CHAPTER ELEVEN
May
AGNES’S LETTER HAD ARRIVED EARLIER this week, on stationery embossed with a family crest that must have been sketched by some artist for hire. Shall I pick you up on Thursday at noon and we can get started? Let me know if that day is agreeable to you.
May had thrown out the note without replying. Of course she couldn’t actually go out with an American, the daughter of a steel baron. What had she been thinking, agreeing to Agnes’s preposterous bargain?
But when Thursday morning arrived, May caught herself glancing at the clock every few minutes. Agnes wouldn’t actually come, would she? Surely she would realize that May’s silence had been a rebuke.
At the sound of carriage wheels crunching over gravel, May’s heart skipped a beat.
Her father was home; he could not see this.
In a flurry of motion she pulled on her gloves, tied a cloak around her neck, and ran unceremoniously down the front drive.
She had every intention of telling the coach to pull away.
Agnes flung open the door, taking in the scene at once.
“Oh, you’re sneaking out? You should have warned me!” She reached for May’s hand.
To her own surprise, May allowed herself to be pulled into the warm interior of the carriage. Agnes rapped twice on the roof and they started off at a brisk trot.
“I’m glad we are doing this.” Agnes smiled, settling back onto the velvet-upholstered seat. “I have to admit, I wasn’t sure you’d want to go through with our partnership.”
“Neither was I,” May said frankly.
She let out a long breath, feeling her pulse calm, and kicked her feet onto the foot warmer in the middle of the carriage: a wooden box filled with coal.
Simply owning a foot warmer was luxurious, and the Endicotts’ was engraved with that same family crest. May wondered if they’d brought it over from Chicago with the rest of their luggage, or just commissioned a new one in London.
“So, where should we start?” Agnes asked.
May was surprised to find that she had an answer to this question. Despite her hesitations, the gears of her mind must have been turning all week, considering the best way to bring an American into the heart of society.
“We’ll start with church. You’ll come to services with me and my mother next weekend. I don’t care if you’re Anglican or not,” she added, before Agnes could protest. “The whole point is that you’re there, sitting in one of the back pews, holding a prayer book. You can borrow mine.”
Agnes looked a bit miffed at the reference to the back pews. “I can buy my own prayer book.”
“Absolutely not. You want an old one that looks like it was handed down through your family. The more battered the cover, the better.” May’s had belonged to her great-aunt, and smelled like aged paper and faded sachets. If only it actually worked to answer her prayers.
“How typically British,” Agnes said drily. “You only think things are valuable if they’re old, or if they were made by old men.”
May pursed her lips against a smile. “If you do well at church, I might bring you to a musical evening or an afternoon at home. Lady Wolverton is having one soon.”
“At homes are only for ladies, though, aren’t they?”
“Agnes, you can’t be seen directly pursuing men! You’ll never get anywhere until the women in society accept you. Or at the very least, until they tolerate you.”
It took a moment for May to realize that Agnes was smiling.
“When I asked where you wanted to start, I meant what boutique you wanted to visit first. But I’m glad to hear that you’ve formulated our social plan of attack.
” Her grin broadened as she added, “I knew I was right to choose you as a friend.”
A friend. The word shot like a beam of sunlight through May’s loneliness.
Their carriage slowed, and she realized belatedly that they had pulled up outside Linton we’re here for Her Serene Highness, Princess Mary of Teck.”
Predictably, the salesgirl startled at the use of May’s title.
“It would be an honor, Your Serene Highness.” She hesitated as if uncertain whether to curtsy—it wasn’t required, since May wasn’t a true royal—then apparently decided to err on the side of caution, and curtsied anyway. “Please, right this way.”
“I’m thinking a lot of blues for Her Serene Highness,” Agnes declared, as she and May followed the salesgirl into a fitting room.
“A deep blue velvet for a riding habit, a blue-gray for a day dress. And then something different for a tea gown—what happened to the carnation-colored silk you showed me last week? With the Alencon lace?”
The salesgirl nodded frantically. “The Alencon has been rather overdone this Season, Miss Endicott. Might I suggest the guipure?”
“Why don’t you bring both. With a few silks for formal evening gowns, of course.”
May ran her hands nervously down her skirt, an old serge gray one that she’d paired with a simple white blouse.
Surrounded by all this luxury, it felt even dowdier than usual.
“We won’t be needing so many things. I’m only here for one gown,” she explained to the salesgirl, who cast a bewildered glance at Agnes.
“Why else did we come, if not to try different dress options?” Agnes said blithely. “This is the fun part!”
The fun part. May couldn’t remember the last time she had done something for fun, instead of obligation or guilt or her own desire for self-improvement. The very idea felt childish, selfish.
And yet…maybe she could afford to have a little bit of fun, just this once.
“One dress,” she repeated.
“One dress, with a matching hat and gloves,” Agnes negotiated. May threw up her hands in defeat, and Agnes laughed and ducked out of the fitting room.
When May was standing there in nothing but her petticoats and corset, the salesgirl pulled out a cloth measuring tape and knelt to wrap it around May’s waist, then her torso, then on and on from her elbow to wrist, knee to ankle. She took far more measurements than Madame Renault ever did.
“Tell me about Lady Wolverton’s at home,” Agnes asked through the curtain that separated them.
“She’s an old friend of my mother’s.” One of the pillars of London society, May should have said. “If you can win her over, the invitations will keep coming.”
“Do you think the Princess Maud will be in attendance?” Agnes asked, naming Prince Eddy’s younger sister.
“Maud?” Surprised, May twisted her neck to look at Agnes’s silhouette. “Why do you ask?”
“She’s your cousin, isn’t she?”
“A distant cousin. Technically a second cousin once removed,” May explained, though Agnes probably didn’t care.
The salesgirl took one last measurement and stood, disappearing into the back of the store. The moment May was dressed, Agnes tugged the curtain aside.
“I think you should spend more time with Maud. Getting closer to her can only help you with Prince Eddy.”
May froze. It had been strange enough discussing Eddy at the investiture party, but here at the dress boutique, in broad daylight, the topic made her feel foolish. And very exposed.
“Oh, don’t be bashful!” Agnes exclaimed. “Can’t we talk about it? I want to help see you happy.”
“I don’t think women can be happy.”
May immediately winced; she shouldn’t have said that aloud. Yet Agnes was staring at her with something like approval. “Why not?”
Perhaps it was the look in Agnes’s eyes—a look of intelligence that she was forced to stifle, of eager curiosity she was wise enough to keep hidden—a look that May knew all too well from glancing in the mirror. Whatever the reason, she admitted the truth.
“Safety, position, money: these are the reasons a woman should marry. Not for something as fleeting and insubstantial as happiness, which can evaporate at any moment, leaving you with nothing.”
Agnes nodded in agreement. “Which is why you want to be queen. The position with the most safety and wealth of all.”
If you knew what my family was like, you would understand, May thought. She pursed her lips and said nothing.
“In that case,” Agnes went on, undeterred, “you should absolutely pay more attention to Maud. She’s your ticket to the inner circle.”
“What do you mean?”