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Chapter Fourteen
The rank which English Ladies hold, requires they should neglect no honourable means of distinction, no becoming Ornament in the Costume.
La Belle Assemblée,
or Bell’s Court and Fashionable Magazine,
Advertisements for June 1807
Sunday 3 May
Clevedon House seemed oppressively quiet, even for a Sunday. The corridors were silent, the servants having reverted to their usual invisibility, blending in with the furnishings or disappearing through a backstairs door. No one hurried from one room to the next. No Noirot women appeared abruptly in the doorway of the library.
Clevedon stood at the library table, which was heaped with ladies’ magazines and the latest scandal sheets. Of the latter, Foxe’s Morning Spectacle was the most prominent, its front page bearing a large advertisement for “Madame Noirot’s newly-invented VENETIAN CORSETS.”
He felt a spasm of sorrow and another of anger, and wondered when it would stop.
He told himself he ought to throw the magazines in the fire, and Foxe’s rag along with them. Instead, he went on studying them, making notes, forming ideas.
It staved off boredom, he supposed.
It was more entertaining than attending to the stacks of invitations.
It was a waste of time.
He rang for a footman and told him to send Halliday in.
Three minutes later, Halliday entered the library.
Clevedon pushed to one side the provoking Spectacle. “Ah, there you are. I want you to send the dollhouse to Miss Noirot.”
There was an infinitesimal pause before Halliday said, “Yes, your grace.”
Clevedon looked up. “Is there a problem? The thing can sustain a twenty-minute journey to St. James’s Street, can it not? It’s old, certainly, but I thought it was in good repair.”
“I do beg your pardon, your grace,” Halliday said. “Naturally there is no problem whatsoever. I shall see to it immediately.”
“But?”
“I beg your pardon, sir?”
“I hear a but,” Clevedon said. “I distinctly hear an unsaid but.”
“Not precisely a but, your grace,” Halliday said. “It is more of an impertinence, for which I do beg your pardon.”
When Clevedon only looked at him expectantly, Halliday said, “We had been under the impression that Miss Erroll—that is, Miss Noirot—would be visiting us again.”
Clevedon straightened away from the table. “What the devil gave you that impression?”
“Perhaps it was not so much an impression as a hope, sir,” Halliday said. “We find her charming.”
Wemeant the staff. Clevedon was surprised. “I should like to know what it is about them. They seem to charm everybody.” The housemaid Sarah had gone happily enough to live above a shop and act as interim nursemaid until the Noirots had time to hire a suitable person. Miss Sophia had even disarmed Longmore.
“Indeed, they possess considerable charm,” Halliday said. “But Mrs. Michaels and I both remarked their manner. We agreed that it was nothing like what one expected of milliners. Mrs. Michaels believes the women are ladies.”
“Ladies!”
“She is persuaded that they are gentlewomen in reduced circumstances.”
