Summer at Gaglow Read Online Free PDF Page A

detail of each hour, until it was time to go into the house.
    Emanuel had never been one of Fräulein Schulze’s charges. She had come to them when Eva was still a baby and Emanuel, already quite grown up at eleven, was studying with a private tutor.
    At first Marianna did not realize the effect the governess was having on her daughters. In the space of a few months, Bina, always wayward and given to fits of temper, became distant and cold, and the other two, ruled as they were by their elder sister, followed suit with their behaviour. It was only after returning home from a month-long visit to a spa town that Marianna clearly saw how they had changed towards her. Instead of rushing, their little arms outstretched and groping for the presents she had hidden in her cape, they lined up stiffly and curtsied, one by one. ‘My darlings,’ Marianna gasped, horrified at this cold reception. ‘What manners!’ But the children just looked glumly down, as if they longed for nothing more than to return to the private world of their nursery. She’d kept them with her for as long as she could bear it, and then when their formality showed no sign of easing she gave up miserably and sent them away. She imagined them prancing freely out of their regulation finery and throwing feather pillows at each other under the treacherous freckled eye of Fräulein Schulze.
    Marianna became determined to find some ground on which to dismiss the governess. She watched her closely day after day, stinging with the sight of her children’s growing adoration and unable to find the clue to her methods of seduction. She began to curse the bridge parties she had to arrange and the dresses that must be ordered and the three afternoons a week spent with a cloth over her shoulders while Herr Baum heated and rolled her hair. There were her piano lessons and her son’s education and the health of her husband, which was not always good. All these things stopped her, month after month, from finding any cause for complaint, and she shrank from dismissing the girl without some specific reason. She had almost given up when an excuse was sent to her in the form of Eva. She was just rushing out to Wertheim’s to buy stockings and new gloves when she noticed that the drawing-room door had been left open. Glancing in, she saw her youngest daughter standing with a marble in her hand. She was holding it up to the light, and as Marianna watched she popped it, like a sweet, into her mouth.
    ‘Eva!’ Marianna shrieked, seizing her by the shoulders, and Eva, who was relishing the smooth feel of glass rolling round her tongue, jumped so that the marble lodged hard into her throat. ‘Spit it out!’ Marianna ordered, pulling her round, and with her fingers she attempted to prise open her mouth. Eva choked and spluttered and began to turn a deep, dark red. ‘Help, for God’s sake!’ Marianna shouted, panic rising, and before she’d had a chance to peel away her gloves, Fräulein Schulze was pushing her aside. She grabbed hold of the girl and with a quick twist of her arm flipped her upside down, thumping her sharply on the back so that the marble flew out and rolled away across the floor.
    Marianna found that she was shaking. ‘Whatever were you thinking of, leaving the child in here alone?’ And when Fräulein Schulze didn’t answer, she seized her opportunity and ordered that she pack up her things and go. ‘Evschen, my sweet child.’ She went to wrap her daughter in her arms, but Eva struggled free, running towards her sisters who, white-faced and full of fury, were clutching at Schu-Schu’s skirt.
    ‘A marble?’ Wolf raised an eyebrow. ‘Is that so very dangerous? But Marianna refused to answer. She had spent most of that afternoon in tears, waiting for him to return, and now that the news had been passed on she presented a cold composure to her husband that he failed to understand.
    ‘A month’s wages, is that all?’ he worried. ‘She has been with us