‘You speak very strongly,’ said Miss Bulstrode.

‘I feel strongly. There are so many things that really don’t seem worth while a bit, but Meadowbank does seem worth while. It seemed worth while to me the first moment I came here.’

‘You’re a fighter,’ said Miss Bulstrode. ‘I like fighters, and I assure you that I don’t intend to give in tamely. In a way I’m going to enjoy the fight. You know, when everything’s too easy and things go too well one gets—I don’t know the exact word I mean—complacent? Bored? A kind of hybrid of the two. But I’m not bored now and I’m not complacent and I’m going to fight with every ounce of strength I’ve got, and with every penny I’ve got, too. Now what I want to say to you is this: If Meadowbank continues, will you come in on a partnership basis?’

‘Me?’ Eileen Rich stared at her. ‘Me?’

‘Yes, my dear,’ said Miss Bulstrode. ‘You.’

‘I couldn’t,’ said Eileen Rich. ‘I don’t know enough. I’m too young. Why, I haven’t got the experience, the knowledge that you’d want.’

‘You must leave it to me to know what I want,’ said Miss Bulstrode. ‘Mind you, this isn’t, at the present moment of talking, a good offer. You’d probably do better for yourself elsewhere. But I want to tell you this, and you’ve got to believe me. I had already decided before Miss Vansittart’s unfortunate death, that you were the person I wanted to carry on this school.’

‘You thought so then?’ Eileen Rich stared at her. ‘But I thought—we all thought—that Miss Vansittart…’

‘There was no arrangement made with Miss Vansittart,’ said Miss Bulstrode. ‘I had her in mind, I will confess. I’ve had her in mind for the last two years. But something’s always held me back from saying anything definite to her about it. I daresay everyone assumed that she’d be my successor. She may have thought so herself. I myself thought so until very recently. And then I decided that she was not what I wanted.’

‘But she was so suitable in every way,’ said Eileen Rich. ‘She would have carried out things in exactly your ways, in exactly your ideas.’

‘Yes,’ said Miss Bulstrode, ‘and that’s just what would have been wrong. You can’t hold on to the past. A certain amount of tradition is good but never too much. A school is for the children of today. It’s not for the children of fifty years ago or even of thirty years ago. There are some schools in which tradition is more important than others, but Meadowbank is not one of those. It’s not a school with a long tradition behind it. It’s a creation, if I may say it, of one woman. Myself. I’ve tried certain ideas and carried them out to the best of my ability, though occasionally I’ve had to modify them when they haven’t produced the results I’d expected. It’s not been a conventional school, but it has not prided itself on being an unconventional school either. It’s a school that tries to make the best of both worlds: the past and the future, but the real stress is on the present. That’s how it’s going to go on, how it ought to go on. Run by someone with ideas—ideas of the present day. Keeping what is wise from the past, looking forward towards the future. You’re very much the age I was when I started here but you’ve got what I no longer can have. You’ll find it written in the Bible. Their old men dream dreams and their young men have visions. We don’t need dreams here, we need vision. I believe you to have vision and that’s why I decided that you were the person and not Eleanor Vansittart.’