Title: •» charm, grace & beauty
cg&b admin - January 9, 2008 07:15 PM (GMT)
•» charm, grace & beauty
Once upon a time there was a school in London for young ladies. Here they learned etiquette, manners and how to be charming – all social virtues needed for women of their class – for you should be sure that this was no place for riff raff. Spence Academy for Young Ladies was one of the finest finishing schools in the country, and it was only the very richest of parents who could send their children there, unless they were extraordinarily gifted, and won a scholarship. (This was a mixed blessing – if anyone found out that you may not be as rich as you say, then you would be outcast.) But nonetheless, the girls all loved Spence.
Unfortunately, it changed when Mrs. Adelaide Lloyd, the headmistress, left. Normally this would not be so awful, but surrounding her departure was a veil of mysterious circumstances, and this was what transformed Spence from a lovely place for young ladies to grow up into a lovely place for young ladies to grow up with a new head teacher. You would think that this wouldn’t be a problem, but unfortunately, it was. You see, Mrs. Adelaide Lloyd had been lovely. Mrs. Leticia Nightwing was not. She ran the place with military precision and less than military regard to fairness.
Being a scholarship student or a servant under Mrs. Lloyd hadn’t been bad at all; under Mrs. Nightwing it was the closest it could be to awful without crossing the boundary. You see, Mrs. Nightwing saw the value of money, and those who had it were in general sensible enough to take up her point of view and use said money to buy themselves the same lifestyle they had had under Mrs. Lloyd. Those without were subject to her prejudice against the poor and working classes. The scholarship students at least had some money, class and above all education, and so they got by with only a little unfair treatment. It was the servants who really suffered under increasingly large workloads, little pay, and harsh punishments for breaking new, ridiculous rules.
It would not be inaccurate to describe the situation as a mixed bag – some loved it, some hated it (and of course, there were those who didn’t care either way). But for those who hated it, there was something that they still could do, provided they didn’t get caught out, and that was gossip. Within a few months the staff belowstairs were constantly talking about exactly why Mrs. Lloyd had left, and they weren’t far wrong.
You see, someone’s friend knew a police officer, and that police officer knew exactly why Mrs. Lloyd wasn’t there any more, and it was because she was locked away in prison for dealing in black market silks, spices and jewels, and making a tidy packet out of it, it seemed. Over that time they had also developed their own theories as to just why this new, strict teacher had arrived – and the most popular was the one that she was a government spy there to check up on the rest of the school. This, surprisingly given how far-fetched it sounded – was also a fairly accurate guess, although none of the servants knew this. To them it was wild theory (although most accepted the Mrs. Lloyd story as fact), and they wanted it to stay like that. Everyone enjoyed a good chat after a hard day’s work, and there wasn’t too much else to talk about, often; none of them got enough break any more to go out about London town and gather some good yarns.
So that is the situation as it stands: Mrs. Lloyd in prison, and someone who could be a spy now in charge – and worse, this someone now in charge is all too aware of class and financial divisions in her school, and so the already prevalent hierarchy under Mrs. Lloyd becomes more and more obvious by the day. Gossiping seems to be all they can do, aside from breaking a rule or two when it can go under the radar – really, it’s only a question of when that gets found out too, and Mrs. Nightwing grinds her heels down further into the ground.
written by drue