The Compliant Personality Type

Chapter Eighteen - Madam Pembridge

Christmas was coming and we were all really excited...

Quite stupidly and ridiculously excited!

Not so much about Christmas itself. We didn't really know what to expect there.

But, upstairs in my room, stuck to the mirror on my wardrobe, was an invitation to the ball that my grandpa had promised... a grand Christmas ball over at 'The Big House'. The invitation looked as if it had been made by hand, written in beautiful curvy handwriting - calligraphy - on a thick piece of card with gold edges.

And all the other girls had received one too.

We didn't know quite what to expect but there were all sorts of rumours flying around: "millions of men were going to be there..." "we'd be dancing all night long..." "they were going to auction us off to the highest bidder at the end of the evening..."

Okay, that last one was just Tyler and she has always had rather too much in the way of unhealthy imagination.

What was definitely true was that, on the day that the invitations were delivered, a new teacher appeared at lunch... a stunningly elegant and stylish new teacher. "If I could have your attention please, girls," Dr Simmons said, having to raise his voice above the excited hubbub, "I would like to introduce Madam Pembridge. She is to be teaching a course entitled 'Lessons for Life' which will address subjects such as deportment, dress, social etiquette and, with some urgency now, ballroom dancing."

And I had always thought that we got plenty of the social etiquette stuff from Dr Simmons.

Apparently not.

Madam Pembridge took a place in the middle of the table and we all started to inspect her. She looked quite young but there was something about her, maybe her quiet confidence and authority, that hinted at her being slightly older than her appearance suggested.

Of course one of our number was less subtle about inspecting her than the others.

"What's your name please, Dear?" Madam Pembridge asked.

"Paige, Miss."

"You should not stare at other people like that, Paige," Madam Pembridge told her with a friendly smile. "It is rather rude."

Paige turned an astonishingly bright shade of red!

"You need to learn to inspect them more discreetly, as your friends are doing!" She smiled at the rest of us, up and down the table.

I guess the rest of us turned the same colour as poor Paige!

After we had started eating, she went around us, one at a time, and asked us to introduce ourselves.

And of course I ended up being first. Why does that always happen?

So I told her my name and that I was good at maths and science. I said that I particularly enjoyed badminton, swimming and singing. Then I tried to explain my friendship with Mr M.

"And what do you like to wear, my dear?"

That one had me a bit stuck. "To be honest, until I came here, I was a jeans and T-shirt kind of kid."

"Well that gives us a blank canvas to work on," she reassured me with a smile.

"Incidentally," she added, doing her 'looking up and down the table' thing again, "I am aware that it is in common usage, however, I have a particular dislike of the phrase, 'to be honest', being used as a filler in that manner. It does rather imply that you are not honest most of the time which, I am quite certain, is not the impression you wish to convey." She gave me a little smile to let me know that she wasn't being nasty.