MARIA MELVILLE’S WYLDCLIFFE JOURNAL
APRIL 3, 1919

There is a terrible darkness here in Wyldcliffe, and I am frightened, really frightened, for the first time in my life. Miss Scarsdale has asked me to write everything down while I am laid up with my broken ankle. She has given me this book for the purpose and says that when I have finished, the nightmares will stop. Thank heavens for Miss Scarsdale. Without her, I think I would have gone crazy.

It is hard to know where to begin, but I must do my best.

My name is Maria Adamina Melville, and I am fifteen years old. I am a pupil at Wyldcliffe Abbey School. At first I was excited to come here, although I was sad to leave my home, Grensham Court. Grensham is the nicest house in the whole of Kent, or at least I think so, and Mother and Father are the best parents in the world. I am truly grateful for them and everything they have taught me. For as long as I can remember they have been my dearest friends and companions. I miss them so much.

It is best not to think about home. Father wanted me to come here, and so I have to be brave like a soldier. Peter Charney in our village did not come back from the Great War, and he was only seventeen. I must be brave like he was. Mother also said it would be good for me to come to school and make friends of my own age. Instead of doing lessons with dear old Miss Frenchman, my governess, I would be taught by some of the finest women teachers in the country, and perhaps even go on to study at university. Mother said that the world has changed now, after this dreadful war, and that women can do all sorts of things, not just wait for a husband. We are even allowed to vote now, thanks to Mrs. Pankhurst and her brave supporters. Wyldcliffe is the best girls’ school in all England. Here I can learn mathematics and Latin and science, just like a boy. But I cannot make any friends. That is what Mother did not know.

On that first day when Mother brought me here, the High Mistress, Miss Featherstone, showed us around the school. Miss F. was all smiles and bows and nods, but I didn’t like her. She didn’t smile with her eyes, only her lips. Miss Featherstone made a big fuss of Mother because she and Father are rich, but it seemed to me that the High Mistress was secretly angry about something. Daphne Pettwood and her cronies told me later what that was.

“You’re only here because your parents paid the school to take you,” Daphne sneered.

“But we all have to pay fees to come to boarding school, don’t we?” I didn’t understand what she meant.

Daphne laughed. “Yes, but your parents had to pay an awful lot more. Five thousand pounds is what I heard they had to give to make Miss Featherstone agree to have you. She didn’t want you here.”

I felt dizzy. Even to rich people, five thousand pounds is a fortune. “Don’t be silly, Daphne. That can’t be true.”

“I heard ten thousand,” said her friend Florence Darby.

“I heard twenty,” added Winifred Hoxton spitefully.

“Stop it! What do you mean?”

Daphne pushed her face close to mine. She was almost shaking with rage and excitement. “Your parents had to give money to the school—a big fat donation—just so that you would be allowed to come. Wyldcliffe doesn’t usually accept people like you.”

“People like what?” Now my voice was shaking too.

“Gypsies. That’s all you are—a dirty Gypsy.”

“Dirty Gypsy!”

“Thieving Gypsy!”

“You don’t belong at Wyldcliffe, and you never will,” Daphne whispered savagely. “Really, I don’t know why your parents bothered to spend their money on you. My mother told me all about it. She told me that they’re not even your real parents. I don’t know why they don’t send you back to the disgusting Gypsy camp where they found you.”

“Send you back, send you back!” Winifred and Florence mocked, pushing and jostling me. They shrieked with laughter at my distress, congratulating Daphne for putting me in my place, and at last they all flounced away. And they were supposed to be intelligent young women—the cream of polite society! I was trembling with shock and rage and injustice. I didn’t want to cry, but I couldn’t help it. That’s when Miss Scarsdale found me and told me to take no notice of such ignorance and petty-mindedness. If it hadn’t been for her, I would have run away right then. I wanted to run and never stop until I found my way home to Grensham.

My bruised wrist aches from writing this, but the weight in my heart is far worse. I wish I could forget everything that I have seen in the wild hills of this strange place, but when I close my eyes I see it all again. I feel as though I am still in the dark, and the monsters are reaching out to destroy me.