaster. For Miss Christie, the first new member of teaching staff in over a decade – congratulations! It was the newest edition, since Caldonbrae Hall had just celebrated its 150-year anniversary. The pages already scoured, she’d simply spent the journey gazing at the shining photographs, hoping to imprint them on her brain. An aerial view of the stretch of peninsula, the particular bend of the land, the brilliant sea, the rocky beach, the ruddy cliffs, and the school’s majestic structure perched above. It sat at the furthest end of the peninsula’s finger, like an extraordinary grey wedding cake; halls and towers and rows of turrets added like great ornaments, with outlines of flying buttresses to decorate. There were more photographs of sculpted stone cloisters, a greenish quad, a close-up of a merman-like gargoyle. And then inside: wood-panelled walls, the stained-glass chapel window, a library with books stacked to the ceiling. Rose blinked at the sunny pictures of the students: a tall dark-haired beauty shaking hands with the Headmaster; a very fair red-haired girl laughing with her friends on a hockey pitch; other girls filling an art studio, or set like a tableau across a theatre stage. The opening pages read:

  Established in 1842 by Lord William Hope, a baron and a prominent Whig within the Victorian peers. Owing to the formation of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, the lands and title were granted to Lord Hope’s father by King George III. Upon inheritance Lord Hope had the castle fortress rebuilt in the Scottish Baronial style, and fitted it out as a dame school suitable for his six daughters, one of the first of its kind in Great Britain.

  A well-dressed man in the seat opposite Rose had stared down at the prospectus, his eyes burning into the pages as the sun slid across his face. Avoiding his gaze, she’d nudged the prospectus deeper into her lap and kicked her legs over her suitcase for security.

  But now the prospectus lay idle in her handbag, heavy over the rest of her things. Rose’s anticipation urged her forward as she dragged her suitcase towards the station’s concourse. She was in desperate need of a cup of tea.

  The square hall of the concourse was full of people looking harried and hurrying in all directions, while a row of taxis shunted past on the other side of the wide doors. Pulling her jacket tighter around her, Rose sp
otted a cafe bar in the corner, a spread of chairs and tables in front. The jacket was slightly too big for her, thanks to the tweed’s boxy shoulders. She’d found it in a charity shop and loved it instantly; it reminded her of Clarice Starling’s in The Silence of the Lambs. It was definitely too hot to wear in early September, but she wanted to look impressive when she first arrived, and hoped it might boost her confidence. Queuing behind a young family, Rose glanced over a row of newspapers clamped in stands next to the bar. A few of them flashed the same lurid picture – Princess Diana wearing a brilliant new dress, chatting to some man other than her husband. Rose frowned in sympathy: she liked Diana, even if her mother didn’t.

  At the front of the queue Rose trawled her eyes down the menu, even though she already knew what she wanted. When it was her turn she smiled at the pink-faced woman.

  ‘Earl Grey, please, thanks.’ She cleared her throat. ‘Teabag in.’

  ‘Milk, dear?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  A cross-looking man hovered behind the woman, pulling a glass bottle out of a small fridge. Rose’s eyes lingered over a row of flapjacks.

  ‘You’re far from home,’ said the woman.

  Rose looked back at her; the woman’s face was creased in kindness. ‘Yes, I am.’

  ‘What brings you to Edinburgh?’

  Ed-in-bu-rruh. Rose wanted to imitate the woman’s pronunciation, to roll her tongue around those round consonants, against the harshness of her English accent.

  ‘I’m on my way further up north-east. To—’

  ‘Caldonbrae.’ The man was standing straight now, frowning at Rose.

  ‘Yes. How did you know?’ Rose half laughed in surprise and the man glanced down at the prospectus peeking out from her bag. ‘I love the way you say it, with your accent. It sounds terrible the way I say it. Do you know of it, then?’