Ribbons (Malory Towers) by Kanna-Ophelia
Author: Kanna-Ophelia (kannaophelia)
Title: Ribbons
Fandom: Malory Towers
Pairing: Clarissa/Gwendoline
Rating: G for Sapphic schoolgirl crushiness
Summary: Gwendoline really does have the prettiest golden hair. Set during the first half of Upper Fourth at Malory Tower and written for the prompt “keepsake” for 10lilies.
ETA: A failed closed tag meant a whole section of this story was missing. Sorry! It's back now.
Ribbons
Gwendoline, of course, had no business missing swimming at all. She was perfectly healthy, and Miss Williams or Miss Potts would have dismissed her languishing glances and the fingertips pressed to her temple as the malingering it was. Fortunately Mam’zelle Dupont was more sympathetic, especially when Gwen explained that she wanted to keep her friend Clarissa company. Poor girl, she was barred from the games all English girls loved so much on account of her weak heart, and Gwendoline hated to leave her alone. That Lacey child might be stupid at French, but she was such a dear, kind girl, Mam’zelle thought, to want to keep that frail, unattractive Clarissa company.
Clarissa’s thoughts more or less mirrored Mam’zelle’s, although she would have been quite shocked if she knew Gwen’s headache was entirely imaginary. Games and recreation hours were very dull for poor Clarissa. She was very glad that Gwen preferred to spend time with her than swimming, although secretly she wondered why anyone would. To give up the cool green water of the rock pool, on such a hot, sticky day! Clarissa longed to be brave enough to defy the orders of her specialist and plunge into the pool with the other girls.
She loyally smothered a yawn as Gwendoline started on yet another dull tale about Miss Winters and how the silly old thing adored her. Clarissa was a little cross with herself for being so mean as to be bored and sleepy. The heat was to blame, she decided. Gwen, knowing that Miss Potts was likely to show the sharp edge of her tongue and pack her off to swimming regardless if she caught her skulking in the common rooms, had overcome her fear of insects and taken Clarissa to sit in the gardens of Malory Tower’s sheltered internal Court. Sheltered from sea breezes, the Court was really too hot on a day like this. Clarissa’s head ached with too much sun, and she could feel perspiration gather under the rims of her thick glasses. A bee buzzed droningly nearby. It was no wonder she was yawning!
“But you must have lots of guests yourself!” Gwen said brightly. Clarissa shook herself back to attention, guiltily realising that she had missed the change in conversation. “Your mother must do a lot of entertaining. In her position, I mean.”
She looked enquiringly at the other girl, but somehow Clarissa shied away from answering. It would make Gwen feel badly, she told herself, to hear about Clarissa’s charming, elegant mother, about the parties and titled guests and the sharp difference between Clarissa’s home life and that of the other girls. Her older sister had warned her against making the other girls at a sensible school like Malory Towers too aware of the distance between their home lives. Besides, Clarissa knew very little of her parents’ doings. She knew she was a social failure: plain and tedious, good at riding but nothing else, and always ill. She had generally been resting when Mother and Father’s friends came over.
“Oh, Mother has lots of friends,” she said vaguely. She adjusted her glasses and wished hard that they had gone to stand by the pool themselves. It would be cooler there, with the fresh air and the splashing from the other girls, even if she wasn’t allowed in the water.
Gwen herself had no intention of going near the pool. She knew the other girls suspected she was make believing her headache, and was afraid that beastly Alicia or Darrell might take it into her head to push her into the water, fully clothed! They would be quite capable of it. So the girls baked together in the Court, and Clarissa didn’t dare complain. She was already learning what Gwen’s sulks were like, and how much in the way of humbling herself was necessary to win back her friend’s favour.
Disappointed that Clarissa had failed to regale her with glittering tales of her family’s social life - like Daphne had been only too willing, but of course Daphne had been spinning falsehoods, the little beast, and Clarissa was the real thing - Gwendoline began on an account of her own hols. Perhaps then, she told herself, Clarissa would mention her own plans for end of term, and then an invitation to her dearest friend would naturally be forthcoming.
Clarissa leaned back in the hot sun and tried to pay attention. In the sleepy sunlight, it was rather hard to follow Gwen’s rather dull story. Gwen did like to chatter endlessly about herself and her doings, but Clarissa usually didn’t mind that, even when Gwen repeated her lengthy tales. Clarissa knew that she should always provide a sympathetic ear. After all, that was what friends did for each other, and she loved making her own special friend happy.
Even so, it was difficult to keep paying attention.
She soon stopped pretending to follow Gwen’s prattle, and soaked up the sight of her instead. Gwendoline had loosed her hair and allowed it to fall in a golden sheet down her shoulders. She was very proud of her hair, and took every opportunity let it flow around her like the locks of a princess in a fairytale. If only it curled like Daphne’s golden cloud!
Her discarded ribbons were cast on the grass beside her. Clarissa picked one up and twisted the orange satin between her fingers, thinking of a school story she had once read in which a girl asked another girl for her hair ribbon as a favour, and had hit a hundred runs for the school cricket team on the basis of it. Even if Malory Towers had gone in for cricket, Clarissa was quite sure she could not manage a single run! Even so, she felt oddly reluctant to let go of the ribbon that had held Gwen’s glorious hair. She gazed at her friend again.
Sharply aware of her own lack of attractiveness, Clarissa envied and admired Gwen’s plump, golden prettiness. She couldn’t understand why the other girls teased Gwen about being fat - Clarissa, who was as small and scrawny as a much younger child, would have loved to be tall and well-built, with a grownup figure! She knew that Gwen was precisely the kind of daughter her own mother would have liked: attractive, with graceful manners but far more self-confidence than Clarissa had ever been able to muster. Gwen’s eyes were so pretty, too; they were wide and china blue, all part of what Mam’zelle admiring called the true English beauty. She was almost as lovely as Daphne, but much more kind and suitable as a friend. And she had chosen Clarissa as her own friend! Clarissa, who didn’t know how to make friends and found school quite overwhelming and lonely, adored Gwendoline for looking after her.
“Didn’t you have friends to stay?” she asked suddenly. Somehow she didn’t like the idea of Gwen having a friend to stay. Perhaps Gwen had only taken her up because an old friend - perhaps that American she had heard mentioned, Zerelda - had left the school. It was impossible that Gwen had reached sixteen without having a true friend. She hadn’t been shy and confined to bed like Clarissa. Clarissa felt jealousy, cold and unpleasant, at the thought.
Gwen hesitated a little, then tossed her golden head. “Oh, none of the girls here are quite suitable as friends. Not like you, Clarissa.” There was a long moment in which the two girls looked away from each other, each hoping that the other would invite her home. Finally Gwen decided to add a little further prompting. “I was terribly lonely until I met you.”
Clarissa glowed with a sudden warmth that had nothing to do with the beating sun. “I was lonely, too. You’re my only friend.”
Gwen patted her hand. “I won’t let you be lonely any longer.”
Clarissa smiled gratefully. She didn’t like to admit to herself that she was still a little lonely, even with Gwen’s exclusive friendship. None of the other girls had shown much interest in her, except Daphne and Mavis, and Clarissa had been truly horrified at the things Gwen had told her about those two girls. Sometimes Mary-Lou smiled shyly at Clarissa, and Clarissa, shy and awkward herself, was rather attracted to the mousy girl, but Mary-Lou unaccountably spent all her time with Mavis and Daphne. Sometimes Clarissa wondered if they could be all that bad if gentle Mary-Lou liked them so much, but she didn’t dare disagree with Gwen, even in thought.
She felt a little oppressed, suddenly, as if something was going to happen for which she wasn’t quite prepared. She tried to change the subject. “Gwen, aren’t you hot with your hair like that? I couldn’t bear all its weight in summer, myself.”
“It is a little warm,” Gwendoline admitted. She touched it a little self-consciously, admiring the way it caught the sunshine. “But doesn’t it look nice?” She looked innocently at her friend, confidently waiting for the flood of loving flattery. She had quite forgotten her disappointment at Clarissa failing to regale her with tales of aristocratic balls - and extend an invitation to Gwen to experience them herself in the hols.!
“Your hair’s beautiful. Just like gold silk,” Clarissa said fervently, and Gwen beamed. “But, oh! Won’t you get into terrible trouble if one of the mistresses catches you with it down like that again? Remember what Miss Williams said yesterday!”
Gwendoline scowled blackly, making Clarissa quite startled. She looked quite unlike Clarissa’s friend, always so sweet and gracious! “I supposed I’d better tie it back,” she muttered. “Oh, I hate plaiting my hair! Mummy always likes me to wear it down at home.”
“Never mind,” Clarissa comforted. “It looks pretty in braids, too - quite like Rapunzel.”
Gwen’s sweetness instantly returned. She had never quite thought of it that way, but now Clarissa pointed it out, she saw it was exactly right. “You are clever, Clarissa,” she said.
Clarissa blushed hotly at the praise. She knew she was not clever in the least, but hearing pretty Gwen say so made her pleased and embarrassed. “Would you like me to plait it for you?” she offered.
Gwendoline smiled on her more than ever. She loved the thought of high born Clarissa doing her hair, quite as if she was Gwen’s own governess. Besides, she had never quite mastered the art of plaiting hair neatly herself. “Would you? That would be so sweet of you.”
“I’d love to. Come sit on the sunken steps so that I can sit above you.”
The two friends moved to sit in the sunken circle where plays were sometimes performed in the summer, and Clarissa settled happily on the step above her friend. She loved doing Gwen’s hair. Gwen, so lazy about other things, kept it scrupulously clean and brushed it over and over with the care she never spared for lessons or games, so that it felt just like satin in Clarissa’s hands. Clarissa parted it gently with her fingers and began to deftly coil it into thick braids.
Gwen decided to try again to elicit details of Clarissa’s glamorous life. “What did you do before you came to Malory Towers? I suppose you had a governess, too. Miss Winters was alright, really, but she was a bit useless at teaching. But you’re quite good at lessons!”
“I had a governess too, but sometimes I had no lessons at all because I was too ill. I just stayed on the couch, and read. I suppose reading helps.” A strand of Gwen’s hair had become caught around one of Clarissa’s fingers, and gleamed there like a wedding band. Clarissa stared at it for a moment.
“It sounds much better than games,” Gwen said enviously, although she disliked reading and would do nothing at all but chatter and primp, if she had her way. “What did you read?”
“School stories, mostly.” Clarissa blushed a little. She wondered if she could tell Gwen about the books, a little. Now, while they were alone and Gwen’s hair was soft in Clarissa’s fingers, but her eyes were turned away, it might be possible.
“I can’t imagine reading about school. It’s bad enough having to come here!” Gwendoline disdainfully tossed her head, nearly making Clarissa drop the first plait. Clarissa hastily tied it with a ribbon and went on with the other side. The other ribbon, the one she had first picked up, had ended up in her pocket somehow. Clarissa reminded herself that she must take it out to tie Gwen’s second braid.
“Oh! No, I really wanted to come to school,” Clarissa said eagerly. “I was so lonely. And -“ She hesitated, then plunged on. Gwen was so kind - she would understand. “Some of the books were quite old. They belonged to my grown-up sister, you see, or my mother. And I liked them because some of the girls in the books had special friends. And I thought that if I came to school, I would make one. So I tried hard to do everything the doctors said and get well, even give up my riding, so I could come to school and have a chance to make my own special friend.”
“Well, you have me.” Gwen sounded a little impatient. She’d been hoping to hear about yacht and important friends, not stupid books! Other people’s interests always bored her.
“Yes, I do. And oh, Gwen -“ Clarissa stopped, wondering if she could ever make Gwen understand. If she told her about the girls in the books who had slept with each other’s ribbons under their pillows and made fervent vows of eternal friendship, would Gwendoline think she was quite, quite silly? Clarissa’s own sister had laughed mercilessly at what she called the hot-house atmosphere of the books. Malory Towers was quite unlike the schools in the books, after all.
Poor Clarissa wondered if she could ever explain to Gwen the queer, choking fascination of reading of the exclusive love between friends in some of the stories, and how they had made Clarissa ache inside, with an odd, suppressed excitement that was almost unbearable. She thought about Gwendoline kissing her, the way the girls in the books had sometimes kissed at moments of high emotion, or declaring love for her and making her promise never to marry, and the hands winding the golden hair began to tremble. She could almost feel the weight of the ribbon in her pocket. What if she asked Gwen if she could keep it?
She was afraid to say anything more about the books. How could Gwen understand what it was like, to be confined to lying down for months and months, reading about schoolgirls and wondering if she’d ever have a special friendship of her own? How could Gwen understand the way she’d read certain passages over and over, until she could barely breathe? But she had to say something!
“I’m glad you’re my friend,” she said again, softly. “Let’s be friends always, shall we?”
“Of course,” Gwen said obligingly, waiting for the invitation that would surely follow. She couldn’t understand why Clarissa was behaving so queerly, all quiet and dreamy. Perhaps she ought to just ask her straight out if she could visit!
“Oh, Gwen! I do - I do like you so much.” Clarissa stumbled over the words. She longed to put her arms around Gwen’s neck and embrace her, feel the broad softness of Gwen’s back against her and bury her face in the golden hair. Her heart was hammering in a way that was almost frightening, although it was nothing like the way it fluttered when she was unwell.
“Gwen! Clarissa!” A high clear voice ran out, and the girls looked up to see Darrell crossing the Court to them, Bill a step behind. Both girls looked rosy and fresh with exercise and sunshine, while Clarissa felt like a wilted flower. Not that Clarissa thought she was very flowerlike - a small, drab weed would be more in her line! “It’s nearly tea time. You must come and wash now, or you’ll be late. Goodness knows you deserve to miss tea after skulking out here when you should be swimming. Clarissa, why don’t you tell your precious Gwendoline Mary to buck up a little?”
Clarissa, who could no more tell her precious Gwendoline Mary to buck up than she could fly, looked wide-eyed back at her head girl, and Darrell sighed in resignation. Trying to chivvy along a mouse like Clarissa was like scolding Mary-Lou - it simply couldn't be done. “Come along, you two. Gwen, whatever do you think you’ve been doing? Your hair looks disgusting, all down your back like that.”
Clarissa, as always a little shocked at the nasty way the other girls spoke to Gwen, said nothing. Gwendoline was forced to reply herself, her face sulky. “Clarissa was just replaiting it for me. Oh, blow, where’s my other ribbon?” She poked around on the ground and Bill and Darrell joined the hunt.
Clarissa, too, bent and examined the ground, quite as if she expected to find the ribbon there! Somehow, she simply couldn’t bear to admit that it was in her own pocket.
At last Darrell straightened. “You’ll just have to find another when we get back to the dormy. You really are the limit, Gwen. Come on!” She headed back towards North Tower, Gwen trailing after her.
Clarissa stayed behind, surprised and ashamed of herself. She normally would not tell even the smallest falsehood, yet she let Gwen look for her ribbon and never mentioned at all that it was secreted in her pocket. Why, it was just like stealing and then telling falsehoods about it! She looked so downcast that Bill, who didn’t generally pay much attention other girls, noticed and wondered if she was ill. Clarissa was supposedly delicate, after all.
“Are you all right?” she asked in her off-hand, friendly way. “Is it your heart?”
Clarissa gave her a long startled look, which startled Bill herself a little, then seemed to shake herself. “No. No, it’s not. Thank you.”
Through her muddled, aching feelings, she wondered at Bill’s kindness. Gwendoline had told her such terrible things about the other girl, but Bill really seemed so nice, even if her boyish ways were a little alarming. She never joined in when Alicia or Darrell said harsh things to Gwen, and Clarissa rather liked the firm set of her jaw. And she had a truly wonderful horse, a horse with which Clarissa longed to make friends, and which worshipped its mistress. Horses knew about people. But then, Gwen had been at the school a long time and knew all about the other girls. She was clever that way.
Clarissa looked hungrily after the plump figure with its very grownup curves and the shining golden hair. So much prettier and more charming and - normal - than someone like Clarissa. It was important never to let Gwen know about what she sometimes dreamed. It had been a lucky escape really, being interrupted by Darrell and Bill. But oh, to think of what might have happened! Clarissa’s palms grew damp at the thought, and she almost forgot all about Bill, plain and sturdy, by her side.
As if she felt Clarissa’s gaze, Gwen came back to meet them. “What’s going on?” she asked, a little sharply. She disliked Bill, and she was determined to keep her well-born friend to her self. “Why aren’t you coming, Clarissa?”
“Bill was asking about my heart.”
Gwen shook her head crossly, gold hair from the unbound plait unwinding itself still more. “Go away, Bill. It’s no business of yours. I can take care of Clarissa’s heart myself, thank you.”
She tugged Clarissa away, and Bill shrugged her shoulder to herself, thinking how silly the new girl was, to let herself be run by a horror like Gwendoline Mary. Oh, well. Gwen was welcome to the queer little thing! Bill put her out of her mind, and went back to planning her evening ride on Thunder.
Clarissa followed Gwen meekly, aware that she was blushing yet again at the thought of Gwen taking care of her heart. Of course, that wasn’t what Gwen had meant at all. Still...
In her pocket, Clarissa wound the ribbon around and around, wondering if it she should hide it under her pillow, or use it to bind up a nosegay of flowers to keep on her bedside table.
Title: Ribbons
Fandom: Malory Towers
Pairing: Clarissa/Gwendoline
Rating: G for Sapphic schoolgirl crushiness
Summary: Gwendoline really does have the prettiest golden hair. Set during the first half of Upper Fourth at Malory Tower and written for the prompt “keepsake” for 10lilies.
ETA: A failed closed tag meant a whole section of this story was missing. Sorry! It's back now.
Ribbons
Gwendoline, of course, had no business missing swimming at all. She was perfectly healthy, and Miss Williams or Miss Potts would have dismissed her languishing glances and the fingertips pressed to her temple as the malingering it was. Fortunately Mam’zelle Dupont was more sympathetic, especially when Gwen explained that she wanted to keep her friend Clarissa company. Poor girl, she was barred from the games all English girls loved so much on account of her weak heart, and Gwendoline hated to leave her alone. That Lacey child might be stupid at French, but she was such a dear, kind girl, Mam’zelle thought, to want to keep that frail, unattractive Clarissa company.
Clarissa’s thoughts more or less mirrored Mam’zelle’s, although she would have been quite shocked if she knew Gwen’s headache was entirely imaginary. Games and recreation hours were very dull for poor Clarissa. She was very glad that Gwen preferred to spend time with her than swimming, although secretly she wondered why anyone would. To give up the cool green water of the rock pool, on such a hot, sticky day! Clarissa longed to be brave enough to defy the orders of her specialist and plunge into the pool with the other girls.
She loyally smothered a yawn as Gwendoline started on yet another dull tale about Miss Winters and how the silly old thing adored her. Clarissa was a little cross with herself for being so mean as to be bored and sleepy. The heat was to blame, she decided. Gwen, knowing that Miss Potts was likely to show the sharp edge of her tongue and pack her off to swimming regardless if she caught her skulking in the common rooms, had overcome her fear of insects and taken Clarissa to sit in the gardens of Malory Tower’s sheltered internal Court. Sheltered from sea breezes, the Court was really too hot on a day like this. Clarissa’s head ached with too much sun, and she could feel perspiration gather under the rims of her thick glasses. A bee buzzed droningly nearby. It was no wonder she was yawning!
“But you must have lots of guests yourself!” Gwen said brightly. Clarissa shook herself back to attention, guiltily realising that she had missed the change in conversation. “Your mother must do a lot of entertaining. In her position, I mean.”
She looked enquiringly at the other girl, but somehow Clarissa shied away from answering. It would make Gwen feel badly, she told herself, to hear about Clarissa’s charming, elegant mother, about the parties and titled guests and the sharp difference between Clarissa’s home life and that of the other girls. Her older sister had warned her against making the other girls at a sensible school like Malory Towers too aware of the distance between their home lives. Besides, Clarissa knew very little of her parents’ doings. She knew she was a social failure: plain and tedious, good at riding but nothing else, and always ill. She had generally been resting when Mother and Father’s friends came over.
“Oh, Mother has lots of friends,” she said vaguely. She adjusted her glasses and wished hard that they had gone to stand by the pool themselves. It would be cooler there, with the fresh air and the splashing from the other girls, even if she wasn’t allowed in the water.
Gwen herself had no intention of going near the pool. She knew the other girls suspected she was make believing her headache, and was afraid that beastly Alicia or Darrell might take it into her head to push her into the water, fully clothed! They would be quite capable of it. So the girls baked together in the Court, and Clarissa didn’t dare complain. She was already learning what Gwen’s sulks were like, and how much in the way of humbling herself was necessary to win back her friend’s favour.
Disappointed that Clarissa had failed to regale her with glittering tales of her family’s social life - like Daphne had been only too willing, but of course Daphne had been spinning falsehoods, the little beast, and Clarissa was the real thing - Gwendoline began on an account of her own hols. Perhaps then, she told herself, Clarissa would mention her own plans for end of term, and then an invitation to her dearest friend would naturally be forthcoming.
Clarissa leaned back in the hot sun and tried to pay attention. In the sleepy sunlight, it was rather hard to follow Gwen’s rather dull story. Gwen did like to chatter endlessly about herself and her doings, but Clarissa usually didn’t mind that, even when Gwen repeated her lengthy tales. Clarissa knew that she should always provide a sympathetic ear. After all, that was what friends did for each other, and she loved making her own special friend happy.
Even so, it was difficult to keep paying attention.
She soon stopped pretending to follow Gwen’s prattle, and soaked up the sight of her instead. Gwendoline had loosed her hair and allowed it to fall in a golden sheet down her shoulders. She was very proud of her hair, and took every opportunity let it flow around her like the locks of a princess in a fairytale. If only it curled like Daphne’s golden cloud!
Her discarded ribbons were cast on the grass beside her. Clarissa picked one up and twisted the orange satin between her fingers, thinking of a school story she had once read in which a girl asked another girl for her hair ribbon as a favour, and had hit a hundred runs for the school cricket team on the basis of it. Even if Malory Towers had gone in for cricket, Clarissa was quite sure she could not manage a single run! Even so, she felt oddly reluctant to let go of the ribbon that had held Gwen’s glorious hair. She gazed at her friend again.
Sharply aware of her own lack of attractiveness, Clarissa envied and admired Gwen’s plump, golden prettiness. She couldn’t understand why the other girls teased Gwen about being fat - Clarissa, who was as small and scrawny as a much younger child, would have loved to be tall and well-built, with a grownup figure! She knew that Gwen was precisely the kind of daughter her own mother would have liked: attractive, with graceful manners but far more self-confidence than Clarissa had ever been able to muster. Gwen’s eyes were so pretty, too; they were wide and china blue, all part of what Mam’zelle admiring called the true English beauty. She was almost as lovely as Daphne, but much more kind and suitable as a friend. And she had chosen Clarissa as her own friend! Clarissa, who didn’t know how to make friends and found school quite overwhelming and lonely, adored Gwendoline for looking after her.
“Didn’t you have friends to stay?” she asked suddenly. Somehow she didn’t like the idea of Gwen having a friend to stay. Perhaps Gwen had only taken her up because an old friend - perhaps that American she had heard mentioned, Zerelda - had left the school. It was impossible that Gwen had reached sixteen without having a true friend. She hadn’t been shy and confined to bed like Clarissa. Clarissa felt jealousy, cold and unpleasant, at the thought.
Gwen hesitated a little, then tossed her golden head. “Oh, none of the girls here are quite suitable as friends. Not like you, Clarissa.” There was a long moment in which the two girls looked away from each other, each hoping that the other would invite her home. Finally Gwen decided to add a little further prompting. “I was terribly lonely until I met you.”
Clarissa glowed with a sudden warmth that had nothing to do with the beating sun. “I was lonely, too. You’re my only friend.”
Gwen patted her hand. “I won’t let you be lonely any longer.”
Clarissa smiled gratefully. She didn’t like to admit to herself that she was still a little lonely, even with Gwen’s exclusive friendship. None of the other girls had shown much interest in her, except Daphne and Mavis, and Clarissa had been truly horrified at the things Gwen had told her about those two girls. Sometimes Mary-Lou smiled shyly at Clarissa, and Clarissa, shy and awkward herself, was rather attracted to the mousy girl, but Mary-Lou unaccountably spent all her time with Mavis and Daphne. Sometimes Clarissa wondered if they could be all that bad if gentle Mary-Lou liked them so much, but she didn’t dare disagree with Gwen, even in thought.
She felt a little oppressed, suddenly, as if something was going to happen for which she wasn’t quite prepared. She tried to change the subject. “Gwen, aren’t you hot with your hair like that? I couldn’t bear all its weight in summer, myself.”
“It is a little warm,” Gwendoline admitted. She touched it a little self-consciously, admiring the way it caught the sunshine. “But doesn’t it look nice?” She looked innocently at her friend, confidently waiting for the flood of loving flattery. She had quite forgotten her disappointment at Clarissa failing to regale her with tales of aristocratic balls - and extend an invitation to Gwen to experience them herself in the hols.!
“Your hair’s beautiful. Just like gold silk,” Clarissa said fervently, and Gwen beamed. “But, oh! Won’t you get into terrible trouble if one of the mistresses catches you with it down like that again? Remember what Miss Williams said yesterday!”
Gwendoline scowled blackly, making Clarissa quite startled. She looked quite unlike Clarissa’s friend, always so sweet and gracious! “I supposed I’d better tie it back,” she muttered. “Oh, I hate plaiting my hair! Mummy always likes me to wear it down at home.”
“Never mind,” Clarissa comforted. “It looks pretty in braids, too - quite like Rapunzel.”
Gwen’s sweetness instantly returned. She had never quite thought of it that way, but now Clarissa pointed it out, she saw it was exactly right. “You are clever, Clarissa,” she said.
Clarissa blushed hotly at the praise. She knew she was not clever in the least, but hearing pretty Gwen say so made her pleased and embarrassed. “Would you like me to plait it for you?” she offered.
Gwendoline smiled on her more than ever. She loved the thought of high born Clarissa doing her hair, quite as if she was Gwen’s own governess. Besides, she had never quite mastered the art of plaiting hair neatly herself. “Would you? That would be so sweet of you.”
“I’d love to. Come sit on the sunken steps so that I can sit above you.”
The two friends moved to sit in the sunken circle where plays were sometimes performed in the summer, and Clarissa settled happily on the step above her friend. She loved doing Gwen’s hair. Gwen, so lazy about other things, kept it scrupulously clean and brushed it over and over with the care she never spared for lessons or games, so that it felt just like satin in Clarissa’s hands. Clarissa parted it gently with her fingers and began to deftly coil it into thick braids.
Gwen decided to try again to elicit details of Clarissa’s glamorous life. “What did you do before you came to Malory Towers? I suppose you had a governess, too. Miss Winters was alright, really, but she was a bit useless at teaching. But you’re quite good at lessons!”
“I had a governess too, but sometimes I had no lessons at all because I was too ill. I just stayed on the couch, and read. I suppose reading helps.” A strand of Gwen’s hair had become caught around one of Clarissa’s fingers, and gleamed there like a wedding band. Clarissa stared at it for a moment.
“It sounds much better than games,” Gwen said enviously, although she disliked reading and would do nothing at all but chatter and primp, if she had her way. “What did you read?”
“School stories, mostly.” Clarissa blushed a little. She wondered if she could tell Gwen about the books, a little. Now, while they were alone and Gwen’s hair was soft in Clarissa’s fingers, but her eyes were turned away, it might be possible.
“I can’t imagine reading about school. It’s bad enough having to come here!” Gwendoline disdainfully tossed her head, nearly making Clarissa drop the first plait. Clarissa hastily tied it with a ribbon and went on with the other side. The other ribbon, the one she had first picked up, had ended up in her pocket somehow. Clarissa reminded herself that she must take it out to tie Gwen’s second braid.
“Oh! No, I really wanted to come to school,” Clarissa said eagerly. “I was so lonely. And -“ She hesitated, then plunged on. Gwen was so kind - she would understand. “Some of the books were quite old. They belonged to my grown-up sister, you see, or my mother. And I liked them because some of the girls in the books had special friends. And I thought that if I came to school, I would make one. So I tried hard to do everything the doctors said and get well, even give up my riding, so I could come to school and have a chance to make my own special friend.”
“Well, you have me.” Gwen sounded a little impatient. She’d been hoping to hear about yacht and important friends, not stupid books! Other people’s interests always bored her.
“Yes, I do. And oh, Gwen -“ Clarissa stopped, wondering if she could ever make Gwen understand. If she told her about the girls in the books who had slept with each other’s ribbons under their pillows and made fervent vows of eternal friendship, would Gwendoline think she was quite, quite silly? Clarissa’s own sister had laughed mercilessly at what she called the hot-house atmosphere of the books. Malory Towers was quite unlike the schools in the books, after all.
Poor Clarissa wondered if she could ever explain to Gwen the queer, choking fascination of reading of the exclusive love between friends in some of the stories, and how they had made Clarissa ache inside, with an odd, suppressed excitement that was almost unbearable. She thought about Gwendoline kissing her, the way the girls in the books had sometimes kissed at moments of high emotion, or declaring love for her and making her promise never to marry, and the hands winding the golden hair began to tremble. She could almost feel the weight of the ribbon in her pocket. What if she asked Gwen if she could keep it?
She was afraid to say anything more about the books. How could Gwen understand what it was like, to be confined to lying down for months and months, reading about schoolgirls and wondering if she’d ever have a special friendship of her own? How could Gwen understand the way she’d read certain passages over and over, until she could barely breathe? But she had to say something!
“I’m glad you’re my friend,” she said again, softly. “Let’s be friends always, shall we?”
“Of course,” Gwen said obligingly, waiting for the invitation that would surely follow. She couldn’t understand why Clarissa was behaving so queerly, all quiet and dreamy. Perhaps she ought to just ask her straight out if she could visit!
“Oh, Gwen! I do - I do like you so much.” Clarissa stumbled over the words. She longed to put her arms around Gwen’s neck and embrace her, feel the broad softness of Gwen’s back against her and bury her face in the golden hair. Her heart was hammering in a way that was almost frightening, although it was nothing like the way it fluttered when she was unwell.
“Gwen! Clarissa!” A high clear voice ran out, and the girls looked up to see Darrell crossing the Court to them, Bill a step behind. Both girls looked rosy and fresh with exercise and sunshine, while Clarissa felt like a wilted flower. Not that Clarissa thought she was very flowerlike - a small, drab weed would be more in her line! “It’s nearly tea time. You must come and wash now, or you’ll be late. Goodness knows you deserve to miss tea after skulking out here when you should be swimming. Clarissa, why don’t you tell your precious Gwendoline Mary to buck up a little?”
Clarissa, who could no more tell her precious Gwendoline Mary to buck up than she could fly, looked wide-eyed back at her head girl, and Darrell sighed in resignation. Trying to chivvy along a mouse like Clarissa was like scolding Mary-Lou - it simply couldn't be done. “Come along, you two. Gwen, whatever do you think you’ve been doing? Your hair looks disgusting, all down your back like that.”
Clarissa, as always a little shocked at the nasty way the other girls spoke to Gwen, said nothing. Gwendoline was forced to reply herself, her face sulky. “Clarissa was just replaiting it for me. Oh, blow, where’s my other ribbon?” She poked around on the ground and Bill and Darrell joined the hunt.
Clarissa, too, bent and examined the ground, quite as if she expected to find the ribbon there! Somehow, she simply couldn’t bear to admit that it was in her own pocket.
At last Darrell straightened. “You’ll just have to find another when we get back to the dormy. You really are the limit, Gwen. Come on!” She headed back towards North Tower, Gwen trailing after her.
Clarissa stayed behind, surprised and ashamed of herself. She normally would not tell even the smallest falsehood, yet she let Gwen look for her ribbon and never mentioned at all that it was secreted in her pocket. Why, it was just like stealing and then telling falsehoods about it! She looked so downcast that Bill, who didn’t generally pay much attention other girls, noticed and wondered if she was ill. Clarissa was supposedly delicate, after all.
“Are you all right?” she asked in her off-hand, friendly way. “Is it your heart?”
Clarissa gave her a long startled look, which startled Bill herself a little, then seemed to shake herself. “No. No, it’s not. Thank you.”
Through her muddled, aching feelings, she wondered at Bill’s kindness. Gwendoline had told her such terrible things about the other girl, but Bill really seemed so nice, even if her boyish ways were a little alarming. She never joined in when Alicia or Darrell said harsh things to Gwen, and Clarissa rather liked the firm set of her jaw. And she had a truly wonderful horse, a horse with which Clarissa longed to make friends, and which worshipped its mistress. Horses knew about people. But then, Gwen had been at the school a long time and knew all about the other girls. She was clever that way.
Clarissa looked hungrily after the plump figure with its very grownup curves and the shining golden hair. So much prettier and more charming and - normal - than someone like Clarissa. It was important never to let Gwen know about what she sometimes dreamed. It had been a lucky escape really, being interrupted by Darrell and Bill. But oh, to think of what might have happened! Clarissa’s palms grew damp at the thought, and she almost forgot all about Bill, plain and sturdy, by her side.
As if she felt Clarissa’s gaze, Gwen came back to meet them. “What’s going on?” she asked, a little sharply. She disliked Bill, and she was determined to keep her well-born friend to her self. “Why aren’t you coming, Clarissa?”
“Bill was asking about my heart.”
Gwen shook her head crossly, gold hair from the unbound plait unwinding itself still more. “Go away, Bill. It’s no business of yours. I can take care of Clarissa’s heart myself, thank you.”
She tugged Clarissa away, and Bill shrugged her shoulder to herself, thinking how silly the new girl was, to let herself be run by a horror like Gwendoline Mary. Oh, well. Gwen was welcome to the queer little thing! Bill put her out of her mind, and went back to planning her evening ride on Thunder.
Clarissa followed Gwen meekly, aware that she was blushing yet again at the thought of Gwen taking care of her heart. Of course, that wasn’t what Gwen had meant at all. Still...
In her pocket, Clarissa wound the ribbon around and around, wondering if it she should hide it under her pillow, or use it to bind up a nosegay of flowers to keep on her bedside table.