‘Miss Gilbert-Lee? Your father is here.’ Miss Bainbridge stuck her head round the door of the refectory where the young ladies were 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 with the two new books, although the ribbons had disappeared, never to be mentioned again.
At first, Sophy had been unable to believe she would never see Bridget and her parents again, but when it had sunk in that they had gone for good, she had been bereft. She had only really begun to recover from the heartbreak of losing the only people in the world she loved and who loved her, when she had come to the school and Charlotte had befriended her. Charlotte had been her protector in those early days too; although her hair had begun to grow back, Sophy had still had to wear a mop cap for some time, which had been explained by saying she had been very ill and her hair had fallen out. Some of the girls had teased her most spitefully until Charlotte had let it be known that anyone who upset Sophy upset her too, and Charlotte was a favourite with everyone.
She had never told anyone the truth about the loss of her hair, not even Charlotte. It wasn’t out of any sense of misguided loyalty to her aunt, but because the whole episode had made her feel painfully debased and ashamed. It still did.
Sophy raised her hand to her hair, neatly secured in a shining chignon at the back of her head. All of Miss Bainbridge’s young ladies wore their hair in this fashion from the age of fourteen – it was part of their preparation for womanhood; although when she was at home her aunt insisted she scrape her hair back into a tight plait. She had complied with this order thus far, but had vowed when she was sixteen and had left the school, she would tell her aunt she was wearing her hair how she liked. And her sixteenth birthday had passed two weeks ago.
Sophy’s beautiful eyes narrowed. There were going to be battles ahead. She didn’t know exactly when she’d ceased fearing her aunt, but gradually her dread of the woman who had treated her so cruelly had been replaced by hatred, and lately contempt had been added to the mix. Her aunt hadn’t touched her since that day six years ago, but Sophy knew now that if she attempted to do so again, she would fight her tooth and nail. She’d been a slight child at ten, finely boned and thin. She was still finely boned, but now slender rather than thin, and she was tall for her age. Moreover, she knew she was strong inside, where it counted. She’d had to be. She nodded mentally to the thought. Her aunt would not subjugate her again; she would kill or be killed first. That was how strongly she felt about it.
Dear, dear. Suddenly Sophy’s irrepressible humour came into play. Whatever would Miss Bainbridge do if she knew that one of ‘her girls’ was capable of thinking such things? Expire on the spot, most likely, or certainly indulge in a ladylike fit of the vapours.