Nanny Diaries 3 - Pride and Prejudice

Threats and Reassurance

"Sorry, Annie...are you sure you won't let me change her?" Nanny sighed as she handed me over to one of the year fourteen teaching assistants at the paddock gate, whilst Miss Stewart stood watching over her troops. "She is a bag of nerves this morning but I messed her before we left home...she really shouldn't be soaked so soon but she is...absolutely drenched..."

"She won't be the only one, Chloe." Miss Stewart said, watching as her underling took my hand and took formal charge of me. "First day back always causes accidents...and we have had a weekend of nervous little boarders, so one more is not going to make any difference to anyone here."

"You have them all diapered?"

"Beta girls wear pull-ups, effectively, but they are not allowed to touch them, so taking them to the loo still takes time...and we have a lot of alpha girls who have never been properly kept before...some of them have been sniveling ever since their parents left them and they are not exactly regular...but it will soon settle down..." I heard Annie explaining as I was led into the classroom for an embarrassing change. I was not exactly nervous about Deepdene. In fact, I had just about resigned myself to another term at the school, but then my mother had told me that any demerits would mean one hundred strokes of her paddle from now on. It was such an unnecessary warning as the recommended school punishment was twenty strokes, so every girl took the merciless threat of any school sanction seriously, but making my penalty so huge was unimaginably merciless. I had suffered a hundred twice before and the memory of the pain and humiliation of those beatings was still the stuff of nightmares. Mum had just said it, as we were leaving the house, leaning close to whisper in my ear, continuing her cruel cold attitude towards me, ever since Papa and my father had fallen out over dinner. Not that they had argued at the table, actually. Not in front of me. But the obvious fact that dad was annoyed by Papa taking control of Ben Brewster's financial affairs, including the control of the bank shares, was crystal clear to everyone in the small room. Nicola and I had quickly been sent to bed, and I had not really seen dad to talk to since, but mum was being funny with everyone and especially horrible to me.

Because of the number of older girls sent back to Deepdene, like Anabel Ellesmere, I found myself in year fourteen, a class of twenty girls where the youngest was eighteen and the oldest were me and Camilla Ellesmere. We were all studying the bible only, all day, and as always at Deepdene, we were worked like slaves. But with my mother's warning ringing in my ears, I did not take my eyes off our teachers, unless I was told to read or write. Maybe that was what mum had intended, of course. Only at lunchtime, after being messed, did we get any real time to relax, in our own paddock, locked away from anyone else. I stood at the fence, dressed in the full uniform, but with the boater rather than the felt hat, until the first of October, and waved rather pitifully at Caris and Nicola, in the paddocks on either side, whilst marveling at the sight of the whole student body. Deepdene had been quite a small school before, with about two hundred and fifty girls, but all of a sudden, there were some seven hundred, plus three hundred boys in the prep school, although I could not see any of them, because they were kept well away from us girls. It was quite a sight, all blue striped blazers and straw boaters, as far as the eye could see.

"Are you ok?" Camilla asked, coming up beside me, and immediately taking my hand. We had to hold hands, with whoever we were standing or walking with. It was a rule.

"Sort of...you?" I replied, a little nervously, glancing around to see where Arabella was, and whether the teachers were going to let us talk to each other.

"Well, yes and no...I am all right, I suppose...but I don't want to be here." She replied, as I squeezed her hand, trying to be nice. "And don't worry about Anabel...she just messed...so, I thought I would say hello while I could...I am not supposed to talk to you."