The Painted Lady by Bárbara Metzger Read Free Book Online Page A

of fashionable young misses, Lilyanne was jailer to the worst of them. Keeper. Nursemaid to Society’s spoiled darlings, dwindling toward an old-maid matron. And she hated every bit of it.
    For her uncle’s sake, Lilyanne appeared a sober, steadfast cipher in starchy gray gowns, with her dark hair secured under a plain white mobcap. She never raised her voice, never hurried, never let her charges see how their meanness and ill-manners hurt. She was the end result and the embodiment of Uncle Osgood’s theories of mental stability, theories that eschewed flamboyance, exuberance, excitement of any kind. But that gray shadow Sir Osgood’s doctrines dictated was not Lilyanne Bannister.
    The real Lilyanne Bannister wanted to wear pink dresses. No, red ones. Silk, with lace and flounces and trailing bows. She wanted to dance and sing and ride cross-country hell-for-leather, yes, even astride once in her life, with her hair streaming out behind her. She wanted to meet young men and learn to flirt. She was two-and-twenty and had never felt a man’s lips on hers, not even a stolen kiss from the apothecary’s assistant. The villagers were too afraid of her uncle to chance taking such liberties, so Lilyanne had no beaus, and no friends either.
    If the difference in their stations had not kept the neighbors away, Lilyanne’s uncle’s medical practice had. Sir Osgood was no sawbones, he was a limb of Satan to the ordinary folk of Upper Lytchfield, outside Maidstone. He could not cure the pox nor help at a difficult birth. He could not even help at a difficult death, so what good was the knighted physician to the farmers and shopkeepers? They did not want any mentalist plotting mischief in their minds. They stayed away, and their wives and daughters did, too.
    One of the few pleasures Lilyanne enjoyed was when one of her charges was declared well enough to be returned to the bosom of her family, by which Uncle Osgood meant the young lady would no longer embarrass her relatives in public. He was always torn between the loss of income engendered by a “cure,” and the vindication of his methods. Lilyanne’s uncle believed that his healthful regimen and herbs turned the tide of mental illness, he truly did, even after all those years.
    Lilyanne knew for a fact that boredom had been the best prescription. Even the most recalcitrant chit quickly understood she’d have to undergo months more of tedious walks and improving sermons if she did not mend her manners. It was blackmail, plain and simple. The girls would do anything to relieve the tedium of Bannister Hall, which was now called the Bannister Home for Healthful Living. So would Lilyanne.
    What could she do, though? Uncle Osgood agreed to continue paying for Lisbet’s schooling as long as Lilyanne remained to assist him. That, too, was blackmail. Lilyanne could not find a decent position to pay for her sister’s education, not without references. She could not find a comfortable husband in London, not without a sponsor or a dowry. She could not make her fortune as a poet or novelist or playwright, not without talent. Furthermore, she barely knew anything of the arts, since Uncle Osgood considered them overstimulating to the mind. He considered everything over - stimulating: soft fabrics, bright colors, dancing, laughter, racing on horseback ... anything that might bring someone happiness.
    Except for Lisbet, Lilyanne would long ago have left to make her own way, despite her shortcomings, for surely there must be some avenue open to an intelligent, well-bred female. If she left, however, Lilyanne feared her uncle would simply order the sixteen-year-old home to take her place as his assistant, foregoing the education that would offer Lisbet a better future. In one more year, Lisbet could request a recommendation from her school’s headmistress, to find gainful employment. In one more year, she might be able to accompany a schoolmate to London, or Brighton, or Bath, where she