Baroness in Buckskin (8 page)

Madame Lavert took Susannah’s chin in her hand and studied her face intently. “Not rose,
non
. But the very palest hue—” She rummaged through the pile of fabrics, and finally unearthed the one she sought. She arranged it across Susannah’s bosom and stepped back to gauge the effect. “
Voilà!
”

“Oh!” breathed Susannah, wide-eyed.

“ ‘Oh,’ indeed,” agreed Jane, noting with mixed emotions the creamy ivory of the girl’s skin and the fiery highlights in her hair. “Madame, Miss Ramsay will need the other dresses first, but you must certainly use this to make up her gown for the ball.”

“B-Ball?” All Susannah’s pleasure evaporated, leaving in its place a cold lump of dread.

“Has his lordship not told you? How very like him! Of course there will be a ball to introduce you formally to the neighborhood gentry.” Seeing panic writ large upon her cousin’s expressive countenance, she hastened to reassure her. “It will not be for several weeks yet. By that time, I daresay you shall feel as if you have lived here all your life.”

Jane next inquired of Madame as to undergarments, which proved to be petticoats, shifts, stays, and even the new pantalettes, all made of lawn and batiste of so fine a weave as to be almost transparent. As disturbing as it was to think of her remote cousin Richard seeing her in such intimate apparel (much less out of it), still more terrifying to Susannah’s mind was the prospect of the ball at which she, clad in a cloud of palest pink gauze, would demonstrate her ignorance to the world.

“Miss Hawthorne—” she began, once they had left the dressmaker’s shop and were safely ensconced in the closed carriage.

“Cousin Jane,” that lady reminded her, smiling.

“Cousin Jane, then, about this ball—must I—that is, will I be expected to dance?”

“My dear Cousin Susannah, you will be the guest of honour! It would look very odd if, after the betrothal is announced, you and Richard did not dance together.”

“It would look even odder if we did,” Susannah muttered miserably.

“I beg your pardon?”

“I can’t dance,” she said with the guilty air of one confessing to the most heinous of crimes. “I’ve never learned how.”

“I see,” said Jane, momentarily daunted. “I confess, it had never occurred to me that—but I can see that dancing masters must have been in short supply on the American frontier. Well then, we shall just have to teach you.”

“Surely you cannot mean to send to London for a dancing master as well as a hairdresser!”

“No, for as it is the height of the Season, I doubt we could persuade one to leave London at a time when their services are bound to be in demand. But
we
could teach you, Richard and I, with Aunt Amelia providing music on the pianoforte.”

“Surely Lord Ramsay—that is, Cousin Richard—must have better things to do than to—to prance around the ballroom giving dancing lessons!”

Jane’s lips twitched at the idea of Lord Ramsay “prancing” anywhere, but she merely said, “If he cannot spare us an hour or two in the afternoon, we shall enlist Peter’s help instead.”

Susannah, somewhat mollified, nodded in agreement. If it occurred to her to wonder why this suggestion should be so much more acceptable than Jane’s first proposal, she gave no outward sign.

Here’s to the housewife that’s thrifty.

RICHARD BRINSLEY SHERIDAN,

The School for Scandal

As the first of Susannah’s new gowns would not be ready for several days, Jane determined to alter one of her own dresses to fit her cousin. The selection of a suitable dress proved to be quite a challenge, since Susannah was (as Madame Lavert had noted) both shorter and curvier than her English counterpart. She finally settled on a simple lilac gown of figured muslin with a drawstring fastening beneath the bosom which might be adjusted to accommodate Susannah’s somewhat rounder form. The length, too, could be shortened by the simple expedient of removing the flounce adorning the hem.

Susannah, much moved by this gesture, protested her unworthiness of such a sacrifice, but seeing that Jane would not be gainsaid, at least determined to spare her the labour by performing the necessary alterations herself.

“Oh, can you sew?” Jane asked, heartened by this hint of hidden talents on Susannah’s part.

“Not like you do,” the younger girl confessed, glancing wistfully at Jane’s embroidery in its tambour frame. “That is, I’ve never done fine needlework, but
someone
had to darn the stockings and sew the loose buttons on Papa’s shirts and, well, that someone was me.”

“Excellent!” pronounced Jane. “My sewing basket should contain everything you require, but if you cannot find some article you need, you have only to ask.”

Susannah promised to do so, and then set to work—the end result being that, when the family assembled for luncheon, she was very creditably gowned, even if her hair was its usual unruly self.

Peter, upon seeing his erstwhile charge’s borrowed plumes, was moved to exclaim, “Very nice, Cousin Susannah. Does she not look well, Richard?”

Lord Ramsay, seeing some expression of approval on his part was expected, bent a smile upon his betrothed, said, “Yes, much better,” and took his place at the head of the table. Seeing the scowl Jane directed at him, and quite misinterpreting its meaning, he added, “I need not ask whom to credit for the improvement, Susannah, for I detect the hand of our Cousin Jane at work. I hope you remembered to thank her for her kindness.”

“If you detected
my
hand at work, Richard, I fear your eyesight is failing,” put in Jane, with a smile for her American cousin. “In fact, it was Cousin Susannah’s needlework, not mine, that deserves the credit—while as for her thanking me, do not, I beg you, set her off again! It was only with the greatest difficulty that I persuaded her that she would in fact be doing me a service in relieving me of a gown that never flattered me above half.”

This last was quite untrue, as the gown in question had been delivered from Madame Lavert’s hands only a fortnight earlier, and had quickly become one of Jane’s favourites. Still, it was the only garment she owned which might have served the purpose, and so nothing could be gained by regrets on her part, or further expressions of gratitude on Susannah’s.

“My mistake,” Richard acknowledged with a nod, then turned his attention back to his betrothed. “So tell me, Susannah, what did you think of your first visit to a dressmaker’s shop?”

This conversational gambit was considerably more successful. Susannah’s expressive blue eyes lit with enthusiasm, and she launched into a description of the morning’s adventures that doubtlessly bored the gentlemen very much, but gave Richard the opportunity to observe, as Peter had already noticed, that Susannah Ramsay, when animated, was surprisingly attractive in spite of the unfortunate hair and freckles.

“Am I to understand, then, that you preferred this activity to riding after all?”

Susannah’s brow puckered as she considered the question. “No, I can’t say I
preferred
it, exactly, for they are two such different things are they not?”

“You relieve my mind,” Richard said. “While I hope to share some common amusements with my wife, I do draw the line at shopping together for ribbons and laces.”

Susannah blushed and giggled at the thought of the very masculine Lord Ramsay invading Madame Lavert’s decidedly feminine establishment. Jane, observing this promising reaction, pressed one hand to a heart that clenched painfully at the first sign of rapport between the lord of the manor and his chosen bride.

“Of course, Susannah has not yet had the pleasure of submitting her head to be coiffed,” Jane put in hastily, to cover her own anguish. “Madame Lavert urged me to have you send to London for her nephew, Monsieur Claude Lavert.”

“Then we must do so, by all means.” Richard’s ready agreement, though upon closer examination hardly flattering to Susannah, was graciousness itself.

“I hope he can be persuaded to leave London at the height of the Season,” fretted Jane.

“I can see that I must make it worth his while to tear himself away.” He turned to Peter. “Pay whatever he asks, and make it clear that I will cover the expense of his travel on the Royal Mail.”

Peter acknowledged this command with a nod and, as soon as he had finished luncheon, took himself off to the small, sunny room on the ground floor which served as his office in order to carry out these instructions. Richard soon excused himself as well, and Jane, left alone with Susannah, smiled at her across the table.

“If you have finished, Cousin Susannah, I had thought to show you about the house this afternoon, and to introduce you to its staff.”

Susannah, willing if not eager, consented to this plan, and the two ladies left the dining room and descended the stairs that led to the servants’ domain. Here she was introduced first to the housekeeper, Mrs. Meeks.

“Mrs. Meeks, you must know, is the head of all the female staff,” Jane explained. “You will consult with her once a week, and more frequently if there are unusual issues that need to be addressed—overnight guests who need to be accommodated, for instance, or the hiring of extra staff for large entertainments.”

“Like—like the betrothal ball?” asked Susannah.

“Aye, miss, like the betrothal ball.” The housekeeper beamed at her future mistress’s ready understanding. “But strictly speaking, you won’t be my Lady Ramsay yet, so you need not take a hand in the planning of it unless you’ve a liking to. The same goes for the wedding breakfast, as I’m sure Miss Hawthorne will agree.”

“Yes, of course,” Jane concurred, forcing herself to keep smiling at the prospect of being obliged to organize this celebration of the death of her own hopes. “Still, you might like to help with the arrangements, just to learn how such things are done.” Not wishing to diminish the new mistress in the eyes of her staff, Jane explained for the housekeeper’s benefit, “Miss Ramsay has had the charge of her father’s house from a young age, but it was not so large as this one.”

Mrs. Meeks accepted this masterpiece of understatement without question. “Aye, and it being in America, I don’t doubt their ways were different from ours. Depend upon it, miss, I’ll do anything I can to help you adjust, and I think I can say the same for the whole staff, except for—tell me, Miss Hawthorne, does—that is, has Miss Ramsay met Antoine yet?”

Jane grimaced. “No, that pleasure still awaits her.” To Susannah she added, “Antoine, the chef—pray
don’t
call him a cook, whatever you do!—is a French
émigré
, as his name suggests. He is a genius in the kitchen, but is a bit temperamental.”

“More than a bit!” Mrs. Meeks put in emphatically. “He’s a regular tyrant in the kitchen, but never you mind. Miss Hawthorne here knows just how to handle him, and I don’t doubt she’ll show you the way of it.”

“The secret is flattery, no more nor less,” confided Jane, laughing. “Fortunately, his accomplishments in the kitchen make it easy to heap on compliments without the least hint of hypocrisy. Then, after you have emptied the butter boat over his head, you may approach the issue that must be addressed, making it clear that you are fully aware of the sacrifice you are asking of poor Antoine, obliged as he is to live in a world populated by mere mortals.”

“He sounds quite insufferable!” exclaimed Susannah, appalled.

“Oh, he is. But when you have sampled a meal of his creation—for last night’s cannot be said to count, as I wrecked all his plans by moving dinner forward upon Lord Ramsay’s arrival—you will see why he is to be indulged at all costs. Indeed, his lordship would be most displeased if you were to provoke Antoine to give notice.”

With these words of warning, Jane led the way to the kitchen, where she was introduced not only to Antoine, but to the army of underlings who apparently jumped at his beck and call, from the middle-aged woman who served as undercook to the ten-year-old pot boy who regarded the Frenchman with an air of awe not unmixed with abject terror.

“Once a week you will consult with Antoine over the week’s meals, so that he may plan his marketing accordingly,” Jane explained while the culinary genius and his future mistress eyed one another warily. “In fact, I intend to make out a menu later this afternoon. Why don’t you plan one of this week’s dinners your-self, and add it to my list? It will be good practice for you, and Antoine can begin to learn your preferences.”

After her initial meeting with the tyrant of the kitchen, the rest of the staff, including the male contingent under the dominion of Wilson, the butler, held no power to terrify. It was not until later, when Jane gave the unfinished menu to her with instructions that she make her own additions before sending it downstairs to Antoine by way of the footman, that something approaching panic set in.

“But—but what shall I write?”

“Whatever you wish to eat,” Jane said, thinking, no doubt, to be reassuring. “Whatever cannot be found in Richard’s own succession houses will be purchased at the village market.”

“Succession houses?” echoed Susannah, unfamiliar with the term.

“You must have him show them to you on your ride tomorrow. “Oranges, grapes, peaches—anything that will not grow in the natural climate thrives in abundance in the succession houses.” She glanced down at the unfinished list in Susannah’s hand. “As for the menu, why, you must have done something similar when you kept house for your father, even if you did not write it down. What was your father’s favourite meal? You might wish to begin with that.”

After Jane had gone, leaving her cousin alone with this task, Susannah tapped the pencil against her cheek and studied the paper in her hand. There in Jane’s neat hand were transcribed each evening’s meal: roast beef cooked in port wine sauce, potatoes with rosemary, and buttered peas; chicken with mushroom gravy, to be served over rice, and carrots with slivered almonds . . .

While meals on their Kentucky homestead were largely dependent on the season, there were apparently no such restrictions here. How, then, was one to know where to begin?
What was your father’s favourite meal?
Jane had suggested. It seemed as good an idea as any other. Taking a deep breath, Susannah set pencil to paper and began to write. A few minutes later, she laid the pencil aside and folded the paper in half, then tugged the bell pull and, ignoring the butterflies cavorting about her stomach, gave the folded paper to the footman along with instructions that it was to be delivered to Antoine.