The Wives of Bath Read Online Free PDF Page B

silently down a long corridor whose polished blond floors felt slippery underfoot and smelled to high heaven of fresh paste wax. I tried not to look at our reflections in the shiny wood: his short torso rolling from side to side like the sailors on the government wharf in the Landing, and mine rolling with a slight forward teeter. On either side of us, the walls were festooned with pictures of old graduating classes and plaques listing scholarship winners in gold script. On one plaque I saw the words “The Ten Commandments of Friendship.” I just had time to read number five (“Be cordial—speak and act as if everything you do is a genuine pleasure”) and number six (“Be genuinely interested in people—you
can
like everybody if you try”).
    Then we turned a corner, and before us, rising up over our heads, floor upon floor, was an old staircase whose railings seemed to spin skyward in endless circles that finished finally in a huge round skylight. It was like looking up into a scrawly drawing of a giant eye. I dreaded the climb on my thin legs, but we went upslowly, the dwarf puffing and staggering under the weight of my old steamer trunk. It bumped loudly over each step, and I began to feel sorry for him.
    At the first landing, he stopped to catch his breath. “Blasted bloody things,” he said. “They’re worse than hauling a coffin.” Then he took off his curling cap and gestured with it toward an oil painting. “The English headmistress,” he said. “Our first and last.” A robust woman dressed in Edwardian cycling clothes stared back at us. She appeared to be sitting on a large tricycle.
    “Isn’t she a holy terror?” The dwarf genuflected in front of the picture. I didn’t know if he was mocking her. The fierce pop eyes under her dome-shaped forehead made her look as if she could see right through you. Startled, I read the words inscribed in stone beside the portrait.
    My dear girls,
    The work our maker has assigned for you on earth must be carried out to the best of your abilities until that great day when material symbols are replaced by the reality of life everlasting.
    Yours in faith,
Viola Higgs
(1874–1957)
    I wondered why she was riding such an odd-looking tricycle but I didn’t want to gratify my guide by asking questions. We began to climb again, going higher and higher into the strange tower. The dwarf had started to flip my trunk ass-over-teakettle, although I couldn’t see how that made the climb easier.
    At the top of the fourth landing, I heard giggles. Young girls’ heads suddenly peeped out of doors that opened along a narrow corridor with a low ceiling.
    “It’s only the grade sevens,” the dwarf said. He let my trunkcrash down in another flip. Immediately, a frightened-looking woman in a housecoat flew out one of the doors and ran toward us waving her arms. Her dyed red hair was in curlers, and both her cheeks looked abnormally swollen, as if she had stuffed them with cotton batting.
    “You have no business disturbing the blue wing,” she said in a high, nervous voice. “The girls are having their nap. Please leave at once!”
    The dwarf began to giggle and wave his arms back at her, and the laughter of the girls grew louder. He shook his big head at them and pursed his tiny mouth.
“Ssssh-ssssh-ssssh!” he
said. He was half the matron’s height, and hardly taller than her small charges, now standing boldly beside me in the corridor. Then, before she could say another word, the dwarf yanked my trunk toward the next flight of stairs and in an unexpected show of strength dragged it out of sight without stopping for a breath.
    I dragged myself up the last flight of stairs into the tower. My lower back ached a little now, and I took one of the aspirins from the bottle I carried with me for these occasions. We stood facing a narrow circular corridor lined with tall doors. The dwarf said these rooms used to be the servants’ quarters, but the school had made them into music