Felicia's fashions 5

 

Chapter 5               

                 

22 Henrietta Street

18^th March

 

Oh, Twin!  What a day.

What a simply awful day.

Well!  Apparently two after noon is early morning for someone like the fair Rosabelle, so I was hanging around, waiting for her to come for her fitting. Florence loved the dress; Mary and Janey squealed in delight at it; Trinity thought it ‘luvverly’ and Lillias and Amy both thought it very fine.  And you can tell from what people don’t say. 

So, anyway, in walked – or rather, stalked – his lordship and that veritable WENCH of his.  I held up the gown.

She screeched, ‘Are you deaf or just stupid? I told you to put flounces on it and flowers round the bottom.’ I said ‘It must be you who were deaf, because I told you that would look vulgar and cheap.’  And then she slapped me.  Well, I slapped her back.  ‘How dare you! You are a menial! I am your superior!’ she screeched.  I said, ‘You are not a lady and I am, you should learn to know your place,’ and she took up my beautiful creation, and ripped it in two!

I fear, Phip, my first impulse was to pick up the sewing shears. I think she saw murder in my eyes, for she retreated behind Lord Hartley, and sneered – yes, actually sneered at me ‘Victor will see you paid for your time and materials.’ And Lord Hartley said, ‘Yes, of course I will, but you have gone too far this time, Rosabelle; and this is goodbye.’ And she actually simpered!!!!! And said ‘Well, shall we find a jeweller, or a proper modiste for my farewell gift?’ I could hardly believe the venal rapacity of the woman, she had just cost him almost three hundred guineas for the best gown I have ever made, and still wanted a gift!  Well, plainly Lord Hartley felt the same about that as I do, for he picked up the gown, and said, ‘This is your farewell gift, Rosabelle; but you saw fit to destroy it.’ She started screeching again, and he took her by the arm to lead her out.  I fear I collapsed, sobbing, onto my chaise longue, for the destruction of my masterpiece.  And then I heard someone beside me, and he said to me, ‘Little girl! I know that paying for your work and materials is no replacement for the beautiful work of art which has been so carelessly destroyed, and I could see in your eyes how she ripped your soul with the fabric, but at least it will pay for the materials to make another as good.’

Hereat I fear I wailed, ‘but it was a remnant length I salvaged!  It wasn’t even a full price piece and she has wantonly destroyed the hard work of those poor weavers! And I put my heart into it, to try to make her look how you wished her to look!’

“Do you want me to pay for it as if it was full price?” he asked. “I am well aware that Dhaka muslin can be as much as four hundred pounds a yard, and I wondered how you could manage such a low price, for it is not the coarsest pick.”

“Of course not!” I snivelled [yes, I fear I snivelled.] “It is not your responsibility to make up for the full price; I was lucky to get a length cheap, for water damage, which I made good with careful washing and stretching. I’ve done the same with some silks as well, because it is a shame that beautiful things should not be used, all for the lack of ingenuity and industry on the part of most folks.”

“You are a busy little bee,” he said, but it was not an insult the way he said it.

I managed to blow my nose.

“If you were as much of a cross-grained grundyguts as your former lady-love, I would have accepted full price reparation, but then, if you were, you wouldn’t have offered,” I said, perhaps a little obscurely. “But most important, you realise that she hurt me in damaging something on which I laboured most carefully.”

“I do understand,” he said. Oh, Phip, how gentle his voice can be. “My brother was a talented artist, and he had drawn a picture of our parents in watercolour. I tried to do the same, and he mocked my efforts, and in a fit of temper, I  threw my own paint water over his.  It was then that he drove out, and never came back for three months.”

I gasped.

“How guilty you must have felt! And how hard to confess to your parents!  And how relieved you must have been when he came back!”

He looked away.

“I never told my parents,” he said. “I was too ashamed. I... I made up with Vince when he did return, and he told me he forgave me, but he had... odd moods.  And the doctors think he died of a clot on the brain caused when he had his accident. So, I have inherited his title, under false pretences, almost.”

“How old were you?” I asked.

“Almost twelve,” he replied. “I mopped up the water, and as his paint had dried, by the time it was fully dry, there was very little damage, and I was good enough to touch it up.  My parents liked it, anyway, and had it framed.”

“There’s a big difference between a little boy reacting to the taunting of a bigger one, and an adult failing to take a few home truths,” I said.

“I still feel guilty, though,” he said. “It’s one reason I want to do right by my family, including Trinity. I took away her Papa.”

“When did he die?”

“Christmas.”

“Well, don’t you think he had almost thirteen years in which to be a Papa for her, and his choice was not to do so,” I said. “And that makes you the better man.”

“Who knows how he would have been, but for the bump on the head.”

I regarded him thoughtfully, my own woe made trivial by what he had suffered.

“Did he commonly mock you for being so many years younger and yet not capable of doing as he did?”

“I... yes, both before and after the accident,” he told me.

“That, if you don’t mind me being blunt, and being accustomed to a lot of different families and how they react to each other, through growing up in a Charity School for orphans, tells me that he was rather spoilt, and your parents never made him be anything else,” I said tartly, but he was laughing at me.

“Oh, do excuse me, I did not mean to laugh,” he said, “But you said ‘if you do not mind me being blunt,’ and my dear girl, you have never been anything but blunt. I like it,” he added, before I could apologise. “I tried my hardest to make it up to Vincent; he never mentioned the picture hung on the wall, though he looked at it for a long time. And he shrugged off my apologies. And my overtures to make it up to him. But he demanded  my presence, almost like his personal servant to run errands, which I gladly did at first, but later, I felt it was a way of punishing me without letting me earn atonement, because he never forgave.  People say how touching it is how close I was to him, but they have no idea.”

“How cruel!” I gasped. “Why, if Rosabelle asked to help me mend the dress, I would accept, and I would do my best to make it lovely for her.”

“What a very different girl you are to Rosabelle, who would never for one moment feel that she owed you any reparation,” he said. “Do you think you can mend it?”

“I... I don’t know,” I stammered. “Will you... thank you,” I said as he passed the ripped dream to me.

“Let me hold it up,” he said, and did so. Oh, Phip! I started crying again when I saw it, and had to sniff hard and blink.  It was ripped right down the centre front. 

“Could you... I don’t know, let in some lace?” he suggested.

“I...” I did not want to tell him I thought that might be tawdry.

“It would be overdone, wouldn’t it?” he said. I was grateful to him for coming to the conclusion himself.

“I have a little of the muslin left over,” I told him. “I had it dyed in the piece, and I was considering using what was over to make a toque for her, if she liked the dress. It’s about a foot wide.  I could let that in, with French seams, and use pink silk to make a shell edging to the seams so that it looks intentional, patch the bodice, and move some of the roses to cover it.  It’s fortunate that it is a pink I can wear, though, since it won’t be saleable.”

Phip, I swear his face lit up.

“You’ll be a picture in it,” he said. “And do you think that your butterfly designs would suit Vivienne?”

“I wanted to do them in yellows, orange , and white, it kept whispering to me,” I told him.

“Well, why don’t you do one each of the designs you showed me, and I’ll pay up front for the one with little gathers to be in Dhakha muslin, and you get that in to make it,” he said. “It’s her birthday next Friday, if that isn’t too soon?”

“I’ll have them ready,” I said.  “I... I am sorry to cry at you. I know gentlemen hate lachrymose females, and I am not generally in the habit of crying.  I miss my twin,” I added impusively.

He looked stricken.

“What happened to her?” he asked.

“Oh! Nothing bad,” I assured him.  “I mean, we’ve never been apart until I set up shop here, and she has gone off to be a governess to the nephews and niece of a Mr. Lionel Samms.”

“Oh? I know a Lionel Samms,” he said. “Fancies himself a bit, but a good chap at bottom.”

“He’s a friend of the husband of a former orphan, who was with us, Anne, who married Earl Wroth.”

“Ellery Morecombe? Very musical?” he asked.

“Yes,” I said.

“Oh, I know him, too,” he said. “School, you understand.”

“It does fetch one some eclectic friends, being at school,” I agreed.

“Well, let me settle up, and let you have some funds for some more Dhaka muslin,” he said. “I apologise for encroaching past the line of being professional.”

“I appreciate you making me realise that I can make something out of the gown,” I said. “At least the petticoat did not tear.”

He passed me high denomination bills from a roll of soft which made me giddy, patted me on the shoulder, and left. And to think, I had thought he would leave with his mistress and I would never see him again, and not be able to dress  Vivienne or Helen again.

Anyway, I have crossed and recrossed this, and shed a few tears on it, so I hope you can read it.

Your loving sister,

Felicity.

 

Felsted Hall

21^st  March

 

My darling sister,

Do I smell a ‘case,’ as we used to put it, between you and this Lord Hartley? ‘I would never see him again’ came before any protestations of sewing for his female relatives. You be careful! He seems kind enough, but beware of his kindness extending to being ready to set you up as his mistress and not considering marriage. Now, I’m not saying don’t accept a slip on the shoulder if he offers it, but you ought to think very hard about it before considering taking up something which will ruin you.  If I was you, if he offers, have Daisy find out how he treats his mistresses because she won’t turn a hair if you ask that, where Libby or Elinor would be horrified and would insist that, as a minor, they have control over you and would demand to know his intent. You can imaging Dr. Mac waxing very Scots at him, because he ‘cannae see wha’ for a body cannae treat a young lady wi’ the rrrreeespect due to her [you can imagine him rolling those r’s] and askin’ tae mak’ an honest wumman o’ her, forebye.’

That woman sounds absolutely awful, and I am glad that your viscount or whatever he is managed to think with the brain between his ears not the one kept below the sporran, as you might say.

I strongly suggest you tell the whole to Daisy, because if your Victor decides to flaunt you, as mistress or wife, she’s the sort who will do something spiteful, and Daisy will know exactly what to do if she does, assuming she isn’t off gallivanting with  her Julian somewhere we wouldn’t have a chance of finding on any globe for being too obscure. And if she is, tell Mr. Embury.

I am settling in here, with four lively and intelligent children, who are at least impressed that I do not turn a hair at such things as mice in the slippers and frogs in the bed, other than to scold for cruelty to frogs.

I understand that since their mother died, and Mr. Samms tried introducing governesses who were older than us that they have so far run off half a dozen of them in something less than a year. I do appreciate that they are bereaved and needing to come to terms with having a stranger in the house, but I suspect the first one did something to set off such bad behaviour since they are polite children with a strong sense of fairness.  I will get to the bottom of it, however, and they will not run me off, short of setting fire to me, and I cannot see them doing that.

You will look a picture in your rose gown. I know it. And I am glad to have some of your creations to look stylish as Jenefer is old enough to notice and I am vain enough at my advanced age not to want to look like a dowd.

You will, I am sure, forgive me for breaking off this letter; you know that I am thinking of you, and wishing to hug you. And may I also wish you Happy Easter a little in advance.

Your twin,

Philippa.