The Glass Bird Girl by Esme Kerr Page B

boarding school should provide every child with a clean slate.’
    Miss Fotheringay did not reply. She turned and stoked the fire with a pair of brass tongs.
    â€˜I am due to take lower-school prep,’ Miss Mannering said with sudden briskness. ‘I assume you will send for the child?’
    Miss Fotheringay hesitated. Then: ‘Of course,’ she said quietly. ‘Send her to me at six.’

    Miss Fotheringay waited until the door had clicked shut before crossing the room and running a hand along the secret compartment in her bookshelf. She took out a black box, which she placed on her desk and proceeded to open carefully, drawing out a faded letter from inside. As she unfolded it her mouth hardened. It was her last communication from Anna Carter – written six weeks before Edith was born. Miss Fotheringay turned by force of habit to the second page, and read again the hate-fuelled words that had haunted her for eleven years.
    â€˜ Leave me alone . . . this child has nothing to do with you .’
    â€˜We’ll see about that,’ Miss Fotheringay whispered, returning the letter to its box.

    Edie was in prep when the summons came.
    â€˜Edith Wilson,’ Miss Mannering said, barely looking up from her marking. ‘You are to report to Miss Fotheringay.’
    Edie packed away her things, aware of everyone staring at her. By now there could not be a single girl in the whole school who did not know she had slappedPhoebe, and as she walked out of the classroom something in their watching faces told her she should fear the worst. When she knocked on Miss Fotheringay’s door, her hand was shaking.
    â€˜Come in,’ said a familiar voice from inside.
    Miss Fotheringay was sitting at her desk, with the shoe box placed in front of her. The fire was lit, but there was no tea this time, and no cat.
    â€˜I gather that you and Phoebe Phillips have had a difference of opinion, Edith,’ Miss Fotheringay said, steering her to the sofa. ‘Perhaps you would like to tell me what happened.’
    Edie flushed. She had felt hot and angry all afternoon but now she could hardly remember what Phoebe had said. In her mind the whole drama had been reduced to one single scene – that of her arm lashing towards Phoebe’s face, and the smack that had silenced the whole corridor.
    â€˜I slapped her,’ she mumbled.
    â€˜Yes, I gather that much from Miss Mannering. But I am interested to know why. I am assuming you don’t slap people every time you have an argument, Edith. Or perhaps you do?’ Miss Fotheringay seemed interested, as if they were discussing a painting, or a poem they had both read. There was no reproof in her voice. ‘I would like to know what Phoebe did to upset you, Edith,’ she went on. ‘I imagine there must have been some provocation?’
    â€˜Phoebe was being nasty to Anastasia,’ Edie replied at last, squirming at how babyish the whole affair nowsounded. ‘She said she was stuck up, and that she should have her own maid, and she said that I’d been cast as her maid in the play because I . . . don’t belong here.’
    â€˜Background trouble,’ Miss Fotheringay surmised, in a tone of sudden impatience. ‘What is the matter with you all? Can’t you see that Knight’s Haddon is a chance to leave your old identities behind? I had put this hour aside to teach you some Latin, not to read you the riot act on losing your temper. I view it as an unwelcome change to my timetable.’ Miss Fotheringay paused, and Edie wondered if the riot act was over or if it was about to begin. ‘What is the point, Edith, of learning Latin?’ the headmistress asked.
    â€˜So you can speak it?’ Edie ventured.
    Miss Fotheringay smiled. ‘No one speaks Latin, Edith. But those who know Latin speak their own language better. Words have roots, like trees, and in English the roots are often Latin. Unless you