Chapter Ten

Malory Towers

Winter had set in early in Cornwall and sitting in the church froze Darrell to the bone. Darrell, Sally, Sally’s mother and father, and Sally’s little sister Daffy, were staying in Aunt Mary’s house. She found it rather creepy, and so did Sally. 

    ‘Well, Sally,’ Darrell had overhead Sally’s mother say the night before the funeral, ‘where would you have us stay?’ That was the end of it. 

    Daffy was eight now. She was a well-mannered but quiet girl, and Darrell never felt completely at ease with her. When Darrell had given her condolences to Daffy, who was a rather intelligent girl for her age, Daffy had been insolent and simply ignored what Darrell said. ‘Perhaps,’ Darrell had thought to herself later, when she was brushing her teeth and staring at herself in the glass, ‘I shouldn’t have mentioned it to Daffy.’ Darrell wondered if Daffy knew how Aunt Mary had died. No one had mentioned it in Darrell’s presence, and she wondered if she was even meant to know. She imagined it would be rather a scandal if it got out. Darrell felt odd when she went to bed. She was in the same room she had stayed in when she and Sally had holidayed in Cornwall. She remembered her problems then, which consisted of what to wear or whether to see John when she returned to university, and it angered her, because her problems now seemed much harder to solve. Everything was muddy. She slept badly. 

    Ashes to ashes. Dust to dust. 

    The phrase ran through Darrell’s head. Had Aunt Mary lost consciousness during the fall? Darrell wondered. It was impossible to know. 

Sally Hope knocked on Darrell’s door at eight in the evening. The rest of her family were asleep. They had spread themselves around the large manor house. It was no secret that Sally’s parents slept separately. Daffy had taken the mysterious attic room. ‘Sally,’ Darrell mumbled, sleepily. She’d dressed in her pyjamas and was ready for bed. 

    ‘Get dressed,’ Sally said. ‘We’re going for that walk. Won’t take long.’ 

    Darrell followed Sally’s instructions. Sally came into the room and shut the door behind her. She stayed in the room as Darrell dressed into her brown jumper and skirt. Darrell didn’t know how she felt about Sally being in the same room as she dressed, now she knew what she’d done with Mildred. But, for some reason, the business with Mildred seemed to have happened in another universe. Cornwall belonged to Darrell and Sally. ‘I’m ready,’ Darrell said. They took a stack of digestive biscuits from the tin in the drawing room, then left the house without telling Sally’s parents. ‘We are adults now,’ Darrell thought, ‘we might do what we like.’ 

    They didn’t speak much. Once, Darrell told Sally to avoid an awkward rock on the floor. The route was uneven. Darrell thought it was incredibly lucky that the moon was out tonight. Still, she could barely see where they were going. Maybe it was some supernatural force which led them to Malory Towers, or perhaps the route had been lodged in their memory after years of cross country running. Sally had been the better runner between Darrell and Sally, but Darrell was the better swimmer. 

    They sat on a hill, flanked by two large oaks, facing North Tower. Darrell could hear the roar of the sea behind her. She had always liked the little forest of trees which surrounded the school. Darrell saw that the lights in the common room were on. The older girls in the final two forms would be in there talking amongst themselves. She remembered how, on her seventeenth birthday, Miss Potts had entered the common room and given Darrell, Sally, and Alicia a small bottle of sherry to share, to celebrate Darrell’s birthday. The common room looked warm to Darrell. Sally was leant forward. She seemed to be leaning forward a lot nowadays. Darrell bit her fingernails. Recently, she had bitten them to the nub. 

    ‘Mother didn’t want me at the funeral at first. Said I should focus on studying. But I needed to leave St. Andrews. I couldn’t bare it any longer.’ 

    Darrell started to nibble at one of the soft digestive biscuits. She thought the biscuits were probably past their best. 

    ‘Why were you so miserable this summer?’ 

    Darrell looked to North Tower. The moonlight hit its side. She bunched her knees to her chest. ‘Do you ever feel, Sally, that out best years are behind us?’ 

    Sally let out a little sigh. 

    ‘I suppose I feel like that sometimes, and it makes me sad.’ 

    ‘I haven’t forgiven you, you know,’ Sally said. ‘I don’t know whether I can forgive some of the things you’ve said and done recently.’ 

    When Darrell laid out the events of the past two months, since they’d returned to university, she could see Sally Hope’s point. 

    ‘I wish we were in North Tower now.’ 

    Both girls might have said this.