Secrets at St Bride's by Debbie Young

Author:Debbie Young [Young, Debbie]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Hawkesbury Press
Published: 2019-08-24T04:00:00+00:00

17

Cupboard Love

THE KINDER MAVIS WAS to me, the more uncomfortable I felt about suspecting her of defrauding the school with her secret book sales. Now that I knew she was in financial difficulties, it seemed more likely that she was guilty, but I still didn’t want to believe it.

Then it struck me. With a little research, I might prove her innocence. Then I could relax and enjoy our growing friendship with a clear conscience. It might be that those dusty old books were worthless, and she was doing the school a favour by disposing of them.

The Bursar could verify their value. Oriana had told me he was in the habit of selling the family silver. If any books in the library were valuable, he’d have sold them off long ago. What could be simpler than asking him?

During a free period mid-afternoon, I knocked on the Bursar’s door, my strategy at the ready.

“Come,” called the Bursar from within.

As I opened the door, he chucked a glowing cigar butt into the fireplace, where it landed lit side up and burned out before it could ignite the papers in the grate. Seated in an antique leather swivel chair built for a much taller man, he beckoned me to the low rush-seated visitor’s chair facing him. We were the same height standing up, but when I sat down I had to look up to him. A classic short person’s power game. I wondered what sort of visitor’s chair Napoleon had in his campaign tent. I’d ask Judith Gosling later.

A cool breeze from the open window stirred the door behind me, which I hadn’t shut properly. The Bursar glanced at it but said nothing, perhaps hoping I’d soon be closing it properly with myself on the other side.

I tried not to pay too much attention to the ten neat stacks of papers that completely covered the top of his antique double-pedestal desk. I wondered where he actually did any work, until he pulled out a small wooden flap from beneath the desktop, placed a shorthand pad on it, and took a gold propelling pencil from a pot made out of some poor animal’s hoof. I wondered whether the hoof had belonged to one of the creatures whose heads were stuffed and mounted on plaques on the walls above us – exotic, moth-eaten trophies of Victorian colonial hunters. I shuddered. How could anyone be comfortable working surrounded by stuffed dead animals?

The Bursar locked his eyes on me. “How can I help you, Gemma?”

I took a deep breath.

“I wanted to ask you a technical question about the school library.”

“Can’t Miss Brook help you?”

“To be honest, I haven’t asked her. I thought you’d be more expert on this particular point.”

Smiling at the flattery, he sat back in his big chair, elbows stretched out to reach its wooden armrests, which were shiny with wear, and pressed his fingertips together across his lap.

I’d planned my pitch carefully.

“You see, I’m developing a project for my Year 7s about the history of books and printing, from scrolls and clay tablets through to e-books and audiobooks.

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