Barbara Metzger Read Free Page A

five-foot-eight-inch too-thin frame, with her streaky blond hair scraped back into a tight, unbecoming bun. She sat with her hands folded meekly in her lap, her blue eyes downcast, a quiet, obedient, colorless female.
    If the debutantes-in-training were invited to lavish afternoon teas, preparing them for society, the teachers were expected to spend that time with their books, preparing for the next day’s lessons. The pupils had two hours of free time after dinner to practice their womanly arts, such as gossiping and discussing the newest fashion magazines. The instructors needed those hours to practice housekeeping, for no maid was assigned to see to their clothes or accommodations. This was also the only time of day for Miss Swann to practice her own music, to maintain her own skills.
    The young ladies in the upper classes, those soon to make fashionable marriages, it was assumed—nay, devoutly prayed—were given rooms of their own. The lucky instructors shared rooms; the younger, less favored had curtained alcoves in the smaller girls’ dormitories. This was why Miss Swann, at twenty-four the youngest teacher at the academy, carried her precious letter in her pocket, rather than let the eight twelve-year-olds whose room she shared also share her personal business.
    And if, finally, those pampered darlings of the
ton—
this was
not
a charity school; there were no scholarship students here—received the plump Miss Meadow’s chirps and cheery head-bobs, earning her the nickname Meadowlark, the teachers received cold, short shrift. That kindly, smiling appearance hid a fact which Miss Swann knew well: inside Miss Meadow’s dumpling of a body beat a heart so coal-black it could stoke the fires of hell a good long while. Which was why she sat up even straighter, her back not touching the chair, and nervously tucked an errant lock back into its bun as two girls left Miss Meadow’s office giggling and chatting. Only one of the girls gave Miss Swann the merest nod of recognition, and that likely because the music teacher’s knock and request for an interview had occasioned another of Miss Meadow’s favorite teaching methods, the Precept. To instill the proper attitude in her students, Miss Meadow constantly held up examples. Last year’s graduate who had snapped up the heir to a dukedom in her very first season was held as the ideal model of proper behavior. Contrariwise, a bad example was the well-dowered debutante who, some years after her graduation, had cast aside all of Miss Meadow’s teachings and her parents’ orders, to marry an Ineligible man. A half-pay officer, he had left her as soon as her money was spent. The story was often embellished by titters and whispers after lights-out, to tales no proper young lady should know, but all did.
    Tonight’s Precept had been Miss Cristabel Swann, or what not to become. Miss Swann’s mother had married a—deep breath—Second Son. Now their daughter, gently bred, properly educated, was fallen on hard times. Like most of the teachers at Miss Meadow’s Select Academy, she was a lady without prospects, a spinster of twenty-four who had not and never would make a good marriage. Was this what the girls wanted for themselves or their daughters? Heaven forbid! The last girl out gave Miss Swann a look that mingled pity with the superior knowledge that
she
would never make the same mistake, as she told Miss Swann that she could go in now.
    “Well, what is it?” growled little Miss Meadow from behind her cherrywood desk. She did not ask Miss Swann to sit or offer her refreshment, although the tea tray was right in front of her.
    Trying not to feel enormously tall and gawky, looking down at the headmistress, and trying particularly not to let her stomach rumble at the almond tarts in their silver dish, Miss Swann replied: “I have received a letter from my uncle’s solicitor in London. He—”
    Miss Meadow had her pudgy little hand out. Cristabel did not even think to