The Dragonfly Pool

The headmaster’s study was large and light. One window looked out over the courtyard; another faced the terraced garden leading to the playing field and, beyond it, the rolling hills. Now, hearing a quiet knock at the door, Daley said, “Come in,” and a girl with a nibbled fringe and interested eyes came into the room.

“Ah, Talitha Hamilton, is that right? And they call you Tally.”

“Yes.”

Clearly this wasn’t a curtsying situation, though the headmaster sat behind an impressive desk, so Tally smiled instead and put out her hand.

The headmaster had a headache. He always had a headache for the first three days of term, but for a moment the throbbing grew less. For this child was actually on the list, she was expected, she looked intelligent—and she had taken notice of the cedar tree. And this was important because she was on a scholarship and he couldn’t console himself with thinking that she brought much-needed money with her. One child, however awful, provided the salary for a teacher for a term, or a year’s worth of books. He shouldn’t of course have given any more scholarships, but his friend Professor Mayfield had spoken so enthusiastically of the selfless work done by Tally’s father that he had agreed.

“Now,” he said, when he had welcomed her to Delderton, “have you any questions you wanted to ask me? ”

“Well, I do have. I mean, I thought I was coming to an ordinary school where girls lived in dorms and shouted, ‘Well played, Daphne!’—and all that . . . but this isn’t like that, is it? ”

“No.”

“I’m not reproaching anybody, but what is it exactly? People say it’s a progressive school and I know what progressive means—at least I think I do. It means going from somewhere to somewhere else. But where to? ”

“Ah yes.” The headmaster for a moment looked sad. “That is a good question. I suppose we want children to take responsibility for their own lives. To choose what is right rather than to have it forced on them.”

“Yes, I see. Of course, one would have to know what is right.”

“Don’t you think one does know? ”

“I suppose so. Usually. But oughtn’t . . . the whole school to be going from somewhere to somewhere else? To somewhere better . . . if it’s being progressive? I mean, the world isn’t very good, is it, with this war coming and everything.”

Daley was silent. The child was certainly right about the state of the world. For a moment he saw what she saw: a whole school marching like an avenging army on the side of The Good.

“We do what we can to help: we take a lot of children from abroad. Staff, too, and many of the people who help with domestic work come from oppressed countries. And there’s a council meeting every other Monday: if you have any ideas you could put them forward then.”

Tally nodded, screwing up her face. “I expect it’s more difficult than I realize.” And then: “Is it true we don’t have to go to lessons? ”

“You don’t have to, but I hope you will. We have some excellent teachers.”

“So it’s all right to go to lessons? We don’t have to be free if we don’t want to? ”

The headmaster smiled. “No, Tally, you don’t have to be free.”

But Tally had another question. “I was wondering about Augusta Carrington. Did anyone find her? ”

“Yes, they did,” said the headmaster, looking pleased. “She’s turned up at a school in Wales. She got on the wrong train at Paddington—it happens from time to time.”

He looked down at the note he had made on his writing pad. All the children had a tutor chosen from among the staff, whom they saw once a week and to whom they could take special problems. Next to Tally’s name he had written: “David Prosser.” There was nothing wrong with the chemistry teacher; he was a perfectly sensible and responsible man. But now he crossed it out and wrote a different name.

“Your tutor will be Matteo von Tarlenheim. He takes biology . . . and other things.”

Now why did I do that? he wondered when Tally had gone. He usually kept Matteo for difficult boys or for children like Julia Mecklebury who had a special problem—and Tally was in neither of these groups.

But he did not change his mind.

When she got back to her corridor Tally found that Julia had finished unpacking and arranging her room. She had tacked up two posters of landscapes—an autumn wood and a rocky beach—and plumped up an embroidered cushion on the bed. Everything looked cheerful and nice, except for the photo of Gloria Grantley, the film star with sausage curls and pouting lips, which was in a silver frame by Julia’s bed.

“Is she a friend of the family? ” asked Tally, but Julia just shook her head, and Barney came in then to say he was going to settle the axolotl in his proper tank in the pet hut and, if they came with him, Tally could see where everything was.

The pet hut was behind the gym, which was a separate building set in trees. On the wooden steps leading up to it sat a small, very pretty girl talking in French to an enormous white rabbit that drooped down on either side of her slender knees.