The Eliot Girls Read Online Free

towering trees, streaming towards Devon Hall, as poised in its place as if it had risen up from the grassy field through the sheer magnitude of its will and ambition. Though the shops and restaurants of Yonge Street were mere blocks away, George Eliot Academy sat on a tidy parcel of bucolic land that brooked no threat of urban intrusion. The school’s exact location had long been a source of contention among parents. Those who hoped George Eliot would take a place amidst Toronto’s chief girls private schools alleged that it was in Rosedale, while those who hoped it would provide quality education but with a more daring curriculum with courses in women’s studies and Russian literature insisted that it stood on no-man’s land. Those who thought the school’s headmistress, Larissa McAllister, was a traditionalist averred Rosedale, and those who said she was a feminist protested. And on it went. But what everyone agreed was the school couldn’t have been finer and more elegant, even if it were old. (Larissa McAllister had consulted with the architects at every step during the school’s lengthy conception. Later, unable to hide how gratified she was to read in the North Toronto Post that George Eliot looked like a compressed version of Upper Canada College, Larissa admitted to Ruth Brindle that she had indeed, rather cheekily, taken that old boys’ club as her inspiration.)
    For as long as she could remember, Audrey had imagined her own form in the shadow of those Georgian-style buildings, in the sunlight on the pristine lawns. But now the loveliness of the vista only made it more impenetrable.
    The scene inside was no better. The front door swung closed behind Audrey with a mute heaviness that shut out the sunny day with the humourless authority of a chastising librarian. Standing to the side of the roomy octagonal foyer, she had only a second to contemplate her approach before another wave of girls propelled her forward. She had been in this hallway many times before, but she had never seen it from just this perspective, the change in her own status having in turn changed all her views. The maelstrom of voices echoed off the panelled walls and high ceilings. Outdoors, the open spaces and wind had diffused the volume, but enclosed in the broad corridor, the noise became a commotion, a deafening flurry out of which burst the occasional squeal. Groups of girls cluttered every foot of space. There were the predictable conversations about summer activities, the shrieked greetings, the theatrical hugs. Near the door huddled a group of prefects making half-hearted efforts to corral the incoming students into some kind of order. ( Hey guys, you know what? Guys, if you could just… ) Beyond them, the groups broke down more imprecisely: a squat, sporty brunette chattered aggressively upwards into the Nordic landscape of her friend’s face ( And would you believe he had the nerve to be like, “Sorry, I think we were always better as friends.” As if I invited myself… ); four nearly identical blondes resuming an argument apparently left unsolved before the summer months ( No, because you told her before exams, no, don’t give me that look, no, I’m totally sick of you lying about it, Jen told me… ). Crouching by a shiny ficus was a girl as overwhelmed as Audrey, searching for something in her knapsack, on her face the terrified alarm of a cornered dog.
    Down the length of the hall, huge pendant lights like golden orbs blanketed the scene in a warm, old-fashioned glow that made it look like a still from another time. On the long wall hung portraits of Larissa McAllister’s favourite feminist thinkers, flanked by calligraphic renderings of what she considered their most gleaming philosophical aperçus. In the prime position of glory at the beginning was George Eliot herself. The words “ ADVENTURE IS NOT OUTSIDE MAN; IT IS WITHIN ” made a grand pronouncement