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Dance
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2021-02-19 10:27:17Southampton
“One, two, three. One, two, three,” Mildred Westmoreland counted as she traced Meg’s steps around the room. “Good, now remember to hold your arm up. It must be stiff. That’s it.”
The sound of cheerfulness in her mother’s voice was not only surprising but refreshing. Ever since her mother had decided that she would teach Meg to dance herself a few months ago, they’d spent quite a bit of time together each afternoon. Though Ms. Strickland had insisted that she knew all of the dances Meg was sure to encounter once she began attending balls on a regular basis, Mrs. Westmoreland had been appalled at the poor quality of her instruction and had taken over the duty almost immediately. She had explained to her daughter that very afternoon, “As a young lady, I was renowned for my dancing skills. No daughter of mine will embarrass herself at a ball.”
While it had been odd at first—after all, Meg
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Meg’s eyes grew wide with dismay as Mildred scooted her chair out and tossed her napkin on the table in front of her, giving her daughter one last callous look as she did so. It had never occurred to her that her father would actually disapprove of what she had been doing. After all, she wouldn’t have been driven to do any of those things if he had still been there to protect her, to keep her safe from the monster and her own mother.She kept her vow of not crying when there was any chance someone might see her and swallowed back her tears. The lumpy porridge looked completely unappealing now, and she was certain any toast she put in her mouth would catch in her throat and choke her to death. Since she’d heard Tessa go out the back a few moments ago, she knew the coast was clear to do yet another thing her mother detested, though it hadn’t been on the list, and she took her dishes out into the yard and fed the scraps to her uncle’s hounds.
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Giving the book another longing glance, she sat down at her table and pulled out her mathematics book. It was by far her worst subject, but she thought, if she wanted to impress a new governess, she should likely study it a bit more. Young women didn’t have to know nearly as much about calculations and sums as young men, but she’d be expected to know something about how numbers worked. She felt like such a failure every time she attempted to do a simple long division calculation. Whenever she began to court, she would make sure that all the young men she accepted invitations from could do their computations so that she wouldn’t have to.“That does not look very exciting at all,” Kelly said from just behind her. Meg hadn’t heard her come in and startled a bit at the unfamiliar voice. “I’m sorry—I didn’t mean to frighten you.”“Not at all,” Meg said. Being frightened was a weakness, and she had
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