Chapter 7

The second year proceeded towards its calendar end.

“Miss Bellingham. I am planning a trip to High Melbury, to the girls’ school there, next Wednesday week. I wonder if you would be interested?”

“I would, but I fear that day I am otherwise engaged. I am to be married to the Honorable Simon Pargetter on that day”

“Oh, yes I had heard of this; felicitations and congratulations. I am sure you shall be very happy”

In a low voice she replied “I am sure that we shall” she did not add that they had already successfully tested their compatibility, at her insistence, not his. He was gratified of the chance, and she was pleased with the result.

“I do hope that you will continue on the committee? Your contributions have been invaluable”

Mr Small therefore made his way unaccompanied to the school of High Melbury. The head teacher was unsure of the etiquette of allowing an unmarried man into her school, but she recognised the necessity. What she had not planned upon was the early snow storm that started at midday and continued for the remainder. Roads were blocked, railway tracks became impassable and Mr Small became an unwelcome and unwilling temporary lodger in the school. The only accommodation would be the teachers’ wing; a wing occupied by all the teachers who were not senior enough to be house mistresses. This meant all the young teachers; for there were two types of teacher at High Melbury: the long standing staff, like Miss Haveringore, an old girl of the school who had returned after two years at Chancery School for Young Ladies and remained ever since, she was house mistress of Purity House; and the staff who saw teaching as a profession, as a career. They were not tied to one school, they would stay a while and then move to a school where a position of greater responsibility opened up. Either that or they would find themselves nice husbands. So not all were quite as career minded as they liked to think.

Incidentally, other houses in the school were: Lady House, Principle House, Etiquette House, and Maiden House. It will be obvious that the school was keen to instil a sense of moral behaviour in the girls.

The day at the school was enjoyable. The school was a haven of modern educational techniques. Girls were taught mathematics to the level of calculus for example; proving that it was possible for the female mind to comprehend such complexities. Sitting quietly at the back of the history lesson on Henry VIII, Jack was interested to note that neither the reasons for the executions, nor the means used to elicit confessions from lesser mortals, were excluded from the curriculum. The girls groaned at the descriptions of thumbscrews and racks as might be expected; but not one found it necessary to faint; so young ladies were neither as non-mathematical, nor as sensitive as they were given (dis)credit for. That the teacher went on to describe how the Tudors were the first ‘modern’ monarchs brought the lesson up to the present day, clarifying how a Virgin Queen of the 1500s and their own more productive queen (titters round the class, it was well understood that Queen Victoria’s many children were not the product of a virgin queen) were both subject to the votes of parliament.

Outside sport was not altogether stopped by the snow. A group of enthusiastic runners ventured to the fields in their running clothes – gym knickers and vests with gym shoes – and came back frozen and blue but happy. Jack noted that the cold had made many a breast very prominently displayed beneath their clothing. “We do not insist on outside activity in such weather, you understand.” explained the head, Miss Patricia Rowbotham (she insisted on it being pronounce botham rather than bottom as her male relatives had it) “but we do encourage activity amongst the gals. And some are keen as mustard as you see. It encourages the circulation, and umm, Miss Saville? Yes, perhaps put some more clothes on quickly?” one girl had particularly prominent nipples which protruded three-quarters of an inch, combined with a tight and wet vest. The view was impossible to ignore. “Yes, umm, and we believe it makes the girls more ... healthy in the future you see?” she meant fecund and fertile, but that seemed not something to mention outright to a man.