Dark Angel

  How odd it felt to be standing before the second step of my dream, realizing my first step was not yet completed. My own grandmother didn't truly want me. She felt trapped because I'd come to remind her of what she didn't want to know . . but one day she'd love me. I was going to see to that. One day she was going to thank God I'd made being with her one of my lifelong goals.

  "Come, Heaven," called Tony, breaking into my thoughts, as a man from the school came out to collect my luggage and wheel it away on a cart. "Let's go inside and face the dragons. We all have dragons to slay throughout most of our lives; most of them we create in our imaginations." He caught my hand in his gloved one and pulled me along toward the steep steps. "You look beautiful, did I tell you that? Your new hairstyle is quite becoming, and Heaven Leigh Casteel is a very beautiful girl. I suspect, also, you are a very smart girl. Don't disappoint me."

  He gave me confidence. His smile gave me strength to climb those steps as if all my life I'd attended private, ritzy schools. Once I was inside the main building, and I looked around, I shivered. I had expected something like a posh hotel lobby, and what I saw was very austere. It was very clean, with highly waxed hardwood floors. The walls were off-white, and the moldings were elaborate and darkly stained. Potted ferns and other household plants were scattered here and there on tables and beside straight-backed, hard-looking chairs to relieve the starkness of the white walls. From the foyer I could see a reception room that was a bit cozier, with its fireplace and carefully arranged chintz-covered sofas and chairs.

  Soon Tony was leading me to the office of the headmistress, a stout, affable woman who shone on both of us a wide, warm smile. "Welcome to Winterhaven, Miss Casteel. What an honor and privilege it is to have the granddaughter of Cleave VanVoreen attending our school." She winked at Tony in a conspiratorial way. "Don't worry, dear, I'll keep your identity secret, and not tell a soul about who you really are. I just have to say your grandfather was a fine man. A gift to all of us who knew him." And in her motherly arms I was hugged briefly before she put me from her and looked me over. "I met your mother once when Mr. VanVoreen brought her here and enrolled her. I'm very sorry she's with us no longer."

  "Now let's proceed with the next step," urged Tony, glancing at his watch. "I have an appointment in half an hour, and I want to see Heaven to her room."

  It felt good to have him at my side as we ascended the steep stairs, our footfalls cushioned by a dark green carpet runner. The stern and forbidding faces of former teachers lined the wall, drawing my astonished eyes from time to time. How cold they all looked, how Puritan . . . and how alike their eyes, as if they could see, even now, all the evil in everyone that passed.

  Behind us, in fact all around us, the faint and smothered giggles of many girls drifted. Yet when I looked behind me, I could see no one. "Here we are!" called Helen Mallory brightly, flinging open the door to a lovely room. "The best room in the school, Miss Casteel. Selected for you by your 'uncle.' I want you to know very few of our students can afford a private room, or even want a private room, but Mr. Tatterton insisted. Most parents think young girls don't want privacy from their peers, but apparently you do."

  Tony stepped inside the room, and from one thing to the other he went, pulling open dresser drawers, checking the large closet, sitting in both of the lounge chairs before he settled down at the student desk and smiled at me. "Well, will it do, Heaven?"

  "It's wonderful," I whispered, quite

  overwhelmed to see all the empty bookshelves that I hoped soon to fill. "I didn't expect a room of my own."

  "Nothing but the best," he joked. "Didn't I promise you that?" He stood, strode swiftly toward me, and leaned to kiss my cheek. "Good luck. Work hard. If you need anything call my office, or call me at home. I've told my secretary to put your calls through. Her name is Amelia." And then he pulled out his wallet, and to my utter amazement, he put several twenty-dollar bills in my hand. "For pin money."

  I stood there clutching the money, watching him stride out the door. To my surprise, my heart sank and my stomach went queasy. Once Helen Mallory knew Tony was out of earshot, her expression lost its softness, her motherly ways abandoned and with hardeyed calculation she looked me over, weighed me, measured me, guessed at my character, my

  weaknesses, my strengths; judging from her twisted expression, she found me wanting. It shouldn't have shocked me, yet it did. Even her low, soft voice hardened and became loud. "We expect our students to excel academically and to abide by our rules, which are very strict." She reached and quite matter-of-factly took the money from my hand and quickly counted the bills. "I'll put this in our safe for you, and you can have it on Friday. We don't like for our girls to have cash in their rooms that someone can steal. The possession of money creates many problems." My two hundred disappeared in her pocket.

  "When the bells ring at seven each weekday morning, you are to rise and dress as quickly as possible. If you bathe or shower the night before, you won't have to do it in the morning. I suggest you form that habit. Breakfast is at seven-thirty on the main floor. There will be signs to guide you to your various destinations." She pulled a small card from a slit pocket in her dark wool skirt and handed it to me.

  "Here are your class assignments. I myself arranged your schedule, but if you find it difficult to follow, let me know. We don't play favorites here. You will have to earn the respect of your teachers and your classmates. There is an underground passageway that connects all of our buildings one to the other. You are to use this underground tunnel only on days when the weather is inclement. Otherwise, you will walk outside where the fresh air will improve your lungs. You arrived here during the lunch hour, and your guardian said he'd see that you ate your lunch before you arrived." She paused, staring at the top of my head while she waited for my confirmation.

  Only when she had it did she turn to stare at twelve pieces of very expensive luggage. I thought I saw contempt on her face--or envy, I couldn't tell which. "At Winterhaven we do not flaunt our wealth by wearing ostentatious clothes. I hope you will keep this in mind. Until a few years ago all our students had to wear uniforms. That made everything very simple. But the girls kept protesting, and the patrons of our school agreed with them, so now they wear what they please." Again her eyes swung to me, remote and cautious. "Lunch is served at twelve for those in the lower two grades, and at twelve-thirty for the remaining students. You are expected to be on time for all meals, or you will not be served. A table has been assigned to you, and you will not change your seating unless the occupants at another table invite you to join them, or you invite them to your table. Dinner is at six, and the same rules apply. Each student is expected to wait the tables for one week each semester. We rotate the service, and most students find it not unpleasant." She cleared her throat so she could continue.

  "We do not expect our girls to hoard food in their rooms, or to hold secret midnight parties. You are allowed to own a radio or stereo or cassette player, but not a television set. If you are caught with liquor, and that includes beer, you will be given a demerit. Three demerits in one semester and you will be dismissed, and only one quarter of the tuition will be refunded. Study hour is from seven to eight. From eight to nine you may watch television in our recreation room. We do not supervise your reading materials, though we deplore pornography, and we will give a demerit if find you with the more obvious printed filth. Some of our girls enjoy playing games such as bridge or backgammon. We do not allow our girls to gamble. If money is found on a gaming table, all participants in that game will be punished and given demerits. Oh, did I forget to say that all demerits are accompanied by one form of punishment or another. We devise the punishment to suit the crime." Her smile went from sour to warm. "I do hope it will never be necessary to punish you, Miss Casteel. And lightsout is at ten sharp."

  Finished, she spun on her heel and left the room. And she hadn't shown me where the bathroom was! The minute she was out of sight, I began my check for the bathroom by tes
ting the door she hadn't used.

  It was locked. I sat down to read the small class assignment card. Eight o'clock, English class, in Elmhurst Hall. And then I desperately needed the bathroom.

  All my bags I left on the floor of my private room as I took off down the hall, looking for signs. The titters and giggles I'd heard before were gone. I felt totally alone on the second floor. I tried three halls before finally I saw a small brass plaque reading "Lavatory."

  With relief I opened the swinging door and stepped inside a huge room where white sinks lined an entire wall, with mirrors above them. The floor was of black-and-white tile. The walls were light gray, softening all that black and white, and when I came out of one of the stalls, I took the time to look it over. Twelve bathtubs were in another compartment, one beside the other. In yet another compartment were shower stalls without doors, all but one. Behind glass doors were shelves where hundreds of neatly folded white towels were placed. Right then and there I decided I would take showers, not tub baths.

  Before I left the bathroom, I felt the potted plants and found them dry, and carefully I gave each some water, a habit formed living with Kitty Dennison.

  Back in my room I swiftly unpacked, placed my lovely new lingerie neatly in stacks in the dresser, and then glanced at my schedule again. I was due in Sholten Hall at two-thirty for social studies. My first class in Winterhaven.

  Easily enough I found Sholten Hall, and wearing the outfit that Tony had suggested for my first class, I hesitated just outside the room; then, pulling in my breath and holding my head high, I pushed the door open and entered. It seemed they were waiting for me. Every girl's head turned my way, and all fifteen pairs of eyes fixed on every detail of my clothes before finally looking up to see my face; then they turned their gazes to the head of the room where a tall, thin teacher sat behind her desk.

  "Come in, Miss Casteel. We have been waiting for you." She glanced at her watch. "Please try to be on time tomorrow."

  Only the front seats were unoccupied, and I felt terribly conspicuous as I made my way to the closest one and sat down.

  "I am named Powatan Rivers, Miss Casteel. Miss Bradley, please give Miss Casteel the books she will need for this class; I hope, Miss Casteel, you came equipped with your own pens, pencils, papers, and so on."

  Tony had supplied me with everything, so I could nod and accept the social studies books and top off my neat stack. I'd always taken great pride in books and the paraphernalia that went along with school life, and for the first time I had everything any student could possibly want.

  "Would you like to address the class and tell them something about yourself, Miss Casteel?"

  My mind went totally blank. No! I didn't want to stand up before them and tell them anything!

  "It is customary, Miss Casteel, for our new students to do this. Especially those from other areas of our large and beautiful country. It helps all of us to understand you."

  Expectantly the teacher waited, as all the girls leaned forward so I felt their eyes on my back. Reluctantly I stood up and took the few steps to the front of the room, and now that I could see all of the girls, I realized how wrong Tony had been to choose the kind of clothes I was wearing! Not a girl had on a skirt! They wore pants or blue jeans, and their tops were sloppy, too-large shirts or ill-fitting sweaters. My heart sank, for those were the kind of school clothes all the kids back in Winnerrow used to wear! And up here, in this fancy school, I'd expected things to be better, nicer.

  Several times I had to wet my lips, which had gone dry. My legs betrayed me and began to shake. Tony's instructions came to me. "I was born in Texas," I began in a faltering, quivering voice, "and later on, when I was about two, I moved with my father to West Virginia. I grew up there. My father fell ill, and my aunt invited me to come and live with her and her husband.

  I hurried back to my seat and sat down. Miss Rivers cleared her throat. "Miss Casteel, before you came, your name was given to me to record in our register. Would you mind telling me the origin of your remarkable Christian name?"

  "I don't understand your meaning . . ."

  "The girls are interested in knowing if you are named after a relative . . ."

  "No, Miss Rivers, I am named for that place we all expect to go to, sooner or later."

  Several of the girls behind me tittered. Miss Rivers's eyes turned into hard stones. "All right, Miss Casteel. I suspect only in West Virginia are there parents so audacious as to challenge the powers that be. And now, let us open our government book to page 212 and proceed with today's lesson. Miss Casteel, since you join us late in this semester, we will expect you to catch up before this week is over. Every Friday there will be an exam to test what you have learned. And now girls, begin today's class by reading through pages 212 to 242, and when you have finished, close your books and put them inside your desks. Then we will begin our discussion."

  School anywhere was more or less the same, I soon found out. Pages to read, questions to copy from the chalkboard. Except this teacher was very well informed on how our government worked, and she also knew exactly what was wrong with it. I sat and listened, overwhelmed by the passion she displayed for her subject, and when she stopped talking abruptly, I felt like applauding. How wonderful that she knew so much about poverty! Yes, there were people in our rich, abundant land that went to bed hungry. Yes, thousands of children were deprived of rights that should come to them naturally; the right to enough food to nourish their bodies and brains; enough clothes to wear to keep them warm; enough housing to sa they were sheltered from the weather; enough rest on a comfortable bed so they didn't awaken with shadows under their eyes, put there from sleeping on hard floors without enough blankets; and most of all, parents who were old enough and educated enough to provide all of that.

  "So where do we begin to correct all the wrongs? How do we stop ignorance, when the ignorant don't seem to care whether or not their children will be trapped in the same miserable circumstances? How do we make those in high places care for the underprivileged? Think about that tonight, and when you have found solutions, write them down, and submit them tomorrow in class."

  Somehow I made it through the day. None of the girls approached me to ask questions, though all of them stared, then hurriedly moved their eyes away when mine tried to meet with theirs. In the dining hall that evening at six, I sat alone at a round table covered with a crisp, white linen tablecloth, and in the center of my table was a small, silver bud vase containing a single red rose. The students serving as waitresses took my order from a short menu, then moved on to other tables where four to five girls sat together, chattering in lively fashion, so the dining hall resounded with many happy voices. I was the only girl in the room that had a single red rose on her table, and only when I realized that did I pluck from a small wire the tiny white card that read: "My best wishes, Tony."

  Every day until Friday, a red rose showed up on my dinner table. And every day those girls ignored my existence. What was I doing wrong, except wearing the wrong kind of clothes? I hadn't brought jeans or pants or old shirts and sweaters with me. Valiantly I tried to smile at the girls who glanced my way, trying to catch their eyes. The minute they saw my efforts, each and every one of them turned away! And then I guessed what was happening. My thoughts about hunger in America had betrayed me. My own passion for the subject of poverty had given them more information than my tongue ever could. I was too well informed. Too many nights I'd lain awake in a mountain cabin, trying to find answers that would save all the poor from falling into the same desperate plight of their ancestors.

  For my theme paper on Poverty in America I was given an A-minus. A very good beginning. But I had betrayed myself. Now everyone knew just what background had been mine, or else I couldn't have known so much. I wished a thousand times I hadn't been so factual and had turned in some solution like that of another girl, who had suggested, "Every rich person should adopt at least one poor child."

  Alone in my pretty room, on my ba
ck on my narrow bed, I listened to the laughter and giggles that came from other rooms. I smelled the bread toasting and the cheese melting; I heard the clink and clank of glasses, of silverware, the canned laughter played on TV situation comedies. Not once did any girl knock on my closed door and invite me to a forbidden party. Not once were those parties stopped by irate teachers who didn't want their rules broken.

  From the wild tales I overheard, every one of those girls had traveled extensively throughout the world, and already they were bored with cities I had yet to see. Three of the girls had been expelled from private Swiss schools for love affairs, two had been expelled from other American schools for drinking, two more for using drugs. All the girls could cuss worse than any drunken hillbilly at a barn dance, and right through the walls I received a different kind of sex education, ten times more shocking than anything Fanny had ever done.

  Then one day when I was in the bathroom, in the only shower stall that had a door to close, I heard them talking about me. They didn't want me in "their" school. I wasn't "their" kind. "She's not who she pretends to be," whispered a voice I'd grown to recognize as belonging to Faith Morgantile.

  I wasn't pretending to be anything other than a girl seeking an education. And for that I was resented. I only hoped that when my hazing came, I could survive with my dignity and pride intact.

  So here in Winterhaven, despite my VanVoreen ancestors, my Tatterton connections, my fine clothes, my flattering hairstyle, my pretty shoes, and the good grades I worked hard to achieve, I was, as I'd always been, an outsider, scorned for what I was. And the worst thing of all was, right at the beginning, I had betrayed myself, and Tony.