felicity's fashions 11

 

Chapter 11

 

22 Henrietta Street,

13^th April

 

Dearest Twin,

I am exhausted!

Dear me, what a day this has been; indeed, what a week this has been. That wretched woman – Victor’s former mistress, the one who tore my gown – has been spreading rumours that I have been Victor’s kept woman for years and that Trinity is our daughter.

Well, you can see all the logical inconsistencies in that, but a man in Victor’s position can’t afford the old aphorism ‘no smoke without fire’ to attach itself to him, and though the idea of two children in an adult situation is absurd, you know how people are.

So, after she refused to retract, we went to court, fortunately something Victor was able to arrange quickly since it has cost me five good customers already, and the stupid woman decided not to show up.

In the light of those sensible customers who heard her scandalmongering, and who were prepared to testify, the case was readily proven in absentia, and the magistrate decided that the damages were worth  five thousand guineas each to us, for my loss of business, and Victor’s loss of name, which might have affected his marriage chances were we not already betrothed, and hence his ability to pass on his name and title. The bailiffs have been sent in to collect, and if necessary take her to the Marshalsea until she has discharged her debt. She might have a sufficiency of jewellery and fine costumes to cover it, just.  I have intimated that I am prepared to accept clothing in lieu, because I can re-use a lot, and it is the principle of the matter as much as the loss of income. Daisy was there to give evidence, and she agreed with me on this.

Oh my!

The bailiff was very busy, and I now have a pile of tawdry costumes, for which I have signed as being worth the sum of  two thousand guineas pro rata, secondhand. I can do a very great deal by taking them apart, and after steaming the original to get rid of the marks of the excess flounces, since many of them I doubt she has worn more than once, I can probably get back what I have lost. I have my new apprentice soaking the armpits in warm white vinegar at the moment since she did not always launder them before putting them back in the closet. Ugh!  I may have to cut new bodices for some, but it is of no account. And I shall be making Victor a random patchwork banyan with those pieces left after having to cut out anything I cannot save.

My new apprentice is a child called Nellie, and I pointed out in court that if my lord’s niece was slandered this also rebounded on my new apprentice, and Nellie is Florence’s niece. She is thirteen years old, eager, over-awed, and sadly covered in acne. I have whipped her up a skin preparation, which I fancy awed her almost as much as the fabrics she has never even dreamed of seeing, and thank Libby and Elinor once again for their very solid basis for us all. I might put Nellie through school for a year, she is unquestionably a lady, and a year with Miss Joliffe would do her embroidery the world of good.  What I need is an in-house lace-maker, to make motifs to go on Urling’s lace, for my bobbin-lace making is indifferent, and much more than paisley shapes with a ‘spider’ inside and picot edges is outside my capabilities, and as I can do better white work, I am wasted on it. I would have loved to have seen Rosabelle’s face when the bailiff turned up. Oh! Here is Victor, come to visit.

 

Later

Victor had none of my compunction in going to see Rosabelle visited by the bailiff, and he told me that her look of horror made up for many a slight she had given him before she even met and started on me. The girl with whom she shares the apartment was apparently crying, ‘I ain’t gwine to tear up no more things from law, I ain’t, I aint!’ and had to identify what things were hers so as not to lose her goods as well [and I am glad to say that Victor intervened on her behalf, as the bailiff wasn’t particular.]

Well, with all her gowns from several lovers, and jewellery likewise, Rosabelle found herself with her underlinen and three gowns, and a couple of strings of fake pearls made with glass and fish scales. She was apparently cursing our names, and Victor asked her if she wanted to go to law again over her slanderous utterances, and she went very white, and shut her big mouth at last.

Victor has applied to Almack’s for a voucher for me; imagine that! But if the patronesses accept, it is an immediate social redemption, even though I should not need one.

I have had to leave the sewing to my girls, but at least Lady B’s dress was close to completion so I shall have that to wear tomorrow evening, and I will have all day in which to catch up. I understand that a Viennese gentleman has taken out a patent on a sewing machine, but there are, as yet, no models for sale. I thought I might write to him, or ask Daisy to do so as I am sure she speaks Viennaese or whatever people in Vienna speak.  I can’t remember if that is the V-place in Italy or the V-place somewhere the Ottomans tried to conquer, in Transylslovakia or wherever.  I have a vague feeling it is somewhere near where Emmie Hasely’s mother came from, Emmuska, her full name, sounds sufficiently exotic to come from that sort of far away foreign. It might be somewhere in Russia, they have a lot of V-places and things, like Vodka, which I think is a city on a river emptying into the Black Sea, but I may be wrong. You know that I and geography are not friends but I expect Daisy knows. Even if a sewing machine is only good for basting, it would save a lot of time.

Nellie is now engaged gleefully with a fine knife which used to be a surgical scalpel which Dr. Mac procured for me.  She is taking off all decoration and it will teach her a lot about how garments are put together [not always very well as she has just shown me a gown which fell apart once the decoration is off. She can wet a cloth and steam iron all the seams, and we will decide what to do with it.]

The steam will open up her pores and help with the acne too.

 

Later

I just had to rescue Nellie from where she cut herself on over-enthusiastic plying of the scalpel and explained in short words that as its main purpose is cutting people open, being sharp is a given.  She has been learning, at least, that blood may be removed from fabric with a salt water solution, and is banned from helping until she is healed. I am going to finish unfurbishing that gown. Is there such a word as unfurbishing?  Not that I care, you know what I mean, dearest Phip.

 

Love, Felicity.

 

 

22 Henrietta Street

14^th April

 

Dear Lady B------

Thank you for your letter of the 13^th inst. If I understand it correctly you simultaneously offered me some form of excuse in mitigation for your execrable and unladylike behaviour which stopped short of being anything which might reasonably, and in a court of law, be described as an apology, whilst complaining that my reputation should not be worth as much as you have had to pay out, and demanding the dress you repudiated.

Permit me to take each of these points one at a time in a spirit of clarity and logic which you are plainly too ill-educated to manage, in a missive so short of literary endeavour as to leave one wondering if you received any education at all.

Firstly, I cannot, and do not, accept something which is not an apology but merely a rambling discourse about why I should not consider your passing on of risibly inaccurate gossip as your fault. Excuse me for asking, but when passing this on, was someone else somehow operating your mouth, vocal chords and lungs that it was not your fault in so doing? Plainly you were not exercising your brain, if you have one, in working out the logical inconsistency in an eighteen-year-old girl as I am in having a twelve-year-old daughter.

Secondly, my reputation is my livelihood as a modiste, and the amount I was owed by those women who cancelled their orders through your agency in persuading them that I was a child prostitute is only just covered by that five thousand pounds. Your insistence on Dhaka muslin leaves the cost of the gown you repudiated at something over twelve hundred guineas alone,  before taking into account either the time to make it up, or my skill in designing it.  Moreover, as the betrothed wife of a viscount, it is imperative that the reputation of a new young viscountess should be as one with that of Caesar’s wife. In case you were not educated highly enough to understand that, this is a classical allusion, to the alleged seduction of Pompeia, whom Caesar divorced as her innocence, unlike mine, could not be demonstrably proven. My virginity at the time of my marriage [and which, incidentally I will have to go through the embarrassing situation of having certified, because of people like you] is of utmost importance to prove the succession of my betrothed husband’s offspring, something which perhaps you do not understand, being married to a knight, who cannot pass on his title.

Thirdly, you repudiated the gown after I had gone to considerable expense to procure its materials, and therefore, you have no claim on it. Your capacity for venal rapacity in even asking is extraordinary.

I hope we will never meet or correspond again. If you wish to tender me a more suitable apology, you may either do so through my solicitor, Mr. Embury, of 111 The Strand, or make a public apology in the Morning Post. In either case, I would expect the words ‘I apologise unreservedly for spreading lies about you,’ to appear as the very least of such an apology.

Yours sincerely,

F. Goyder.

 

“There’s a song in there somewhere,” said Victor. “Your own venal rapacity is unique in its capacity, along with your stupidity, equalled but by your cupidity.”

Felicity giggled.

“What clever lyrics,” she said. “If she makes trouble, you should write a bit more and publish it in the Morning Post.”

“I might, at that,” said Victor. “Why were you showing me this, by the way? I’m not going to be the sort of husband who demands to see your mail.”

“I wanted you to look it over and tell me if I overdid any of the sarcasm,” said Felicity. “Daisy gets away with it, and though I learned my sarcasm at her knee, so to speak, she’s Daisy, and that’s enough said.”

“I think it a very measured response to the rambling and discursive missive she sent you, which is, as you so rightly point out, not only not an apology, but a veiled accusation that it is your fault she got caught slandering you, and an equally veiled note of blackmail over giving her the dress.”

“Oh, I did not misread that, then? Well, I am glad to have replied forcefully, then.”

“It’s masterly,” said Victor.

“I’ll send it then,” said Felicity. “Will Peter like to be vailed to go?”

“Probably, he likes to run,” said Victor. “And in livery with letters, it’s an excuse to do so, and no watchman tries to stop him as a thief, which he confided in me was something he has had problems with, since the family moved into town.”

“His mother is a silly woman, but at least Peter has some freedom,” said Felicity.

“And a measure of his life that he considers being the boy who is at the beck and call of all to be freedom,” said Victor.  “He’ll train up to be a very good valet one day, if he works up through footman, by the time we have a son who needs one, he’ll be well trained.”

“Now that is thinking ahead,” said Felicity. “The furthest I got was that I was going to take on Hermione Driscoll as a partner, and possibly Hannah Loring.  Both are the daughters of parsons, as unalike as you might find, but both are responsible girls, and Hermione is a talented needlewoman. Hannah does well enough, but I think she would make a good buyer. They will rely on my designs, however, as Hermione has very little in the way of imagination. Hannah... my twin and I did not get on well with Hannah at first, but she has become a dear friend, and she has the entrée to the Jewish rag trade community, as she has been fostered by a Jewish family.”

“I have to admire your ecumenism,” said Victor.

“It’s a school requirement,” said Felicity. “We embrace those of other faiths, even outlandish ones like Presbyterians.” She dissolved into giggles. “Oh, Victor, poor Hannah had some dreadful ideas from her father, who was no sort of father at all, and she did not want to share a dormitory with Phoebe, who is Jewish,  and didn’t Oi put on an Oirish accent so Oi did, and pretended that twin and Oi were Catholic, just to see how much we could put her on, and we made a mess of ragging her, and dropped a bag of flour on the head of a new girl, who was a great sport about it, but we had to go without cakes for tea for two long and miserable weeks, since we had wasted our share of flour for goodies. But, anyway, I said that perhaps we should have pretended to be something really outlandish like Hindoo or Presbyterian, the joke being that Dr. Mac is Presbyterian.”

“I shall worry if we have twins,” said Victor.

“Believe me, I shall worry if we have twins,” said Felicity.