Chapter Six The Last Ball of Lady Evangeline #2
Madame Celeste’s eyes flicked to her, and this time the assessment went deeper. “Lantern House.”
“You know it?”
“I knew Lady Theodosia.”
“Many people seem to have done so more thoroughly than they admitted while she lived,” Sebastian said.
Madame Celeste did not smile. “Lady Theodosia was a woman one admired more safely at a distance.”
“And Lady Evangeline Rookwood?” Marianne asked.
The silence that followed was immediate.
One of the assistants, sensing danger without knowing its form, retreated into the rear room. The shop seemed suddenly full of delicate things that could be torn by careless handling: lace, silk, memory.
Madame Celeste touched the card once with the tip of her finger. “I dressed Lady Evangeline for three Seasons.”
Sebastian said nothing. Marianne sensed the restraint in him like pressure gathering.
“Do you remember her last ball?” Marianne asked.
The modiste looked toward the window, where London ladies passed beneath parasols though the rain had stopped. “There are gowns one remembers because they were triumphs. Others because they were disasters. Lady Evangeline’s last ball was neither. It was an alteration.”
“An alteration?”
“She had ordered white. Very fine muslin over a satin slip. Silver embroidery. Modest, but not childish. She wished to be taken seriously, I think. Young ladies do not always understand that society prefers them foolish until it needs to punish them for it.”
Marianne felt Sebastian’s attention shift. The words were too sharp to be idle.
“And the blue silk?” she asked.
Madame Celeste’s gaze returned at once.
Marianne tapped Lady Theodosia’s note, which she had brought folded in her reticule. “Blue silk refused.”
The modiste closed her eyes for a second. “Yes.”
“What was it?”
“A gown sent to be charged to Lady Evangeline’s account.”
“Ordered by her?”
“No.”
“By whom?”
“A gentleman’s man came with the instructions.
Or a servant dressed as one. I cannot swear which.
He claimed the order was urgent and authorised.
The gown was blue silk, very deep, almost indecently rich, cut low for a private supper, not a ball.
French trimming. Too much of everything.
It was the sort of gown a foolish girl might be accused of ordering if one wished to prove her vain, reckless and eager to be admired by the wrong man. ”
Sebastian’s hand closed over the head of his cane.
Marianne kept her voice calm. “Did Lady Evangeline wear it?”
“No. She came herself when my assistant sent word to confirm the final fitting. She was furious. Mortified too, though anger came first. She said she had not ordered it and would not wear it if every man in London went blind from disappointment.”
Mrs Alderley murmured, “Excellent girl.”
Madame Celeste almost smiled, then did not. “I altered the white as planned. Lady Evangeline left in temper, but not distress. Later, I heard the rumour.”
“What rumour?” Sebastian asked.
“That she had ordered a daring gown for a private supper with Lord Ashmont after the ball. That she wished to be seen as more than a girl. That she had written to him of it.”
“I never heard that detail,” he said.
“No. Perhaps your father spared you. Or perhaps men did not think it necessary to trouble you with the machinery, only the verdict.”
The words entered the shop with dangerous clarity.
Sebastian looked at her, and though his face hardened, he did not rebuke her. “Who collected the blue gown?”
“No one. Lady Evangeline insisted it be cancelled.”
“And was it?”
Madame Celeste hesitated.
“Madame,” Marianne said softly.
The older woman’s gaze came to her. “I was paid for it.”
“By whom?”
“I do not know. The account was settled in cash through a maid.”
“Lady Evangeline’s maid?”
“No.”
The answer was too quick.
Marianne leaned closer. “Who?”
“A woman giving the name Mrs Pike. She said Lady Evangeline had changed her mind and wished the cancelled gown to be packed, not delivered to Halgrave House, but sent to an address near St James’s. I refused. It was irregular. She returned with a note, supposedly from Lady Evangeline.”
“Supposedly?”
“I had begun to mistrust every instruction by then. The note looked like her hand at first glance, but it was too smooth.” Madame Celeste looked at Sebastian. “Your sister wrote as if she were hurrying toward something. This note strolled.”
Marianne thought of the forged signature. Correct but lifeless.
“What did you do?” Sebastian asked.
“I packed the gown, but I sent a warning to Halgrave House.”
Sebastian’s face changed. “To whom?”
“To the housekeeper. I did not know who else might listen.”
“Mrs Bell,” he said.
“Yes. I remember because she came once to pay an account and looked at every hem as though she suspected silk of moral weakness. I wrote that an irregular collection had been made. I received no reply.”
Sebastian turned away.
Marianne felt the force of what he did not say. A warning had reached his house. Perhaps it had been stopped. Perhaps ignored. Perhaps filed away under the great heading that had swallowed all else: Evangeline’s difficult behaviour.
“And Mrs Pike?” Marianne asked.
“I saw her once more. The night of the ball, outside the rear entrance of Lord Datchworth’s house. I had gone myself because there was a last alteration to a court dress for another lady. Mrs Pike stood by the servants’ entrance holding a packet.”
“What packet?”
“Flat. Wrapped in brown paper. Tied with black cord. She was not alone. A man stood with her, his face turned away. He wore a black pin. A chess piece, perhaps. I remember because it caught the lamp.”
Sebastian and Marianne looked at one another.
“A rook?” he asked.
“Perhaps. It was small.”
“Did you see where they went?”
“No. A carriage drew up. By the time it passed, they were gone.”
Madame Celeste reached beneath the counter and withdrew a small ledger of her own, bound in red leather. “I kept the account.”
Marianne’s pulse quickened.
The modiste turned several pages, then rotated the book toward them. Her finger rested beside an entry.
Lady E.R. — white muslin, silver embroidery.Blue silk, refused. Settled by cash — Mrs P.Note copied separately. Original returned? No.
“Copied separately?” Marianne asked.
Madame Celeste drew another paper from between the pages. “Lady Theodosia asked me for a copy years later. I made one from memory and from the account. I had no original by then. It was taken.”
“By whom?”
“A gentleman who said he represented Halgrave.”
Sebastian went very still. “When?”
“After Lady Evangeline left London. Before word of her death. He brought a formal request. I believed…” She stopped.
“You believed my family wished to suppress further gossip.”
“Yes.”
“And you surrendered the note.”
“Yes.”
He looked at the account. “What was the gentleman’s name?”
“I do not know. He had a card. I may have kept it once.” Madame Celeste looked around the shop, suddenly older. “But some drawers are cleared after enough years. One cannot keep every ghost.”
Marianne looked at the words again. Blue silk, refused. Settled by cash — Mrs P.
“Do you know what became of Mrs Pike?”
“She vanished, as maids sometimes do when they have been paid to carry what they do not understand. Or when they understand too late.”
Sebastian’s voice was low. “Pike was dismissed from Halgrave House after Evangeline’s disgrace.”
“For what reason?” Marianne asked.
“Theft, according to my father’s steward.”
Madame Celeste’s expression hardened. “How convenient.”
Sebastian did not answer.
They left with a copy of the ledger entry, the name Mrs Pike, and the unpleasant certainty that Lady Evangeline’s ruin had been costumed before it was documented.
Outside, Bond Street moved on in cheerful ignorance.
Ladies examined ribbons. Gentlemen bowed.
Carriage doors opened. Silk passed from one pair of hands to another, and reputations, Marianne thought, were often made and unmade with less fabric than one gown required.
Sebastian handed her into the carriage without touching more than her gloved fingers. He had become careful with touch since Chancery Lane and the handkerchief. She was not certain whether she approved. She was certain she noticed.
“Mrs Pike,” he said when they were seated.
“You know more than you said.”
“I was sixteen when she entered service. Twenty-six when she was dismissed. She had been with Evangeline at intervals, not as principal lady’s maid, but enough to know her rooms. My father said she stole a brooch after Evangeline left London. I never questioned it.”
“Of course not,” Marianne said, but the words held less accusation than they once would have done.
He looked at her. “I ought to have questioned everything.”
“Yes.”
It was a hard answer. It was also, perhaps, the only one he would have trusted from her.
They returned to Lantern House, where the afternoon became a campaign of preparation disguised as dressing.
Helena received Madame Celeste’s information with the grave satisfaction of a woman who had expected a trap and found a door hidden inside it.
Clara wrote Mrs Pike’s name on the investigation board Marianne had created in Lady Theodosia’s study, then connected it by thin lines to Madame Celeste, Evangeline’s last ball, the blue gown, and Halgrave House dismissal.
Beatrice declared that any gown ordered without a lady’s consent ought to be burned in the street as a warning to men who thought silk could lie for them.
Mrs Finch said burning good silk was sinful but she understood the impulse.
Marianne’s own gown for the evening produced more discussion than she wished.