The Dragonfly Pool

Aunt Virginia came in then and told them to come down to the dining room because tea was ready.

“You needn’t bother to do that,” said Margaret as Tally began to gather up the clothes on the bed. “The maid will do it.”

But after tea, just as Tally was getting ready to go home and was alone with her cousins, Margaret said: “By the way, what’s the name of your school? The one you’re going to.”

“It’s called Delderton.”

Margaret and Roderick looked at each other. “Delderton? Are you sure? ”

“Yes. Why? ”

There was a pause.

Then: “Oh, nothing,” said Roderick, shrugging his shoulders. “Nothing at all.”

But as the maid opened the front door to let her out, Tally heard them titter. The titter turned into full-scale laughter—but the door was shutting, and Tally was out in the street.

CHAPTER THREE

The Train

Aunt Hester and Aunt May had always done their best to share in Tally’s life. When Tally was six years old and had been cast as a sheep in the nativity play they had read books about agriculture and sheep farming and taken Tally to the zoo to watch the way the cloven-footed mammals moved their feet—and Tally’s performance on the day had been very much admired.

So now they tackled Angela of the Upper Fourth and The Madcap of the Remove and enjoyed them very much, though they were a little worried about how Tally would get on, having to say “spiffing” and “ripping” all the time, and shouting, “Well played, girls!” on the hockey field.

What they couldn’t do, however, was get Tally’s school uniform together, because no list came from Delderton.

“You mustn’t worry, dear,” said Aunt May. “The school will let us know in good time and then we’ll go and fit you up. They’ll pay—it’s a full scholarship.”

“Yes . . . but there are so many things . . . Eight pairs of shoes; I’ll get muddled. And a liberty bodice . . . I don’t really know what that is,” said Tally.

She was worried, too, about the rules: the curtsy to the headmistress and remembering to call her ma’am. And if the rules were going to be difficult, breaking them in the right way was going to be difficult, too. The midnight feasts in the dorm, for example . . . What if she stepped on an open tin of sardines and brought Matron running?

Because Aunt May’s letters in violet ink were apt to be rather emotional and Aunt Hester’s in green ink were almost impossible to read, Dr. Hamilton asked his receptionist, Miss Hoy, to write to the school asking for a list of the things Tally would need.

But before they got a reply Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, and after that no one had time to worry about braided blazers and green knickers with pockets in them, let alone about feasts in the dorm.

The milkman’s son got his call-up papers for the army and Dr. Hamilton spent more and more time at the hospital, where they were arranging for the evacuation of patients to the country; posters appeared telling people to grow vegetables and DIG FOR VICTORY, and Aunt Hester said she wanted to go and entertain the troops.

“I know I’m not young,” she said, “but my voice is still good.”

Then, just a week before the beginning of term, a letter came from the school secretary at Delderton announcing the departure of the school train from Paddington Station at ten o’clock on April 13. There was still nothing about the school uniform or the rules and regulations.

“They’ll probably fit you out when you get there, like in the army,” said the aunts consolingly.

And Tally tried not to panic because she was going to an unknown place without any of the right things and without knowing how to behave at all. After all, men were joining the army or going to fight in airplanes or drown in ships, and here she was fussing about liberty bodices and stepping on sardines.

Two days later there was a phone call from Aunt Virginia. Margaret was not starting school till the day after Tally, but Roderick’s school, Foxingham, which was also in the West Country, started the same day and his train left Paddington at almost the same time.

“So we could take Tally to the station,” she said. “There’s plenty of room in the Rolls.” To her husband she had said, “It would be nice for the girl to arrive in a decent car instead of that old crock her father drives. First impressions are so important.”

Tally looked in anguish at her father. “Oh please, I want you to take me.”

“Don’t be foolish,” said Dr. Hamilton. “You don’t suppose we’d let anyone else see you off? ”

Because of course May and Hester were coming, too. Actually, rather a lot of people had wanted to come and see Tally off: Kenny and Maybelle; the receptionist, Miss Hoy; Sister Felicia from the convent . . . but Dr. Hamilton had persuaded them that Tally would do best with only her immediate family to say good-bye.