My Music Teacher

Janice Parker, a mute African-American centenarian, pays her final visit to the location that once hosted the building she spent her childhood in – The Colored Orphan Asylum. Emotionally overwhelmed, she pulls out of the trip. At home, she calmly recalls her troubled childhood at the Asylum. Withdrawn from the neglect and isolation she receives from her peers at the Asylum (largely resulting from her inability to speak) 10-year-old Janice forms a close friendship with Timothy Morgan, a talented but struggling African-American musician in his mid twenties, who himself also grew up in the Asylum. Timothy teaches Janice to write and play musical instruments. Timothy crosses paths with Melissa Harper, a beautiful 18-year-old, born-blind daughter of a New York aristocrat. Melissa has been betrothed to Patrick Hardy, a proud, power-hungry and promiscuous Union Army Captain and son of another New York aristocrat. Despite her disability and strong disapproval from members of her family, Melissa dreams of being the first woman to perform in the New York Philharmonic Society. She makes her father employ Timothy to teach her to play instruments well enough to get accepted into the Philharmonic Society. They form a close bond around the limitations placed on them by society – Melissa being a blind woman, and, Timothy being a black man. They make a pact to help each other huddle over the limitations and achieve their dreams – Melissa’s dream being to perform in the New York Philharmonic Society, and, Timothy’s dream being to have his music appreciated (a dream he understands can only come true via Melissa). Timothy prepares Melissa for the Philharmonic Society. They fall in love in the process. Patrick is reassigned to New York to assist in the implementation of the Enrollment Act. He discovers the affair between Melissa and Timothy and informs her father of it. Her father disengages Timothy. Patrick threatens Melissa with Timothy’s murder if she doesn’t break up with him. Melissa breaks up with Timothy. She soon discovers she is pregnant. Melissa gets accepted by the members of the New York Philharmonic Society. She feels the void left by Timothy’s absence and forces her maid to take her to him. Patrick learns of her visit to Timothy via his spy and physically confronts her before her parents. She reveals her pregnancy to everyone. Patrick, angry from the revelation, plots to kidnap and lynch Timothy under the cover of the Draft Riots. He has Timothy kidnapped, but Melissa gets him released through bribes before he is lynched. She plans to smuggle him out of the city after a last meeting with him at the Asylum. Patrick connives with some men who catch up with them at the Asylum. They mingle among the furious crowd already enraged by the draft and burn down the Asylum with Timothy and Melissa still inside, then they retrieve their copses before anyone else finds them. Before their deaths, the pair were able to get Janice out of the raging inferno. Janice makes another attempt at paying her final visit to the former site of the Asylum. She passes on after arriving at the site.