A Great and Terrible Beauty

"It might happen," Ann says, softly.



"Honestly," I say, with a brittle laugh, as if it will excuse the harshness of my words. "Do you know any orphan girls who've been plucked from obscurity and made into duchesses?" Get yourself under control, Gemma. You mustn't cry .



Ann's voice takes on a new determination. "But it could happen. Couldn't it? An orphan girl, a girl no one expected much from, someone who'd been dumped in a school because her relatives thought of her as a burden, a girl the other girls laugh at for her lack of grace, charm, and beauty that girl might show them all one day."



She stares into the fire, knitting ferociously, the needles clicking together, two sharp teeth in the wool. Too late I realized what I've done. I've struck at the very heart of Ann's hope, a hope that she could become someone else, someone with a life that doesn't involve spending the rest of her days as governess to some rich man's children, grooming them for a wonderful life and opportunities she'll never see.



"Yes," I say, my voice hoarse and quiet. "Yes, I suppose it could happen."



"Those girls, the ones who misjudged Lucy. They'd all be very sorry one day, wouldn't they?"



"Yes, they would," I agree. I don't know what else to say and so we sit and watch the fire crackle and spit.



Peals of high laughter draw our attention to the far corner. Pippa emerges from the sheik's tent where the other girls still sit. She saunters over to the two of us and slips her arm through Ann's.



"Ann, darling, Felicity and I feel simply awful about the way we treated you earlier. It was terribly unchristian of us."



Ann's face is still slack, but she blushes and I know she's pleased, sure that this is the beginning of her new, wonderful life among the beautiful. The end of The Perils of Ann .



"Felicity's mother sent a box of chocolates. Would you like to join us?"



There is no invitation issued to me. It's a huge slight. Across the room the other girls are waiting to see how I'll rake it. Ann glances at? me guiltily and I know what her answer will be. She's going to sit and eat chocolates with the very girls who torment her. And now I know that Ann is as shallow as the rest of them. More than ever I wish I could go home, but there is no more home. "Well" Ann says, looking down at her feet.



I should just let her wallow in her discomfort, force her to snub me, but I'm not about to let them get the best of me.



"You should go," I say, flashing a smile that would put the sun to shame. "I really must catch up on my reading."



Yes, after all, if I were to join you, I might enjoy myself, and wouldn't that be a shame? Please, don't spare me another thought.



Pippa is all smiles. "There's a sport. Come on, Ann." She waltzes Ann off to the far end of the room. With a forced yawn for the benefit of the girls watching me from the tent, I sit down and open my mother's social diary again, as if I couldn't care less about being ignored. I turn the pages as if I'm captivated, though I've already read each one. Who do they think they are to treat me like this? Turn another page and another. More giggles waft out from the tent. The chocolate's probably from Manchester. And those scarves are ridiculous. Felicity is about as bohemian as the Bank of England. My fingers land on something crackly and stiff inside the book, something I hadn't noticed before. An account from a sensational London newspaper, the sort the , upper classes pretend not to notice. It's been folded over so many times that the ink has worn away in the creases and elsewhere, making it hard to read. I can just make out the gist of it, something about the "scandalous secrets of girls' boarding schools!



It's tawdry, of course. And that's what makes it so fascinating. In lurid prose, the article details a school in Wales where a few girls went out walking "and were never heard from again!" "A virtuous rose of England snipped by the tragic dagger of suicide" at a finishing school in Scotland. A mention of a girl who went "mad as a hatter" after some mysterious involvement in a "diabolical occult ring." What's diabolical is that someone received money for this rubbish.



I'm about to put it away when I see something near the bottom about the fire at Spence twenty years ago. But it's too worn for me to read. It's just like my mother to save such a sordid article to add to her list of worries. No wonder she wouldn't send me to London. She was afraid I'd end up on the front page. Funny how the things I couldn't bear about her bring a pang to my chest now.



A shriek comes from Felicity's sanctuary.