There were many trials Hetty Tolliver had endured in life with outward composure: the untimely death of her beloved spaniel, Cousin Edwina’s insistence of reciting poetry after dinner, and even a near-drowning incident involved an ill-tempered swan and a misguided wager with Theo – but nothing so thoroughly tested her fortitude as a morning spent in the clutches of a modiste. She stood now in Madame Celestine’s mirrored salon, trussed in a gown of such violent yellow that one might have taken her for a duck.
“Oh, Hetty, my dear, it is simply divine, do you not agree?” her mother trilled from across the room, clasping her hands in rapture. “So elegant. So respectable! You’ll have every baronet from here to Berkshire positively scrambling.”
“It is lovely, Mama,” she lied.
“That is certainly one way to describe it,” Lottie snickered from her window seat.
Hetty had in mind to snap back, but before she could, Georgiana – who had been observing the fitting with a critical eye – crossed the room and offered a sympathetic smile. As the second eldest daughter,Georgie was generally acknowledged to be the beauty of the family. With her golden curls and milk-pale complexion, she moved through Mayfair as though born to be admired. Though but seven-and-ten, and a full year from her formal come-out, she already turned heads with the grace of a girl destined to be a duchess. Her figure, though deemed a touch plump by the more unforgiving matrons, was in fact precisely the sort of soft, Grecian roundness presently in vogue.
Hetty, meanwhile, considered herself unremarkable by comparison. Not plain, exactly – she had the sort of face often described as handsome, which was to say politely symmetrical and lacking any feature sufficiently arresting to count as beauty. Her hair was brown, and eyebrows strongly arched, her nose slightly too proud, her lips a little thin. She had not gone unnoticed during her previous Season, but she was under no illusion as to why: her dowry, not her great beauty, had done the work.
It was, she reflected, a singular thing – a lady’s self-regard. To think oneself pretty was vanity; but to doubt it was false modesty. One could neither be beautiful nor unbeautiful without causing some offence. Society, it seemed, was determined to ensure that every woman, regardless of her actual appearance, should feel herself insufficient in some essential respect.
Still, it was not her sister Georgie’s beauty alone that secured her place as their mother’s favourite, but a disposition which, to maternal eyes, seemed the very picture of virtue. Charm, Hetty had learnt, was far more dangerous than beauty, and Georgie had both in abundance.
“Mama, your taste is, as ever, beyond reproach,” she began. “That said, a style more Grecian might suit Hetty’s figure most charmingly.Something light and ethereal. Very à la mode. And with so many young ladies making their come-outs this Season, it would be most prudent to keep just ahead of fashion, would it not?”
Hetty watched their mother’s expression shift. It was Georgie’s particular talent: to say the right thing at precisely the right moment, always wrapped in such pretty silk ribbons of decorum that no one quite realised they had been managed.
“I daresay Georgie is quite right,” Hetty said, seizing the opportunity.“I would hate to look behind the fashion.”
Lady Tolliver sniffed. “Well, so long as it is executed with restraint, I suppose I shall not object. But I must remind you both that there is nothing quite so vulgar as a young lady clamouring for attention with” – she lowered her voice – “anything tooFrench.”
“Tell that to the lemon meringue,” Lottie muttered.
Ignoring her, Georgie arched an eyebrow. “Indeed, Mama. Though I do recall you were most taken with Lady Ellington’s sapphire silk gown last season… a design lifted directly from the Parisian plates.”
“That was entirely different,” Lady Tolliver said with a dismissive wave. “Lady Ellington is a duchess.”
“And Hetty is a Tolliver,” Georgie replied sweetly. “Which is nearly as good.” She lifted a length of silk and held it to Hetty’s cheek – a shade of lustrous blue. “It strikes me this hue is even more flattering on Hetty than on the duchess herself. Positively luminous. One might almost think it was made for her.”
Lady Tolliver narrowed her eyes, caught between pride and principle. “Yes, well,” she allowed at last, lips pursed, “Henrietta’s complexion has always favoured cooler tones.”
“Precisely, Mama,” said Georgie, laying the silk down with a crisp nod. “And since you mentioned a Grecian style – a higher waist, naturally, and cap sleeves in place of those dreadful puffs, which do no one any favours. You are, after all, a woman of such discerning taste.”
Lady Tolliver gave a modest hum. “Well, one must possess a natural eye. Style cannot be taught.”
“Indeed not,” Georgie agreed. “And no one possesses a finer instinct for elegance than you.”
“Yes, well – thank you, dearest. I have always said that the right gown,” she declared, lifting a finger, “is the making of a lady. It can render a merely agreeable girl a beauty, and a beautiful girl the rage of London.”
“And what might the right dress do for a truly plain and unfortunate creature?” Lottie chimed in from the window, where she was now pulling a ribbon apart at the seams.
“In your case,” Georgie said sweetly, “I imagine we shall have to commission something very clever.”
Lottie stuck out her tongue and returned to the destruction of the ribbon, looking rather as if she wished it were Georgie’s hem.
“I do not know what I have done to deserve this,” Lady Tolliver lamented, looking between her three eldest daughters. “At times, I am quite convinced there must have been some dreadful mix-up at the lying-in hospital, and I was handed the most impossible set ofchildren in all England – apart from you, of course, Georgiana.” She reached out and gave Georgie’s hand a fond pat, casting a meaningful glance towards Lottie. “If only such hopes were not daily undermined by the ceaseless quarrelling that echoes through our house like cannon-fire. One might be forgiven for imagining we lived in a barracks rather than a respectable Mayfair residence.”
Hetty, Georgie, and Lottie exchanged glances.Do not speak, their eyes warned one another.Not unless you wish to provoke another full treatise on feminine decorum.
“Five daughters. Five! Do you know what that does to a woman’s nerves? I have not known peace in this household since Eleanor learnt to talk back and Marianne began hiding in the linen cupboards!”
Hetty, to her credit, remained composed. “I do my best, Mama.”
“Yes, well, your best is not resulting in wedding banns, is it?” Lady Tolliver huffed. “I was pleasantly surprised – astonished, really – by your decorum last Season, Henrietta. But the more I dwell upon it, the more I cannot comprehend how a young lady with your advantages managed to have half the eligible bachelors in London sniffing about her skirts, only to flee like frightened pheasants!” She cast her eyes briefly towards the heavens, as though divine guidance might explain such tragedy. “I can only conclude you have taken it into your head tochoose –which, I need hardly remind you, is not at all the same as being chosen. One does not discard suitors like overripe pears simply because of a dull wit, a weak chin, or an unfortunate way of sayingschedule.”
“Now, now, Mama,” said Georgie, “it can hardly be Hetty’s fault if the gentlemen who presented themselves were somewhat lacking.”
