Miss Seetoh in the World Read Online Free PDF Page B

left none of the drama out.
    It was a three-part drama: her determined
singlehood, followed suddenly by a marriage that the school knew about only
when she returned from her honeymoon after the long December vacation, followed
by widowhood, only three years later, that appeared blithe enough to invite the
‘Merry Widow’ label to be attached to it. Each part had its share of unsavoury
speculations. Was she a lesbian? She seemed to be very close to two other
conspicuously single women, a Miss Meeta Nair and a Miss Winnie Poon, both from
the Palm Secondary Girls’ School that was rumoured to have a disproportionate
number of teachers and students so inclined. When the news of her sudden
marriage spread, starting from the school office where the clerk was the first
to note the official change in name, the staffroom was caught in the grip of
intense conjecturing for weeks, even distracting the mild and pious Sister
Elizabeth from her preparation of lesson notes. Nobody dared to ask, because
nobody dared invade Maria Seetoh’s lofty solitude, even as she moved in smiling
amiability among the scores of students and teachers at St Peter’s.
    Had she found her husband through the
services of the government matchmaking organisation that she had so disdained?
Or was she already – ? The young male science teacher with the impish smile and
crewcut who enjoyed entertaining the lady teachers, said, ‘Let’s see, she got
married in the month of –’ and did an elaborate crude finger count.
    Soon there was another matter for
speculative wonderment. Was Mrs Tan happy? A sullen-faced husband dropped her
every morning at the school gate on his way to work, and she got out of the
car, equally grim-looking. The first year of marriage should still be sunny
honeymoon, and here were Mrs Tan and her husband, dark-faced and brooding, in
their first month, clearly avoiding having to look at each other. The newly wed
Mrs Jasmine Auyang and her husband exchanged effusive kisses at the gate each
morning, oblivious to student stares and giggles. How could things have gone so
wrong so early for a couple so obviously well-matched, he a senior civil
servant, she a respected teacher, both practising Catholics, both good-looking?
    Mrs Tan, without the familiar bright smile
of Miss Seetoh, was almost unrecognisable. Then as soon as she stepped into her
classroom and started the day’s lessons, the smile was magically restored. If
there were teachers who dragged themselves to school every morning, like poor
Mrs Naidu of the endless headaches and Tiger Balm, Mrs Bernard Tan positively
danced into it, like fluttering butterfly out of confining cocoon. What did it
say of her married life that she escaped it every morning with such undisguised
joy?
    The most avid whispers were reserved for the
widow’s immediate dispensation with every sign of mourning and bereavement.
    ‘What bereavement?’ said Miss Teresa Pang,
whose close observation of her rival’s strange behaviour was being well
rewarded. ‘A red blouse. Screaming chilli-red. And yesterday a bright pink one
that I’ve never seen before. A whole new wardrobe. A subtle re-arrangement of
that ponytail. And the wedding ring gone from her finger from the first day.
Advertising her new status, or what?’
    Mrs Khaw, the domestic science teacher,
whispered back, ‘She was seen being dropped at Robinson’s by a guy in a
Mercedes, only a week after the funeral.’
    Mrs Khaw, like many married women, lived in
mortal fear of her husband falling victim to the special predatory skills of
newly divorced or widowed women, and was herself the target of much racy
gossip: she employed only certifiably ugly or virtuous maids, and even then,
made sure that her husband, of the incessant roving eye and hand, was never alone
with them in the house. When he was abroad on business, she called him at his
hotel room during those hours she knew him to be out to test his fidelity. For
a friend had told her about a