Unless what you wanted were gowns and a second housemaid and dancing lessons for your daughters.
“Are you going over the books?” Julianna asked Amy. “I could help. You know I’ve a head for numbers.”
Amy pocketed her glasses. “I was merely going over menus with Cook.”
“Perhaps I could take the older children out for an ice since I find myself unexpectedly unencumbered this afternoon? My treat.”
“That’s kind of you, Julie, but you keep your money. You’ve earned it.” The sisters weren’t overly close, but to her credit, Amy never said anything condescending aboutLe Monde Jolior about Julianna’s work. Amy had grown up with the magazine, too. Not in the intimate way Julianna had, but she had been there. She still read it every month, often complimenting Julianna on some aspect or other of it.
While Julianna was, theoretically, happy to keep her money—she had impossible ambitions to save for, after all—she knew Amy could do with the extra income. It was the role Amy was playing that necessitated her refusal. Her sister was the sort of person who bent the world to her will. She thought things into being. It was admirable, in a way. Amy didn’t want to see herself as the kind of person who needed money from her sister, therefore she wasn’t the kind of person who needed money from her sister.
“Besides,” Amy said, “I’m taking the girls to the park this afternoon. You ought to take the opportunity to rest, Sister. You’ve been working such long hours of late, even for you. Perhaps your mishap with the printer is a blessing in disguise.”
Julianna could have hinted that she’d like to come along to the park. Amy would have responded by inviting her. Amy probably would have bought them all ices afterward, just to prove a point.
So Julianna would not invite herself along. She would stay home. For the next seven days. Eating her sister’s family’s food and reading their newspapers and creating work for their servants. Taking up their space.
Julianna divested herself of her gloves and began the trudge to the small parlor at the back of the drawing room that had once been Amy’s sewing room.
“Oh, Julie,” Amy called as Julianna was about to disappear into her cave. “A package came for you.” She nodded at the small table near the French doors that separated the drawing room from Julianna’s room.
“Thank you,” Julianna managed, though inside her chest a flock of birds had taken flight. There was only one person who would send her a package here at the house.
Clutching the package to her chest, she pulled the doors closed behind her and collapsed onto the bed that took up most of the floor space in the room. There was nowhere else to sit, but a mere chair would not have contained Julianna’s expansiveness anyway. Her anticipatory joy required room for her limbs to fan out. She felt like a cross between a starfish and a girl.
She smiled. That sounded like something Effie would say.
She sat up and used a letter opener on the packet, forcing herself to be careful and precise because she was a careful and precise person.
Inside, she found a folded . . . newspaper?
She turned it over and gasped.
No, it was a copy ofArcher’s Lady’s Book.
Julianna had heard about the new American magazine, which was, as far as she knew, the first of its kind that country had produced, the Americans being rather behind in such matters.
But Americans were so bold. So enterprising. She could not wait to see what kind of ladies’ magazine an American would publish.
The cover featured a series of illustrations of ladies in various contexts—in gardens and drawing rooms and such. Under the title was a small circle that contained the wordsEdited by Mrs. Emmeline Archer. Envious and depreciative sentiments swirled together in Julianna’s mind. Imagine having one’s name printed on the cover of one’s magazine! Julianna’s name was inside hers, but underneath and in smaller type than that of Mr. Glanvil’s.
But, she considered,whyhave the editor’s name on the cover? What need did it serve? Did readers care that their magazine was edited by Mrs. Emmeline Archer? Perhaps they did, if Mrs. Emmeline Archer was a personage of some repute.
Before Julianna opened the magazine, she read the letter that had come with it. It was written in dark-green ink in Effie’s familiar, loopy, expansive hand. She smiled.
My dearest Jules,
A friend of a friend made a trip to America this past summer and I requested the enclosed, knowing you have been wanting to see an issue. It arrived yesterday, and though I’d said my previous letter would be my last until I returned from my holiday, I simplyhadto send you this before I left. I must admit, though, that I didn’t send it onyesterdaybecauseIspent the day reading every word inside it. I am all anticipation to learn what you think of it. I am certain your opinions will be more informed and refined than my own, but my initial impression is that it isn’t nearly as good as your magazine. I say that most earnestly. You have a way of coaxing out the best in your writers without inserting yourself overmuch in either the process or the prose, whereas look at Mrs. Archer with her name front and center! What purpose does that serve?
Julianna smiled. She and Effie were always so aligned in their thinking.
Though for all I know, she is well known among American ladies. Perhaps her name alone sells magazines. Perhaps it is akin to a magazine being edited by Mrs. Fitzwilliams.
Julianna’s smile deepened at the way Effie’s thought process was a mirror image of her own, but with a fanciful flourish at the end that was uniquely Effie.
Can you imagine a magazine edited by Mrs. Fitzwilliams? First, it should contain a menu for a dinner party featuring seventeen removes. Then, a column entitled “Counterintuitive Advice for Marital Harmony, or How to Make a Man Wild with Desire by Ignoring Him.”
Oh, and do you know, I have heard rumors of secret tunnels between the Royal Pavilion in Brighton and Mrs. Fitzwilliams’s residence! Apparently there were times the then regent was seen breakfasting with her on her balcony when the last anyone had seen of him was the previous night in his own palace. So perhaps Mrs. Fitz’s magazine can also contain some architectural drawings. What do you think? “Architectural Drawings to Aid in Clandestine Affairs”?
