Barbara Metzger (19 page)

Since Jacelyn was now using both arms to tug a stick away from the dog, she agreed wholeheartedly. “Isn’t it silly what some women will do for fashion’s sake?”

“I’ll wager more will be adopting this style. I, ah, understand Miss Ponsonby had a bit of difficulty with her train yesterday,” he said, doing some fishing himself.

Jacey chuckled. “Miss Ponsonby was a tad overset. Would you believe Miss Perfection herself acting so unladylike? Tripping over her skirts and”—she looked back at Lem, in the distance—“being found in a compromising position. I wouldn’t say anything to Arthur or anyone else, but I know you’ll appreciate the jest.”

“Anton-Fredricks?”

“Of course, though how she could—”

“And how compromising?”

“Not fatally, I suppose. It would be enough to give Aunt Ambel kitten-fits if I did it, but they were only embracing in the center of Richmond Garden’s maze.”

“That’s bad enough. Tell me something: Why didn’t you tell Arthur or Lady Hockney or any of the others? You can be sure Priscilla would have been the town crier, if it were you.”

“I know, and I thought of all the satisfaction it would have given me to tell. I even thought it wouldn’t be a bad thing if she and Anton-Fredricks had to marry. They deserve each other. I couldn’t do it though, and Miss Kinbeck and Miss Montmorency agreed: no woman should be forced to marry against her will.”

“Miss Trevaine, I compliment you as that rarest of women. Not only beautiful, but kind and wise beyond your years—and your deuced ox of a dog has its muddy feet on my new Hessians!”

*

“If Cinderella’s godmother could make a coach out of a pumpkin, I’m certain we can do something with this gown.”

Pinkie wasn’t so sure. “But Miss Jacey, ma’am, Cinderella’s godmother had a magic wand!”

They were in Rhodine’s bedchamber, where the drapes were threadbare and the ceilings had water stains, and where one of the ugliest dresses in creation hung from the wardrobe door. Pinkie just stared, dumbfounded, Hammersmith sniffed, and Jacelyn tried to keep Rhodine from weeping, though her own confidence was shaken at the task confronting them. If this gown were an infant, she thought, its own mother would disown it. Getting some cheerful conviction into her voice took an effort, but she did it. “We’ll have more of an idea when we see it on. It will look better, I’m sure. Do you want Pinkie to help you, or shall you call for your maid?”

Lady Rhodine did not have a maid of her own, sharing her stepmother’s abigail. Tina did not stir until noon, and the dresser, taking her cue from her mistress, played least-in-sight for Rhodine’s needs. The girl was pitifully grateful for Pinkie’s help. All in black as usual, Hammersmith looked like a judge finding the whole ménage guilty of a severe breach of propriety. Such goings on in a gentleman’s house!

The house, the maid, the selfish stepmama, nothing was to the point, only the Dress. Jacey was wrong. It didn’t look better on. Now it looked as if a berserking tent had dragged itself across Araby, through an oasis of roses, to savagely attack poor Miss Endicott. There was a pale pink satin under-dress, totally unstructured on top, except for a loose waist, puffed-out sleeves, and a neckline that did just that, with a stranglehold on Rhodine’s throat. Fashion dictated a fitted bosom and no waist, tiny cap sleeves and, if not cleavage, at least a collarbone!

“Tina said I mustn’t look fast.”

“You don’t even look human, much less fast.”

On top of the underdress was a white tulle overskirt consisting of four tiers of gathered ruffles which stood out so stiffly Rhodine could have sailed to Calais in a strong breeze. More of the gauzy stuff was gathered at the collar, and trickled out of the sleeves, halfway down her arms. More? Roses. Pale pink satin roses made out of the under-dress material, with green silk leaves and stems, with a white satin bow around each stem. The flowers were strewn haphazardly, so the white ribbon streamers dangled everywhere. The matching headpiece, a mixture of all of the above ingredients, was laid out on the dressing table like a casket wreath.

“Do you have a long cape? Oh, Rhodine, I’m sorry. Don’t cry! We’ll fix it…won’t we, Pinkie? Hammersmith?”

Pinkie was soon rummaging through her work-basket, while Hammersmith was poking and prodding, trying to find if Rhodine actually had some shape in there. She also pulled at the girl’s prinked curls. Too bad it wasn’t a wig, the maid’s expression said.

Then they got to work. Gown off, hair washed. The entire overdress was soon in a pile on the floor; Rhodine’s hair had a soft wave to its pale, streaky blonde. Underdress back on. Damp hair gathered up into a knot. Another conference.

The women, Jacey adding encouragement as well as creativity, decided it was better already. At least there was less of it. Now all they had to do was make it fit like a gown, not a sack. Pinkie pinned and basted and cut and sewed. There was no time for perfect edges with tiny little stitches, so the new neckline would have to be camouflaged. Jacey’s job was cutting the roses off the netting, then undoing the white ribbons. She found a housemaid willing to press them, for a coin. Hammersmith worked on Rhodine’s hair, using ingredients from her tapestry satchel. They worked straight through the luncheon no one offered them. When the maid came back with the ribbons, Rhodine ordered her to fetch something from the kitchens. The girl stood staring wide-eyed at the room in chaos and at the stepdaughter who had never demanded anything, and was now requesting meals for servants.

“Go on, girl, get.” Hammersmith flicked a towel at her. “You heard your mistress. Gawking like a bumpkin at a two-headed chicken won’t get your work done. And mind your tongue in the kitchen.”

“Yes’m.” It was Hammersmith who received the curtsey. Pinkie giggled, but kept on sewing.

It was nearly four o’clock when they finished. Jacelyn would be late for tea with the dowager Lady Parkhurst if she didn’t hurry. That, according to Aunt Amabel, would be enough to set the old girl off on her high horse. But it was worth it.

“Remember, don’t go down to supper; have it in your room. And call for that other maid to help with the buttons, not Lady Endicott’s dresser. And don’t lie down, it’ll muss your hair. Put your wrap on upstairs so by the time Lady Tina sees you it will be too late to change.”

“Yes, yes, Auntie Jacelyn, I’ll remember! Now you’d better go, or you won’t be ready on time yourself. Pinkie, Will you please help me out of the gown?”

Jacey took one last look at her friend’s glowing smile and knew it would be worth it, even if she missed Almack’s altogether. No, she amended, she had to get there early, to see Lady Tina’s face―and Arthur’s! Rhodine was lovely, the gown was superb. The slip dress was now gathered under the bust with long streaming white ribbons. The collar, cut down to a modest décolletage, was edged with a thin rolled layer of the white gauze, with one of the pink satin roses at the V. The gauze also formed tiny strap sleeves and small flounced insets at the sides of the swagged hemline, held by two more roses. The rest of the roses were twined together to make a caplet for Rhodine’s hair, now a shining soft-wheat crown with loose curls at the back. Even her cheeks had a delicate blush, thanks to Hammersmith’s satchel. The sparkle in her eyes, though, came, from the heart, not a bottle.

*

Jacelyn burst through the rear entrance of Parkhurst House, Pen bouncing around her in welcome, and called a hallo down the long corridor to Marcus at the front door. Her hair was undone, her gown was creased and had threads and snippets of gauze clinging to it, and she was late. She made a turn for the stairs, and nearly bowled over a tiny, plump old lady just coming out of the west parlour. Aunt Amabel was behind her, shredding her handkerchief.

“Doesn’t look much like a countess to me,” the dowager grumbled. “Nor even like a lady.”

Jacelyn was far from a Long Meg herself, but she looked down on the round little figure, not many inches over four feet, and said, “Good, we’re even. You don’t look much like Satan’s stepsister either, but we’ll both manage, won’t we?” She curtsied, kissed her aunt’s trembling cheek, and fled up the stairs.

*

She wasn’t born a tall, willowy blonde with a peaches-and-cream complexion. She hadn’t turned into one recently, and it didn’t appear that she soon would. She didn’t have Rhodine’s pale, fragile prettiness, nor Priscilla Ponsonby’s stately golden aura, nor even a magic wand. She’d done the best she could, though, with Pinkie and Miss Hammersmith’s assistance. It wasn’t half bad, she told herself, for a little brown wren. The gown from Ryefield was deceptively simple: a deep gold slip dress of sheerest silk, with four lighter gold, spiderweb-soft Valenciennes-lace panels falling straight to the floor from the underbust waistline. When she moved, the panels flared loosely around her, letting the underdress cling to her hips. The top was entirely unadorned, what there was of it. Not indecently low, it still managed a rounded softness and an expanse of honey-warm skin, broken only by a large topaz on a gold chain, one of her mother’s jewels. She also wore a gold tiara from the Treverly vault, confining the thick coils of chestnut hair. The few tiny wavelets around her face, seeming to be there by artless chance, had taken Hammersmith forty-five minutes to accomplish. Tiny gold satin slippers with ribbon laces and long cream-coloured gloves completed the effort, with a light dusting of powder to conceal the last of the freckles. Not china-doll pretty, but regal, elegant, exquisite. Or so everyone said when she went down to dinner.

“Fine as fivepence, my dear,” Lord Parkhurst declared. “I might be tempted to dance with you m’self.”

His mother answered Jacey’s demure curtsey with a muttered, “And I always thought you couldn’t make a silk purse out of a sow’s ear.”

Aunt Amabel was still uncertain about the gown’s colour. The whole evening was so fraught with tension, though, she ignored this minor issue and said, “Charming.”

It was Leigh Claibourne whom Jacelyn looked to, however, not the smiling Mr. Sprague nor the “
Bien
” of Mme. Aubonier.

His lordship was looking bang up to the mark himself, Jacelyn noted, with muscle-contoured black satin knee-breeches, wellfitted midnight-blue coat, sparkling white linens, a small black pearl in his intricate neckcloth, and blond curls casually brushed. Right now his blue eyes were gleaming as he told her simply: “I’ll be the proudest man there.” It was enough. Then he handed her a tissue-wrapped parcel. “Here, little princess, for your first dance.”

His gift was an ivory filigree fan in a gold holder, with a tiny pencil attached. He showed her how her dance partners’ names could be written on the delicate spokes, by entering his own on the first and another toward the end.

“Only two?” she asked, disappointed.

“That’s all the patronesses will approve, dewdrop, otherwise I’d be tempted to claim them all.”

Mr. Sprague wrote his name, and then Marcus was announcing the arrival of the dinner guests.

They were fourteen to table in all, with Jacelyn, Claibourne, and Sprague the only young people. After Aunt and Uncle Parkhurst, in fact, no one was much under sixty. These were the dowager’s friends, the Old Guard of London Society, when men wore powdered wigs and high-heeled shoes and the ladies wore patches and paint. The dowager now sported purple bunting and a red turban with an enormous diamond in the front. The turban was nearly all you could see of the elder Lady Parkhurst as she sat to her son’s right at the long mahogany table. Her chin barely crested the tabletop, and how she could reach her glass was a mystery to Jacelyn, who was trying not to embarrass herself by giggling.

Lord Parkhurst tapped his glass with his spoon, raised the glass, said, “Health,” and they all drank, starting the meal—and giving Jacelyn an idea.

She caught Marcus’s eye at the sideboard and, when he approached her, whispered her idea to him. Claibourne, at her side, raised that sardonic eyebrow but Jacelyn turned her attention back to her soup. Marcus disappeared. When he returned, concealing something behind his wide girth, he nodded to Jacey. As the soup bowls were removed and the wine was changed for the next course, Jacelyn tapped her own glass and stood up.

With a lady standing, every gentleman in the room had to rise also, but with this group, it took some time, and some canes and footmen’s aid.

“I’d like to propose a toast to my aunt,” Jacelyn said in a clear voice. “Will you all rise?”

Now this was unusual. Ladies rarely proposed toasts, hardly ever stood to do it, and never demanded that other ladies rise, especially not white-haired matrons in turbans. She turned to Mme. Aubonier in silent appeal. Madame shrugged, but stood. The others followed, again with effort. When they were all erect except Aunt Amabel, Jacelyn turned in her direction, all attention on her, and said, “For all your kindnesses, ma’am, in being like a mother to me at this important time, I wish to thank you most sincerely. To my aunt.”

Everyone sipped and sat down to the next course, prawns in drawn butter. Aunt Amabel was bewildered; she hadn’t had two conversations with the pesky girl in the week she’d been here. The dowager, however, now perched on the sofa cushion Marcus had slipped onto her chair while she was standing, smiled and raised her own glass to Jacelyn.

Not much got past Claibourne, despite his casual air. “I wonder how many other hearts you’ll win tonight, sweetheart,” he said.

*

He would never see the inside of Almack’s Assembly Rooms, not in this twisted lifetime, but Josiah Fenton spent the afternoon getting ready for it all the same.

His unfocussed eyes gazed on the future, and he didn’t like it. The poison of his hatred writhed around him in smokey black tendrils. His right hand contracted, and his head fell forward on his scrawny neck, then jerked upright again.

“Percy!” he shouted.

The loud noise startled Percy, who was in the midst of his usual occupation: pouring fluid from one container to another, so it went more smoothly into the third. His hand twitched, and the liquid spilled, so he dispensed with the intermediary step, lifting the bottle of brandy straight to his mouth.