Felicity's Fashions 1

 

Chapter 1  March 1815

 

22 Henrietta Street

3^rd March, 1815

 

My dearest Phip,

You need not think that I have in any way forgotten my beloved twin, for I miss you most cruelly, but the last three days have been an absolute whirl of activity. You know how Daisy is! Just because she’s married, with children of her own does not stop her being an absolute tornado of organising, especially for those of us who were founder members of the orphanage with her. And since she bundled me into her carriage, lock, stock, and barrel, bag and baggage, waving a frantic farewell to you, I have not, I think, had a moment to myself [when not sleeping the sleep of the exhausted] to miss my other half, the best Philippa in the world. Disregard me; this constant rain makes me despondent, not to mention morning fogs.

Well! What are you doing in Henrietta Street, I hear you ask! Indeed, I thought I was to work in Daisy’s shop – Madame Marguerite  as she is there to the girls who are her partners – on Fleet Street. I was never more surprised! Daisy’s partners are milliners, and she felt I should branch out in my proper milieu – her words – as a modiste. And  as I have been making her gowns for her for the last two years she ought to know if I am good enough! She is all that is generous – she bought the whole property in Henrietta Street from its owner, a Miss Florence Piper, who had been running the lower floor as a mantua maker, but whose vision is growing poor and her fingers stiff, so I am to run the business, with stock, and a dwelling, rent free for a whole year, and Miss Piper, who has asked me to call her Florence, as my companion and guaranteed a place to stay for life.

And you are agog to know more, but I will get there, in my own way.

I blurted out, and cursed my lack of tact, ‘But I thought Florence was a male name?’ and bless Florence, she just smiled, and said that it was given to girl babies too, more, usually in thinking of it being like a flower than because of the Italian city. [I have looked at a map of Italy in the library to find out where Florence might be; you know that geography and I have never been close friends. I am sure you remember how I managed to locate Leghorn on the coast of India when Mrs. Belvoir – I must remember to call her Libby as she asks her grown up girls to do – had blank maps printed for us to label principal cities.]

Anyway, Florence was named because her parents met in Florence and decided to name their firstborn for the city regardless of if it was a boy or a girl. And she has no living siblings, but I have not dared ask if they, when living, were also named for places.

Florence retains her bedroom and sitting room, a pretty little parlour, on the first floor; below, of course, is the shop, fitting rooms, and workshop, and Daisy must have vexed the household sorely in insisting on having the workshop fitted with gas lighting, and a Bramah closet on each floor; we are not alone in the house, for Florence comes as a matched set with her man-of-all-work, Bailey, who rules the basement. I think, however, he is her paramour, and sleeps with her, not below stairs, for I have surprised some affectionate moments between them.  Moreover, he assured me that he locks the door to the basement at night, as one of our lodgers lives there in the butler’s quarters.  He calls himself Vittorio Mancini, but his name on the books is Victor Manson; he is a violinist in the orchestra at Covent Garden, and the Italianate name helps him get work. He seems inoffensive, a rather undernourished man going thin on top, with a stoop, and a habit of fleeing if addressed with any pleasantry.

Our other lodgers reside on the fourth floor under the attic, and comprise a pair of actresses. Not opera dancers, I hasten to add, quite respectable girls, who supplement their meagre income sewing for both the theatre and undertaking piece-work for Florence, and now for me. Their names are Mary Macey, and Janey Ryder, but they work under the names of Marietta de Macier, and Jeanette Fabrier, which is more comfortable for their families, as Mary is the daughter of a vicar in Wandsworth, and Janey is the orphaned daughter of a naval lieutenant who has grander relatives, though I have to say, as they were too grand to take in an impoverished orphan relative, they ought not to mind their name being used. But Janey is afraid of them forcing her into some asylum for fallen women, so one must honour her little foibles.

And then, yesterday, Daisy insisted that I should have a maid. She hied me off to the asylum for female orphans, and Oh, Phip, I was so glad we were taken in to Elinor’s and Libby’s school . Do you remember that awful woman who locked me in a cupboard?  All the women there reminded me of her.  Anyway, we looked around, and I noticed a slate was being passed around, and I intercepted it, and it was a rather clever caricature of me, with quite carrot-coloured hair, executed, I fancy, with a piece of brick. I looked a regular nose-in-the-air madam! So I did not show it to the chief besom – I forget her title – but asked ‘Who is the author of this?’ and a girl stood up, her hair looking as if she was Marie Antoinette on her way to the guillotine, cut off all short and quite like a boy. So I threw her the simple cotton round-gown I had brought, and told her to change, and bring what possessions she had, as she was now my maid. I managed to steal the slate! 

So I asked the girl her name, and she gave me an old fashioned look.

“They named me Abishag,” she said. “The other girls call me ‘Shaggy’ because my hair won’t lie down, so the wardress cut it.” I noted that she referred to the woman in charge by so unflattering an appellation.

“And do you have a name of your own?”  I asked.

“My name used to be Trinity Smith, but they said it was a bad name.”

“Would you like to go back to being Trinity?” I asked.

“Cor, yerse,” she said. The child is a gypsy, with eyes like the Irish, dark blue with sooty lashes, and as wild as any O’Toole. I have no doubt I will regret taking on so wild a spirit variously, but she reminded me of you, to be honest, though with dark hair, not the strawberry blonde we share.  I got her some coloured chalks and rough paper and you’d think I had given her the moon. She recreated the picture of me, at my request, and I paid her for it, which surprised her, and I have had it framed to hang. I think she is more tickled by that than that I should have paid her!  Anyway, she’s about twelve or thirteen, and it’s a sensitive age to be an orphan. I sat her down and explained the changes a girl goes through to be a woman and it seems she had had the first manifestation of that and was beaten for soiling the bed, without any explanation about how to avoid making a mess, and she had been wondering what was wrong with her, as animals don’t generally bleed when on heat [you will adore her; she rescued a bird from Bailey’s cat, and then proceeded to pet the cat as well for being clever].  Anyway, she now has a supply of cloths and several changes of garments and shifts, and I will probably use her as a model to show off clothes as well, so I need her to be dressed fairly well, and she will pay for dressing. I have her wearing a scarf  to cover her poor shorn locks, in a less formal style than a turban, but put her back into a white linen cap I will not, which, together with the awful sack-like dress and pinafores those girls wear make them  look as if they had escaped from the baggage train of the New Model Army. Now she really does look a bit of a gypsy, for I made her wear a scarf of the brightest coquelicot, and ribbons to match on her round-gown. I don’t see why servants should not enjoy pretty colours too, so long as they are neat and clean; and that, I have declared to her, is my livery. She giggled.  Bailey said, “I bain’t wearin’ poppy red jackets for nobody, no, nor yaller stockings cross-gartered, whatever that may be,” from which I deduced that Mary and Janey had been teasing him.  My knowledge of Shakespeare is, at least, better than my knowledge of Geography, and I said, gravely, “At least those girls have not said, ‘the devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon,’” which had Mary and Jane shrieking and performing the most heathen-looking rituals and quoting from Hamlet. Once Bailey realised I was teasing them back, not him, he became quite expansive, and he is an expert at making London crumpets.

I shall get fat if I am not careful! Still, Trinity and I live mostly on the second floor; the third is devoted to storage of fabrics, so I shall be doing a lot of running up and down stairs. Bailey has taken Trinity under his capable wing to teach her how to brew a decent cup of tea [and how fortunate it is that his concept of ‘decent’ coincides with the robust brew we have become used to in the orphanage] and make little cakes, as well as how to launder fine fabric and iron it properly. I expect I will lose her when she reaches a grand old age of one- and-twenty, as a housekeeper somewhere. In the meantime, however, she might as well learn all she can – Libby’s maxims, you see, coming out in this, the latest of her flock to fly the nest.

I will be employing some more seamstresses of course, Daisy said she would find me some unmarried mothers who would be glad of a job with accommodation  if I would put up with babies, and as we are quite used to babies, I am not bothered. Florence had to let her seamstresses go, when she could not keep up as well; I am lucky that Daisy is letting me stay a year rent free to get myself established. I am also lucky that Florence is so convivial!

Anyway, it is late at night, and I am tired.

Love you,

Felicity.

 

22Henrietta Street

3^rd March 1815

 

Dear Izzie,

How lucky I am! you recall I told you I would have to sell up Mama’s little house in Henrietta Street, and would probably end up in dire lodgings where my dear Ned would be looked at askance? Well, my house has been bought by the wealthy lady named Mrs. Nettleby, who is a connection of the aristocracy, no less! And it is written into the sale that I will have a home there for the remainder of my life, and Ned Bailey to be given a home if I should predecease him. These little formalities seem macabre, but it is as well to get such things out of the way and signed and sealed rather than finding oneself destitute. Mrs. Nettleby spent some time in an orphan asylum, not knowing about her fortune, and she has installed a fellow orphan, of impeccable family, I hasten to add, to take on the business of modiste. As this girl, though very young, dresses Mrs. Nettleby, who is always beautifully turned out, I have every expectation that she will make a good go of the business and she was very happy to receive my offer to look over her books for her. She has acquired a maid, whom I strongly suspect of being a young demon of mischief. Still, she appears devoted to Miss Goyder, or Felicity, as I shall be calling her, a delightful girl who does not seem to have any disagreeable faults.  I am mightily relieved, for I was imagining all kinds of terrible things I might have seen in my nightmares. I believe that Felicity and I will deal most tolerably together. I confess, I wondered if so fancy a name were assumed, but apparently she has a twin named ‘Philippa’ so their parents plainly wished to be individualists. She plans to be ‘Madame Felice’ however to attempt to attract those for whom the French are the ultimate dernier cri modistes, and her French is good enough to fool most people. She appears to have had a most extensive education in this orphan asylum for gentlewomen, though she cannot tell left from right, and informed me that her attainments with geography were sufficiently poor that she would have to look up ‘Florence’ and thought she was doing well to be moderately sure it was in either Italy or Spain. Still, she knows enough ‘Macbeth’ to intimidate those two little fools upstairs, who are nice enough girls, but a lot sillier than any woman should have to cope with in her house. So I am quite in charity with her at the moment.

I will let you know how things progress when she is settled in; we are to have unwed mothers as her work force, which might be a mixed blessing. They will be good, grateful workers for being given a chance, but squalling babies fill me with dismay! But then, I reflect that I might have to put up with much worse if I found myself in a boarding house, as I know you would not have room for me with your dear children since you had to move out when my dear brother Portland died.

 

Your loving sister-in-law, Florence Piper