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 andthen 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 thetonis 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. Thetondoes 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 theton,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 waslow 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.
