A Dangerous Liason - CS BB
Title: A Dangerous Liason
Pairing/Main Characters: Meg Richardson/ Pierre de Bertrand
Period: Future Austria
Fic type:
Rating/Warning: 18
Summary: Meg, pupil at a 'future' branch of the CS (from the end of the series) gets into trouble when caught with Pierre.
Author's Notes:
The two bodies lay entwined in the bed, close, sensual. The sheets were thrown back, to loosely cover their thighs, a crumpled mass of white which only served to throw the tanned skin into greater relief. Softly, one of the legs twitched, but it would have been impossible to say whose the limbs were so meshed. Naked, alone, easy at last in each other’s company, the man reached out and softly drew back a lock of brown hair, running his hand down the soft cheek and leaning forwards to kiss his companion softly, lips barely touching, eyes closed in the blissful silence.
From outside the moon shone down on the pair, bright light flooding the room through curtains left defiantly open as if daring anyone to peep inside. A few stars twinkled around it, shadows drifted across it, and some of the more distant peaks were obscured by the gathering clouds, for a storm was coming though no-one cared to notice it; at this time of night, the two lovers were the only ones left awake in the school, and they had only each other, the rest of the world had disappeared for them.
.
Gently, with familiarity in the movement, the young man stroked the soft white arm which trailed over his chest, opening his eyes to look down on the perfect, smooth skin. Hidden by the way it was resting, he knew he would see a line of red cuts, deep into the skin, sometimes too deep, on the softer underside, all perfectly neatly lined, each one measured to be the same length as the ones above and below it, each one a tiny testament to the pain felt as they were created.
After a long minute of almost perfect stillness, but for the rhythmic movement of his fingers, he turned the arm over, feeling out the cuts and sighing each time he felt the broken skin. Irritated, the girl beside him drew her arm away, twisted it under her head so that he could no longer touch it, but this movement shattered the tiny, delicate net that had held them close together, and he sat up, looking down on her.
“I have told you before to stop,” he said simply, in the French which was his native language. “As soon as someone notices they will want to know why, how, all these questions that will give us away.”
“I don’t care,” was the defiant reply, and the girl turned over so that the moonlight fell directly over her face, shutting her eyes pointedly to feign sleep. There was a rustle behind her, then movement, and the young man climbed over her and out the bed, stretching limbs and then turning to look at her again. When she still failed to open her eyes and address him properly, he turned to his desk, rooted for a moment, and drew out a packet of cigarettes.
Despite his unclothed state, he stood in the window. There was a momentary flash as he lit a cigarette and then he stood enjoying the sight of the wreaths of smoke that curled through the fresh, tangy air, tainting it. His eyes were half closed, sleep closing over him, but despite the bite of the cold outside he didn’t shiver, didn’t even move, his back rigid and uncompromising. At long last he turned around, surveyed the still form, a small smile still playing on the blood red lips.
“You’d better go back to the dormitory,” he said curtly. “You know you can’t stay here. Look at what happened last time.”
This referred to an incident some months ago now, when he had foolishly allowed her to stay until dawn. By the point, one of the other dormitory members had noticed her absence and had duly reported it to the head before breakfast. She claimed to have been simply taking a run around the lake, as she had been unable to sleep and wished to get in some exercise on her own for once, and had duly taken the punishment meted out, a severe gating that had warned everybody else not to disobey the rule that said only those in Sixth Form may take advantage of an early awakening to go walking, and then it must be in pairs. After that, the two had been more careful, although it was usually left to him to enforce this.
“I could just stay here,” she murmured, a genuine note of sleepiness in her voice now, her thumb straying to her mouth as was her habit when she was starting to drift into slumber.
“I wish you could,” he whispered tenderly, kneeling down so that he could kiss her fondly. “But you know that you mustn’t. Come, it is only a short walk, and if anybody does catch you, you can have been fetching a glass of water and got lost in a reverie as to how beautiful the mountains looked from the kitchen window. If we get caught now it will all be over, but if you leave you may be able to come back again tomorrow night, which is surely better - non?”
“Oui,” she agreed, and, reluctantly, sat up, yawning and stretching her hands above her head, then slipping off the bed and picking her nightdress up from the floor, pulling it on and casting around for her dressing gown. She looked truly gorgeous with her auburn hair tangled around her, knots from where it had been tugged in his previous urgency, and sleep misting her emerald green eyes, and he couldn’t resist the temptation to kiss her one last time before she padded away into the darkness of the halls.
Of course, Monsieur Pierre de Bertrand knew that what he did was wrong, but somehow Megan Richardson - Meg to her friends - was worth every risk.
The next morning over breakfast, one form in particular seemed to be rowdier than usual, and as it was one of the Fourths this could only mean mischief of one sort or the other. At first the mistresses were prepared to overlook it in the fervent hope that it wouldn’t be happening in their lessons, and they would simply be regaled with the story in the staff room that evening. But by the third time the headmistress had to ring her bell to call them to attention, she felt that enough was enough and stood up.
Even when she didn’t try, Kathie Ferrars could cut an imposing figure, and when she looked like that you crossed her at your own peril - as every naughty middle that had ever done so could tell you. Standing tall, she surveyed the hall with the chilly glance she had learnt from Miss Annersley, effectively silencing them all, before she said with an unusual frost in her voice,
“If I have to ring the bell one more time, I will have each and every one of you in here on Saturday night, and instead of your usual evening entertainment you will all have a lesson in correct behaviour during a meal. Do I make myself clear? Good, then please show me such a measure isn’t necessary.”
She sat down again and continued her own meal, resuming her conversation with Matron Phillips on her left as if there had been no interruption to begin with. Gradually the rest of the room followed suit, and a low murmur of chatter filled the hall again. It was true that some of the especially excitable middles had to be contained by their peers, but they all knew that the head would carry out her punishment and nobody wanted to risk it, so somehow they managed to keep things to an acceptable level.
When the Mlle LePattre branch had first been opened, back on the shores of the great lake Tiernsee where the school had first started out, Kathie had been surprised but secretly pleased to be asked to be the headmistress. At first it had seemed a great wrench to leave behind all her friends on the Swiss staff, particularly Nancy Wilmot, and her first term had been plagued by a number of pranks from the group of students now sitting at the opposite end of the room as very stately prefects, but she had shown her authority and proved that she was the right person for the job. The branch was only for those in Lower IV B and above, from those who wished to come instead of stay at the Swiss branch, and so although half were usually involved in one prank or another, the remaining half was usually enough on its dignity to squash them thoroughly.
Around the staff table sat entirely new faces, for the Swiss branch had needed all the staff it had, and so aside from Kathie nobody else had come. She had been most nervous about this to begin with, but the complete break had proved to be the best thing that could have happened for the school, and whenever a new vacancy was advertised competition to get it was fierce. One side of the table, facing the girls, was full of mistresses, and so was half the other side of the table, but what was notable about the Mlle LePattre branch was that it hired more masters than either of the other two, and they also took up a goodly number of seats.
On this occasion, Monsieur Pierre was having a heated debate with his contemporary, Monsieur Jacques Renard, about the latest policy that the French Government had announced, while Herr Schmidt examined Mr Blakely on the English custom of drinking tea with breakfast, aided occasionally by Herr Mauer and Herr Wagner. This was a continual source of puzzlement to those members of staff not of English origin, and they steadfastly refused to drink anything but coffee, though under Kathie’s headship a certain amount of tea had been allowed back into the school.
The meal continued as on any other normal day, and soon enough Kathie was calling for the school to rise. This they did in a great scraping of chairs, moving neatly to stand behind them and push them in, before turning to face the top table. It was customary for them to have a walk after breakfast for half an hour, splitting into middles and seniors and alternating as to which direction they would stride briskly around the lake before returning for lessons to start. Already some of them had had music practice, while others made their bed and caught up on any outstanding prep, or read books, and they should be back and changed into their school wear by quarter past nine, with lessons starting punctually at half past.
They were, Kathie reflected happily as she watched them file out, a good looking set of pupils on the whole. When the new branch had been established it had, of course, had to have its own uniform. This had eventually been decided on as sharp white blouses - usually kept in fairly good condition, though there were a notable few distinctly more creased than they would have been in Matey's time - with soft yellow dresses over the tops, and regulation stockings and shoes or slippers. There was a white or creamy yellow cardigan to go with it, and yellow hair ribbons for those who chose to wear their hair long.
Then, tossing all musing to the winds, she fled to her study, where the usual pile of paperwork waited for her, and knowing that she owed Nancy a call at the Swiss branch to catch her up on everything that was happening. She had known that the Head's life was a busy one, but she had never fully appreciated just how busy it was until she came to take it over, and as of the end of last term she had given up her teaching to concentrate on her official role instead.
Distantly she heard the return of the girls, the clatter of boots on the wooden floors and the subdued chatter that marked the start of the hard work all her pupils were expected to show during the classroom hours. Then silence descended across the building, and she was able to give herself up to her job with a sigh, writing letters to prospective parents and tackling a difficult phone call to the accountant in charge of that branch. Upon the death of Madge Russell, and her shares being spread evenly between her children, it had been decided that this would make too many trustees for them to be as hands on even as they had been before, and various duties were split up and handed to third parties.
The prank which had been brewing at breakfast was retailed in the staff room that evening. Herr Wagner had been the victim, for the girls had somehow learnt that he had planned a particularly boring history lesson on the Battle of Trafalgar, and had accordingly decided to disrupt it. Languidly blowing out the smoke from his cigarette, he inhaled the tobacco again and then, waving one hand in a lazy expressive gesture, expanded,
“Yes, so first one girl then another had to leave - one for the cloakroom, one because her hair ribbon was lost and her plait come down. Then another had forgotten her handkerchief. I must have sent five or six of them out of the room and yet not one returned, not one. Then another and another needed to go. One had a coughing fit, and so I sent her out, and another went to fetch water for her. Still nobody returned. I grew suspicious, only half the class was left and they were laughing among themselves.”
“Scamps,” inserted Julie Lavender idly. As mathematics mistress, she had long felt the power of having pranks played on one, and was listening to the story of it happening to somebody else for once with great interest. “What on earth did you do?”
“Sent one of them out to find the rest, waited a moment, impressed on the rest of the class that should they misbehave in any way while I was gone they would all receive an order mark and lose their Saturday night, and then followed the one I had sent out. She, of course, led me to their hiding place, and not only did I catch them all, but they were smoking when I did. Naturally it has been left to my good friend Maria to sort out the punishment for that, they were to report themselves to her at break.”
“And hangdog they looked too,” she replied with some satisfaction. It was well known in the school that she wasn't always to be found in her bed at the Sanatorium of a night, but rather with Herr Wagner, with whom she had an amicable friendship. “I lectured them thoroughly and they've been told that for their evils they can spend their free time this weekend sorting out the medicine cupboard, cleaning the Sanatorium thoroughly and then mending all the sheets and pillowcases that have been torn. Further I'm confiscating all confectionery forthwith and holding dorm inspection every day to see that they don't sneak more contraband in. And,” she finished, a twinkle in her eye, “I have impressed upon them that I expect every dorm of theirs to put an army barracks to shame, and all this before breakfast, or there will be Retribution.”
“While I have called them back to spend every evening this week with me, to receive the lecture that they have missed and then to write it up in their best handwriting, adding five hundred words of their own opinion at the end,” put in Herr Wagner. He shrugged. “If it takes longer, it takes longer.”
The rest of the staff, who had all been listening to the story as they pottered around or did some marking, chuckled appreciatively, and more than one was heard to hope fervently that this would duly squash the middles for a little while to come, and there could be peace in the school for a short while.
Meanwhile, in the senior common room, chatter flowed just as fast and just as freely as in the staff room, though on different topics. Most people were currently crowded around a table discussing the prospects of the Netball team in a match against another school, who had come to the Tirol on a geography trip for a week and promptly challenged the Chalet to a match. A few others despaired at the English prep they'd been set that day. Alone in a corner, Meg reviewed her letter, scratched out a few words and changed them, then viewed the finished product with a satisfied air. It read;
Dear Auntie Ruey,
Thanks for your last letter, and the birthday money enclosed. Turning seventeen was, indeed, great fun, and your kind gift was put to buying a birthday cake for the school to celebrate. We shared it around on our Saturday evening, which was learning the jive last week; this week we are to be allowed to play the board games in our common room if we wish, or get the record player out in the hall.
My birthday itself was fabulous. Because it fell on a Saturday, Miss Ferrars said that I might decide what we did for the day, and so we went for a walk up the Mondscheinspitze - it was that or walking down to Spartz and spending the day there. Instead we took a picnic, and had lunch on the mountain. We couldn't get all the way up because the middles came too, and the kids wouldn't have made it, but we seniors were allowed to wander off in groups of four after lunch, and what a fun time we had! We ended up getting embroiled in the game of hide and seek that the middles had started, childish but fun. And, for a miracle given some of the stories I heard Auntie Joey tell way back when, not a single thing went wrong!
Otherwise, school life is just as it should be. I'm working hard, you'll be pleased to hear, and was second in the form last week, to Monica, who had slogged away even harder. We've agreed to slack off a little bit this week, as we're both doing so well, but then next week I'm really going to go for it and try and top her again. Games are also still going well, though I'm not going to make it onto one of the teams - which is just as well, because I study far too hard for that!
Thankyou, also, for your invitation to come and stay over the Christmas hols, as dad will be out the country again. It would be wonderful if you could have me, and I'm sure that Ben would love to come too! Unless one of his friends bags him, of course, you never do know with him. I'll never forget how much mum cried that first Christmas he spent away, or how pleased she was when the next year he listened to her pleadings and brought one of his friends back with him, though she seemed less pleased by it all when she caught myself doing something very unorthodox with said friend! But especially now that he's at university, you can never tell what he'll be doing.
Would you mind dreadfully if I invited one of my friends to come as well over Christmas? She's called Hannah, and like dad her parents are going to be away, touring Australia to promote her dad's latest book. The school's being shut up, and if she can't come with one of us then she'll have to stay at one of the pensions, which would be horribly lonely. Of course loads of us have offered to write home and ask, but I was first so I get to ask first. Please say yes, do! You can share all your old stories of when you were at school, and she'd love to meet Auntie Con if she could, she loves her books.
Well done on the promotion at work, by the way! Dad told me about it in his last letter, he knew you'd be too modest to mention it. He also said that you were looking for a new house, please let me help you over Christmas if you haven't found one by then! I'll be looking for my own in a few years, and it would be so much fun to imagine all the decorations and things as you wander round each one.
If you speak to him, please send my love to Uncle Roddy, I just don't have the time to write to everyone, but I will send him a screed with all the latest soon - I know that Ben keeps in touch. Oh, and do say that I'm looking forwards to Andy starting next year, I heard from Miss Ferrars that she'd been accepted for this branch. Of course I'll hope to be a prefect by then, but I can sheepdog her, and it will be fun to show someone around all the old haunts and teach her some of the tricks I've learnt!
Take care of yourself, no more bizarre accidents like the one in your last letter. Oh, and please buy in some decent peppermints for Christmas, or at least eventually give away your secret of where you get them! I'm sure that I'll see you soonest, can't wait for it!
All my love,
Meg.
That night, most of the school were to be found asleep safely in their beds, dreaming of various things including the upcoming in school tournament, preparation due in the next day and, in some notable cases, one of the peasant men who came in once a week to see his sister, working as a maid in the kitchens. He'd gained something of a notoriety among those of the girls still young enough to giggle about men behind their hands, and many and varied had been the plots to try and catch a glimpse of him whenever he was known to be in the building.
Naturally, not everyone was so peaceful. Nurse carefully finished her rounds, shutting the final dormitory door with a sigh of relief and padding away to get her well earned rest. A couple of the teachers had stayed up late in the staffroom, marking furiously so that they could return work punctually the next day, and bemoaning the fact that holidays were still a few weeks off. And, of course, Meg was awake. As usual, she had to be careful to wait until she could be fairly sure that she wouldn't be seen wandering the corridors, but usually once Nurse had been in to make sure that they were all where they should be, she was as safe as ever to get up.
Now she slid out of bed with the practiced ease of one used to deception, and ferreted out her slippers and dressing gown, which were always left easily to hand for her night time excursions. The rest of her dormitory slept easily around her, unaware of what one in their midst was doing; even her best friend, Irene, hadn't been given even a hint, at Pierre's insistence that if they wanted to be together, they had to keep it a secret from anyone. He knew all too well, from his university days, how girls liked to gossip, and he had no mind to lose such a comfortable job. Carefully hiding the noise of the door clicking shut under one of Sally's snores, Meg started to sneak down the corridor, free at last.
The moonlight fell in a shaft through one of the windows, spearing light across the plush red carpet that ran down the middle of the polished wood floor to muffle the almost constant noise of footsteps in the building, and illuminating a painting on the wall of Madge Russell, founder of the Chalet School in a building only three away from the one in which it was now housed. She seemed to look so kind and sweet, but there was something in her eyes that made Meg shiver, aware of her impropriety and wondering what Lady Russell would have said, exactly, had she known what was happening in a branch of her very own school.
The route to her lover's bedroom Meg knew by heart, now, and she tiptoed it carefully, trying to make sure that her slippers didn't shuffle too badly, straining her ears for sounds of anybody else coming. She couldn't take the quickest path as it passed by the Sanatorium, and she knew that it was too big a risk that somebody would have been taken ill and she would be spotted. Still, if she just went along to the end of the corridor, up a creaking old flight of stairs that she had to be very careful on, but which were at the back of the house where even the maids hardly ever went, and then doubled back on herself, she was soon climbing up to the room she knew so well.
There, she knocked on the door ever so quietly, before she slipped around it, hanging her dressing gown up on the hook and kicking her slippers off. Monsieur Pierre was lying in his bed, moonlight falling directly onto his face, his eyes open as he watched his prey come towards him. Tonight she was wearing her pyjamas of choice, namely a black nightdress with long sleeves that warned him that when he undressed her he would find new cuts marring her arms. Once, she had told him how she managed it, namely that in the drawer of her bedside table there was to be found a pencil, which might look like any ordinary pencil, but out of which the lead could be slipped so that she was left with a sharpened wooden stake that she could drag through her skin. It was, she said, her way of coping when she couldn't see him; it had started when she was twelve, and as usual her father had had to go away. She'd sat in her bedroom window, watching him pack his suitcase in the car, and had torn at her own arms until her fingernails bit deeply into them and made them bleed, in the hope that he would see it and turn back, not leave her.
Now, she slipped off what little clothing remained, so that the full glory of her body sparkled in the silver glow. Shadows slipped elegantly along her perfectly rounded breasts, the pert nipples erect at the cold, her long legs that she loved to wrap around him so sensuously. He found himself taking a sharp breath as he viewed her, hair tumbling over one shoulder and hands reaching out so that he would take the soft, familiar fingers and pull her down next to him.
There was something hungry, animalistic in his kiss, the way that he bit down on her lip so that she gasped in pain then pushed a hand roughly over her mouth, warning her to be silent. His other hand moved down further, pushing deeper and deeper inside her until she arched her back to meet him, breath ragged and uneven, pulling on his tangled hair and forcing him down to kiss her again. Shyly, her own hands roved, across his well defined chest, down further to the thatch of pubic hair and the excited member that twitched to meet her as she grasped it, pulling frantically to the rhythm of his desperate moans.
It was a dance as old as time itself, one they both knew well, one they had indulged in so many times before. Gradually they built up, hands tugging at each other more frantically, until in a wild frenzy of ecstacy he thrust into her, sliding down hard so that his body pinned her to the sheets, his hands grasping at her sides, her breasts, her throat, anywhere that he could as he pushed and pushed, needing her. The closer they came to climax the harder he had to gag her, so that nobody should hear them, nothing should be suspected.
Meg loved to watch as he came on top of her, to see his face scrunch up as the world slipped out of focus for him and nothing mattered but that moment, and even she started to fade from his conscious as he pushed and pushed himself, she loved to see how much he belonged to her, how she could do that to him and make him ready to beg at her feet for just another moment. She loved how special it made her feel.
Afterwards, they curled around each other harengiform, legs tucked neatly side by side, Meg's back resting against Pierre's heaving chest, hands entwined over her stomach. It was her favourite part of any night, the time when they'd come together, been one, experienced the heights of frantic ecstacy and then come down into a comfortable, familiar silence, two people who had suddenly merged and blurred, an experience only they would ever share. She loved to know that his arms were around her, that she was safe. She loved to match her breathing to his own, to be almost uncertain where her body ended and his began. She loved him.
Suddenly, there was a tentative knock at the door, that made both their heart's skip a beat, and even as they began to sat up, to panic, to think of anywhere that Meg could hide, it swung open, and the last face that either wanted to see appeared around the crack.
“I'm sorry,” murmured Kathie, then stopped. She had come because, having still been working in her study, she had seen fit to go to the kitchen to fetch a midnight snack, but had been dissuaded by the large rat in the middle of the floor. Usually she would have left it to the school cat to deal with, but it seemed too good an opportunity to miss - only she didn't dare to go near to it herself. She had been on her way to fetch the school cook, a redoubtable old peasant woman who would have had no qualms about finding a rolling pin and disposing of it, when she had heard noises from Monsieur Pierre's room. Deciding that it would be a shame to wake the cook when that lady had to be up so early, she had come to ask him to do the honours instead.
But as she took in the scene, and what it meant, fire blazed from her eyes and all thoughts of the rat disappeared in a surge of absolute fury at the pair.
The immediate thing to be done was to fetch Matron Fothergill from Herr Wagner's bed, which Kathie duly did, once she had seen Meg to her office and told Monsieur de Bertrand in iciest tones to get dressed. As she walked back down the corridor, Maria trailing behind in her dressing gown, she pursed her lips in disapproval. Previously she had been prepared to overlook relationships between her staff, as long as it didn't affect the pupils, but it struck her that there were a number of very unchristian things going on under her roof and that she had been far too lax about it until now. It wouldn't do for it to be as strict as a nunnery - they would never get staff that way - but there could be some propriety at least when responsible members of her team were supposedly on duty.
Maintaining her strict and most dignified air, despite the hour, she swept into her office, where Meg was stood quietly in front of the desk, an abject creature wondering what on earth would happen to her now. Her one consolation in it all was that Kathie hadn't seen her arms, which were now covered, so that she at least had some hope of not being found out there. The rest of the game, though, was decidedly up, and she did the best thing that she possibly could have done in the circumstances and - like many a Chalet girl before her - burst into tears after one timid glance at her headmistress' disapproving eyes.
“There's no need for that,” said Kathie, more softly than she had intended. She remained standing, Maria hovering in the door in her dressing gown and wondering what was wrong - she'd simply been told that she was needed. “There's certainly nothing to be done about it tonight, though I will want to speak to you in the morning. Until then, Matron Fothergill is going to take you to the San., as I think it would be wisest for you to be kept from the rest of the girls for the present. I'll see you after Frühstück, which you're to have in your room, and until then try not to worry.” Seeing that Meg, now she had started, was unable to stop, Kathie pressed a slightly grubby handkerchief into her hands and did her best to console the child, tempering justice with mercy. “I'm not as angry at you as with other people, but you must understand the enormity of what you've done. A goodly number of people will be hurt by your actions, child, myself included. Now go to bed, you look worn out. We'll talk more in the morning.”
With that she really did dismiss the two, her soft words echoing even in her own mind as she saw them being led away. She had meant what she said, though, as angry as she was at Meg for her wholesale betrayal of the trust that staff put in girls, she couldn't entirely - or even mostly - blame the girl. One thing was certain, and that was that she wasn't going to get to sleep that night. Quickly she debated, then decided that if her good friend Nancy was still awake, she wouldn't mind a phone call over something this important, especially as she was technically Kathie's superior. Rubbing her eyes, she picked up the receiver and dialled the number she knew so well.
Having spent more than two hours on the phone to Nancy the night before, deciding what on earth they should do now, Kathie looked haggard the next morning. Not, however, as bad as Pierre, who had guessed what would happen. Before Frühstück, as the school still traditionally called breakfast, Kathie went along to the staff room, where she found him smoking one of his long cigarettes and watching the last rays of the sunrise over the mountains. However, when he turned around, he looked perfectly composed, and she beckoned him with a single glance.
In her office she took her seat behind the desk with much dignity, determined not to let him see that she knew what a tough interview this would be. Realistically, she could ill afford to lose him at this time, for he was a good teacher and would be hard to replace, but it was quite clear that both knew he would have to lose his post. What he hadn't expected, however, was the first question levelled at him.
“Why did you do it?”
“I -” he gaped for a moment, then collected himself and said quite simply, “Why do you think?”
“Presumably not out of any love for the girl,” was Kathie's tart response. She swept some paperwork into her top drawer, then looked straight into his eyes. “Do you realise what you've done? Oh, I am aware that you'll have thought through exactly what this means for yourself, but your lack of remorse is, I hope, just a sign that you're so selfish you haven't thought of Megan once. Certainly if you do know what this will mean for her and you can still be so nonchalant, you are even more despicable than I thought.”
She sat back and looked at him, but it was quite clear that he wasn't going to say anything else. Instead he twirled his goatee around one finger and waited for the axe to fall. In the long hours until dawn he had made his plans, to go back to Paris, and tell certain old friends of this mad school he had tried to teach at, where the conditions were so awful that he'd been forced to hand in his notice. He could pull enough strings that he would get another job, with pay at least as good as this one, handsome as it was, without needing references. He had guessed that Kathie would be most keen to stop this becoming public knowledge, for fear of injuring the school.
“I see that there is nothing more to say,” she said at last, after an uncomfortable silence. “As I'm sure that you're aware you will be dismissed forthwith. I will give you Frühstück to pack your bags, and I want you to leave while the girls are on their walk - I'll send them all around to the dripping rock today, so that you can be gone without meeting them. If you stop at the kitchen before you go, you'll find enough food to get you as far as Innsbruck by way of breakfast.”
He stood up to leave, but turned back at Kathie's parting shot.
“Do not think, incidentally, that you will find it very easy to get another job. As I'm sure you've guessed, being an intelligent enough man, we're not going to go out of our way to publicise what you've done, nor will we expect you to ask us for references. But do think on. Between us, Nancy and I have contacts in every city in Europe and most beyond that - we can certainly find out where you are easily enough. It wouldn't be too damaging to the school to have quiet words in the right ears if we did find you to be teaching again. That's all.”
[i]Good luck[/i], thought Monsieur Pierre de Bertrand, as he went to absent himself from the Chalet School permanently.
That unpleasant task dealt with, Kathie turned to the next pressing matter, and the one she was dreading most of all. Picking up the telephone with a heavy heart, she turned to the sheet of paper, taken from Meg's file, on which were her contact details. Her main contact, Kathie noted with some interest, was Ruey Richardson - who had thoroughly enjoyed her own days at the school - listed, it was noted in the secretary's scrawl, as her father was away so much. However, it would be Roger Richardson to whom she must speak, or his wife, and little as she enjoyed the prospect, she knew that it would be better to get it out of the way.
Later on, not long before the rest of the school returned from its walk, Kathie was to be found wending her way towards the San., rubbing at her tired eyes. If she thought she could have slept, she would have taken the day off after this, but something told her that she would merely lie awake tossing around the same thoughts as she'd been having ever since she walked into the room. She knew that, as she tried desperately to deal with the mess that this had caused, Nancy would be reporting it to the board of governors.
In all likelihood she would lose her job, and with this in mind she had decided that, when the inevitable phone call came, she would merely announce her intention to hand in her notice and withdraw quietly from her headship at the end of term. This would avoid any problems for either party, and would, she thought, be best. After all, she was supposed to be a headmistress, but she evidently wasn't one if she couldn't even look after the girls in her care. But it would be easy enough to give her reasons as the fact that Nancy, too, was planning on retiring at the end of the year. Between them, they had enough to sell up the small cottage that they owned together and travel the world, as they had always talked about doing. She would never quite get over knowing that she had let someone down so badly, Kathie knew that, but there was at least some small consolation in the plan.
Quietly, she peered around the door, and seeing that Meg was sat up and eating from the tray of breakfast which had been brought to her, came in, closing it behind her and taking a seat next to the bed. The poor girl had evidently been crying most of the night, she thought, and aware of how Roger was feeling at that moment she resolved to do everything that she could for Meg. She'd given herself a tough path to walk for a long time to come, and even if she didn't appreciate that now, she would when she came to see her father for the first time.
“How are you?” asked Kathie, once she was comfortable. The last vestiges of anger had gone from her voice, and she was quite calm, Meg thought, even forgiving. She looked up hopefully, hardly daring to meet the brown eyes that the night before had looked at her so intently that they'd haunted her dreams. Something she saw there, though, gave her courage, and she managed to choke out,
“I'm sorry.”
“I'm sure. How are you feeling, though, was the food enough?”
“Yes, thankyou,” whispered Meg, blushing, finding that tears came too easily to her eyes. “Please, I am sorry, I know, I know that - that - “
“I think that you are starting to realise,” said Kathie, looking her student over with a sigh. With the wisdom of age she had come to see many of the mistakes that she'd made in her own youth, and she could tell the genuine repentance before her, but she also knew that Meg couldn't understand, and wouldn't for a long time, everything that this meant. That was what Monsieur de Bertrand had been relying on. “But you must remember, Meg, that we all make mistakes in our lives, and that we have to live through the hard times just as strongly as we live through the good, to accept when we are at fault but also to know when the blame lies with others. We must be prepared to forgive, and to follow Him, but also to ask for His forgiveness when we do wrong.”
Silently, Meg bowed her head, crying again now. But those words would stay with her through her life, and help her in her most difficult times, when she thought that she was all alone. Religion had been something until now that had a nominal place in her life, and which she practiced in school but which she tended to be lax about in the holidays. Through Kathie's words, though, she started to appreciate just how special a thing it could be for some people, and though she might never fully find God, she had some, undefinable sense that He would always find her.
Sensing the confusion Meg was feeling, and guessing that she would need time to digest the words and come to her own interpretation of them, Kathie said no more, but simply removed the tray to one side, knowing she had done all that she could do for now. Taking Meg's hand in her own, she squeezed it softly, then delivered the real message that she had come to give.
“I spoke to your father. He's naturally very angry, but he is coming out immediately - luckily he was in England, and should be with us tomorrow. Until then, he and I both agreed that it would be best if you were kept here, and we're going to tell the school that you've had bad news about your family, and wish to be alone until he can come. If you want any books or anything, you can ask Nurse, and she'll make sure you have everything you need. Keep courage, my child, this is not so bad as it all seems.”
Kathie stood up, preparing to leave, but Meg tugged on the hand still tucked in her own, then looked up. Through her tears, she choked,
“Thankyou.”
With a quiet nod, Kathie departed, with a silent prayer that Meg may be looked after, come what may in the present days, and further on. Roger had hinted very strongly that she wouldn't be staying at the school, understandably, but how Meg would be treated once alone with her parents was something that Kathie could only guess at. She hoped, for the young girl's sake, however, that it wouldn't be so bad for her.
On her way out, she bumped into Nurse, who did her best to persuade the headmistress to go to bed, but, seeing that this wouldn't work, sent Kathie out, under strict orders to go for a walk right around the lake, and to stop at one of the Gasthauses en route to take coffee and something small, in lieu of the breakfast she'd forfeited. Recognising good advice when she was given it, Kathie consigned care of the school to Mary Peters for a few hours and did as she was told.
It was an interview that those involved would never forget. To say that Roger Richardson was furious would be the equivalent of saying that the whole situation was a bit of bother. He was livid, enraged, and the way which he stormed into Kathie Ferrars office warned her of the care she would need to take. Even worse was that, despite his eyes blazing and his whole body shaking with the force of his anger, he still managed to shut the door in a perfectly reasonable way, to turn and look at her, and then to say in a voice of forced calm,
“You must be Miss Ferrars.”
“Mr Richardson,” she replied, waving her hand at the chair in front of her desk. While she had no wish to provoke him further, she had instinctively drawn herself up to her full height, pulled on her professional mode, and prepared to greet him as best she could. “I trust that you had a good journey?”
“Just get me my damned daughter,” was the terse reply. “You said everything you needed to on the phone. I want to talk to her, and I want to do it now.”
Wise in her years, or at least enough to see that you did not idly present a bull with a red rag after it has warned you not to, Kathie rang for one of the maids. Politely, she ordered coffee as well as Meg, though she shuddered inside to think of the state that her nice china could be in come the end of it all. The maid ducked her curtsey and retreated, to spread gossip through the lower regions of the strange man Ma'am was entertaining in her office.
Meanwhile, Meg, petrified, obeyed the summons and walked, as slowly as she could, down to the office. From the days of her childhood, when he had been an imposing, irksome presence that was as cross with her as often as he was not, she could guess how her father would have reacted to the news. But nothing that she had prepared herself for came close to the look of utter disgust that he bestowed on her as she ducked her curtsey and walked very, very slowly forwards indeed, until she was practically dragging herself to stand in front of the desk.
“Meg,” began Miss Ferrars, but she was overruled by Roger.
“Megan,” he began tightly. “I assume that I need not tell you why I am here, nor what the news has done to your mother. She has been confined to her bed since she heard, set back at least six months, and the doctors don't know when she'll get up again. Did you think of that when you were - were with [i]him[/i]?”
“Dad,” she whispered, the tears already coming. Fiercely, she scrubbed at her cheeks. She had meant to be brave, and strong, tomboyish in the way that she knew he approved of, but already she couldn't keep her emotions in check. He looked away from her with a noise of disgust.
Suddenly, she dropped to her knees in front of him, laying her hands on his lap, pleading him with large, round eyes, just to listen to her, to not shout but to try and understand. Kathie turned her head away. She knew, from Ruey - with whom she kept up an intermittent correspondence - and also from a few things that Joey said in letters, what sort of life Meg had led until now; she could guess the importance of her father's respect to Meg. When he failed to respond, she decided that, as Meg's headmistress, it was her job to intervene.
“Meg is, I know, completely repentant of all that has happened,” she told him, looking directly into his eyes and challenging him not to feel something for the tiny form gazing up at him. “And really it was not so much her fault, though she was certainly old enough to know better. But she has been hurt just as much as anyone, perhaps more so, and she needs you right now. Of course you are angry, but please, don't let this affect your love for your child.”
“How did you do it?” he demanded curtly. “I mean, might you be pregnant? Might we have that scandal to deal with next? How did you see him? How long has this been going on? Who else knew?”
Pairing/Main Characters: Meg Richardson/ Pierre de Bertrand
Period: Future Austria
Fic type:
Rating/Warning: 18
Summary: Meg, pupil at a 'future' branch of the CS (from the end of the series) gets into trouble when caught with Pierre.
Author's Notes:
The two bodies lay entwined in the bed, close, sensual. The sheets were thrown back, to loosely cover their thighs, a crumpled mass of white which only served to throw the tanned skin into greater relief. Softly, one of the legs twitched, but it would have been impossible to say whose the limbs were so meshed. Naked, alone, easy at last in each other’s company, the man reached out and softly drew back a lock of brown hair, running his hand down the soft cheek and leaning forwards to kiss his companion softly, lips barely touching, eyes closed in the blissful silence.
From outside the moon shone down on the pair, bright light flooding the room through curtains left defiantly open as if daring anyone to peep inside. A few stars twinkled around it, shadows drifted across it, and some of the more distant peaks were obscured by the gathering clouds, for a storm was coming though no-one cared to notice it; at this time of night, the two lovers were the only ones left awake in the school, and they had only each other, the rest of the world had disappeared for them.
.
Gently, with familiarity in the movement, the young man stroked the soft white arm which trailed over his chest, opening his eyes to look down on the perfect, smooth skin. Hidden by the way it was resting, he knew he would see a line of red cuts, deep into the skin, sometimes too deep, on the softer underside, all perfectly neatly lined, each one measured to be the same length as the ones above and below it, each one a tiny testament to the pain felt as they were created.
After a long minute of almost perfect stillness, but for the rhythmic movement of his fingers, he turned the arm over, feeling out the cuts and sighing each time he felt the broken skin. Irritated, the girl beside him drew her arm away, twisted it under her head so that he could no longer touch it, but this movement shattered the tiny, delicate net that had held them close together, and he sat up, looking down on her.
“I have told you before to stop,” he said simply, in the French which was his native language. “As soon as someone notices they will want to know why, how, all these questions that will give us away.”
“I don’t care,” was the defiant reply, and the girl turned over so that the moonlight fell directly over her face, shutting her eyes pointedly to feign sleep. There was a rustle behind her, then movement, and the young man climbed over her and out the bed, stretching limbs and then turning to look at her again. When she still failed to open her eyes and address him properly, he turned to his desk, rooted for a moment, and drew out a packet of cigarettes.
Despite his unclothed state, he stood in the window. There was a momentary flash as he lit a cigarette and then he stood enjoying the sight of the wreaths of smoke that curled through the fresh, tangy air, tainting it. His eyes were half closed, sleep closing over him, but despite the bite of the cold outside he didn’t shiver, didn’t even move, his back rigid and uncompromising. At long last he turned around, surveyed the still form, a small smile still playing on the blood red lips.
“You’d better go back to the dormitory,” he said curtly. “You know you can’t stay here. Look at what happened last time.”
This referred to an incident some months ago now, when he had foolishly allowed her to stay until dawn. By the point, one of the other dormitory members had noticed her absence and had duly reported it to the head before breakfast. She claimed to have been simply taking a run around the lake, as she had been unable to sleep and wished to get in some exercise on her own for once, and had duly taken the punishment meted out, a severe gating that had warned everybody else not to disobey the rule that said only those in Sixth Form may take advantage of an early awakening to go walking, and then it must be in pairs. After that, the two had been more careful, although it was usually left to him to enforce this.
“I could just stay here,” she murmured, a genuine note of sleepiness in her voice now, her thumb straying to her mouth as was her habit when she was starting to drift into slumber.
“I wish you could,” he whispered tenderly, kneeling down so that he could kiss her fondly. “But you know that you mustn’t. Come, it is only a short walk, and if anybody does catch you, you can have been fetching a glass of water and got lost in a reverie as to how beautiful the mountains looked from the kitchen window. If we get caught now it will all be over, but if you leave you may be able to come back again tomorrow night, which is surely better - non?”
“Oui,” she agreed, and, reluctantly, sat up, yawning and stretching her hands above her head, then slipping off the bed and picking her nightdress up from the floor, pulling it on and casting around for her dressing gown. She looked truly gorgeous with her auburn hair tangled around her, knots from where it had been tugged in his previous urgency, and sleep misting her emerald green eyes, and he couldn’t resist the temptation to kiss her one last time before she padded away into the darkness of the halls.
Of course, Monsieur Pierre de Bertrand knew that what he did was wrong, but somehow Megan Richardson - Meg to her friends - was worth every risk.
The next morning over breakfast, one form in particular seemed to be rowdier than usual, and as it was one of the Fourths this could only mean mischief of one sort or the other. At first the mistresses were prepared to overlook it in the fervent hope that it wouldn’t be happening in their lessons, and they would simply be regaled with the story in the staff room that evening. But by the third time the headmistress had to ring her bell to call them to attention, she felt that enough was enough and stood up.
Even when she didn’t try, Kathie Ferrars could cut an imposing figure, and when she looked like that you crossed her at your own peril - as every naughty middle that had ever done so could tell you. Standing tall, she surveyed the hall with the chilly glance she had learnt from Miss Annersley, effectively silencing them all, before she said with an unusual frost in her voice,
“If I have to ring the bell one more time, I will have each and every one of you in here on Saturday night, and instead of your usual evening entertainment you will all have a lesson in correct behaviour during a meal. Do I make myself clear? Good, then please show me such a measure isn’t necessary.”
She sat down again and continued her own meal, resuming her conversation with Matron Phillips on her left as if there had been no interruption to begin with. Gradually the rest of the room followed suit, and a low murmur of chatter filled the hall again. It was true that some of the especially excitable middles had to be contained by their peers, but they all knew that the head would carry out her punishment and nobody wanted to risk it, so somehow they managed to keep things to an acceptable level.
When the Mlle LePattre branch had first been opened, back on the shores of the great lake Tiernsee where the school had first started out, Kathie had been surprised but secretly pleased to be asked to be the headmistress. At first it had seemed a great wrench to leave behind all her friends on the Swiss staff, particularly Nancy Wilmot, and her first term had been plagued by a number of pranks from the group of students now sitting at the opposite end of the room as very stately prefects, but she had shown her authority and proved that she was the right person for the job. The branch was only for those in Lower IV B and above, from those who wished to come instead of stay at the Swiss branch, and so although half were usually involved in one prank or another, the remaining half was usually enough on its dignity to squash them thoroughly.
Around the staff table sat entirely new faces, for the Swiss branch had needed all the staff it had, and so aside from Kathie nobody else had come. She had been most nervous about this to begin with, but the complete break had proved to be the best thing that could have happened for the school, and whenever a new vacancy was advertised competition to get it was fierce. One side of the table, facing the girls, was full of mistresses, and so was half the other side of the table, but what was notable about the Mlle LePattre branch was that it hired more masters than either of the other two, and they also took up a goodly number of seats.
On this occasion, Monsieur Pierre was having a heated debate with his contemporary, Monsieur Jacques Renard, about the latest policy that the French Government had announced, while Herr Schmidt examined Mr Blakely on the English custom of drinking tea with breakfast, aided occasionally by Herr Mauer and Herr Wagner. This was a continual source of puzzlement to those members of staff not of English origin, and they steadfastly refused to drink anything but coffee, though under Kathie’s headship a certain amount of tea had been allowed back into the school.
The meal continued as on any other normal day, and soon enough Kathie was calling for the school to rise. This they did in a great scraping of chairs, moving neatly to stand behind them and push them in, before turning to face the top table. It was customary for them to have a walk after breakfast for half an hour, splitting into middles and seniors and alternating as to which direction they would stride briskly around the lake before returning for lessons to start. Already some of them had had music practice, while others made their bed and caught up on any outstanding prep, or read books, and they should be back and changed into their school wear by quarter past nine, with lessons starting punctually at half past.
They were, Kathie reflected happily as she watched them file out, a good looking set of pupils on the whole. When the new branch had been established it had, of course, had to have its own uniform. This had eventually been decided on as sharp white blouses - usually kept in fairly good condition, though there were a notable few distinctly more creased than they would have been in Matey's time - with soft yellow dresses over the tops, and regulation stockings and shoes or slippers. There was a white or creamy yellow cardigan to go with it, and yellow hair ribbons for those who chose to wear their hair long.
Then, tossing all musing to the winds, she fled to her study, where the usual pile of paperwork waited for her, and knowing that she owed Nancy a call at the Swiss branch to catch her up on everything that was happening. She had known that the Head's life was a busy one, but she had never fully appreciated just how busy it was until she came to take it over, and as of the end of last term she had given up her teaching to concentrate on her official role instead.
Distantly she heard the return of the girls, the clatter of boots on the wooden floors and the subdued chatter that marked the start of the hard work all her pupils were expected to show during the classroom hours. Then silence descended across the building, and she was able to give herself up to her job with a sigh, writing letters to prospective parents and tackling a difficult phone call to the accountant in charge of that branch. Upon the death of Madge Russell, and her shares being spread evenly between her children, it had been decided that this would make too many trustees for them to be as hands on even as they had been before, and various duties were split up and handed to third parties.
The prank which had been brewing at breakfast was retailed in the staff room that evening. Herr Wagner had been the victim, for the girls had somehow learnt that he had planned a particularly boring history lesson on the Battle of Trafalgar, and had accordingly decided to disrupt it. Languidly blowing out the smoke from his cigarette, he inhaled the tobacco again and then, waving one hand in a lazy expressive gesture, expanded,
“Yes, so first one girl then another had to leave - one for the cloakroom, one because her hair ribbon was lost and her plait come down. Then another had forgotten her handkerchief. I must have sent five or six of them out of the room and yet not one returned, not one. Then another and another needed to go. One had a coughing fit, and so I sent her out, and another went to fetch water for her. Still nobody returned. I grew suspicious, only half the class was left and they were laughing among themselves.”
“Scamps,” inserted Julie Lavender idly. As mathematics mistress, she had long felt the power of having pranks played on one, and was listening to the story of it happening to somebody else for once with great interest. “What on earth did you do?”
“Sent one of them out to find the rest, waited a moment, impressed on the rest of the class that should they misbehave in any way while I was gone they would all receive an order mark and lose their Saturday night, and then followed the one I had sent out. She, of course, led me to their hiding place, and not only did I catch them all, but they were smoking when I did. Naturally it has been left to my good friend Maria to sort out the punishment for that, they were to report themselves to her at break.”
“And hangdog they looked too,” she replied with some satisfaction. It was well known in the school that she wasn't always to be found in her bed at the Sanatorium of a night, but rather with Herr Wagner, with whom she had an amicable friendship. “I lectured them thoroughly and they've been told that for their evils they can spend their free time this weekend sorting out the medicine cupboard, cleaning the Sanatorium thoroughly and then mending all the sheets and pillowcases that have been torn. Further I'm confiscating all confectionery forthwith and holding dorm inspection every day to see that they don't sneak more contraband in. And,” she finished, a twinkle in her eye, “I have impressed upon them that I expect every dorm of theirs to put an army barracks to shame, and all this before breakfast, or there will be Retribution.”
“While I have called them back to spend every evening this week with me, to receive the lecture that they have missed and then to write it up in their best handwriting, adding five hundred words of their own opinion at the end,” put in Herr Wagner. He shrugged. “If it takes longer, it takes longer.”
The rest of the staff, who had all been listening to the story as they pottered around or did some marking, chuckled appreciatively, and more than one was heard to hope fervently that this would duly squash the middles for a little while to come, and there could be peace in the school for a short while.
Meanwhile, in the senior common room, chatter flowed just as fast and just as freely as in the staff room, though on different topics. Most people were currently crowded around a table discussing the prospects of the Netball team in a match against another school, who had come to the Tirol on a geography trip for a week and promptly challenged the Chalet to a match. A few others despaired at the English prep they'd been set that day. Alone in a corner, Meg reviewed her letter, scratched out a few words and changed them, then viewed the finished product with a satisfied air. It read;
Dear Auntie Ruey,
Thanks for your last letter, and the birthday money enclosed. Turning seventeen was, indeed, great fun, and your kind gift was put to buying a birthday cake for the school to celebrate. We shared it around on our Saturday evening, which was learning the jive last week; this week we are to be allowed to play the board games in our common room if we wish, or get the record player out in the hall.
My birthday itself was fabulous. Because it fell on a Saturday, Miss Ferrars said that I might decide what we did for the day, and so we went for a walk up the Mondscheinspitze - it was that or walking down to Spartz and spending the day there. Instead we took a picnic, and had lunch on the mountain. We couldn't get all the way up because the middles came too, and the kids wouldn't have made it, but we seniors were allowed to wander off in groups of four after lunch, and what a fun time we had! We ended up getting embroiled in the game of hide and seek that the middles had started, childish but fun. And, for a miracle given some of the stories I heard Auntie Joey tell way back when, not a single thing went wrong!
Otherwise, school life is just as it should be. I'm working hard, you'll be pleased to hear, and was second in the form last week, to Monica, who had slogged away even harder. We've agreed to slack off a little bit this week, as we're both doing so well, but then next week I'm really going to go for it and try and top her again. Games are also still going well, though I'm not going to make it onto one of the teams - which is just as well, because I study far too hard for that!
Thankyou, also, for your invitation to come and stay over the Christmas hols, as dad will be out the country again. It would be wonderful if you could have me, and I'm sure that Ben would love to come too! Unless one of his friends bags him, of course, you never do know with him. I'll never forget how much mum cried that first Christmas he spent away, or how pleased she was when the next year he listened to her pleadings and brought one of his friends back with him, though she seemed less pleased by it all when she caught myself doing something very unorthodox with said friend! But especially now that he's at university, you can never tell what he'll be doing.
Would you mind dreadfully if I invited one of my friends to come as well over Christmas? She's called Hannah, and like dad her parents are going to be away, touring Australia to promote her dad's latest book. The school's being shut up, and if she can't come with one of us then she'll have to stay at one of the pensions, which would be horribly lonely. Of course loads of us have offered to write home and ask, but I was first so I get to ask first. Please say yes, do! You can share all your old stories of when you were at school, and she'd love to meet Auntie Con if she could, she loves her books.
Well done on the promotion at work, by the way! Dad told me about it in his last letter, he knew you'd be too modest to mention it. He also said that you were looking for a new house, please let me help you over Christmas if you haven't found one by then! I'll be looking for my own in a few years, and it would be so much fun to imagine all the decorations and things as you wander round each one.
If you speak to him, please send my love to Uncle Roddy, I just don't have the time to write to everyone, but I will send him a screed with all the latest soon - I know that Ben keeps in touch. Oh, and do say that I'm looking forwards to Andy starting next year, I heard from Miss Ferrars that she'd been accepted for this branch. Of course I'll hope to be a prefect by then, but I can sheepdog her, and it will be fun to show someone around all the old haunts and teach her some of the tricks I've learnt!
Take care of yourself, no more bizarre accidents like the one in your last letter. Oh, and please buy in some decent peppermints for Christmas, or at least eventually give away your secret of where you get them! I'm sure that I'll see you soonest, can't wait for it!
All my love,
Meg.
That night, most of the school were to be found asleep safely in their beds, dreaming of various things including the upcoming in school tournament, preparation due in the next day and, in some notable cases, one of the peasant men who came in once a week to see his sister, working as a maid in the kitchens. He'd gained something of a notoriety among those of the girls still young enough to giggle about men behind their hands, and many and varied had been the plots to try and catch a glimpse of him whenever he was known to be in the building.
Naturally, not everyone was so peaceful. Nurse carefully finished her rounds, shutting the final dormitory door with a sigh of relief and padding away to get her well earned rest. A couple of the teachers had stayed up late in the staffroom, marking furiously so that they could return work punctually the next day, and bemoaning the fact that holidays were still a few weeks off. And, of course, Meg was awake. As usual, she had to be careful to wait until she could be fairly sure that she wouldn't be seen wandering the corridors, but usually once Nurse had been in to make sure that they were all where they should be, she was as safe as ever to get up.
Now she slid out of bed with the practiced ease of one used to deception, and ferreted out her slippers and dressing gown, which were always left easily to hand for her night time excursions. The rest of her dormitory slept easily around her, unaware of what one in their midst was doing; even her best friend, Irene, hadn't been given even a hint, at Pierre's insistence that if they wanted to be together, they had to keep it a secret from anyone. He knew all too well, from his university days, how girls liked to gossip, and he had no mind to lose such a comfortable job. Carefully hiding the noise of the door clicking shut under one of Sally's snores, Meg started to sneak down the corridor, free at last.
The moonlight fell in a shaft through one of the windows, spearing light across the plush red carpet that ran down the middle of the polished wood floor to muffle the almost constant noise of footsteps in the building, and illuminating a painting on the wall of Madge Russell, founder of the Chalet School in a building only three away from the one in which it was now housed. She seemed to look so kind and sweet, but there was something in her eyes that made Meg shiver, aware of her impropriety and wondering what Lady Russell would have said, exactly, had she known what was happening in a branch of her very own school.
The route to her lover's bedroom Meg knew by heart, now, and she tiptoed it carefully, trying to make sure that her slippers didn't shuffle too badly, straining her ears for sounds of anybody else coming. She couldn't take the quickest path as it passed by the Sanatorium, and she knew that it was too big a risk that somebody would have been taken ill and she would be spotted. Still, if she just went along to the end of the corridor, up a creaking old flight of stairs that she had to be very careful on, but which were at the back of the house where even the maids hardly ever went, and then doubled back on herself, she was soon climbing up to the room she knew so well.
There, she knocked on the door ever so quietly, before she slipped around it, hanging her dressing gown up on the hook and kicking her slippers off. Monsieur Pierre was lying in his bed, moonlight falling directly onto his face, his eyes open as he watched his prey come towards him. Tonight she was wearing her pyjamas of choice, namely a black nightdress with long sleeves that warned him that when he undressed her he would find new cuts marring her arms. Once, she had told him how she managed it, namely that in the drawer of her bedside table there was to be found a pencil, which might look like any ordinary pencil, but out of which the lead could be slipped so that she was left with a sharpened wooden stake that she could drag through her skin. It was, she said, her way of coping when she couldn't see him; it had started when she was twelve, and as usual her father had had to go away. She'd sat in her bedroom window, watching him pack his suitcase in the car, and had torn at her own arms until her fingernails bit deeply into them and made them bleed, in the hope that he would see it and turn back, not leave her.
Now, she slipped off what little clothing remained, so that the full glory of her body sparkled in the silver glow. Shadows slipped elegantly along her perfectly rounded breasts, the pert nipples erect at the cold, her long legs that she loved to wrap around him so sensuously. He found himself taking a sharp breath as he viewed her, hair tumbling over one shoulder and hands reaching out so that he would take the soft, familiar fingers and pull her down next to him.
There was something hungry, animalistic in his kiss, the way that he bit down on her lip so that she gasped in pain then pushed a hand roughly over her mouth, warning her to be silent. His other hand moved down further, pushing deeper and deeper inside her until she arched her back to meet him, breath ragged and uneven, pulling on his tangled hair and forcing him down to kiss her again. Shyly, her own hands roved, across his well defined chest, down further to the thatch of pubic hair and the excited member that twitched to meet her as she grasped it, pulling frantically to the rhythm of his desperate moans.
It was a dance as old as time itself, one they both knew well, one they had indulged in so many times before. Gradually they built up, hands tugging at each other more frantically, until in a wild frenzy of ecstacy he thrust into her, sliding down hard so that his body pinned her to the sheets, his hands grasping at her sides, her breasts, her throat, anywhere that he could as he pushed and pushed, needing her. The closer they came to climax the harder he had to gag her, so that nobody should hear them, nothing should be suspected.
Meg loved to watch as he came on top of her, to see his face scrunch up as the world slipped out of focus for him and nothing mattered but that moment, and even she started to fade from his conscious as he pushed and pushed himself, she loved to see how much he belonged to her, how she could do that to him and make him ready to beg at her feet for just another moment. She loved how special it made her feel.
Afterwards, they curled around each other harengiform, legs tucked neatly side by side, Meg's back resting against Pierre's heaving chest, hands entwined over her stomach. It was her favourite part of any night, the time when they'd come together, been one, experienced the heights of frantic ecstacy and then come down into a comfortable, familiar silence, two people who had suddenly merged and blurred, an experience only they would ever share. She loved to know that his arms were around her, that she was safe. She loved to match her breathing to his own, to be almost uncertain where her body ended and his began. She loved him.
Suddenly, there was a tentative knock at the door, that made both their heart's skip a beat, and even as they began to sat up, to panic, to think of anywhere that Meg could hide, it swung open, and the last face that either wanted to see appeared around the crack.
“I'm sorry,” murmured Kathie, then stopped. She had come because, having still been working in her study, she had seen fit to go to the kitchen to fetch a midnight snack, but had been dissuaded by the large rat in the middle of the floor. Usually she would have left it to the school cat to deal with, but it seemed too good an opportunity to miss - only she didn't dare to go near to it herself. She had been on her way to fetch the school cook, a redoubtable old peasant woman who would have had no qualms about finding a rolling pin and disposing of it, when she had heard noises from Monsieur Pierre's room. Deciding that it would be a shame to wake the cook when that lady had to be up so early, she had come to ask him to do the honours instead.
But as she took in the scene, and what it meant, fire blazed from her eyes and all thoughts of the rat disappeared in a surge of absolute fury at the pair.
The immediate thing to be done was to fetch Matron Fothergill from Herr Wagner's bed, which Kathie duly did, once she had seen Meg to her office and told Monsieur de Bertrand in iciest tones to get dressed. As she walked back down the corridor, Maria trailing behind in her dressing gown, she pursed her lips in disapproval. Previously she had been prepared to overlook relationships between her staff, as long as it didn't affect the pupils, but it struck her that there were a number of very unchristian things going on under her roof and that she had been far too lax about it until now. It wouldn't do for it to be as strict as a nunnery - they would never get staff that way - but there could be some propriety at least when responsible members of her team were supposedly on duty.
Maintaining her strict and most dignified air, despite the hour, she swept into her office, where Meg was stood quietly in front of the desk, an abject creature wondering what on earth would happen to her now. Her one consolation in it all was that Kathie hadn't seen her arms, which were now covered, so that she at least had some hope of not being found out there. The rest of the game, though, was decidedly up, and she did the best thing that she possibly could have done in the circumstances and - like many a Chalet girl before her - burst into tears after one timid glance at her headmistress' disapproving eyes.
“There's no need for that,” said Kathie, more softly than she had intended. She remained standing, Maria hovering in the door in her dressing gown and wondering what was wrong - she'd simply been told that she was needed. “There's certainly nothing to be done about it tonight, though I will want to speak to you in the morning. Until then, Matron Fothergill is going to take you to the San., as I think it would be wisest for you to be kept from the rest of the girls for the present. I'll see you after Frühstück, which you're to have in your room, and until then try not to worry.” Seeing that Meg, now she had started, was unable to stop, Kathie pressed a slightly grubby handkerchief into her hands and did her best to console the child, tempering justice with mercy. “I'm not as angry at you as with other people, but you must understand the enormity of what you've done. A goodly number of people will be hurt by your actions, child, myself included. Now go to bed, you look worn out. We'll talk more in the morning.”
With that she really did dismiss the two, her soft words echoing even in her own mind as she saw them being led away. She had meant what she said, though, as angry as she was at Meg for her wholesale betrayal of the trust that staff put in girls, she couldn't entirely - or even mostly - blame the girl. One thing was certain, and that was that she wasn't going to get to sleep that night. Quickly she debated, then decided that if her good friend Nancy was still awake, she wouldn't mind a phone call over something this important, especially as she was technically Kathie's superior. Rubbing her eyes, she picked up the receiver and dialled the number she knew so well.
Having spent more than two hours on the phone to Nancy the night before, deciding what on earth they should do now, Kathie looked haggard the next morning. Not, however, as bad as Pierre, who had guessed what would happen. Before Frühstück, as the school still traditionally called breakfast, Kathie went along to the staff room, where she found him smoking one of his long cigarettes and watching the last rays of the sunrise over the mountains. However, when he turned around, he looked perfectly composed, and she beckoned him with a single glance.
In her office she took her seat behind the desk with much dignity, determined not to let him see that she knew what a tough interview this would be. Realistically, she could ill afford to lose him at this time, for he was a good teacher and would be hard to replace, but it was quite clear that both knew he would have to lose his post. What he hadn't expected, however, was the first question levelled at him.
“Why did you do it?”
“I -” he gaped for a moment, then collected himself and said quite simply, “Why do you think?”
“Presumably not out of any love for the girl,” was Kathie's tart response. She swept some paperwork into her top drawer, then looked straight into his eyes. “Do you realise what you've done? Oh, I am aware that you'll have thought through exactly what this means for yourself, but your lack of remorse is, I hope, just a sign that you're so selfish you haven't thought of Megan once. Certainly if you do know what this will mean for her and you can still be so nonchalant, you are even more despicable than I thought.”
She sat back and looked at him, but it was quite clear that he wasn't going to say anything else. Instead he twirled his goatee around one finger and waited for the axe to fall. In the long hours until dawn he had made his plans, to go back to Paris, and tell certain old friends of this mad school he had tried to teach at, where the conditions were so awful that he'd been forced to hand in his notice. He could pull enough strings that he would get another job, with pay at least as good as this one, handsome as it was, without needing references. He had guessed that Kathie would be most keen to stop this becoming public knowledge, for fear of injuring the school.
“I see that there is nothing more to say,” she said at last, after an uncomfortable silence. “As I'm sure that you're aware you will be dismissed forthwith. I will give you Frühstück to pack your bags, and I want you to leave while the girls are on their walk - I'll send them all around to the dripping rock today, so that you can be gone without meeting them. If you stop at the kitchen before you go, you'll find enough food to get you as far as Innsbruck by way of breakfast.”
He stood up to leave, but turned back at Kathie's parting shot.
“Do not think, incidentally, that you will find it very easy to get another job. As I'm sure you've guessed, being an intelligent enough man, we're not going to go out of our way to publicise what you've done, nor will we expect you to ask us for references. But do think on. Between us, Nancy and I have contacts in every city in Europe and most beyond that - we can certainly find out where you are easily enough. It wouldn't be too damaging to the school to have quiet words in the right ears if we did find you to be teaching again. That's all.”
[i]Good luck[/i], thought Monsieur Pierre de Bertrand, as he went to absent himself from the Chalet School permanently.
That unpleasant task dealt with, Kathie turned to the next pressing matter, and the one she was dreading most of all. Picking up the telephone with a heavy heart, she turned to the sheet of paper, taken from Meg's file, on which were her contact details. Her main contact, Kathie noted with some interest, was Ruey Richardson - who had thoroughly enjoyed her own days at the school - listed, it was noted in the secretary's scrawl, as her father was away so much. However, it would be Roger Richardson to whom she must speak, or his wife, and little as she enjoyed the prospect, she knew that it would be better to get it out of the way.
Later on, not long before the rest of the school returned from its walk, Kathie was to be found wending her way towards the San., rubbing at her tired eyes. If she thought she could have slept, she would have taken the day off after this, but something told her that she would merely lie awake tossing around the same thoughts as she'd been having ever since she walked into the room. She knew that, as she tried desperately to deal with the mess that this had caused, Nancy would be reporting it to the board of governors.
In all likelihood she would lose her job, and with this in mind she had decided that, when the inevitable phone call came, she would merely announce her intention to hand in her notice and withdraw quietly from her headship at the end of term. This would avoid any problems for either party, and would, she thought, be best. After all, she was supposed to be a headmistress, but she evidently wasn't one if she couldn't even look after the girls in her care. But it would be easy enough to give her reasons as the fact that Nancy, too, was planning on retiring at the end of the year. Between them, they had enough to sell up the small cottage that they owned together and travel the world, as they had always talked about doing. She would never quite get over knowing that she had let someone down so badly, Kathie knew that, but there was at least some small consolation in the plan.
Quietly, she peered around the door, and seeing that Meg was sat up and eating from the tray of breakfast which had been brought to her, came in, closing it behind her and taking a seat next to the bed. The poor girl had evidently been crying most of the night, she thought, and aware of how Roger was feeling at that moment she resolved to do everything that she could for Meg. She'd given herself a tough path to walk for a long time to come, and even if she didn't appreciate that now, she would when she came to see her father for the first time.
“How are you?” asked Kathie, once she was comfortable. The last vestiges of anger had gone from her voice, and she was quite calm, Meg thought, even forgiving. She looked up hopefully, hardly daring to meet the brown eyes that the night before had looked at her so intently that they'd haunted her dreams. Something she saw there, though, gave her courage, and she managed to choke out,
“I'm sorry.”
“I'm sure. How are you feeling, though, was the food enough?”
“Yes, thankyou,” whispered Meg, blushing, finding that tears came too easily to her eyes. “Please, I am sorry, I know, I know that - that - “
“I think that you are starting to realise,” said Kathie, looking her student over with a sigh. With the wisdom of age she had come to see many of the mistakes that she'd made in her own youth, and she could tell the genuine repentance before her, but she also knew that Meg couldn't understand, and wouldn't for a long time, everything that this meant. That was what Monsieur de Bertrand had been relying on. “But you must remember, Meg, that we all make mistakes in our lives, and that we have to live through the hard times just as strongly as we live through the good, to accept when we are at fault but also to know when the blame lies with others. We must be prepared to forgive, and to follow Him, but also to ask for His forgiveness when we do wrong.”
Silently, Meg bowed her head, crying again now. But those words would stay with her through her life, and help her in her most difficult times, when she thought that she was all alone. Religion had been something until now that had a nominal place in her life, and which she practiced in school but which she tended to be lax about in the holidays. Through Kathie's words, though, she started to appreciate just how special a thing it could be for some people, and though she might never fully find God, she had some, undefinable sense that He would always find her.
Sensing the confusion Meg was feeling, and guessing that she would need time to digest the words and come to her own interpretation of them, Kathie said no more, but simply removed the tray to one side, knowing she had done all that she could do for now. Taking Meg's hand in her own, she squeezed it softly, then delivered the real message that she had come to give.
“I spoke to your father. He's naturally very angry, but he is coming out immediately - luckily he was in England, and should be with us tomorrow. Until then, he and I both agreed that it would be best if you were kept here, and we're going to tell the school that you've had bad news about your family, and wish to be alone until he can come. If you want any books or anything, you can ask Nurse, and she'll make sure you have everything you need. Keep courage, my child, this is not so bad as it all seems.”
Kathie stood up, preparing to leave, but Meg tugged on the hand still tucked in her own, then looked up. Through her tears, she choked,
“Thankyou.”
With a quiet nod, Kathie departed, with a silent prayer that Meg may be looked after, come what may in the present days, and further on. Roger had hinted very strongly that she wouldn't be staying at the school, understandably, but how Meg would be treated once alone with her parents was something that Kathie could only guess at. She hoped, for the young girl's sake, however, that it wouldn't be so bad for her.
On her way out, she bumped into Nurse, who did her best to persuade the headmistress to go to bed, but, seeing that this wouldn't work, sent Kathie out, under strict orders to go for a walk right around the lake, and to stop at one of the Gasthauses en route to take coffee and something small, in lieu of the breakfast she'd forfeited. Recognising good advice when she was given it, Kathie consigned care of the school to Mary Peters for a few hours and did as she was told.
It was an interview that those involved would never forget. To say that Roger Richardson was furious would be the equivalent of saying that the whole situation was a bit of bother. He was livid, enraged, and the way which he stormed into Kathie Ferrars office warned her of the care she would need to take. Even worse was that, despite his eyes blazing and his whole body shaking with the force of his anger, he still managed to shut the door in a perfectly reasonable way, to turn and look at her, and then to say in a voice of forced calm,
“You must be Miss Ferrars.”
“Mr Richardson,” she replied, waving her hand at the chair in front of her desk. While she had no wish to provoke him further, she had instinctively drawn herself up to her full height, pulled on her professional mode, and prepared to greet him as best she could. “I trust that you had a good journey?”
“Just get me my damned daughter,” was the terse reply. “You said everything you needed to on the phone. I want to talk to her, and I want to do it now.”
Wise in her years, or at least enough to see that you did not idly present a bull with a red rag after it has warned you not to, Kathie rang for one of the maids. Politely, she ordered coffee as well as Meg, though she shuddered inside to think of the state that her nice china could be in come the end of it all. The maid ducked her curtsey and retreated, to spread gossip through the lower regions of the strange man Ma'am was entertaining in her office.
Meanwhile, Meg, petrified, obeyed the summons and walked, as slowly as she could, down to the office. From the days of her childhood, when he had been an imposing, irksome presence that was as cross with her as often as he was not, she could guess how her father would have reacted to the news. But nothing that she had prepared herself for came close to the look of utter disgust that he bestowed on her as she ducked her curtsey and walked very, very slowly forwards indeed, until she was practically dragging herself to stand in front of the desk.
“Meg,” began Miss Ferrars, but she was overruled by Roger.
“Megan,” he began tightly. “I assume that I need not tell you why I am here, nor what the news has done to your mother. She has been confined to her bed since she heard, set back at least six months, and the doctors don't know when she'll get up again. Did you think of that when you were - were with [i]him[/i]?”
“Dad,” she whispered, the tears already coming. Fiercely, she scrubbed at her cheeks. She had meant to be brave, and strong, tomboyish in the way that she knew he approved of, but already she couldn't keep her emotions in check. He looked away from her with a noise of disgust.
Suddenly, she dropped to her knees in front of him, laying her hands on his lap, pleading him with large, round eyes, just to listen to her, to not shout but to try and understand. Kathie turned her head away. She knew, from Ruey - with whom she kept up an intermittent correspondence - and also from a few things that Joey said in letters, what sort of life Meg had led until now; she could guess the importance of her father's respect to Meg. When he failed to respond, she decided that, as Meg's headmistress, it was her job to intervene.
“Meg is, I know, completely repentant of all that has happened,” she told him, looking directly into his eyes and challenging him not to feel something for the tiny form gazing up at him. “And really it was not so much her fault, though she was certainly old enough to know better. But she has been hurt just as much as anyone, perhaps more so, and she needs you right now. Of course you are angry, but please, don't let this affect your love for your child.”
“How did you do it?” he demanded curtly. “I mean, might you be pregnant? Might we have that scandal to deal with next? How did you see him? How long has this been going on? Who else knew?”