Barbara Metzger Read Online Free

possible. Miss Macklin could take my place with the younger girls, and the older girls could practice their repertoires for the week or so I’d be gone.”
    The paper was slammed down on the desk, making the teapot and Miss Swann both jump. “Oh, you did, did you? Think you could just go jauntering off to town for a holiday? Of all the maggoty notions! I would expect such an idea from one of the younger pupils. Who did you think would take Miss Macklin’s place teaching voice? The drawing teacher—or perhaps the scullery maid? Miss Swann, I expected better of you, certainly more loyalty to the academy. Your idea is a total impossibility. Total, I am sure. I have said you may go on this fruitless quest during the summer, despite the inconvenience it shall cause in the class scheduling. I think that is very generous on my part, do not you?”
    “Yes, Miss Meadow.” Cristabel did not say that the middle-aged proprietress could herself take part in the education of her pupils, or that the scullery maid could likely teach the young ladies something more important in life than the proper way to balance a teacup. She did not even comment on Miss Meadow’s generosity, which had never extended to giving Cristabel a share in the exorbitant fees charged for those private summer music lessons. The only thing she did say, on her way out, was “Yes, Miss Meadow.”
    The headmistress made no answer as Cristabel closed the door behind her and fled. Not upstairs to “her” room, where those little imps-of-Satan would wheedle her upset and disappointment out of her. Instead she glided across the hall, slowly and gracefully even in her distress, to the music room where she would be undisturbed. Heavens knew, none of the girls ever practiced their music without being assigned.
    It was here, with the pianoforte and the harp, that Miss Swann was used to escaping from the drudgery and petty nastiness. Here even the specter of Miss Meadow evaporated into the mist of music and daydreams. And Miss Swann
did
have dreams.
    Her musings weren’t like the debutante dreams her students were forever weaving, all fancy gowns, grand balls, handsome lords. Cristabel’s were much more modest, like the vision she had of just one new dress. Muslin, she and Herr Bach picked out. Cornflower blue to match her eyes. Or maybe pink to give some color to her wan indoor complexion—anything but the brown, gray, black, or navy which were all she was permitted to wear. This was a possible dream, of course, one she might someday attain without touching her meager life savings. She could save the extra money by giving up her library subscription. The books she took out on her twice-monthly half days were mostly for the entertainment of her charges upstairs anyway, so they would lie abed quietly listening to her read, instead of raising a rumpus and Miss Meadow’s wrath.
    Cristabel had another dream, this one not nearly so easy to translate into reality, with or without any amount of cheeseparing. Here, lost in her music, she saw herself in a tiny cottage with a kitchen garden out back with flowers, sweet peas, perhaps, on a trellis in the front—and a nice, quiet, smiling gentleman to love and cherish her. Maybe a young barrister or haberdasher’s assistant would spot her in her cornflower blue dress. He would fall in love and marry her, just for herself, despite her plain looks and lack of dowry. Maybe he would notice her at the lending library, unless, of course, she stopped using the library in order to save enough to buy the dress. If she went in her usual heavy, dark gowns, though, he would see only a washed-out, pinched-looking old maid. Ah well, so her dreams needed polishing. So did the new Mozart piece she was memorizing.
    The problem, of course—with her dreams, not her music—was that Miss Swann hadn’t always lived a life of endless monotony and servility, with a future as bleak as a Bath winter. Once she’d had a loving, happy home, with no