Barbara Metzger Read Online Free PDF Page A

London within the hour, so you must not pester me with your questions. I have to pack.”
    “Janine said the maid said that she heard your uncle died and left you a fortune. Is that true?”
    “Janine should not gossip with the maids or listen to keyhole rumors.”
    “But is it true?” another girl asked. All eight of them were clustered around Cristabel.
    “It’s something like that. No, it’s nothing like that, just family matters. Now let me pass. Everyone back in bed, quickly, before Miss Meadow comes to see what the commotion is.”
    “You mean to supervise your packing like she did with that maid who left last month,” giggled little Lady Jessica, scrambling for her bed in a flurry of bare feet and billowy white nightgown. “To make sure you don’t leave with any of the school’s forks or spoons.”
    “Maybe she’ll check to see you’re not stuffing one of
us
into your trunk to hold for ransom.”
    “Whatever would I want with one of you?” Cristabel teased as she walked past the eight beds in a row, neatening a cover or tucking a curl into a lacy nightcap. “I thought I was going to London to get away from you plaguey children. Besides, you have been reading far too many Minerva Press novels, all of you. I’m sure Miss Meadow will blame me for that, too.”
    They all laughed. Indeed, it was Cristabel who brought the gothic romances back from the lending library for the girls, tucked between volumes of sermons and improving works. She felt the girls were better off reading something, anything at all, rather than nothing. “Hush now,” she said, kissing the last girl on the forehead. “I must get ready.”
    “She will, you know,” a small, serious voice called from across the room. “She’ll blame everything on you. She’ll blacken your character and use you as a bad example.”
    “She’ll say she had to dismiss you because your conduct was unbecoming to the school’s image.”
    “She’ll say…she’ll say you aren’t a lady.”
    There was a moment’s silence as they all, Cristabel included, contemplated this death knell of Miss Swann’s reputation. Then came a firm assertion: “Well, I won’t believe it,” followed by a whole chorus of, “me neither’s.” Then Miss Swann quietly answered, “Thank you, girls. I won’t believe it either.”
    * * *
    There was very little to pack. The nights were still cold so she would wear her warmest dress, the gray merino, and her shawl so the spots wouldn’t show, her wool cloak and boots, and the only bonnet she owned. Her other dresses, slippers, nightclothes, and underthings all fit in the portmanteau she used as a laundry basket, with room to spare for a few of her favorite books saved from her father’s library. She’d like to give the rest to the other teachers, especially Miss Macklin, the voice instructor, who was closest to Cristabel in age. She knew the staff would be cowering in their rooms, however, lest Miss Meadow’s disfavor rub off on them. No, singling out Miss Macklin would not be a kindness.
    That left only her comb and brush, inlaid in ivory with her mother’s initials, and the miniature portraits of her parents. As she carefully wrapped the double silver frame in her spare nightgown, she couldn’t help worrying if her parents would have approved. Would her proper mama have deplored her lack of mourning for the dead or noticed, in fact, that Cristabel was nearly ecstatic at her uncle’s demise, already considering how to spend his money? No, Mrs. Swann was no hypocrite and had never approved of her brother-in-law or his way of life, especially after the vicar’s death, when Lord Harwood did not even extend the common courtesy of a condolence letter to the widow, much less an offer of assistance to her and her daughter. But would they think she was being a fool to leave the security of her position at the school or, worse, becoming a gambler like Uncle Charles? Gentle Papa had always said it was in the Harwood blood,