Break of Dawn by Rita Bradshaw

teacher and Charlotte had been the bane of the poor woman’s life; no matter how Miss Potts tried, she was unable to make Charlotte grasp more than the mere rudiments of the instrument. As Charlotte herself cheerfully proclaimed, where the piano was concerned she had two left hands. Charlotte did have a beautiful singing voice, however, as did Sophy, and the two of them had often performed a duet at the musical soirées Miss Bainbridge put on for family and friends at the end of the summer and Christmas terms. As both girls were very pretty and their voices harmonised perfectly, they had been in great demand.
    Sophy had loved those occasions; in fact, she sometimes felt they were the only times she was truly alive, along with the dancing and drama classes taken by Miss Bainbridge’s sister. She could become someone else – anyone else – rather than Sophy Hutton, orphan. She had once daringly asked her uncle why she couldn’t be known by her father’s name of Lemaire, since it was so much more satisfying than plain old Hutton, but he had told her not to be so impertinent and that was the end of that. She knew why, of course. It was because her aunt and uncle had disapproved of her mother’s marriage and were determined to stamp out even the memory of her father’s name. But they wouldn’t. She was determined about that. She often pictured them, her mother and father, when they had been young and in love. Her mother had had deep blue eyes, Bridget had told her that, so she must have inherited her father’s unusual amber eyes. She liked the thought of that. She could see him in her mind’s eye – a tall, dark, handsome Frenchman with black curly hair and a captivating smile. And he was of the nobility, even if he hadn’t had any money. But more than that he had loved her mother, and he would have loved her too, if he hadn’t been taken so suddenly.
    ‘Miss Gilbert-Lee? Your father is here.’ Miss Bainbridge stuck her head round the door of the refectory where the young ladieswere waiting for relatives or friends to collect them for the journey home, and the two girls looked at each other for a moment before hugging.
    ‘Don’t forget we’re going to write every week.’ Charlotte was suddenly tearful. ‘And I’ll get Papa to ask your uncle if you can come for a visit over the New Year. We mustn’t lose touch, Sophy. Promise me we won’t.’
    Sophy patted her friend’s arm. ‘Of course we won’t.’ She didn’t believe it. The Gilbert-Lees had made numerous requests over the last six years, asking that Sophy be allowed to come and stay, but her uncle had refused every one. Patience, on the other hand, who had been in the year above her and who had finished her schooling twelve months ago, had been given her mother’s permission to accept any invitation which came her way. And Charlotte was off to an expensive finishing school in the spring to prepare her for entry into fashionable society when she reached the age of eighteen; she would make new friends, girls who would invite her to their homes and who would be invited to Charlotte’s. Sophy knew this was the end of an era.
    After more hugs and tears, Sophy watched her friend depart before sitting down in a vacant chair in the refectory, her valise at her feet.
    She didn’t want to go back to the vicarage
. She drew in her upper lip, biting down hard to prevent giving way. It hadn’t been so bad having to spend the holidays there because she had known she would be returning to the school again, but now . . .
    She rubbed at her eyes with the back of her hand, something Miss Bainbridge would have deemed unladylike. There were many things Miss Bainbridge deemed unladylike.
    It had been Patience who had broken the news of Bridget’s departure from the house six years ago, and to be fair to her cousin she had tried to be kind. Patience had even gone so far as to rescue Maisie and her other hidden treasures from under the blankets on the pallet bed, along