One girl would become an executive secretary, one a private tutor in French, and, saddest, the youngest and fairest found work wearing a starched mobcap and frilled apron selling Belgian chocolates in a lovely little mirrored shop on Michigan Avenue. Muriel, the talented eldest, a child-prodigy performer in Glasgow some years back, now taught the children of the rich to play piano presentably.

Before the accident, she had entertained at afternoon parties for Mrs. Armour, who then hired her to train the little Armours. The heiress lectured Muriel that she must always use the mansion’s side entrance marked with a bronze plaque, DELIVERIES AND STAFF. Miss Fraser arrived wearing a black dress; the garment itself required costly benzine cleaning, but its detachable white lace cuffs and collar could be laundered daily and at home. Muriel understood from the start that a cheap black dress looks better longer than a cheap blue dress. In her carpet satchel, she always brought: her family’s own dependable fruitwood metronome, the difficult Czerny exercises annotated with her decisive script, an apple as her usual lunch, and slip-on gold ballet slippers to make pedal instruction easier.

Mrs. Armour liked her children to take their lessons while she held large teas for small women in distant rooms. She liked the sound of cultural betterment. She once sent Muriel a note, via the butler’s gold tray, “S’il vous plaît? Fewer scales, more melody pour mes chères amies?” When Muriel herself played a little Bach two-part invention, she heard the company ooh-aah. Muriel guessed the heiress must’ve claimed credit for her child; our heroine could not resist sliding into a passage from Pergolesi, one of great difficulty, as the ooh-aahs soon muted to silence. Mrs. Armour, the famous auburn-tressed beauty, had been Miss Sophy Brophy, a novelty dancer in the Varieties. She now insisted on being called “So-phie-a.” Her pretension was legendary, as was her cruelty to overeducated underlings like Miss Muriel Fraser. “Must you forever drag your scuffed carpet ‘clutch’ right into our Venetian Room?” Muriel’s Roman nose was perhaps too bold, her Norman chin a bit too shy, but her black suit and knowing smile troubled even Mrs. Armour.