CHAPTER III
THE Honourable Timothy Allerton might not be a traditional fairy godmother, but he was certainly an efficient one.
The morning after Arthur’s return, he left his bachelor’s apartments on Duke Street to appear at Berkeley Square before the rest of the household had yet arisen, and yet – despite the earliness of the hour – he was still dressed impeccably in a coat of blue super-fine, dove-coloured pantaloons and shining Hessian boots.
It was enough to make Hetty, though arrayed perfectly properly in a gown of French cambric, feel a little shabby – which was, after all, the purpose of today’s meeting.
‘Do you have the materials?’ Timothy asked, by way of greeting.
Hetty laid out four copies of La Belle Assemblée, in between the plates of fresh rolls and steaming pots of coffee. ‘I thought perhaps …’ she began, leafing through the pages, ‘perhaps these might suit …’
Timothy raised his quizzing glass. ‘No – No – Yes, but cerise detailing, not lilac. And no, certainly not.’ He fixed one horribly magnified eye upon Hetty, and pronounced, very firmly: ‘No flounces!’
Skimming judiciously through the rest of the prints, Timothy offered sundry opinions and morsels of advice that Hetty did her best to commit to memory. Timothy’s primary expertise might be masculine apparel, but – regardless of gender – his eye for cut and colour was second to none.
‘Now this’ – Timothy’s eyes gleamed whenever he landed on a page he approved on – ‘this, this, yes, and certainly this would be very fine!’
Hetty took in the final page rather dubiously. ‘Are you certain I have the wherewithal to … wear such an item?’
She traced one hesitant finger over the illustration.
Were she to see this gown upon another lady, she would be full of admiration, for it was a dress that demanded it: a round robe of pale-blue satin, the sleeve unusually short, and back and bosom uncommonly exposed.
It was just that Hetty was not in the habit of wearing clothes that demanded attention.
Indeed, if she could match her own dress always to the exact shade of whatever wallpaper adorned that evening’s ballroom, she would have done so.
Timothy looked her over narrowly. ‘I thought you wanted to cut a dash?’
‘I do, but …’ Arthur’s inamoratas were always such beauties. If Hetty were to have any hope of competing with them, she needed a wardrobe of the very first elegance. In practice, however, this seemed rather terrifying, and she felt her conviction wavering.
‘“More is lost by indecision than wrong decision”,’ she quoted softly to herself as a reminder. It was one of her father’s oft-used refrains.
Timothy, recognising Hetty’s quoting voice, eyed her with a little misgiving. ‘Shakespeare?’
She shook her head. ‘Cicero.’
Though he had studied the classics at both school and university, Timothy’s recollection of the particulars was rather foggy. ‘Is he the fellow that kept on turning himself into a swan?’
‘That is Zeus.’ Hetty was suddenly smiling. ‘He only turned into a swan once, to seduce Leda—’
‘Sound like a rum touch to me,’ Timothy said firmly. ‘Not at all the thing, y’know, turning into animals.’
Hetty laughed. ‘It’s literature, Timothy—’
‘It’s devilishly bad ton is what it is!’ Timothy heaved a sigh, and pushed the fashion print back towards her. ‘Should try not to think of this Cicero, if you can manage it,’ he advised. ‘All the gowns in the world can’t help a bluestocking.’
‘Goodness, what has you here so early, Timothy?’
Hetty jerked her head towards the door, smile falling away at the sound of Trixie’s voice.
Blast. Trixie did not usually rise before ten o’clock, but then, it had not been a late evening.
Despite the excitement of Arthur’s initial appearance – and Lady Allerton’s prompt cancellation of all prior engagements – it had been a quieter dinner than anticipated, for it seemed the demands of his journey had caught up with Arthur.
Though he had joined in with conversation with apparent cheer, it had seemed to cost him some effort and he had excused himself to bed at the earliest opportunity.
It was behaviour most unlike him, and had this been another morning, Hetty should have dedicated some time to investigating the matter, most likely on a bracing ride – if she did not have other, more pressing tasks to attend to.
‘I’m assisting Hetty,’ Timothy explained, before Hetty could conjure up a plausible excuse. ‘She is shopping today.’
Hetty wished she might shush him. She had no desire to discuss the matter with anyone else.
The afternoon prior, he had responded to her request with enthusiasm and a welcome lack of curiosity – his own high regard for fashion meant he considered her quest a perfectly natural one – but Trixie was far likelier to probe.
True enough, Trixie levelled a suspicious stare at Hetty and demanded: ‘What has prompted this turn? You detest shopping.’
This was true enough. Hetty could not easily think of anything less enjoyable than standing in front of a well-lit mirror, staring at all one’s inadequacies, and listening to Mrs Butterworth, Lady Allerton’s famously outspoken modiste, ponder how best to conceal her various flaws.
It was incomprehensible to Hetty that anyone should actively enjoy this feminine penance, and it was her habit to give enthusiastic consent to the very first dress she tried, just to conclude the experience.
With the result, of course, that very few of the dresses in her wardrobe could be said to truly suit her.
‘Wishes to replenish her wardrobe.’ Timothy was rather irritated by this excess of curiosity. ‘Natural enough, Trixie, not sure why you are acting as if it is some grand mystery or—’
Trixie cut across him. ‘You’re so dense, Timothy. She’s obviously trying to impress someone.’
Hetty’s heart half stopped. ‘Don’t be silly.’ She affected an airy tone. ‘Now, Timothy, what about this—’
It was too late. Timothy was already turning enquiring eyes towards his sister. ‘What do you mean?’
‘A lady does not suddenly change her wardrobe for no reason,’ Trixie explained with exaggerated patience. Then, turning to Hetty, she asked impishly: ‘I am correct, aren’t I? Who is it?’
‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’ Even Hetty could hear the strain in her voice. ‘I merely – merely wished for a change.’
She looked desperately towards the door, hoping fervently that Arthur was too tired from his travels to rise any time soon.
Trixie gave an exaggerated roll of her eyes. ‘Oh, why be coy – you may trust us, you know.’
‘There’s no one—’
‘It is not me, is it?’ Timothy was suddenly horror-struck. ‘Because – fond of you, Hetty, you know I am, but—’
‘It’s not you!’ Hetty yelped, before realising, from the smug smile curling Trixie’s mouth, that this was tantamount to an admission.
‘Some European noble?’ Trixie wondered. ‘They’re arriving in London by the dozen.’
‘No.’
‘They are, Hetty,’ Timothy said fairly. ‘No point denying it.’
‘Yes, and you will certainly know some of them already,’ Trixie continued eagerly. ‘From all your time in Rome – or Vienna – or Germany. Perhaps he is someone you met in your youth? One of your father’s students?’
‘An attachment from youth,’ Timothy pronounced with all the air of one finally in understanding. ‘But why did you not say so, Hetty? No cause for embarrassment, you know.’
How on earth was Hetty to move them off this topic? The pair of them were like terriers tussling over a bone.
‘Unless he’s someone we know …’ Trixie’s brows were beginning to furrow, and it was these terrifyingly prescient words that led Hetty to say, half-panicked:
‘Very well! Yes, he is a – a European noble. That I met in my youth. Arriving in London any day now. Yes, so you see.’
To her own ears, her parroting sounded desperately unconvincing, but Trixie leant back in her chair, satisfied. ‘I hope he’s Austrian. Then, when you’re married, I shall visit you and Grandpère in Vienna, and become very glamorous and international.’
Eager to be rid of this conversation, Hetty rose, beginning to stack up the prints into a pile.
‘Shall I accompany you?’ Trixie offered.
Hetty shook her head desperately. ‘Recollect that you have that breakfast party!’
‘Why do you think I have risen so early?’ Trixie retorted, brandishing a bread roll at her. ‘There is never enough to eat at Lady Thornton’s parties – but you are meant to be coming, too!’
Hetty began making her way towards the door. ‘I have already made my excuses to your mother.’
She had been surprised by how easily Lady Allerton had accepted them, given her ladyship frequently declared that late cancellations ought to number amongst the seven deadly sins. As soon as she had heard Hetty’s plans for the morning, however, she had given her instant blessing.
‘Well, will you not stay a little more?’ Trixie persisted. ‘I want to hear something about this fellow that you—’
Were those footsteps upon the stairs?
‘We must go!’ Hetty said, hastening towards the front door.
Having spent two years wishing for nothing more than a moment in Arthur’s company, she now desired only to avoid it. Suddenly, the idea of his seeing her current morning dress was abhorrent. It had not mattered before. But now …
Hetty’s destination that morning was not the modiste she was used to frequenting with Lady Allerton and Trixie, but the shop of a Madame who had quietly begun making a name for herself in the first circles of elegance.
Her premises, thickly carpeted and expensively furnished, was empty of any other customers that morning, which Hetty noted with relief – not guessing that Madame had ruthlessly cancelled all other appointments that morning for this express purpose.
Miss Clithero might be one of the least fashionable ladies amongst Madame Picard’s clients, but her fortune was one of the greatest, and Madame Picard was not immune to the allure of having an heiress as a loyal customer.
She welcomed Hetty with all the warmth of an old friend and ushered her into the back room of the shop.
There, Hetty shyly unveiled the prints she had brought with her – all save for that final gown of pale-blue satin, which would, she had decided, require too much bravery at the current moment.
Madame Picard looked the papers over, all approving smiles. ‘Yes, I see exactly. Let us begin.’
In the next moment, her underlings came back carrying dresses for every occasion, all of a greater complexity and hue than Hetty had ever known: figured, embroidered, flounced and braided; adorned with blond lace or knots of ribbon; some embellished with spangles, some with pearl rosettes, some with silver fringes.
‘What do you think?’ Madame asked.
Hetty stared at the sea of fabric around her, not at all sure what she ought to say. This was the first time she had ever visited a modiste with only her maid for company. Ordinarily Lady Allerton had so many opinions that Hetty was not required to supply her own.
‘Perhaps you would like to try?’ Madame Picard suggested.
In the next moment, Hetty was standing upon the dais, the first gown pinned about her and Madame Picard gazing at her expectantly. ‘Do you like it?’
Hetty did not know how to answer. Did she like it?
It was certainly very different to the gowns she usually wore, in a brighter colour than she was used to and fitted more tightly at the waist – but was it better?
She felt odd, somehow overexposed and trapped at the same time, and her cheeks were stinging with instinctive mortification as she gazed at her reflection.
She certainly did not resemble the lady who had worn just such a gown in La Belle Assemblée – but she was never going to, was she?
‘We will try another,’ Madame Picard decided after several beats of silence.
‘I am sorry,’ Hetty said. ‘I am just an awkward shape, I think …’
Madame shook her head. ‘It is not so.’
With a wave of her hand, she beckoned her underlings forward, and they tried again.
And again. Indeed, for the next fifteen minutes, Hetty felt she tried on every possible configuration of fabric in the whole room, and she began to wonder if this whole exercise was utterly futile, and she ought just to buy something in order to depart.
Thus, when she regarded herself in a festoon of salmon drapery, flounced at the hem and the cuff, for she had not been brave enough to insist otherwise, Hetty declared only ‘Lovely!’
Madame Picard regarded her with some suspicion. ‘What do you truly think?’
She was plainly not about to accept anything less than genuine enthusiasm. Hetty tried to muster up more convincing adjectives, but wilted under Madame’s quelling gaze, and suggested, tentatively: ‘I wonder if perhaps I … resemble a crustacean, just a little?’
‘Is this positive?’ Madame Picard checked, the term ‘crustacean’ never having been before used in her shop.
‘Well …’
‘It is not positive,’ Madame Picard decided and had, with one motion of her hand, her attendants whipping the gown from Hetty once more.
They repeated this exercise upwards of a dozen times, but never did Madame Picard express a hint of impatience in her voice or on her face.
In the presence of such an obvious ally, Hetty felt herself begin to calm.
Her body, which had entered the shop as tense as if she were under attack, softened, and her mind calmed enough that she could begin to see the wisdom of Timothy’s advice and Madame Picard’s direction.
Gone were the walking dresses of cream and rose, for – after liberal experimentation – they found that amber crape suited her the best. Gone were the ball gowns of ivory white, and in their place cerulean blue and sea green – and once Madame Picard had understood Hetty’s aversion to excessive froth (which made her feel as if she were being strangled by lace) they dealt together even better.
Indeed, whether it was the soporific effects of the tea Madame Picard supplied or the steady stream of compliments she peppered throughout, the flattering effect of low lighting or the lengthening mirrors, but not an hour later, Hetty was able to look into the reflection and perceive herself as a tasteful stranger, wearing a demi-toilette of mulled muslin that made elegant length out of awkward limbs; a gown of sea-green silk that brought warmth to her cheeks; a tightly fitting riding habit of blue cloth that she should never have dreamt would have suited her and yet …
‘You like it?’ Madame Picard said.
‘Yes,’ Hetty said. ‘Yes, I like it.’
Surely this, at least, was worthy of a second glance?