♥♥
Oh dearest little Carla!
With a cruel stroke which has come at her from nowhere,it has all been stripped away from her. She has been stripped of her pride, of her sense of her own worth and of her small share of happiness. There is no slightest possibility in her present state that she can ever bounce back from a blow this fatal.
Dear God,had she not had enough with her best friend's betrayal? Was the heartbreak not enough? Is she to fail at everything now? Can she face The Principal and come out of it whole?
She feels her heart sink in despair and wants nothing more to do than collapse, put her head on her folded arms and weep the hopeless tears which sting her eyes. But no,she has a life to live. She must be brave and face yet another day.
Mask on,she smiles.
♥♥
Songs for the chapter:
i. Rolling in the deep - Adele
ii. It ain't me - Kygo ft Selena Gomez
♥♥
It is almost three in the morning. Still we are wakeful, cheek to cheek in the candlelight, whispering as soothingly as a pair of doves cooing in the cote,wondering what tomorrow might hold, how I might fall. Our heads turn together as Shawn comes into the room.
"Not asleep?" I ask.
"Yes and look at you two. I couldn't abandon you now, could I?" Shawn asks.
He crosses the room and sits on the floor with us. We all three turn our faces to the candle and watch the little flame.
"I wish we could all stay here like this, for always," I say dreamily.
"Do you?" Shawn asks, surprised. "I was thinking this is the worst night of my life. I was wishing that it has never started and that I might wake up in a moment and that it could all have been a dream."
Rhoda's smile is dark. "That's because you don't fear tomorrow," she says. "If you feared tomorrow as much as we do, you would wish that the night would go on forever."
However we wish, it grows steadily lighter and we hear the maid, Nina, clanking up the stairs to start her duties for another new day.
"Have a bath both of you," Shawn says encouragingly to us. "Have a hot bath, wash and brush your hair. You'll both feel so much better after."
I smile at the banality of the suggestion and Rhoda nods.
Shawn leans forward and kisses Rhoda on the forehead then me on both cheeks.
"I'll see you at school," he says and goes from the room.
We do as Shawn suggests and rosy from our bath, we have a rushed breakfast and walk to school.
♥♥
We see that there is a match at the tennis court that early in the morning and Rhoda suggests we watch it for a little while before classes start.
She walks to the court and sits under the awning, her head moving with all the discipline of a dancer, to the left and to the right, her head following the ball but her eyes sightless.
I am standing behind her, waiting for the bell to ring for class when the enclosure opens behind me and two high prefects come in.
The moment I see them I have the sense of something profound and dreadful happening. I open my mouth to speak but no words come. Mutely, I touch Rhoda's shoulder. She turns and looks up at me, and then beyond me to the hard faces of the prefects.
She gives them a polite smile but they do not smile back as they normally would have done. It is that which confirms our fear. That, and the screaming of a seagull which suddenly flies low over the court and shrieks like an injured girl.
"The Principal commands your presence, Rhoda," the tall one says shortly.
Rhoda, surprised as I am that she is the one they're sending for says, "oh", and rises up. She looks at the prefects and then she looks at me. She looks around and all the students around us. Suddenly their eyes are everywhere but looking at her. They are quite fascinated by the tennis. They have learned Rhoda's trick, their heads go right and left, while their eyes see nothing nothing and their ears are on the prick, their hearts pounding in case the prefects have been sent to summon them too.
"It is urgent, Rhoda," the prefect repeats simply and then turns quietly for the little gate. Rhoda shoots one bewildered glance at me and then falls in step behind the prefects.
"Rhoda!" I say sharply.
She looks back at me, she does not know, poor little thing, what awaits her.
"Come along," the prefect says in his dead calm voice and Rhoda gives me a little smile.
"Be of good cheer," she says suddenly, oddly; as if she is acting a part in a play. Then she turns and follows the prefects with all the composure of a princess.
I am too stunned to do anything but watch them go, but the minute they are out of sight I pick up our bags and run up the path to the classes to find Shawn.
I ran into the hallway and a man catches me as I head for the stairs. I push him away and then I realise it is the one man in the whole world that I dread; The Principal. "Sire! Sorry sire!"
I see on his face a look I have never seen before but one I have somehow realised is there, like a shadow. The look he gives me is that of a man who has used a cup and is going to break it. A man who is weary of a dog and is going to drown it. He is angered, even disgusted by me. I see it in his eyes.
"Wherever you are going in such haste, be mindful of your steps. You might stumble and fall," he says coldly, his every word heavy with meaning as if I should know what he is talking about.
"I am sorry, sire." I say meekly.
His face darkens even more. "Your little circle of friends is the subject of unspeakable whispers and you, the worst of them. Be sure that I shall watch you," he says with abrupt spite and turns away, his limp very pronounced.
I give a polite smile and wordlessly watch him go. There is something pitiful in my puzzled smile.
He rounds a corner and walks towards the direction of his office as I continue my race up the stairs to Shawn's class.
"Shawn! Oh my God Shawn!" I call out at the door of his classroom. His black head looks up, takes in my troubled state and he rushes to my side.
"Carla! What is it now, have you been summoned?" His voice is breaking, his hands pull me to him in a tight embrace.
"It's Rhoda. They sent for Rhoda!"
"Why? What has changed?"
"I have not the faintest idea! They just came, quite unceremoniously, and took her!"
At once he releases me, swears briefly, takes a dozen steps in a small circle and then comes back to me and takes my hands. "We'll just have to wait then, until she comes out." He scans my face. "Don't look like that, Rhoda won't be questioned about Tanu's rumours, and even if they do she has nothing to hide."
I take a shuddering breath and nod. "No. She has nothing to hide. She has seen nothing that is not common knowledge. Where is Joe?"
"I haven't seen him yet," he says dismissively. "I thought you were running because of your boyfriend."
"What about him?" I say suddenly, my heart hammering again. "What about Nahar?"
"They've summoned him."
"With Rhoda?" I say. "To answer to The Principal?"
Shawn's face is dark. "No," he says. "They have taken him to the Chapel. The Principal has formed a council to hear the charges. Joe could be there too."
My lips are too numb to frame any words. "What charges? Why even need a council? What is it that Tanu said yesterday?"
He shakes his head. "Nobody knows."
"I must go," I say suddenly. "I shouldn't have been skulking here in hiding like a fool. I shall go and tell them that this is wrong before it goes any further. I must get there to testify that Nahar is innocent, Rhoda too."
He moves quicker than I and is blocking the door before I am even two paces towards it.
"I knew you would say that and you shall not go."
"Shawn, these are my friends in the greatest of dangers. I have to save them."
"No. Because if you raise your head one inch they will have it off as well as theirs. Who do you think has no pity for them? We are pitiful, all of us. But so are we helpless. No one dares raise a finger of contradiction because we know The Principal is a tyrant. Tanu has triggered him and now he is run mad and we cannot prevent his tyranny."
"I have to save her at least," I say, pushing against his chest. "This is Rhoda, my beloved Rhoda. Do you think I want to go to my grave knowing that at the moment of her trial she looked around and saw no one lift a finger for her? If it is the death of me, the end of my schooling here, I shall go to her."
Suddenly, Shawn steps aside. "Go then," he says. "Kiss me goodbye before you go. And kiss your scholarship farewell too. For if you go into that room you will never come out of it unblemished. I should think it a certainty that you will be taken up for homosexuality at the very least."
"For doing what, for God's sake?" I exclaim. "What do you think I have done? What do you think any of us have done?"
"You let her kiss you, you keep Joe's desires secrets, you just seduced Nahar and entrapped him to promising himself for you," he counts my sins. "How many sins have you committed from that alone? How many of the ten commandments have you broken? I took you to Joe's house almost every other night, where did you sleep those nights? You slept in his bed..."
"You don't know that for sure!" I exclaim.
He looks hard at me. "You are taking yourself to the piercing eyes of those old men and you cannot offer a better defence than that? That you don't know for sure how many nights you actually got to sleep at all because performing whores' tricks on him kept you busy?"
I hesitate. "What? You're twisting my words!"
"Joe is certainly guilty of dabbling in homosexuality, he is certainly guilty of seducing you with bawdy behavior. You cannot defend him, Carla. He is guilty of at least half of the charge."
"But Rhoda..." I whisper.
"Rhoda goes with him in everything he does." Shawn says. "And she sins on her own account too. She is in love with you. If that alone were to come out it will be her undoing."
"Well Nahar is my boyfriend," I say. "I cannot desert him too."
"They don't know that yet and that is the only reason you are safe. Formication is sin and they believe that if you date someone you are sleeping with them. This is a very strict Catholic school Carla, do not forget. If you insist I will let you go foolishly to your own undoing or you can keep your head low and save your education."
My hands, which have been fists against his chest, drop to my side. "All right," I say dully. "I will go to Miss Bella and ask her if something can be done to save them."
I expect him to refuse this too, but he hesitates. "Are you sure that she won't have you taken up with them? She is rarely a woman in a merciful mood."
I nod, thinking hard. "Very well. I'll go to Sister Sonia first. She has seen me with Nahar before in quite a compromising state and she did no more than smile."
To my relief, Shawn nods. "Very well. I'll take you," he says. He takes my hand and leads me out of his class and down the stone stairs.
"What happened to Tanu and her circle of friends?" I ask.
Shawn shrugs. "She was taken up even earlier today with two of her friends. Yesterday she brought the drama hoping it might shame you but it only brought to light that she was in fact fondling with Joe and now she is all but ruined."
"Oh poor little thing." I mutter under my breath. "What shall become of her now?"
Shawn takes my hand and tucks it into his elbow. "Who knows? She could be excused with a warning but a little girl like her friend Liz, who only ever knows one thing and that is to follow Tanu around, is racked until she cries for her mother and tells them anything they ask her."
"I pray we all survive this." Is all I say as we get to the teachers' office.
Shawn decides to go in first and see how the atmosphere lies but before he can get to the door a nun walks out and surprised, I duck behind my brother, startling the woman. It takes a moment before I recognise it is in fact, Sister Sonia.
"Forgive me, Sister, I must see you."
"You, is it?" She says abruptly. "Where have you been hiding?"
"She's been with me," Shawn says firmly. "Where she should be. With her brother, before and after classes."
"Aye, I know," she says. "The only girl from my home science class without a stain on her virtue, and that is only as far as we know."
"Carla wants to ask you something and then we must go."
I pause. Now that it comes to it, I hardly know what I should ask Sister Sonia. "Are Rhoda and Nahar going to be spared?" I ask.
She gives me a dark bitter glance. "You would know as much about their doings as anyone," he says. "The three of you are as thick as sinners, God knows. You should have been questioned along with the others."
"Nothing happened," I swear passionately.
She puts her mouth to my ear. "Tanu is done for," she says. "She has been caught out in her rivalry with you. You're lucky Miss Bella is on the chosen council and that she is quite taken with you. You are safe for now."
"Is she to be expelled then? And the others?" I ask.
"Go, Carla. If you can survive this, you can survive anything," she says glumly. "Now if you don't want to be called in to give evidence against them you'll make yourself scarce and keep out of sight."
"But I can give evidence for their defence, if I go to them?"
She laughs shortly.
"There is no evidence for them," she reminds me. "In a cardinal sin there is no defence. All they can hope for is clemency of the council and forgiveness of The Principal. Now go!"
♥♥
We wait until noon for any further news. I sit absentmindedly at the very back of the class through all my lessons and when the bell rings for lunch break I dash out to see if I can get a word with Rhoda.
I hover at the door to the Chapel where they are questioning them but I am not allowed into the antechamber for fear that I might listen at the door.
"I don't want to listen, I just want to see my friends," I explain to the sentry. He nods and says nothing but gestures me back from the Chapel's main door.
A little after noon the door opens and a pageboy slips out and whispers to the sentry. "You have to go," the sentry says to me. "My orders from The Principal are to clear the way."
"For what?" I ask.
"You have to go," he says stubbornly. He gives a shout down the stairs to the dining hall and an answering shout comes ringing up. He gently pushes me to the side, away from the Chapel door, away from the stairs, away from the dining hall, away from the garden door and then out of the very garden itself.
All the other students encountered on the way are thrust to one side too. We all go as we are bid; it is as if we have not recognised how powerful The Principal is before this moment.
I realise that they have cleared the path from the Chapel to the assembly grounds. I am in the crowd, at the back and from the distance I see all the six students,Rhoda, Nahar, Joe, Tanu and her two friends walk out and stand at the front, bowing their heads like a field of corn in a blowing wind. The Principal and his council behind them.
The Principal steps forward and uses the moment for its greatest drama. He gives a speech of forgiveness and banishment. Tanu and her friends are to be expelled, Joe is on two weeks suspension, Rhoda warned and Nahar apologised to and thanked for his cooperation.
When he turns and dismisses us I thrust my way through the students who are gathering around to gossip. I grab both Nahar and Rhoda as if they are no more than babies and bring them away from the assembly grounds through the chattering shocked crowd.
"It's done," I say tersely to both of them. "Now walk."
Like a woman in a rage, I force them before me, through the gate and out of the school. Blindly, we find our way home, through the groups of students which are seething around and shouting the news to one another. That the whore has been expelled, that the poor girl and her friends have been judged unfairly, that the witty young woman has been betrayed by her own jealousy, all the different versions that Tanu carries in her ill lived life.
♥♥
I bring both Nahar and Rhoda to my home, without a care in the world of who sees us and who thinks what. The worst has happened. Nothing can be more devastating now.
Once we are inside my room Rhoda drops on the bed and bursts into tears.
"Dear God, I am sorry, Rhoda." I walk towards her and wrap my arms around her shaking form.
"It's like being torn in the bear pit," she says. "They questioned me all morning until I could not tell you what I had seen and heard. They twisted my words around and around and made it sound as if we are a bunch of whores in the whorehouse. I never did anything very wrong. Neither did you. But they have to know everything about everything. They have to know times and places and I felt so ashamed of everything!"
I pause patting her back for a moment, picking over the bones of this. "And what did they ask?"
"Who was bedding who, who was promising what? Who Joe gave gifts to, who is in love with you, what happens in our house when Tanu comes over to visit Joe? Everything! Everything!"
"And what did everyone answer?" I ask.
"Oh we all said nothing at first," Rhoda says spiritedly. "Of course. We all keep our secrets and try to keep those of others. But they know one thing from one person and one from another and in the end they turn you round and catch you out and ask you things you don't know and things you do, and all the time The Principal looks at you as if you are an utter whore, and Miss Bella is so kind that you explain things to her and then you find you have said everything you meant to keep secret."
She finishes on a great wail of tears and mops her eyes with the back of her hand.
Suddenly she looks up. "You are lucky Nahar defended you and Miss Bella likes you."
I rise from beside Rhoda and turn to Nahar. "Thank you, my love," I say shortly.
"Oh don't thank me, Carla, I did my best to say nothing but..," he abruptly stops, as pitiful as a schoolboy hoping to tell no tales. "They trapped me into saying that I have promised myself to you and that I mean to court you, the Christian way. So we can't keep meeting. We can't sneak around."
"I understand, Nahar," I say sweetly. "What did Tanu say? What went wrong for her?"
"She was in there the longest and she wrote out a statement and signed it too. "Rhoda says. "It was after she had spoken to them that we all had to go in again and they were asking about Joe. Nothing but Joe and you. How much you walked together and how often you and he were alone together."
"Tanu will have traduced us," I say flatly.
"She was bragging of it," Rhoda says. "Somehow everyone denied the relationship and she was caught out on her lies and the tables turned on her. She was accused of having seduced Joe and so she is to be expelled but Joe is only suspended for falling into sin as any human might."
"Oh" I say shortly, I can't believe how thinly my skin was saved.
"Can I stay here tonight?" Rhoda asks forlornly.
"Of course you can,Rhoda. Mi casa su casa."
"Well then, I'll bid you adieu." Nahar says and despite myself, I walk to him, kiss his lips and hold him in my arms for a little while.
I draw in a deep breath and hope I will remember the scent of him for now only God knows if I will ever get to be near him again.
A/N
Hello beautiful people. Here we are again. I really love writing this book and I hope you are enjoying reading it.
Lemme know of your thoughts down in the comments.
Do you think Carla should have been questioned too? Do you think the verdict was harsh on Tanu or was it appropriate? What shall become of Carla and Nahar now?
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