Felicity's Fashions 3

 

Chapter 3

 

Swanley Court School for indigent gentlewomen

12^th March 1815

 

Dearest Fee,

You’ll never guess what, after your scathing condemnation of my literary talents in my last letter; but I am wanted as a governess!  And specifically for my own talents, may I add.

You recall Anne Maplin, who went off to stay with Miss Rackham after she had become Mrs. Sanderville, and Anne married an earl or something?  Well, apparently, he has a friend called Lionel Samms, who has inherited a Viscount and his siblings. That is to say, Mr. Samms is the guardian of a young viscount who has sundry siblings, including twins, and he most particularly wants a governess who understands that children like animals, and one who understands twins in particular. Anne appears to have babbled quite a lot about us, and Mr. Samms wrote to Libby and asked for me particularly. So, I am off to some place called Felsted Hall in the Wilds of Wiltshire for the convenience of Philip, Arthur, Jenefer, and Paul, who apparently range  down from almost ten summers old to seven. Paul is the youngest and I do not know how much I will have to do with him.  How lowering to think that the twins, Arthur and Jenefer, are only a little younger than we were when we started Swanley Court, well, maybe a couple of years younger, but they can scarcely be worse than the O’Tooles, and Paul, who is a little younger than the O’Toole twins, is at least on his own.

Speaking of the O’Tooles, Kathleen is in bed with a nasty cold, which Dr. Mac hopes may not turn bronchial.  Deirdre is wailing like her mythical counterpart, ‘Deirdre of the Sorrows,’ having been the author of the prank which led to this sad situation. The said prank involved the little demons setting up a swing – as if they do not have enough in the shrubbery – on the bank of that little stream which leads into the river, you know the one, which has the marshy area and the reedbeds for playing Hereward the Wake in.  Anyway, the idea was to swing right across the stream, and drop off at the right moment to have crossed it, which game proceeded unmolested and without incident for a couple of crossings, until the knot-tying skills of Deirdre, who had shinned up the tree to tie on the rope,  failed spectacularly under the weight of Kathleen, who descended, in the idiom of Deirdre ‘With a shriek loik a Banshee bein’ banished boi a priest with bell, book, and candle, wirra wirra, moi poor sisther drownded!’ Drowned Kathleen was not, but she landed in the slime at the edge of the brook, where it runs slowly, and such an object you never saw!  Well, pair of objects, for what must Deirdre do but leap into the water, doubtless with as spectacular a shriek as her sister, to save Kathleen from fully four inches of water. They tried to sneak  in to change surreptitiously, but were caught by Kitty, who dragged them off to Dr. Mac and then went to inform Libby. Deirdre is assuaging her conscience by learning suitable knots, since the accident would not have happened had she not managed a ‘granny’ knot. Deirdre is actually subdued at the moment, but it’s a worrying reason for her to be so. Fortunately, Dr. Mac believes that Kathleen will manage a full recovery, being rudely healthy.

I am going to make sure that my charges are well trained in the tying of knots and in basic first aid.  Dr. Mac has seen about re-installing the swing, with a proper loop to hold on to, and a bed of crushed reeds to land on in case of landing short, because once one of them has tried it, the rest will want to do so, and it’s ‘a muckle shame to no’ let them try, as long as their havers micht be made as safe as possible,’ in his inimitable vernacular.

Anyway, I am delighted that you have new customers, and that this Mr. Darcy fellow is out to make you fashionable; grab the opportunity with both hands, Fee; carpe diem, as Libby says. However, seizing the day is one thing, if he should be a sir or a baronet, you should perhaps avoid seizing the knight, if he is as stiff-necked as Darcy for real.

Your loving sister,

Preceptress Philippa.

 

“Well, I never,” said Felicity. “My scrapegrace sister is to be a governess.”

“Is that good?” asked Florence.

“It’s hilarious, anyway,” said Felicity. “Neither of us is what you might call academic, but she’s been engaged on her love of animals.  She collects waifs and strays, and has a one-eyed cat named Columbine, and a three-legged dog named Stumpy, so I expect they will be soon prime favourites with her charges.”

“Will she be allowed pets?”

“I doubt she’ll take the position if she isn’t,” said Felicity. “She’s happy enough teaching the little ones in the orphanage how to ride and drive, and doesn’t need to leave. She’s doing it as a favour to a friend of one of our married old girls.”

“Oh, I see,” said Florence. “I hope she will be happy.”

“Probably, as there are twins in the offing,” said Felicity. “Rather her than me, though.”

 

 

Hartley House

Grosvenor Square

March 13^th, by hand.

 

My dear Madame Felice,

I would like to bring my mistress to your shop for a gown or two. I would like this to be a private appointment, and I am willing to pay for your time and trouble for such. I assume you would prefer an evening appointment? Can you suggest a time in the next few days which is convenient?  Rosabelle has golden hair, blue eyes, and a pink-and-white complexion.  Pink and blue both suit her well.

Hartley.

 

22 Henrietta Street

March 13^th, by return of messenger

 

Dear Lord Hartley,

You should be aware that it would be foolish to have an evening appointment for comparing colours which should be seen in daylight; if you wish a comparison by candlelight, it is easy enough to darken a room for this effect, but procuring daylight during the evening is, unfortunately, a violation of the laws of nature, and as such, impossible to overcome.

I will be available to you and your inamorata for the duration of Wednesday afternoon, if that is to your satisfaction; you need not run the boy back to confirm if this suits you, I will take silence as assent.

Yours,

Felicity Goyder.

 

“Starchy miss,” said Victor Hartley.

“Who?” asked Vivienne.

“That modiste,” said Hartley.

“Oh, well, you can’t expect a lady to act like a shop girl, can you?” said Vivienne. “If I hadn’t had you when Mama and Papa succumbed to smallpox, I might have been in their situation. They went to a private charity school when their papa died, her and her twin.  I think it’s ever so brave of her to want to use her talents to make her own way as a modiste, and not just be a governess.”

“By Jove, I suppose so,” said Hartley. “She did put me right about her family being every bit as good as mine.”

“I expect she hates being patronised,” said Vivienne. “I would.”

 

22 Henrietta Street

13^th March

 

Dear Izzie,

Thank you for your letter, your gloomy misapprehensions have not come to pass, and we are very happy.  Felicity is a sweet-natured girl, and it rubs off on her employees. Even that girl, Trinity – what an outlandish name!  Apparently she’s a gypsy – has settled down. She is a small demon of mischief, but her mischief here seems to be confined to borrowing a copy of the Scottish Play from my collection in order to learn it by heart, to tease Mary and Janey. Ned likes her and treats her like the daughter we never had. He likes her sense of humour, and is teaching her to cook. I expect she will be as self-willed as any youngster and will take her skills to seek a good position when she is of age, but that’s the way of things. Oh! The funniest thing; she is the very image of one of Felicity’s customers, the Honourable Miss Vivienne Hartley, whose cousin used to be an actress until swept up by Lord Hartley to be his sister’s chaperone, and through whom we receive his patronage, and I fancy it would be more patronising had not Felicity told him off roundly [I wonder that she dares when she is so new in business!] over her own family being quite as old as his. I do not doubt it, she is unquestionably a lady.

Anyway, Trinity is in further good odour with us with regards to Miss Vinegar-face next door – I believe I have mentioned her before, making sly innuendo that I am a madam running a bawdy-house, because of Mary and Janey, and her comments on Felicity and Trinity have not been kind. Felicity overheard, and interrupted, and said, ‘Madam, if you consider my maid to be old enough to be in such situation, you are plainly completely depraved, and I should involve Bow Street to investigate your own household; as to your filthy comments about myself, my solicitor will be calling on you with a writ of cease and desist, and if you persist, I will sue you for the potential loss to my business as a modiste as I cater to decent women including those making their come-out.  Being of charitable persuasion, I give work to unwed mothers, but I doubt you know enough of the Bible to understand what charity is, good day to you.’  I believe a solicitor did visit, too, but more to the point, that imp Trinity fitted up red-coloured silver-paper shades on Miss Vinegar-face’s door lantern, and managed to attach  firecrackers to the hem of her skirt.

Half the residents of Henrietta Street slipped the child sweetmeats of some kind or other. It made up for Felicity spanking the girl for something which could have been dangerous; and she made Trinity set off a fire-cracker in a piece of muslin and showed how it roared up into fire. Trinity was, I think, more affected by this than by the spanking, and sobbed lustily.

I am afraid Ned gave her hot chocolate to cheer her up.

I did not listen to them plotting to introduce dead rats and cats to Miss Vinegar-face’s area.

Your loving sister-in-law,

Florence.

 

Hartley House, Grosvenor Square

14^th March

 

Rosabelle, you can either be ready for me to drive you to the modiste who is closing for your benefit tomorrow afternoon, or you may consider our relationship to be at an end. I have made arrangements for the new gown you desire, and you will meet my arrangements or you will not have a new gown. As simple as that.

Victor.

 

 

 

22 Henrietta street

15^th March

 

Dear Izzy,

I have to write to you. Felicity is fuming. Lord Hartley asked her to shut up shop for half a day so he could bring his mistress; and anticipating some custom, and not wanting to introduce a demimondaine to her normal customers – she has a number of actresses bringing in clothes for makeovers and mending now – she was prepared to comply.

Well, the mistress looks like a fairy queen and has a voice like a banshee.

Felicity cried out in delight on seeing her, and seized her sketchbook, and began designing.  Izzy! I would have killed for any of the dresses she drew when I was young, or at least, I would if modern fashions had prevailed.  She took the fairy theme, and designed a bodice which is basically a butterfly in embroidery and cutwork over a basic bodice, so that beaded antennae lay against the upper part of the bosom, and a jewelled clip as the body. From the bodice the skirt hung in hundreds of tiny pleats, with smaller appliqué butterflies swooping down it and some arranged around the hem for weight, and the sleeves loose and wide like a cross between a bishop sleeve and a puff, wide, soft, and caught to the elbow. Another was a neckline of cutwork butterflies, with others appliquéd on bodice and skirt. That wretched woman wrinkled up her nose and said that she did not want bugs on her gown. Bugs! I ask you! So Felicity smiles, makes a joke about Napoleonists and bees which went entirely over the wretched woman’s head as she has no idea that the bee is a symbol of the Corsican scourge, and goes back to drawing.

This time the female is happier, with chiffon roses all over the bodice, and Felicity sketches, and finds fabric swatches, and ascertains this is to be an opera gown, and as madam can’t make up her mind between blue and pink suggests a pale pink chiffon overgown over a blue satin petticoat, which will change colour as she moves, and roses in white and  rose pink.

The female wants Dhaka muslin not chiffon, and Felicity promises that she can have the length dyed appropriately and the gown made up for Saturday.  She’ll work on it herself, late at night, I know, because she wants this wretched man to make good his promise to make her famous. But, oh! The wretched woman was like the worst of my customers, complaining of this and that, and to do his lordship credit, which pleased Felicity, he tried to tone down her ideas, which were frankly vulgar, to what would be a lovely gown when finished.  I hope she appreciates it, but I wager she won’t.  Felicity has had to charge an outrageous price because of the Dhaka muslin, but his lordship seemed to understand about that. Felicity got in a small amount, and it is not the top quality, but it is still some fifty pounds a yard, and Felicity will use all that she has. This really will be a gown costing three hundred pounds and more. I had never even handled Dhaka muslin before! Izzie, it’s totally transparent, and yet so many threads that you cannot easily see the weave.  And yes, I know my eyesight is not so good these days, but even so! Anyway, I had to vent, for Felicity went early to bed with a headache from that woman, and will no doubt get up early to start work,  and the muslin is already  out for dying, to be dipped to make one edge more deeply dyed than the other and grading up to no dye at all.

I will let you know on Friday evening how it goes.

Florence.