Read Online No Talking after Lights by Angela Lambert - Free Book Online Page A
Authors: Angela Lambert
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not an example you would wish to set, surely?â
In the silence that followed, Sylvia felt her gorge rise and the dark mottling began on her neck. Mrs Birmingham noticed too, and waited.
âMay I know who has complained?â
âNo, you may not. You may deny the truth of it, however, if it is untrue. Do you?â
âI may⦠occasionally, under pressure⦠speak a little harshly, perhaps. I will try to moderate my reproofs,â said Sylvia formally.
âIf there is anything you need to talk over, I am always here. I am concerned about the stealing, of course. For the time being I prefer to investigate that privately. As to yourself: perhaps there are personal problems? Could you take the first Parentsâ Weekend off?â
âI have no personal problems, thank you, Headmistress. I shall not require the weekend off,â said Sylvia Parry.
âVery well. And now, thereâs the lunch bell. Thank you.â
One-all, thought Sylvia, as she stood up to leave. I have been warned. But she hadnât heard about the stealing. Iâve got to watch my step all the same. Self-righteous cow.
She strode into the dining-room and stood rigidly at the head of her table as one of the seniors gabbled, â
Benedictus benedicat per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum
. Amen.â From the shelter of closed eyes and bent heads, Diana Monk looked anxiously across at her. Chairs and benches scraped the floor as the school sat down to lunch.
Girls were popular either because they conformed, naturally and without trying, to the prevailing idea of what was normal, or because they deviated from it in some remarkable way. Hermione Mailing-Smith was a perfect example of normality, never harbouring a single original thought, but she also deviated because of her fragile beauty. A cloud of adoration, like a solar flare, surrounded Hermione on her elaborately modest path through the day. She epitomized sixteen-year-old loveliness, legs tapering elegantly as a pair of scissors from the neat, flat ovals of her buttocks, her body curving and budding as though it moved underwater, while the fine, pale hair looped on top of her head flowed like the air itself. She had wide eyes, wide nostrils and small, pretty ears. One in a thousand girls conforms to this universal image of young girlhood. It was Hermioneâs accidental good fortune to be that one.
Because Hermione looked so exquisite, so sweetly vulnerable, it was impossible not to feel that hercharacter - her soul - must be heavenly too. The tributes beauty accepts make it easy to be generous. Hermione had always taken this attention for granted, making little distinction between the worship she received from her parents, other peopleâs brothers, certain teachers, or her own contemporaries. At sixteen, however, she was becoming aware that the stares of men were more disturbing than those of the juniors. She was curious about the effect of her dazzling looks, the power she might wield, and impatient to put it to the test. She rather liked the idea of being cruel and seeing some young man languishing and fading away for hopeless love of her.
At school she was called âHermy-Oneâ, the joke failing to conceal that she was the unique, the one and only Hermione. She was not clever, but most members of staff made allowances; she was not tidy, but someone else would always gather up her discarded clothes or papers, grateful for the brief intimacy this permitted. Her personal mannerisms were mimicked throughout the school â the way she unpicked the pleats of her heavy tweed skirt so that instead of kicking lumpishly around her calves it swung coquettishly from her hips; her way of writing capital letters with a loop and a flourish. She ran like a deer, springing across the games field to a background roar of âOh, come
on
, Hermy-One! Oh, yes! Yes! Sheâs
done
it!â More girls had âpashesâ on Hermione than on any other
In the silence that followed, Sylvia felt her gorge rise and the dark mottling began on her neck. Mrs Birmingham noticed too, and waited.
âMay I know who has complained?â
âNo, you may not. You may deny the truth of it, however, if it is untrue. Do you?â
âI may⦠occasionally, under pressure⦠speak a little harshly, perhaps. I will try to moderate my reproofs,â said Sylvia formally.
âIf there is anything you need to talk over, I am always here. I am concerned about the stealing, of course. For the time being I prefer to investigate that privately. As to yourself: perhaps there are personal problems? Could you take the first Parentsâ Weekend off?â
âI have no personal problems, thank you, Headmistress. I shall not require the weekend off,â said Sylvia Parry.
âVery well. And now, thereâs the lunch bell. Thank you.â
One-all, thought Sylvia, as she stood up to leave. I have been warned. But she hadnât heard about the stealing. Iâve got to watch my step all the same. Self-righteous cow.
She strode into the dining-room and stood rigidly at the head of her table as one of the seniors gabbled, â
Benedictus benedicat per Jesum Christum Dominum nostrum
. Amen.â From the shelter of closed eyes and bent heads, Diana Monk looked anxiously across at her. Chairs and benches scraped the floor as the school sat down to lunch.
Girls were popular either because they conformed, naturally and without trying, to the prevailing idea of what was normal, or because they deviated from it in some remarkable way. Hermione Mailing-Smith was a perfect example of normality, never harbouring a single original thought, but she also deviated because of her fragile beauty. A cloud of adoration, like a solar flare, surrounded Hermione on her elaborately modest path through the day. She epitomized sixteen-year-old loveliness, legs tapering elegantly as a pair of scissors from the neat, flat ovals of her buttocks, her body curving and budding as though it moved underwater, while the fine, pale hair looped on top of her head flowed like the air itself. She had wide eyes, wide nostrils and small, pretty ears. One in a thousand girls conforms to this universal image of young girlhood. It was Hermioneâs accidental good fortune to be that one.
Because Hermione looked so exquisite, so sweetly vulnerable, it was impossible not to feel that hercharacter - her soul - must be heavenly too. The tributes beauty accepts make it easy to be generous. Hermione had always taken this attention for granted, making little distinction between the worship she received from her parents, other peopleâs brothers, certain teachers, or her own contemporaries. At sixteen, however, she was becoming aware that the stares of men were more disturbing than those of the juniors. She was curious about the effect of her dazzling looks, the power she might wield, and impatient to put it to the test. She rather liked the idea of being cruel and seeing some young man languishing and fading away for hopeless love of her.
At school she was called âHermy-Oneâ, the joke failing to conceal that she was the unique, the one and only Hermione. She was not clever, but most members of staff made allowances; she was not tidy, but someone else would always gather up her discarded clothes or papers, grateful for the brief intimacy this permitted. Her personal mannerisms were mimicked throughout the school â the way she unpicked the pleats of her heavy tweed skirt so that instead of kicking lumpishly around her calves it swung coquettishly from her hips; her way of writing capital letters with a loop and a flourish. She ran like a deer, springing across the games field to a background roar of âOh, come
on
, Hermy-One! Oh, yes! Yes! Sheâs
done
it!â More girls had âpashesâ on Hermione than on any other
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