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At the haberdashery, I had no luck whatsoever. The shopkeeper turned her back to me, disappeared into a back room and never emerged, though Mr Williams called to her more than once.
As we left, I looked at the steward, but he showed no signs of wishing to explain, and as the wind was blowing fit to turn my umbrella inside out, we marched along to the next shop capturing my attention, Miss Bickford’s Fine Dresses.
Probably due to the weather, again, I was the only customer in the shop. But a girl jumped off her stool and looked at us wide-eyed, while a rather magnificent personage turned to greet me. To my mind, she was dressed for a day in Paris rather than Hopewell, wearing blossom-coloured fine muslin and a hat trimmed in a concoction of feathers and frills that would not have been amiss in a London ballroom. The smile she bequeathed me was of a queen welcoming a subject. It was an enormous improvement over the previous shops, and I smiled back.
This was Miss Bickford herself, and she did not suffer from unfriendliness or excessive silence. Rather, she greeted me effusively, calling me ‘Dear Mrs Darcy’, and immediately set out a number of plates for my viewing pleasure. Clara, admiring a selection of Mechlin laces and ribbons with the shop girl, appeared well-occupied. I looked at Mr Williams. “Would you care to wait at the pub with Perkins and John?” I asked. “I shall be some time.”
Still appearing forlorn, he shook his head and took a seat upon a wooden bench near the door. I dismissed him from my mind as I indulged in my first real shopping trip in many years. My aunt and uncle had provided for me and provided for me well; however, I had always been conscious that the money they expended upon me was their own, for they would not take any of my small inheritance. They were not wealthy, although very comfortable, but my uncle’s fortunes sometimes vacillated, when investments failed to produce immediate results. I was accustomed to economising, to looking for bargains, and to choosing the practical over the pretty.
Not today. Miss Bickford was only too eager to assist, and while I did not much care for her personal taste in hats, most of her suggestions were elegant and her pattern books, excellent. Her establishment, though small, held a number of fabrics and trims I found irresistible after my lengthy fashion drought. Periodically, I glanced back at Mr Williams, but after a time, he had grown comfortable enough to doze, his chin to his chest. He was not unhandsome, I considered, but was entirely too thin; I ought not to have said anything to him about shopping until after his breakfast.
Miss Bickford was not at all shy about voicing her thoughts. “I am so delighted you came to us today,” she said. “Though usually we are so busy, I knew the weather would keep custom from my door. I even thought of closing the shop, but I knew better! I sent Matilda and Selma home, but I told Lucy that someone was bound to see a need and we would be here to fill it!” She prattled incessantly of nothing in particular between tasteful recommendations. After a time, I became so accustomed to this that I almost believed I misheard when she began speaking of Anne Darcy.
“I often dressed the first Mrs Darcy—oh, she had her London modiste,” she said, pronouncing the word as though it were guttersnipe, “but she knew what she had in me. She would have been foolish to ignore my talents and she was by no means foolish. I never hesitated to be honest, you see. Tell the truth and shame the devil, I always say.” Here she paused, giving me a significant look that I could not really comprehend. “Although, of course, one’s dressmaker must be able to keep a confidence. Neither I, nor my girls, will ever say a word that ought not to be said, and that you can count on.”
She paused again. I am sure I looked a bit confused, for I could not imagine what secrets of mine that a dressmaker ought to keep. My taste in fashion? My measurements? Surely they were rather obvious, regardless?
Miss Bickford saw my puzzlement and gave a little laugh. “I told Mrs Darcy that she ought never to wear puce—a fashionable colour, to be sure, but it made her look sallow. I tell the truth to all my customers—I must! If they wear one of my creations and look awful, who will be blamed but me? Her fancy London seamstress would have had her wearing it the day after the queen. No originality, that woman. But if I tell the truth to someone who pays me good money for my opinion, it doesn’t mean I’ll tell another the same.”
This time, I finally understood. She’d couched her words as regarded fabrics and fashions, but Anne Darcy seemingly had shared a secret or two. She was telling me that her loyalty was to me, not the Darcys of Pemberley. I glanced back at Mr Williams, but he appeared to be dozing. Evidently, she did not trust it. It was odd, really, that he had accompanied me, but this entire excursion had been odd.
Miss Bickford, meanwhile, prattled on. “Her in puce satin? Ridiculous! Although she is dead, I stick by my word. Like that colour you’re wearing now, Mrs Darcy. I hope you don’t expect me to sell it to you! Whoever did it, ought to be shot.”
I reassured her that I had no love for the shade, and she was comforted; we managed a very good accord, although I had to disabuse her of the notion that frills and furbelows ought to be added to every selection. Clara finally joined Mr Williams on the bench, I took so long at it, but at last we came to good agreement upon a number of frocks.
“Go to the back with Lucy now,” Miss Bickford ordered, and I obediently followed Lucy to a dressing room at the rear of the establishment. She helped me disrobe and had me stand upon a low pedestal whilst she took my measurements, laboriously recording them in a small notebook.
After a few moments of silence, Lucy spoke for the first time. “Ain’t you scairt?” she mouthed.
I frowned. “Scared of being measured?”
“Cor, no. Of livin’ with him who kilt his wife,” she said, still whispering. “Everyone says as how he did it, and Lord Cavendish and Mr Simpson bein’ in his pocket and all, there weren’t never gonna be an inquest. But I’d be awful scairt he’d do it agin.”
As she spoke these extraordinary, preposterous words, a memory emerged: me, asking Mrs de Bourgh how her daughter died, and her, answering, ‘As to that, madam, you will have to ask Mr Darcy. He is the only one who knows the answer’.
It took me a moment to find my tongue, but I did. “Miss Bickford would not be pleased to hear you repeat such foolishness,” I reprimanded severely. “My husband is an honourable man, a gentleman, in the truest sense of the word. He would never harm me or anyone else, and if you will say such things about him, I will take my custom elsewhere.”
Her eyes grew large and round. “Yes, ma’am,” she mumbled. “Beg pardon, ma’am.”
Lucy was young, and not over-bright. But I had been slow to understand the situation, as well. I ought to have guessed that there was more to Mr Darcy’s reluctance—even if I could never have guessed its cause—than simply a desire for a larger fabric selection. He had not wished to expose me, and thus himself, to the rumourmongers of Hopewell.
When I emerged from the back rooms, I was somehow unsurprised to see that Mr Williams was gone. Clara, wide-eyed, stood ramrod straight beside the door. Miss Bickford was quiet, solemn even, her chattering ceased. Mr Darcy, looking like an executioner all in black, stood waiting, his countenance stern, his bearing rigid.
I turned to Miss Bickford. “I thank you for all your time today. You will send a note over to Pemberley when you wish me to come for fittings?”
Mr Darcy spoke after me. “Perhaps you would come to Pemberley for the fittings, ma’am. We will send the carriage.”
“Oh—er, oh, yes,” she replied. “I would be happy to, of course.”
I sighed. “And Miss Bickford…double it, if you please.”
She blinked. “Double? Er, that is…would you like to select—”
But I interrupted. “I trust your taste, now that you know mine. Whatever I ordered…make more. And the ribbons Clara was admiring, as well.”
Her surprise—and pleasure, I hoped—were certain, but such feelings were impossible to express while the glowering master of Pemberley hovered like a thundercloud.
I sighed again, and took my leave.
