20. For a Country Girl
CHAPTER TWENTY
FOR A COUNTRY GIRL
“Do not gasp, Miss Bennet,” Madame Delacroix instructed, circling the fitting platform with the scrutiny of a sculptor assessing marble. “The bodice is cut to flatter at natural respiration. You are being dressed, not rescued from the sea.”
The finest silk sliding across Elizabeth’s shoulders did little to ease the persistent fluttering in her chest as the Harewood ball approached. Mr. Darcy was improving on her, but now, suspended on the modiste’s fitting platform, she once again began to doubt her standing.
“I have never worn such soft silk before,” Elizabeth said, and watched the admission produce no effect whatsoever on a woman who had dressed duchesses and found their posture wanting.
The bigger question wasn’t the silk or the beautiful fabric threaded with gold, but whether the woman beneath the finery was worth not only forgiving, but pursuing—again.
“Oh, the silk is entirely Madame’s victory,” Allegra said from her post near the velvet settee, her sharp eyes mapping the drape of the gold-threaded hem with professional detachment.
“But do not let it make you meek, Elizabeth. London is full of very well-dressed simpletons. The ivory merely ensures that when you deliver a set-down, the gentlemen look at your collarbone while they bleed.”
“I do not think she intends to deliver any set-downs on Saturday, Miss Allegra,” Georgiana countered. “You see, my brother has secured the supper dance, as his role of trustee demands. A placeholder, he professes, until a more suitable gentleman can be entrusted with our Hertfordshire jewel.”
And this was exactly the doubt that threaded through Elizabeth’s nightly awakenings. Hadn’t she granted him for the supper set, not as a placeholder, but with the condition that he dance and enjoy it? Then why had it been conveyed to Lady Sophia and the rest of the household as a duty?
“Turn, please.” Madame was utterly unconcerned with a debutante’s nerves. Her gaze flowed with the silk, which moved with Elizabeth, shimmering and catching the light, liquid and entrancing.
“Again, the other direction,” Madame Delacroix instructed. “Beautiful. Absolutely gorgeous.”
She turned again, slower now, watching the silk catch the light and wondering if it could distract anyone from the uncertainty in her eyes.
Would it be magical enough to catch Mr. Darcy’s eye? To turn a man from rigid, starched duty to passion? Or had all of it—every spark of that fierce, desperate affection he had offered—died the moment she refused him?
“Stand straighter, Miss,” Madame Delacroix said.
“Chin up, and bosom out. I am aware that the cut is lower than what you are used to, but this is London, not the moors. The bosom is exposed as much as possible, and the back as well. You have such a fine, even complexion, and it behooves you to show it.”
Elizabeth inhaled and lifted her chin, wondering if this was how princesses felt.
The ivory bodice clung to a fuller, more generous curve of hip and breast than was ever permitted by her country dressmaker, who usually bunched muslin up to her collarbone like a hedge against temptation.
What would Darcy, with his disapproving glares, believe about her?
He, who had berated himself for not counseling his sister, who was, at this moment, thoroughly enjoying her display.
“Miss Elizabeth, when I am presented to the court,” Georgiana said. “I shall wear a dress even more scandalous, without shoulder straps, so that the whole of my figure would be exposed.”
From behind the partition, the soft, hesitant rustle of silk suggested that Jane was suffering a far more acute crisis of modesty.
“Madame, please,” Jane’s sweet voice pleaded softly, accompanied by the frantic snipping of pins. “Perhaps another row of lace? Just at the center? It feels… rather too light.”
“No lace, Miss Bennet,” Madame Delacroix shouted back with the absolute tyranny of her trade. “The pale blue requires the clean line of the throat. Do not slouch to hide yourself, or I shall add bones to the stays until you cannot sit down.”
Elizabeth caught Georgiana’s eye in the mirror, and the young lady was biting her lip to suppress a laugh.
The threats seemed to work on Jane, as she nodded mutely, her bravery evident as she ventured out despite the unrelenting gossip. Aunt Gardiner had spoken to Jane with a candor that left no room for vanity.
A man who has been once unseated by his family’s noise, Jane, requires a double portion of a woman’s constancy to find his stirrups again, her aunt had argued.
If you close your doors and look away because some wretched scribbler hints you are a fortune hunter, Charles will only see your retreat as a confirmation that you do not care.
It takes a great deal of courage for a man who has once doubted your affection to step forward. You must stand your ground.
And hence, Jane was standing her ground, even inside the modiste’s shop.
“Do not let Madame intimidate you, Elizabeth,” Allegra said, mistaking her silence for lack of courage.
“Jane will look like an angel who has accidentally misplaced her cloud, which is exactly what Charles Bingley requires to shake him out of his lethargy. But you—you look dangerous. And in Mayfair, my dear, dangerous is infinitely superior to modest.”
“Now, Miss Bennet, come out and stand on the platform,” Madame Delacroix commanded Jane. “I need you to turn a full circle. The skirts must flutter just so…”
Elizabeth surrendered the platform to Jane, who emerged in blue silk the color of a Hertfordshire sky before sunrise—cold, clear, and impossibly lovely. The pleats at her bodice curved like seashells, showing off collarbones and a throat that needed no lace to improve upon nature.
Jane turned, hesitant at first, and the skirt unspooled around her like mist curling over river stones. The hem, weighted and clever, made the silk float and whisper with every step—a sound that seemed to hush the whole room.
“Beautiful,” Elizabeth murmured, her hands clasped as Allegra drew a breath by her side.
“Magnificent,” Madam Delacroix declared. “The hem takes the air perfectly. You shall indeed appear as the angel of the ballroom.”
“I look—” Jane touched the fabric at her waist as though confirming it was real. “This cannot be how I look.”
“You look like Mamma’s description of you, which I always assumed was exaggerated by at least forty percent.” Elizabeth circled her sister. “I am revising my estimate downward. Mamma has been understating the case.”
“You are being ridiculous.”
“Bingley is going to walk into a pillar,” Georgiana declared.
The name arrived in the room with more weight than Elizabeth had intended, and Jane’s cheeks went pink above the pale blue silk.
“Has Mr. Bingley called this week?” Allegra asked. “Or is he reserving his shock for the ballroom?”
“He sent a note. Very correct. Very—” Jane searched for the word, her fingers smoothing a fold of the blue silk. “Restrained.”
“A gentleman showing restraint is promising,” Elizabeth encouraged.
“It is merely polite, Lizzy. I am not reading more into his script than its words contain.”
Elizabeth let it rest, because Jane’s self-protection was not a wall to be breached but a boundary to be respected.
A sharp rustle came from the third fitting area, followed by Madame Delacroix’s voice at its most authoritative: “Miss Mary Bennet. Come out where we can see the fit.”
“I look absurd,” came Mary’s muffled reply from behind the fabric.
Elizabeth marshaled her elder-sister authority and marched toward the partition. “You look nothing of the kind. Come out this instant, or I shall come in and fetch you.”
The curtain parted, and Mary appeared, her shoulders hunched. Georgiana immediately went to her side, her face lighting up. “Miss Mary, you look like a princess.”
Mary stood in deep rose silk, blushing as if she’d been caught reading poetry aloud. The color suited her: not golden-pretty like Jane, but striking, with eyes that missed nothing and a jaw that could hold its own in any argument.
“I cannot wear this,” Mary whispered, her fingers plucking at the skirt. “It is far too much.”
“Please, Miss Mary Bennet, onto the platform, if you will.” Madame Delacroix unwound the tape measure from her neck with a practiced flick. “I shall check the hems.”
“Oh, I couldn’t,” Mary argued, shrinking back. “It is immodest to display oneself so.”
“Stand here then.” Allegra steered her firmly before the glass. “Look.”
Mary blinked, at first not daring to face her reflection, but then her countenance underwent a transformation Elizabeth had never witnessed before.
The habitual tightness around her mouth, the defensive set of her jaw, and the pinched expression that had always masked her true features eased by slow degrees.
It was as though the rose silk had given her face permission to soften.
“Oh,” Mary breathed.
The sound was small and private, and Elizabeth felt it in her chest like the deep vibration of a cello rather than mere noise.
“The rose,” Allegra told Madame Delacroix, stepping back to admire her handiwork. “And the cream for musicales, the blue stripe for promenades, and we shall require something in green for the afternoons.”
“Four gowns,” Mary said faintly, the numbers dizzying her. “Elizabeth, the expense?—”
“The expense is what the Season requires, and you will have it. Alice Gardiner would never forgive us if we sent you into a London drawing room in gray.”
Mary’s hand rose to touch the silk at her collarbone.
The gesture was the same, a wondering, tentative reach Elizabeth had made on her own platform.
The shared astonishment connected them across the old distance that had existed between the musical sister and the witty one for as long as Elizabeth could remember.
London was closing that gap, quietly and persistently, one gown at a time.