Tanya was in bed with Nine Modern Poets. They had Yeats in next week's exam and she found him hard going. She'd been cramming since netball practice and didn't look anywhere near done.
'Hi Hev,' she said, barely glancing up. 'Good film?'
'Yes, it was another pound well spent. You really have to come along to the next one. Get a bit of excitement into your life.'
'I don't have time for excitement, just like I don't have your photographic memory. I really struggle to get this. And that's the bits I think I understand. Most of it goes way over my head. Do you mind if I keep going a little longer?'
'No probs. I don't think we're going to get raided.'
Tanya chuckled and kept cramming. According to legend, Lights-Out used to apply everywhere, with punishment for transgressors starting at execution and getting steadily worse. Nowadays it only applied to common passageways and the first and second year dormitories, not to single and double rooms. The death penalty had been relaxed too. Execution now only applied to third-time offenders; second-timers were thrown into the school dungeons while first-timers were merely flogged.
Heather looked at herself in the mirror as she undressed. She hated vain people but Mare was (as usual) right: she was as fit as a butcher's dog, and strikingly pretty with it. Some folk even claimed she was bewitching. Her eyes were just as green as Mary Rose's, if not nearly so wicked, and her lavishly long, jet-black hair and never-fading tan made her intriguing and exotic.
She knelt at the foot of her bed and prayed, thanking God for her good fortune and asking Him to forgive her sins, especially vanity, promising to keep it as a secret, best as she could, until it wore off altogether. Then she jumped between the sheets and called goodnight to Tanya before switching off her lamp.
'Night,' Tanya mumbled, still buried in her book.
Heather usually fell asleep as soon as her head hit the pillow. Tonight there was no chance. Her mind was filled with images from the video. She was going to have to get rid of them before she could possibly sleep. And, in the absence of one of Jacqui's mythical vibrators, that was going to take a lot of will-power.
Chapter Two
As she surveyed shadows on the ceiling Heather marvelled at how she'd ended up here, at one of the UK's most elite educational establishments.
Me! Enrolled at The Manor School For Young Ladies!
More to the point, she marvelled at how smoothly she'd fitted in. It sometimes seemed as though she'd arrived only yesterday, scared and excited, wondering how she'd find her way through the maze of corridors and if she'd struggle to make friends. But everyone had been really nice. Once she'd got to grips with all of the routes and names she'd been completely at ease. Her first year (in the school's third year) had whizzed by. So too had the rest of her pre-university educational lifetime; it was nearly over already.
And not a mangel-wurzel wisecrack ever to be heard.
Heather had been brought up on Hunters Farm, in that bit of darkest West Yorkshire where nature starts to take over from brick and concrete. All of her early memories were of the sights and sounds of countryside, the very first being one of a horse foaling. By the time she was thirteen she could rabbit, wring chicken necks, climb every tree and run faster and farther than any boy she had ever met. Most of her waking hours had been spent outdoors, innocently acquiring that never-fading tan. Her life had been exceptionally good. She hadn't ever stopped to wonder why Dad worked brutally long days then spent his evenings frowning over piles of paperwork.
Thirteen had been when it all changed. Up until thirteen her only concern had been the lack of a brother or sister to share all the fun. She had been born at home and there had been "complications". That was tough on Mum, who came from a big family and had intended to have five or six children, at least. Tough maybe, but thanks to Mother Nature they'd both survived. Lots of births didn't end well at all. Heather had delivered her first lamb when she was eight and seen her first "wrong 'un" long before then. If nothing else, farming had taught her that giving birth was a risky business.
What, risky? Too right it was. She was going to avoid giving birth herself if she could. Or else save it until she was pushing forty, with nothing left to lose.
Life altered forever one sunny Thursday evening. Mum and Dad had sat her down at the kitchen table and told her that, after six generations of Hunters, the debts were finally too much. The choice was to stay and go under, or sell. They were telling her because she was the seventh generation in its entirety and everything was supposed to pass to her. If she wanted them to stay then stay they would, and damn the consequences. They had, however, found a lovely new house in Kettlewell. And they'd had an offer on Hunters Farm that would ensure money would never be a problem again.
Looking back Heather was surprised how well she'd taken it. Although she loved the farm she had suddenly realized she'd no desire to be a farmer. Starting afresh hadn't seemed the only option; it had seemed far and away the best option . . .
Well, it had as long as they could take Gyp, Dad's sheepdog and Patch, her pony. When she had been assured they were included in the plan it had been dead easy to strike a bargain.
At Mum's insistence, she'd agreed to the private school.
At her insistence, Dad had agreed to stay in charge of the money.
And at Dad's insistence . . . Well, he'd just been glad the womenfolk agreed it was right to move on.
They hadn't been debating five minutes before they were spitting on it, fully committed to the new beginnings. Heather could remember thinking the private school sounded cool if a little daunting, but looking forward already, sure that she would do well. Thoughts of control of the money had been even more daunting. To her it seemed better to keep everything in one family pot. She could always inherit anything left over in due course, preferably two hundred years down the line.
Seeing her dad's face after the three of them shook hands had given her the best-ever feeling. After a moment of sadness, when the tough old so-and-so looked like he might actually shed a tear, he must have thought about his bank balance. More probably he'd thought about his piles of red bills, blowing away on the wind. Ten years of worries fell from him in less than one second. He had looked younger, taller and even stronger. She would never, never ever regret her part in that decision as long as she lived.
Not ever, ever.
Coming to The Manor meant that Kettlewell hadn't really become home for her, but her parents settled in overnight, along with Patch and Gyp, of course. The "new" house (which had originally been built in the eighteenth century) had a quite enormous garden . . . big enough to keep Dad busy for all of a fortnight.
By the start of the third week he was doing casual farm-labouring around the village and, by the end of the first month, he was helping out fulltime. If asked, he would tell folk he felt guilty working as few as fifty hours with Sundays off, and guiltier still at surrendering to house builders when he still had a living breath in his body. He would also mutter darkly about "damn supermarkets", saying they were all plotting to grind honest farmers into the dust.
In other words Dad shared the same opinions and spoke the same language as the locals. Mum fitted in just as well. The fact they were country people helped, obviously, but not nearly as much as the fact they'd moved there wanting to fit in. Too many properties in those parts had been snapped up by townies as holiday homes, driving house prices up and youngsters away.
*****
Tanya clicked off her light without calling goodnight. She must have thought Heather was already asleep. Lost in thoughts of her own, Heather didn't correct her.
Her roommate was a lovely girl but she worried too much. These internal school exams weren't important in the scheme of things, yet poor Tanya was treating them as if they were make or break. And it wasn't as if she was bottom of the class or anything; she was in the top five in every subject. If she could only recognize how good she was, lighten the intensity . . .
Heather wasn't much of a worrier. Starting "late" she'd assumed she would be behind the girls who had been here for years one and two. She'd soon realized that wasn't irretrievably the case and relaxed, easing into a new life where she was always in the top three in every subject.
Her concerns about making friends had been settled even sooner. That very first morning, after her parents had deposited her, she'd been shown to her room and introduced to Tanya. She had then been left alone to unpack. Seconds later, before homesickness could properly kick in, there had been a knock on the door. It was Mary Rose, eager to meet her.
