“I came to see about placing my little girl in school.”
The flat surface broke up surprisingly into a smile. She was no longer a mysterious and sombre figure but a middle-aged person, kindly, but not especially bright. “This way.”
This way led to a small and shiny office presided over by another flat circular surface. This, in turn, gave way to a large and almost startlingly sunny room, one flight up, where sat at a desk a black-robed figure different from the rest. A large pink face. Penetrating shrewd blue eyes behind gold-rimmed spectacles. A voice that was deep without resonance. A woman with the look of the ruler. Parthy, practically, in the garb of a Mother Superior.
“Oh, my goodness!” thought Magnolia, in a panic. She held Kim’s cool little hand tight in her own agitated fingers. Of the two, she was incalculably the younger. The classrooms. The sewing room. Sister This. Sister That. The garden. Little hard benches. Prim gravel paths. Holy figures in stone brooding down upon the well-kept flower beds. Saints and angels and apostles. When all those glittering windows were dark, and the black-robed figures within lay in slumber, their hands (surely) crossed on their barren breasts and the flat circular surfaces reposed exactly in the centre of the hard pillows, and the moonlight flooded this cloistered garden spot with the same wanton witchery that enveloped a Sicilian bower, did these pious stone images turn suddenly into fauns and nymphs and dryads, Magnolia wondered, wickedly.
Aloud: “I see . . . I see . . . Oh, the refectory . . . I see. . . . Prayers . . . seven o’clock . . dark blue dresses . . . every Thursday from two to five . . . and sewing and music and painting as well. . . .”
And this was the chapel. I see. And this was her bedroom to be shared with another pupil. But she has always had her own. It is the rule. I see. I’ll let you know. It’s Kim. I know it is, but that’s her name, really. It’s—she was born in Kentucky and Illinois and Missouri—that is—yes, it does sound—no, I don’t think she’d like to have you call her anything else, she’s so used—I’ll let you know, may I? I’d like to talk it over with her to see if she thinks she’d be happy . . .
In the garden, in various classrooms, in the corridors, and on the stairs they had encountered girls from ten to sixteen or even eighteen years of age, and they were all dressed exactly alike, and they had all flashed a quick prim look at the visitors from beneath demure lids. Magnolia had sensed a curious undercurrent of plot, of mischief. Hidden secret thoughts scurried up the bare varnished halls, lurked grinning in the stairway niches.
They were back in the big sunny second-floor room after their tour of inspection. The pink-faced Parthy person was regarding them with level brows. Magnolia was clinging more tightly than ever to Kim’s hand. It was as though the child were supporting her, not she the child.
“But I know now whether I like it or not,” Kim had spoken up, astonishingly. “I like it.”
Magnolia was horrified to find that she had almost cried, “Oh, no! No, Kim!” aloud. She said, instead, “Are you sure, darling? You needn’t stay unless you want to. Mother just brought you to see if you might like it.”