Miss Molly Robbins Designs a Seduction (10 page)

Had anyone asked Carver which opera he saw that night, he would never have been able to answer.

As Molly carried a pitcher of water up the stairs one morning for her ablutions, she encountered old Mrs. Bathurst on the narrow landing, signaling to her in some urgency.

“What is it, madam? Are you all right? Is something amiss?” She wondered if perhaps the lady had endured another visit from a debt collector, for they seemed a frequent menace in that house, worse than flies on a butcher’s market stall. Molly had already protected the old dear from one scrawny, greasy-haired menace a few days previously—chased him down the stairs with her slipper and a crochet hook.

Mrs. Bathurst’s gnarled fingers pulled on Molly’s shawl. “Come into my room, my dear. I have something to show you.”

Molly left her jug inside her own room and then hurried to her neighbor’s. Mrs. Bathurst told her to shut the door. “Come. Sit.” She gestured to a small settee with a torn horsehair cushion and then began searching inside a cupboard, muttering under her breath. Molly had never before been inside Mrs. Bathurst’s room, and she found it quite comfortable, full of furnishings that, like the old lady herself, had seen better days and possibly known a lifetime of scandalous secrets. Not that Molly listened to gossip. If it could be helped.

“I have come to a decision,” said Mrs. Bathurst. “It’s time I put things to use. I’m not long for this world, and I can’t abide the thought of the bailiffs taking everything when I’m gone. Duns ransacking my treasures to pay bills they
claim
I have not paid. Aha! Here they are.” She took three carved wooden boxes from a shelf in her cupboard and placed them reverently in Molly’s lap. “These were given to me by a lover many years ago, when I was younger than you are now, Miss Robbins.” She smiled, lowering to the seat beside Molly. “He was a very fine man, a Hungarian prince.”

Molly looked at the boxes. They were quite plain on the outside, the carving simple but cleanly done.

“He adored me, you know. Ah, but it never lasts.”

“No, I suppose not.” She tried to keep the disapproval out of her tone, for she liked Mrs. Bathurst. It was impossible not to like a person who often wore shoes from two different pairs on her feet just because she “felt like it,” claimed to have lived before as Boadicea, Queen of the Iceni, could recite love poems in Russian, and put crumbs out for the birds on her window ledge every day without fail, because she believed they were the souls of lost loved ones come to say good morning to her. Mrs. Bathurst was a victim, however, of two widely disparate natures. One day she was full of the joys of life and singing from the mountaintops; the next she was down in the deepest gully of unhappiness. Molly always made an effort to cheer the lady if she encountered her on one of those bad days, but it was very hard work and often frustrating.

Today, it seemed, Mrs. Delilah Bathurst was merry and in a mood to reminisce.

“How long ago it was, and yet I can remember his face as if he stands there now, by my window.” The lady’s eyes fogged over. “I have kept those boxes hidden away for too long. It is time to share. You, I think, have the sensitive eye to appreciate them.”

“They are beautiful, madam.”

“Open them, my dear. The real treat is held within.”

Molly clicked open the first lid and discovered that the box was decorated inside with a pattern of small ebony and mother-of-pearl tiles, like a chess board. Within each ebony square there was a violet flower made of tiny gemstones.

“The boxes, you see, Miss Robbins, are made to look quite ordinary on the outside, but within they hold special treasure, secret surprises of great beauty.”

“They are exquisite, madam!” Molly opened the other boxes and found more bejeweled interiors, intricately designed patterns that had kept their brilliant color because they so seldom saw sunlight.

“And now they are yours, my dear.”

“Oh, Mrs. Bathurst, I could never—”

“The moment I saw your clever hands at work, I thought of these boxes. Hidden treasures, you see. Not much on the outside, but glorious artistry within. Only those privileged to see inside can enjoy it.”

“But surely there is someone else more deserving—”

“No, indeed. My mind is made up. I have my memories, and they must be enough. My sister, who does not have a true appreciation of my treasures, would pawn them for cake to feed the neighborhood. There is no other relative to whom I can entrust these pretty things. I had a son once, but he is lost to me now. At least let me go to my grave, Miss Robbins, knowing I have thwarted the bailiffs who would take everything I ever loved and leave me to be buried with naught but the clothes upon my back. As it is, I daresay they will have the silk stockings off me before I’m cold, and the rings from my fingers, even if they have to break the bones to get them.”

While the lady ranted and raved about these ghostly tomb robbers, as if they waited now in the corner of her room, counting the minutes until she expired, Molly ran her hands over the boxes, her mind already churning with new ideas for her designs.

Finally, as the lady’s words slowly registered, she looked up. “You had a son, madam?”

“Thirty years ago at least.” She lowered her voice and glanced anxiously at her door. “I could not keep him. He was taken from me.”

“By whom?” Molly was indignant at the idea of anyone taking a child away from its mother.

“I daresay it was just as well, my dear Miss Robbins. In my state, what could I give the boy?”

“I see. It happened after you were widowed. You must miss your husband, Mrs. Bathurst.”

“My husband?” She chortled. “My dear, I’m afraid there never was one in my case. The son of whom I speak was conceived on the wrong side of the blanket, as they say. But there was a dear naval colonel named Bathurst with whom I enjoyed many pleasant afternoons. Sadly, he lost his life at the Battle of Copenhagen. My sister, finding me enceinte some months after, thought it fitting I should play the part of his widow, since he was not around to deny it.”

“Oh.”

“You see, my sister, although the younger, has always taken charge of me.”

“But could you not go to the colonel’s family for help? Surely they would want—”

“He was not the father of my child.”

She should, perhaps, have seen that coming. Mrs. Bathurst’s cloud was a colorful one, to say the least. But this story tugged on Molly’s heart, for she could see the lady’s sorrow when she spoke of her child. It was a sudden spark of something real among all the whimsical, far-fetched tales.

“Do you know where your son is now, what became of him?”

The lady tilted her head, and a dreamy expression melted over her features. She laid a hand on the carved lid of the box Molly held in her lap. “He is better off than you and I, to be sure. He lives in a beautiful house and is never troubled with fleas in his mattress. I saw him only last week, in a carriage with a lovely young lady. I knew him at once, for he is very like his princely father.”

Another fantastical story from her new friend’s varied repertoire. It was far more likely that her poor child was placed in an institution of some kind, like so many unfortunates. Like poor Frederick Dawes or dear Rafe Hartley, she thought.

But Mrs. Bathurst did not want to talk more on the matter, and her chatter veered off in a new direction—as it did frequently. “Now, did I tell you, my dear Miss Robbins, about the time I was pursued through the maze at Hampton Court by Admiral Lord Nelson
and
the Duke of Wellington at the same time?”

“No, madam, you did not.”

So the lady began her improbable tale of reckless abandon among the hornbeam hedges, and Molly listened, growing impervious to shocks. Until she formed a friendship with Mrs. Bathurst, Molly had always assumed the fault for a lady’s ruin lay entirely with the man who pursued and seduced her. Now she understood that women could be equally to blame, equally tempted. Some of them quite enjoyed it.

Try as she might, Molly found she could not disapprove of the indefatigable Mrs. Bathurst or the lurid, implausible stories that made her happy, any more than she could scowl at Frederick’s methods of staying afloat. Her mother might have warned her against acquaintances such as these, but Molly knew they were not bad people. Now she lived among them and saw how there were many different sorts of struggle in the world. She had been sheltered from much of it, firstly having grown up within the protection of a large family, then having the good fortune of meeting Lady Mercy Danforthe.

Thoughts of Mrs. Bathurst’s lost child plagued her. Those institutions were little more than breeding grounds for crooks. She’d seen abandoned young boys—like the one who’d caught Carver Danforthe’s notice recently—who worked the London streets as pickpockets, their faces grubby, and with no shoes on their feet. Most workhouse boys were not as fortunate as Frederick Dawes, who had good looks, street-smart charm, and artistic talent to carry him along. Or as lucky as Rafe, who had concerned family to take him in and offer a helping hand.

Mrs. Bathurst’s fiction of what happened to her child was much more palatable than the probable truth, of course, and if fantasy brought comfort to the old lady, who was Molly to spoil it? A dose of reality would not cure her illness and would only sink her into the depression that was never far away on the other side of a fragile wall.

***

The social debut of Molly Robbins’s Designs for Discerning Ladies occurred at the Royal Academy of Art on the occasion of the annual exhibition, during which Lady Cecelia Montague was seen sporting a blue lutestring ensemble of such a new style that it made the Society column of
The
Times
, as well as an article, complete with sketch, in
La
Belle
Assemblee
.

Molly slowly read the description when Frederick—with toast crumbs on his chin and a paintbrush tucked behind his ear—ran up the stairs to show her the article.

As reported by an eager eyewitness, Lady Cecelia’s garments were cut with smooth lines that might almost be considered severe and masculine. But they contained a cunning surprise—a bright damask-print underskirt, visible only in teasing flashes as she walked. The sleeves, it was shockingly observed, were quite peculiar in that they simply followed the shape of the arm, rather than provide it with any bulbous curves, epaulettes, or winglike protuberances. Only a small fanned pleat in the same fabric as the underskirt was used to widen the cuff over Lady Cecelia’s hand and to make an upright collar, which rose all the way to her proud chin. The collar itself was revolutionary among a sea of broad wings.

Never before thought of as particularly tall or graceful, Lady Cecelia was now considered “swanlike.” There was not an ungainly puff or needless ruffle in sight. In a form that was either old-fashioned or daringly new—no one seemed certain either way—the bodice was molded to her figure and yet miraculously succeeded in masking flaws previously noted by critical observers. Now, when those same eyes looked to find fault in her shape, they saw only an elegant line and a woman confidant that she looked her best.

It was, for all concerned, a triumph.

Soon after this event, Baroness Schofield was spotted at a private ball in a very simple spring-green sarcenet gown. The understated design revealed a surprise however, for as she danced, lifting her wrist and with it one side of her train, a concertina of pleats opened to show a trail of tiny ribbon roses and white embroidered daisies scattered in a seemingly haphazard pattern down the material and across the back of her skirt. Almost as if, as one witness proclaimed, they were spilled there by fortuitous accident. The same daises were sewn into a single strip of ribbon that circled her neck in place of grander jewels.

At the ball, a gentleman was overheard to declare that the Baroness Schofield could put that Season’s fresh young debutantes in the shade. She was apparently so thrilled by this that she sent a bouquet of tulips to Molly’s lodgings the next day, carried by her lady’s maid, who dutifully and without the slightest enthusiasm, related all the details of the successful evening. There was a problem however. The card left with the bouquet was written in a messy hand Molly recognized at once. It was the same handwriting she’d witnessed almost daily, for twelve years, on letters left upon the hall table at Danforthe House whenever the earl was done with his morning correspondence.

At least no one else would know. She could safely show off her flowers as if they did indeed come from a satisfied client.

Meanwhile, young debutante Lady Anne Rothespur was delighted by the reaction to her lilac silk walking gown with embroidered frog clasps across the bodice and waterfall pleats revealing diamonds of patterned muslin down the back of the skirt. For once, she told Molly, even her brother had approved.

“I do believe even Danforthe thought I looked very well in it,” she exclaimed when she called at Molly’s lodgings to thank her. “He very nearly gave me a compliment, and Danforthe never gives a compliment. My brother says he can’t understand why women flock to him, because he’s invariably rude to them.”

Molly was caught unawares by the mention of that name. The Earl of Everscham had lurked in the back of her mind, safely tucked away where he could not distract her, but the chattering young lady brought him back out of hiding.

“Of course, Danforthe is heinously handsome, so I’m told.” Lady Anne wrinkled her nose. “I just cannot see it, having grown up thinking of him as more of a brother. Ever since I can remember, he and Sinjun have been close. They met at school, you know.”

“Oh?” She tried not to appear too interested.

“Danforthe stood up for my brother against some dreadful bullies, and they were friends from that day on. Sinjun says Danforthe was always protecting those weaker than himself. Do you think him handsome, Miss Robbins?”

She delayed coyly. “Your brother?”

“Jumping Jacks, no! Carver Danforthe. Would you say he is handsome?”