Anna Jacobs (5 page)

“Please let us have samples of the materials you’ve chosen as soon as possible, so that we can purchase accessories.”

“Certainly, your ladyship.”

As they settled back in the carriage, Johanna sighed happily. “Now, accessories. Stockings, gloves, shawls, bonnets. We’ll go and inspect a few things today, but we won’t buy much until we have our sample swatches. Oh, what fun it will all be!”

“Don’t we have any choice - about the colours and materials, I mean?” ventured Beatrice.

“Choice? With Odette?” Johanna hooted with laughter. “I wouldn’t dare tell her what to use! She’s a genius, my dear, a pure genius! Just leave it all to her!”

They spent a busy morning shopping, first at the premises of Harding, Howell and Company, who had a most amazing emporium, situated in Schomberg House in Pall Mall. It actually consisted of several shops all under the one roof, each separated from the others by glazed mahogany partitions, and to Beatrice’s dazed eyes it seemed enormous. The shop even contained a refreshment room upstairs where customers could be served with wines, tea, coffee and sweetmeats. Johanna confessed to a weakness for the pastries sold there and proved it by consuming three of them before they continued on to Grafton House in New Bond Street. This was so crowded that they had to wait for quite fifteen minutes before they could even be attended to.

At both shops, Johanna introduced Bea to a bewildering number of ladies whose names she was sure she would not remember. By the time they left, her head was spinning with not only names but also the huge numbers of items for sale.

As the two ladies were walking out toward their carriage, a haggard-looking man with one arm missing, who had been begging near the corner, collapsed suddenly in the street. Before Johanna could prevent her, Beatrice had rushed across to his aid and was actually kneeling down to help him sit up, ignoring the dirt on both the ground and his person.

Johanna, horrified, remembered her mother complaining that if Beatrice saw an injured bird, it had to be brought home and tended. Well, she wouldn’t be able to tend all the beggars in London! And this one appeared to be as dirty as the rest of them.

“Bea!” she called. “Bea, come back!”

She was ignored.

“I’m sorry for causing trouble, miss.” The man let the lady help him to his feet then leaned against the wall, looking white and ill.

Even then Beatrice couldn’t leave well alone. While her cousin watched in horror, she commanded a small boy loitering nearby to fetch something hot to eat and drink, held out a sixpence and promised double that amount as a reward for himself if he carried out the errand swiftly.

“Give that man some money and come away!” hissed Johanna, stepping closer to twitch at Bea’s sleeve. She glanced round, terrified that someone she knew would see them and gossip about the strange behaviour of her visitor.

She was again ignored. Within minutes, Beatrice had found out that the man was an ex-soldier and was currently without means of support, also that he had been ill for the past week and had nothing to eat for two days. Not content with giving him money, she quickly discovered that his ambition was to become a pie-man, but that he lacked the capital to launch this business venture. Tipping the change out of her purse, she provided him with enough money to do that, together with some sound advice and her name and address. He was to come and let her know how things went.

Only after this was all arranged, the boy had brought back some food and the man had promised to keep in touch would Beatrice consent to return to the carriage.

“You really shouldn’t hand out money to such people, you know!” Johanna protested, once they were safely inside the carriage. “And just look at the dirt on your dress!”

Beatrice looked down in surprise, then shrugged. “That man lost his arm defending his country and no one seems to care. What does a bit of dirt matter if I am able to help him?”

“You’ll never hear from him again.”

“I think I will.” She stared at her cousin. “I can remember myself what it’s like to go hungry, you know.”

Johanna could only gape at her. A few seconds later she asked in hushed tones, “Did you really go hungry, Bea? Actually,” she gulped, “not have enough to eat?”

“Many times. My mother and I had very little money to live on and you know how food prices rose during the war. We weren’t the only ones to suffer, either.”

“Goodness, why have you never said anything about it before?”

“What was the point? What’s past is done with and can’t be changed. Even my aunt didn’t know till afterwards how bad things had been for us. My mother had her pride, too, you see. It was only when she realized she was dying that she wrote to the Graceovers’ man of business. And by the time he replied, she was dead.”

Johanna could only pat her hand. It was beginning to occur to her that Bea might not be quite as meek and amenable as she’d expected. Then, putting such an unwelcome idea from her mind, she quickly recovered her good humour, leaned back in the carriage and changed the subject, smiling once more. “Spending someone else’s money is such fun, Bea, even better than spending one’s own. I’ll ask the housekeeper to send a message to a Domestic Employment Agency when we get home and tomorrow we can start interviewing lady’s maids.”

Beatrice screwed up her courage and shook her head firmly. “I don’t wish for a strange lady’s maid, Johanna. Couldn’t I - couldn’t we, I mean - just see how Tilly goes on?”

“Tilly? She’s a nice child, but you’ll need more help than she can give you.”

“Johanna, please believe that I really dislike the idea of having a fashionable lady’s maid!” Beatrice took a deep breath and said in a voice that was a little unsteady, “It’s Tilly or no one!”

“Nonsense! You can’t mean that!”

“I do mean it! I’m not used to all this.” Tears gathered in her eyes. “Please, Johanna, let’s just try Tilly for a few days. That can’t do any harm, surely. I like her cheerful nature and she’s better with my hair than I am.”

Johanna eyed her shrewdly, realized that her cousin was genuinely upset and capitulated. “Oh, very well!” After all, Sarah would be there to help out and Sarah was obviously enjoying training Tilly. It had put her in a good mood for weeks now. “But the girl is only on trial, mind,” she added. “Don’t say anything to her about a permanent place till we see how she goes!”

“Whatever you wish, Johanna.” Beatrice sank back in relief.

* * * *

When they got home, it was to find the house in an uproar. A carriage stood at the door and there were trunks and parcels all over the floor.

A head peered over the banisters. “It’s me, Mama!”

“Jennice! What are you doing in town?”

Johanna’s younger daughter chuckled naughtily. “Fleeing, Mama.”

“What on earth do you mean by that? And come down, will you? I’m getting a crick in my neck talking to you like this.”

A very pretty young woman descended the stairs. Beatrice stared at her. How Jennice had changed since her marriage! She was plumper than she had been, but Beatrice wished she looked even half as assured and elegant as the newcomer. In that, Jennice took after her mother. The pair of them made Beatrice feel very dowdy today.

Jennice planted a hearty kiss on her mother’s cheek and a fleeting one in the air above Beatrice’s ear. “So nice to be here safely!”

“Safely?” Johanna quizzed. “It’s only a two-hour drive from Lymsby.”

Jennice scowled. “Well, to hear Boris talk, you’d think we had to drive through forests full of highwaymen to get here.”

Johanna swept them both into her own small sitting room, calling out to the butler to send them in some refreshments before she perished of hunger. “Now, young woman, kindly explain yourself!” she said with mock sternness as she sat down. “What exactly are you fleeing from?”

Another chuckle. “From my husband, Mama!”

“Oh, that’s all right, then. What’s Boris done this time?”

“Threatened to keep me at Lymsby for the rest of the year.”

“Goodness, what a dreadful fate! Why should he want to do that?”

Jennice’s expression became positively smug. “Because I’m about to make you into a grandmama!”

“What!”

When the shower of hugs from Johanna was over, Jennice explained how excited Boris had been at the mere possibility of a child and then how unbearably despotic he had become once its existence was confirmed. “As if I were ill or something! I told him childbearing is a perfectly natural thing and that common women continue working until the very last minute.”

“And what did he say to that?”

“He turned up his nose and said that his wife was neither common nor required to work for her living, and would be looked after as befitted her station. So there was nothing for it but to show him how silly he’s being.”

“Oh, I do agree! It’s fatal to allow a husband to dictate to one.”

“I waited till he went over to a friend’s to look at some horses - I’m sick and tired of him going out and leaving me alone! - and then I left straight away. I just hope nothing sends him home early. He shouldn’t get back to Lymsby till after dark, so he won’t set out for London tonight, but I dare say he’ll be here tomorrow, breathing fire and brimstone.”

Johanna beamed at her. “Dear me, I’m terrified at the mere thought.”

Beatrice, watching, could only wonder at the way they made the relationship between husband and wife seem a mere game. She couldn’t help feeling some sympathy for Boris, whom she had not yet met.

Jennice smiled. “I’ll soon bring him round, you’ll see - at least I will if you’ll only help me by telling him how dangerous it is to thwart the wishes of a woman carrying a child.”

Johanna threw back her head and laughed. “You never change, Jennice! Very well, I’ll help you. But when you get bigger, I do think you should retire to Lymsby and set poor Boris’s mind at rest. Husbands are always so much more fussy with the first child. He’ll probably leave you in peace with the others - at least, he will if this one’s a boy. And you will have to cosset yourself a little more than usual, you know.”

“Well, of course I’ll retire when I grow bigger! You don’t think I wish to be seen in public looking like a - a cow in milk! You know how gigantic Penelope got and I dare say I’ll be the same. But I have a million things to do first: buy all the latest novels to keep myself entertained during my incarceration, arrange for some new clothes to be made - oh, all sorts of other things that one can only do in town!”

She turned to Beatrice. “And I must apologize, Bea, for ignoring you like this. What are you doing in London? Have you fled from Grandmamma?”

Chapter 3

Two days after the visit to Odette, the first of Beatrice’s new clothes arrived, thanks to the efforts of three seamstresses who had stayed up until late each night sewing. Odette herself came to supervise the final trying-on, a rare attention, but the modiste was rather pleased with what she had created and wished to see that her efforts were properly appreciated.

Tilly stood in awed attendance as Odette’s assistant helped her mistress don a soft apricot-coloured street dress with a high waist.

Beatrice studied herself in the full-length mirror, her eyes shining with wonderment at how flattering the dress was. Two lines of simple tucking gave body to the fabric just above the scalloped hem, and the long full sleeves ended in tucking, too, with narrow cream lace ruffles. These were matched by a soft lace frill rather like a ruff around the high neckline. To wear with the dress, there was a pelisse in a deeper colour of apricot velvet. She had never possessed anything which suited her half so well.

She turned to Odette first and reached out to clasp the modiste’s hands, “Thank you!” she said, with a catch in her voice. “I never dreamed I could look so elegant!”

Johanna noted in amusement that the modiste was completely won over by this egalitarian treatment and watched her press Beatrice’s hands in return, before releasing them and stepping backwards.

“You will set a fashion, Mademoiselle,” Odette prophesied. “I shall make sure of that. And, if I may suggest, to go with this dress a simple poke bonnet would be best with a full brim and very little trimming. Perhaps un tout petit peu de dentelles, not too much lace, mind! And one spray of flowers in a colour to match the pelisse?”

“Whatever you say.” Beatrice turned next to her cousin. “I - I don’t know what to say, Johanna.”

Her cousin’s eyes softened. “You don’t need to say anything, Bea. I’m thoroughly enjoying all this. And you look lovely. Now, try on the ball dress! I think Odette has excelled herself with that.”

Beatrice retired behind the screen with Tilly and the assistant in attendance and Odette stood there, a small smile curving her mouth. When her newest customer emerged like a butterfly from its chrysalis, she made no attempt to moderate her delight.

The dress was in a soft creamy silk which glistened slightly. It was trimmed above the one frill which graced the hem with three rows of narrow satin ribbon just a shade or two darker. At one point the frill rose to a higher point and the ribbon also curved upwards a few inches to meet a near-flat spray of delicate silk roses in a lighter cream. These were echoed by a matching spray on a satin fillet for the hair.

Beatrice’s delight in the dress lent a sparkle to her eyes and soft colour to her cheeks. She had been dreadfully afraid that the dictates of fashion would force her to dress in multiple flounces and gaudy trimmings, or fussy strands of artificial flowers like the pictures in La Belle Assemblée and The Ladies Monthly Museum - Johanna’s favourite reading material. Odette had captured Beatrice’s wishes exactly in this elegant simplicity.

“I have just the thing to wear with that!” Johanna left the room abruptly, to return with a huge shawl, two and a half square yards of fine satin-striped Lyon silk, with a scalloped edging. “There! You’d think we’d matched the colour of the ribbon purposely, wouldn’t you? Drape it round your shoulders, Bea!”

She stood back to gauge the effect and was rewarded by another nod of approval and complicity from Odette, who was becoming more French by the minute in her excitement. “C’est parfait, Your Ladyship. Absolument parfait! Everything should be of the purest lines for mademoiselle, but of the very finest quality. Très simple, mais très chic. I’ve found some materials which are rather special. I think, non, j’en suis sûre, that you will be pleased with them.”