The Armoury
Chapter twenty-nine
Violet
The Duchess of Cranbrook returned on a Monday with a leather portfolio, two sharpened pencils, and a manner that suggested she had opinions.
Violet was in the stillroom when she heard the commotion. Mrs Greer’s voice pitched higher than usual, followed by Cranbrook’s voice pitched to carry through stone.
“I shall find her myself, Mrs Greer. You saw me twice each week when the dowager duchess was alive.”
By the time Violet wiped her hands and came up the service stairs, Cranbrook was already in the morning room, the portfolio open on the table, the pencils laid side by side like surgical instruments.
“Sit,” she said, without looking up. “We have three weeks.”
Violet sat.
“Your guest list.” Cranbrook pushed a sheet across the table. “Unacceptable.”
Violet looked at the names she and Henry had assembled the previous week. “In what respect?”
“In every respect. You have invited people you like. That is charming and irrelevant. A ball is not a supper party. It is a campaign.” Cranbrook drew the sheet back and began crossing out names with her pencil, fast, ruthless strokes that eliminated half the column before Violet had drawn her next breath.
“The purpose of this ball is to establish you, not to entertain you. There is a difference, and if you do not learn it tonight, three weeks hence will be a disaster from which no amount of good wine can recover.”
She set the pencil down. “Now. Whom do you need in that room?”
“I am not certain.”
“I shall tell you. You need the Patronesses. Lady Jersey is exhausting and Lady Cowper talks too much, and Mrs Drummond-Burrell would dampen a bonfire. However, you need them because their presence in your ballroom on the night tells every woman in London that you have been accepted. One Patroness is a curiosity. Two is an endorsement. Three makes you untouchable. I shall get you four.”
Violet opened her mouth.
“Do close your mouth. Stand up straight. Turn.” Violet turned, baffled.
“Good. You have put on weight. The hips especially. No one ever bred an heir on a coat rack, and your hips were a personal concern of mine.” She turned the page.
“I am the fourth Patroness. Do keep up. Next. The men. You have invited Wiltshire and Banbury and Cromwell because they are in the Alliance. Good. You have not invited Lord Cavanaugh because he spoke against your husband at Brooks’s. Invite him.”
“But Henry said—”
“Invite him. When he walks through your door, he endorses you by the act of attendance. A man who insults a duke and then appears at his ball is a man who has conceded the field. Everyone will know it. He will know it. And he will smile and drink our champagne and hate himself, which is precisely the state in which you want your enemies to spend their evenings. Same goes for Wiltshire and Banbury and Cromwell.” Cranbrook took up the second pencil and began adding names.
“Here. Cavanaugh. The Hartington boy. Lady Feversham and her ghastly daughter, whom everyone will want to see because the girl’s engagement fell apart last week and the ton is starving for a glimpse of her misery.
You shall be kind to her. Ostentatiously kind.
It will make you beloved by the mothers and despised by the gossips, which are the same people. ”
Violet looked at the list taking shape. “This list is terrifying.”
Cranbrook sat back and regarded her. “Let me tell you something that no one will. The ton does not care whether you are clever or kind or beautiful. It cares whether you are certain. A woman who enters a room certain of her right to be there is a woman who will be permitted to remain. A woman who enters looking for permission will spend the evening receiving none.”
“But I am not certain.”
“Obviously. That is why I am here.” Cranbrook sat with a straight spine.
“When a woman in your position makes a mistake, she does not apologise. She does not explain or acknowledge the mistake at all, because the moment she does, she has confirmed to two hundred people that she knows she does not belong. You burned tallow in a duke’s house.
That is finished. You walked into a chemist’s shop in a servant’s dress.
That is finished. These things rarely happen, but they will not be discussed by you or anyone else, ever again, if I have something to say about it.
And if someone raises them, you look at them straight in the eye as though they have said something embarrassing about themselves, which they have, and you move the conversation along. ”
Violet tried to commit all her wisdom to memory.
“The same principle applies to your situation. You are the fourth wife of a man whose first three are dead. Half of London believes he killed them. The other half believes the house is cursed. You will address neither theory. You will not reassure people. You will stand in your own ballroom in a gown that costs more than their quarterly rents and you will be so composed, so utterly in command of the evening that every person in that room will go home wondering if perhaps they have been wrong about everything they thought they knew.”
Cranbrook picked up her tea. “That is how you survive the ton, Iredell. Not by being liked. By being undeniable.”
Violet studied the crossed-out names again. Her stomach tightened. “You have removed my family.”
“I have.”
“All of them,” Violet said.
“Yes.” Cranbrook set the teacup down slowly, as if to prepare for a fight.
“Your mother is known throughout Hampstead and as far as London as Mad Madelyn. She attends no functions, she receives no callers, she walks barefoot through her garden and across Hampstead Heath without escort. Your sisters, while I am sure they are delightful, are untested and peculiar by association. Furthermore, you have an unmarried man of no discernible occupation living in a household with five, now four, unwed girls.” She held up a hand before Violet could speak.
“I am not telling you to turn your back on your family. I am telling you that this ball is not a family reunion. It is a declaration. You can make a public statement without your mother and sisters present, and you will make a stronger one.”
Violet knew what she must look like. Her eyes icy, fists clenched, nostrils flaring.
She must look like a bull about to charge, but she did not give a damn.
She placed her hands flat on the table for she did not trust them.
“My mother,” her voice was low and steady, “is the most honourable and intelligent woman I have ever known. She has more sense and more class than every duchess in London combined, and I include present company.”
Cranbrook’s eyebrows rose.
“The reason my mother does not wear shoes,” Violet continued, “is not because she is not in her senses. It is that she could not afford them. She had one pair. One. And she saved them.” Her voice caught.
She pressed on. “She saved them for me. For when I might need them. For interviews, and calls, and the day I might stand in front of a man who could change our circumstances, because she knew that no one would look twice at a girl in bare feet.” She swallowed hard.
“So my mother went without. For years. So that I could walk into rooms like this one and be afforded a modicum of decency by women like you.”
Cranbrook did not move, did not blink.
“My sisters will attend this ball,” Violet said.
“My mother will attend this ball. They will be dressed properly, and they will behave beautifully and Primrose will have her come-out in this house as my husband promised, and if London has a problem with the Thornwick family, then London may take it up with the Duchess of Iredell.”
The room held its breath as silence stretched out.
Cranbrook picked up her pencil. She wrote the names back onto the list, one by one, in her precise, angular hand: Lady Thornwick. Miss Primrose Linton. Miss Poppy Linton. Miss Daphne Linton. Miss Daisy Linton.
“Well,” she said, with a faint smile at her lips, “at least we know the backbone is in working order.”
Cranbrook stood, collected her portfolio, and left—swiftly and, as ever, undeniably.
The next day, Violet woke with a feeling of dread after dreaming about Cranbrook shouting orders at her while the ton mocked her. Her unease caught fire when Sarah arrived with the chocolate and the morning’s chatter.
“Fog on the square again, Your Grace. I could hardly see the railings from the landing window. Mrs Greer says the roads will be foul by noon.” She set the tray down and crossed to the curtains.
“Shall I open them halfway or do you prefer the room dim this morning? With the weather, the grey does nothing for the complexion.”
Violet sat up against the pillows and suppressed the queasiness that seemed to rise at the sight of chocolate. She watched her maid move through the room, stirring and feeding the fire, pouring chocolate and setting it on the bedside table within reach.
Sarah's voice was bright as usual while she folded last evening’s clothes and laid out the morning dress and talked about sleeves—the new width, the latest pattern from Madame Renard, whether the sage green or the blue for today.
Violet began to wonder perhaps it was not Sarah who had opened the door when she was with her husband.
Perhaps the door was already open when they’d arrived.
Or perhaps, she shivered with a chill down her spine, she’d already decided what came next.
Violet reached for the chocolate and brought it to her lips. She held it there, let the steam warm her nose and breathed it in. She did not detect the bitterness of belladonna, but chocolate was far more effective in masking it than tea or coffee.
“Your Grace?” Violet lifted her eyes to her maid. Sarah was waiting expectantly. “Blue or the sage green?”
“The sage, I think.”
“A wise choice. Much more fitting for a gloomy day.”
After the usual toilet, Sarah buttoned her into the dress with steady fingers. Violet felt those hands at her spine and pushed down the impulse to recoil.
“Your hair is lovely this morning, Your Grace. Did you brush it out more before bed?”
“I did.”
“It shows. The ends are much smoother. Shall I pin it high or—”
“High. Thank you, Sarah.”
She sat at the dressing table and let her mind wander while the curling iron, the pins, the pearl combs, all moved unhurried. Then she lifted her eyes and started. Sarah was watching her. With a faint curve of her lips. Violet averted her gaze first.
“Thank you, Sarah. That is enough.”
“But I’m not—”
“That will do. I shall wear it down today.”
“Very well, Your Grace.”
Sarah took her leave, the door closing with a soft click. Violet’s hands were shaking.
The arrival of the Duchess of Cranbrook was a welcome distraction. She swept through the hall, past Patten, and marched straight to Violet who happened to be descending the staircase.
“Iredell. Good. We have work to do.” She snapped her fan open and began to rapidly fan herself.
They discussed flowers, musicians, the supper menu. The older woman approved the champagne and rejected the lobster and said the ices must come from Gunter’s and nowhere else because Gunter’s was the only establishment in London whose ices did not taste of the tin.
“I hear your husband’s cousin was here for dinner this week.”
“How—”
“Do not be silly. I hear everything. Now keep up. Edmund Vexley dined with you?”
“Yes.”
“He is charming, I grant you. He is also the heir presumptive, which makes me wonder your purpose for having him for dinner. Henry never associated with him before—at most a few words and a brief eye contact, which is what your husband calls a pleasantry.”
“They seemed quite amicable at dinner.”
“Hm.” Cranbrook studied her with narrowed gaze. “I believe Henry sees something promising in your marriage. Did anything happen of import?”
“No.” Violet swallowed, impressed and mortified by the lady’s conjecture and… resourcefulness.
“You are not telling me everything,” she said, pointing one finger at her. “But no matter. I will learn all of it in due course. I only pray that it will not affect our seating chart.”
Cranbrook picked up her fan and walked out of the morning room then past the butler and the front door without another word.