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“You got a letter,” I repeated, waving it at her.
Aunt Phoebe looked up. “Oh? What does it say?”
“They want me to go to Rookwood. To take Scarlet’s place.”
Her eyes widened considerably. “Well, gosh.” She paused. “That’s quite an honour. It’s a prestigious school, isn’t it?”
Rookwood School. Barely a few months ago, just before the summer had begun, Scarlet had died there. A sudden fever, they said, flu or pneumonia; something that couldn’t have been predicted or prevented. My stepmother casually told me these explanations as I sobbed, as if they meant nothing, when half of my world had just been torn away.
I never wanted to go to that place. Not now, not ever.
I looked up at my aunt, her gentle face framed by greying hazel curls. “And your father has already agreed to it?”
I sighed. It was just like him to agree such a thing without telling me. “According to the letter. It says the fees have been paid in full.”
“Well, then it’s decided, my dear,” said Aunt Phoebe.
I didn’t reply.
“I’ll leave you to think about it,” she said brightly, patting me on the leg. Then she wandered off down the garden path, past the privy and the vegetable patch, and began pulling weeds. She started to sing quietly to herself, already a world away.
I felt helpless, like I was being slowly dragged towards Rookwood, a place only seen in my imagination, but nonetheless it filled me with terror.
Maybe it will be a good thing, I tried to tell myself. A new start, new friends. Any friends. After all, Scarlet had always said she wished that I could join her there. I would be closer to her there, somehow, wouldn’t I?
Without warning, I started to cry and hastily wiped the tears from my cheeks. Who was I kidding? The last place on earth I wanted to go was the place where Scarlet had … Just thinking about it made my head pound.
I threw the stupid letter on to the grass.
Aunt Phoebe looked up, clutching a handful of straggly dandelions. I put my head in my hands and heard her walking back towards me down the gravel path.
“Oh, Scarlet,” she said, looking over me with blank eyes. “I’m sure you’ll be all right going to this school. I’ll miss you terribly, of course, but you will be fine on your own, won’t you?”
She didn’t even notice her mistake.
I didn’t think I would ever be fine on my own.
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t was a bright day that followed, one of those where it feels so hot and hazy that you can’t believe the summer is coming to an end. I was lying flat on my back on the stone edge of the pond, reading a tattered copy of Jane Eyre and trying my best to forget about my impending Rookwood fate.
Sometimes I would look into the water just to see my green-tinged reflection staring back at me. It was almost enough to pretend Scarlet was right there with me.
Almost.
“Ivy!” My aunt’s voice rang out from the back door.
I sat up so quickly I almost dropped the book in the pond.
“Ivy!” she called again, despite the fact that I was looking straight at her. She was wringing the ends of her apron in her pale hands.
“Yes?” I answered.
“You’ve got a … visitor. It’s a teacher from the school.”
So soon? I wasn’t ready for this now. But then, maybe I never would be. I cautiously walked back to the cottage, curling my toes over the hard stones.
“A lady,” she added, before gently pushing me into the kitchen.
The lady was tall and skinny, and wore a long dress that looked several sizes too large. It was black and covered with pockets. Her face was sharp and pointed, and her brown hair was pulled into a tight bun that made it look like she had a row of clothes pegs on the back of her head, pinching her skin tighter. It was not a particularly pleasant face to look at, especially given that she was fixing me with the expression of someone who has just chewed a rotten wasp.
“Ivy Grey?” she said.
“Yes?” I replied, stunned.
“Yes Miss. I trust that you have received our letter?”
“Yes, Miss.” I nodded carefully, and watched as she stalked around the kitchen table. She ran a finger along the surface, then scrutinised it in a most unladylike manner. “Good. Then you will accompany me to the school.”
I blinked. “Right now?”
The woman lowered her eyebrows and folded her bony arms. “Yes, right now. It is the beginning of the term. Therefore, you are supposed to be at school.”
I turned around, and saw my aunt standing there, wide-eyed.
“Aunt Phoebe?” I said, giving her a pleading look.
“Excuse us a moment,” she said to the teacher, gently pulling me back into the hallway. “Oh, my dear,” she said quietly. “She does seem strict, but it is a very good school, and they’re bound to be rather, um …”
“But Aunt Phoebe …” I whispered, “I-I thought there’d be more time.” Truth be told, I was a bit worried about my aunt being all alone too. “And what about you?” I asked.
My aunt smiled vacantly. “I’ll get along just fine.”
I peered back through the door at the horrible sharp woman, who was tapping her foot and glaring at me with squinty eyes.
“I haven’t got all day,” she said, haughtily. “Go and get your things.” She gestured upstairs, the contents of her pockets jangling as she moved.
Scarlet would have stamped on that tapping foot. But me – well, I did as I was told.
I climbed the stairs with a shudder. Everything about that ghastly woman in the kitchen made me nervous.
My bedroom was through a little doorway off the landing, built for someone a great deal smaller than me. It had a low-beamed ceiling and a window with warped panes of glass. When I came to stay at Aunt Phoebe’s house, it had seemed so lonely at first; obvious that there was no room for a twin. But it had grown to feel like home, and I was sad to be leaving it.
I reached under the bed to find my blue carpet bag. I filled it with my few possessions – a comb, toiletries, metal hair-curling clips, stationery and ink, some books, the half string of tiny pearls that I had inherited from our mother, Emmeline. She had died shortly after giving birth to Scarlet and I, so we never knew her. Maybe if she had been there to look after us, Scarlet would still be alive now.
I threw in my underclothes and my best dress – all of which bore the strong scent of lavender from Aunt Phoebe’s drawer liners – even though I knew that I would be required to wear a uniform at Rookwood School. I took out my ballet clothes, the cream leotard and skirt, and the black set too. I wrapped the soft pink shoes in tissue paper before packing them. They were almost new, and I prayed they would last a few months at least.
It had taken no time at all to pack the contents of my life. Now the little room looked bare and sad. As I laced up my leather shoes I stared at the floorboards, trying to convince myself everything was going to be all right.
You’ll be fine. There’s nothing to be afraid of. It’s only a school.
I shut my eyes and took a deep, shaky breath. And then I traipsed back downstairs with my bag.
“Are you ready to go?” Aunt Phoebe asked. “I’m sure Mrs … Miss, I’m sorry, what did you say your name was?”
“Miss Fox,” snapped the woman.
“I-I’m sure Miss Fox will look after you,” Aunt Phoebe said, without raising her gaze to meet my eyes. She placed a hand on my shoulder, reassuringly. “I’ll see you soon, Ivy, my dear,” she added, planting a kiss on my forehead.
“I hope so,” I said, managing a smile. “I’ll write.”
Miss Fox’s foot began tapping even faster. “We haven’t got time for niceties. The driver is waiting.”
I winced and clutched hold of my bag more tightly, then I followed Miss Fox into the lane, where the bright sunshine hit my eyes.
“Goodbye, darling,” said my aunt.
“Goodbye,” I mouthed back. And before I knew it, I was being bundled into the back of an expensive-looking motor car.
The smell of leather seats and the smoke from the driver’s cigar hit my nose instantly.
“Sit up,” snapped Miss Fox, as she climbed into the front.
“I’m sorry, miss?”
She turned and looked at me as if I were a sick sheep. “Sit up straight when you’re in my vehicle. And kindly avoid touching the seats.”
I folded my hands in my lap and began to ask, “How long will it take to—”
“Quiet!” she interrupted. “All this senseless chatter is giving me a headache.”
The engine chugged into life as I leant back and tried to take some deep breaths, but the fumes made me cough. Miss Fox tutted loudly.
All I could see of the driver was a flat tweed cap and the grey hair on the back of his neck. He said nothing, simply nodded and pulled away.
I peered out of the back window, and saw Aunt Phoebe standing on the doorstep. She gave me a sad wave. I watched her shrink as we drove, fading into the sunlight that streamed through the trees.
I turned around, and saw my eyes reflected in the driver’s mirror. They were brimming with tears.
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he car wove its way through the twisting country lanes. Miss Fox sat bolt upright in the front seat, barely blinking as the wheels bumped through ruts in the road. I fidgeted in the back, thinking it strange that she had chosen to sit up front with the driver.
On a few occasions she turned around to give me a look, and I tried to avoid her eye. Eventually she turned her angry gaze on the passing countryside instead, allowing me back into my own world.
The trouble was that my world was filled with Scarlet. Everything we passed in the familiar landscape reminded me of her. The way she used to hop over wooden stiles, while I dangled my legs over warily. The way she used to pick the green leaves off the bushes and crush them into tiny pieces. The way she used to smile at the blue sky, pointing out the shapes in the clouds that only she could see.
The worst was when I noticed two girls, perhaps sisters, playing together in a garden. I felt the memory flow through me, and as hard as I tried, it wouldn’t stop coming. The day Scarlet left for school …
We were standing there on the lawn, each with our matching suitcases; Scarlet in her uniform, me in a plain pink dress.
Father wanted to send us away. “Time to get an education,” he said. “Time to become proper young ladies,” he said. But Scarlet had won a place, and I hadn’t. So they were sending her to Rookwood School, and me to stay with Aunt Phoebe. Father waved goodbye to us with a glass of whisky in his hand. Our stepmother, wearing a pinafore and a grimace, dismissed us without even a second glance as she fussed over her sons, our stepbrothers.
Maybe Aunt Phoebe was a better alternative to our parents, but she was strange and scatterbrained. You could never tell what she was thinking.
There on the lawn, with the suitcases, I knew what Scarlet was thinking. She wished that we were both going to the school, so she wouldn’t have to go alone. I knew she was thinking that, because I was thinking it too. I started to cry; big, gulping, childish sobs.
Scarlet took my hand. “Don’t worry, Ivy-Pie,” she said bravely. “I’ll write you a letter every week. And you’ll write me one back. And when I’ve finished school I’ll come and get you, and we’ll run away together and become beautiful actresses, or prima ballerinas, only we’ll be even more famous because we’re twins. And we can go to America, and everyone in the whole world will want to be our friend.”
I cried even harder. Because it was ridiculous, and I would miss the ridiculous things that Scarlet came out with. Not only that, but because we both knew that I would never become famous and loved by everyone.
That destiny could only be Scarlet’s.
I wiped away a tear and quietly folded my knees up on the seat, risking further tutting from Miss Fox. But she didn’t notice, so I stayed curled up there, trawling through my memories.
Scarlet making a fortress from blankets, protecting her dolls from the Viking Hordes. (That would be me. I wasn’t much of a horde.)
Scarlet leaving trails of painted Easter eggs around our garden, making me find them with clues and riddles. (Our stepbrothers always tried to smash them.)
Scarlet brushing her hair for a hundred strokes before she would let me plait it.
Scarlet hunched over her diary, scribbling away, her tongue poking out of the corner of her mouth.
My sister always wrote in her diary. Every little event had to be pinned to the page. I never saw the point of it then, but she always said that if she didn’t write down everything that happened, it would just disappear forever. There would be no one to remember.
I told her that I would remember, always, but she just laughed and took no notice.
I started picking at the stitching of the seat nervously. There was no way that Scarlet would have been afraid in this situation. She would have taken it in her stride, asked all the questions I wanted answers to. But Ivy Grey never asked questions. Well, not difficult ones anyway. I always just did as I was told.
“Stop that, child,” Miss Fox hissed. “And sit properly!”
I looked up from my lap, but she had already turned away.
Scarlet would have answered back. Scarlet would have drummed her feet on the seats. Scarlet would have ripped out every bit of that stupid stitching.
I did as I was told.
Soon the road widened, and more houses slid into view. I saw a dark-haired man digging his garden, wiping the sweat from his brow with a handkerchief. His beard and strong features reminded me of Father, and I felt a sudden pang of guilt – I hadn’t even spoken to him for months. He was working in London, I supposed. The economy was still reeling from the Crash and it had left him working all the hours he could.
It wasn’t as if I was close to our father. When we were younger, he had been a fiery man, always shouting. But soon after our stepmother came along, he became different. Scarlet was relieved; she was grateful for the peace, didn’t miss the fire. She could never understand why I would prefer the man who shouted at us to the man who spent long hours withdrawn, blank-faced.
With three boys to spoil, our stepmother swiftly decided it was too much for her to keep looking after us as well. That was when she suggested that he ship us off to boarding school.
If only he hadn’t sent us away. If only we’d stayed together.
If only …
The car slid through a pair of enormous gates. Beside them were pillars topped with stone rooks in flight, their wings spread wide and claws grasping at the air.
