"No, Miss Rivers, I am named for that place we all expect to go to, sooner or later."
Several of the girls behind me tittered. Miss Rivers's eyes turned into hard stones. "All right, Miss Casteel. I suspect only in West Virginia are there parents so audacious as to challenge the powers that be. And now, let us open our government book to page 212 and proceed with today's lesson. Miss Casteel, since you join us late in this semester, we will expect you to catch up before this week is over. Every Friday there will be an exam to test what you have learned. And now girls, begin today's class by reading through pages 212 to 242, and when you have finished, close your books and put them inside your desks. Then we will begin our discussion."
School anywhere was more or less the same, I soon found out. Pages to read, questions to copy from the chalkboard. Except this teacher was very well informed on how our government worked, and she also knew exactly what was wrong with it. I sat and listened, overwhelmed by the passion she displayed for her subject, and when she stopped talking abruptly, I felt like applauding. How wonderful that she knew so much about poverty! Yes, there were people in our rich, abundant land that went to bed hungry. Yes, thousands of children were deprived of rights that should come to them naturally; the right to enough food to nourish their bodies and brains; enough clothes to wear to keep them warm; enough housing to sa they were sheltered from the weather; enough rest on a comfortable bed so they didn't awaken with shadows under their eyes, put there from sleeping on hard floors without enough blankets; and most of all, parents who were old enough and educated enough to provide all of that.
"So where do we begin to correct all the wrongs? How do we stop ignorance, when the ignorant don't seem to care whether or not their children will be trapped in the same miserable circumstances? How do we make those in high places care for the underprivileged? Think about that tonight, and when you have found solutions, write them down, and submit them tomorrow in class."
Somehow I made it through the day. None of the girls approached me to ask questions, though all of them stared, then hurriedly moved their eyes away when mine tried to meet with theirs. In the dining hall that evening at six, I sat alone at a round table covered with a crisp, white linen tablecloth, and in the center of my table was a small, silver bud vase containing a single red rose. The students serving as waitresses took my order from a short menu, then moved on to other tables where four to five girls sat together, chattering in lively fashion, so the dining hall resounded with many happy voices. I was the only girl in the room that had a single red rose on her table, and only when I realized that did I pluck from a small wire the tiny white card that read: "My best wishes, Tony."
Every day until Friday, a red rose showed up on my dinner table. And every day those girls ignored my existence. What was I doing wrong, except wearing the wrong kind of clothes? I hadn't brought jeans or pants or old shirts and sweaters with me. Valiantly I tried to smile at the girls who glanced my way, trying to catch their eyes. The minute they saw my efforts, each and every one of them turned away! And then I guessed what was happening. My thoughts about hunger in America had betrayed me. My own passion for the subject of poverty had given them more information than my tongue ever could. I was too well informed. Too many nights I'd lain awake in a mountain cabin, trying to find answers that would save all the poor from falling into the same desperate plight of their ancestors.
For my theme paper on Poverty in America I was given an A-minus. A very good beginning. But I had betrayed myself. Now everyone knew just what background had been mine, or else I couldn't have known so much. I wished a thousand times I hadn't been so factual and had turned in some solution like that of another girl, who had suggested, "Every rich person should adopt at least one poor child."
Alone in my pretty room, on my ba
ck on my narrow bed, I listened to the laughter and giggles that came from other rooms. I smelled the bread toasting and the cheese melting; I heard the clink and clank of glasses, of silverware, the canned laughter played on TV situation comedies. Not once did any girl knock on my closed door and invite me to a forbidden party. Not once were those parties stopped by irate teachers who didn't want their rules broken.
From the wild tales I overheard, every one of those girls had traveled extensively throughout the world, and already they were bored with cities I had yet to see. Three of the girls had been expelled from private Swiss schools for love affairs, two had been expelled from other American schools for drinking, two more for using drugs. All the girls could cuss worse than any drunken hillbilly at a barn dance, and right through the walls I received a different kind of sex education, ten times more shocking than anything Fanny had ever done.
Then one day when I was in the bathroom, in the only shower stall that had a door to close, I heard them talking about me. They didn't want me in "their" school. I wasn't "their" kind. "She's not who she pretends to be," whispered a voice I'd grown to recognize as belonging to Faith Morgantile.
I wasn't pretending to be anything other than a girl seeking an education. And for that I was resented. I only hoped that when my hazing came, I could survive with my dignity and pride intact.
So here in Winterhaven, despite my VanVoreen ancestors, my Tatterton connections, my fine clothes, my flattering hairstyle, my pretty shoes, and the good grades I worked hard to achieve, I was, as I'd always been, an outsider, scorned for what I was. And the worst thing of all was, right at the beginning, I had betrayed myself, and Tony.
Six Changing Seasons
. IT WAS TONY WHO CAME TO PICK ME UP THAT FIRST Friday when I stood on the front stoop of Winter-haven, with fifteen girls crowded close about me, pretending to be friendly for his benefit. They watched him park, ooh'd and aw'd, gasped and whispered and wondered again where Troy was. "When are you going" Vo invite us to your home, Heaven?" asked Prudence Carraway, whom everyone called Pru. "We've heard it's fabulous, absolutely fab, fab, fab!"
Before Tony was out of the car and opening the door I was down the steps escaping those girls. "See you Monday, Heaven!" a chorus of voices sang out, and it was the first time anyone had said my name but a teacher.
"Well," said Tony, smiling at me and driving off. "From what I saw and heard, it seems you've already made lots of friends. That's good. But I hate the sloppy rags those girls are wearing to school. Why do they try so to look ugly during the best years of their lives?"
Several miles passed and I didn't speak. "Come on, Heaven, tell me about it," he urged. "Did your cashmeres create a sensation? Or did they scorn you for wearing the kind of clothes their mothers buy for them, but they leave at home, or trade in for secondhand clothes."
"They do that?" I asked, completely stunned. "I've heard they do. It's sort of a cause at Winter-haven to challenge teachers and fight parents or anyone in authority. It's like a Boston Tea Party for adolescents, struggling to assert their independence."
So he'd known when he selected all my skirts, sweaters, blouses, and shirts just what he was doing to me, making me stand out, making me different. Still I said nothing.
I could tell from his demeanor he didn't want me to complain about anything that had gone on. I had been thrown into the pot, and now it was up to me to keep from being boiled. He didn't urge me to keep on wearing just what I had. He left it up to me to give in or to fight the peer pressure. And realizing this, I made up my mind never to mention any of my difficulties to Tony. I would handle them alone, no matter what came along.
Tony drove fast toward Farthinggale Manor, and we were almost there before he dropped his bombshell. "Some very pressing business has come up, and I'll be flying to California this Sunday morning. Jillian will be going with me. If you weren't already enrolled in school, we could take you along. As it is, Miles will drive you to school on Monday, and pick you up next Friday afternoon, Jillian and I plan to return a week from Sunday."
His news threw me into a tailspin! I didn't want to be left alone in a house of servants that I hardly knew. I tried not to let Tony see the sudden tears that sprang to my eyes. What was wrong with me that people found me so easy to leave?
"Jill and I will make up for this week's neglect by really extending ourselves this coming
Thanksgiving and Christmas," he said with his rare kind of lighthearted charm, "and I give you my word of honor that we will go to that Pops concert when I return."
"You don't have to worry about me," I said with determination, not wanting him to think I was a burden like Jillian did. "I know how to entertain myself." But I didn't, not really. Farthinggale Manor still intimidated me. The only servant who didn't make me nervous was Rye Whiskey. But if I visited him too often in his kitchen, maybe he'd grow cold and indifferent, too. Once I came home on Friday afternoon, and my homework was finished, what would I do with myself?
Then came that Saturday morning in
Farthinggale Manor with servants rushing around in a dither, trying to help Jillian pack for a week's trip. In the upstairs hall she ran to me, laughing, hugging and kissing me, making me feel that maybe I'd been wrong, and she did love me and need me. Then she was clapping her hands together like a happy little girl as we descended the stairs into the living room. "It's a pity you can't come with us, but you were the one who pleaded for a few months of schooling, and dashed all the exciting plans I had for you."
A few months of schooling? Was she planning to push me out of here? Didn't she care for me even a tiny bit? And to fly to California would have been another of my dreams realized, but by this time I was wary of the dreams I'd constructed when I was young, naive, and dumb.
"I'll be fine, Jillian, don't worry about me. This is such a wonderful house, and so big, I haven't had half a chance to look it over."