Page 11 of Henrietta

Hetty began making her way towards the door. ‘I have already made my excuses to your mother.’

She had been surprised by how easily Lady Allerton had accepted them, given her ladyship frequently declared that late cancellations ought to number amongst the seven deadly sins. As soon as she had heard Hetty’s plans for the morning, however, she had given her instant blessing.

‘Well, will you not stay a little more?’ Trixie persisted. ‘I want to hear something about this fellow that you—’

Were those footsteps upon the stairs?

‘We must go!’ Hetty said, hastening towards the front door.

Having spent two years wishing for nothing more than a moment in Arthur’s company, she now desired only to avoid it. Suddenly, the idea of his seeing her current morning dress was abhorrent. It had not mattered before. But now …

Hetty’s destination that morning was not the modiste she was used to frequenting with Lady Allerton and Trixie, but the shop of a Madame who had quietly begun making a name for herself in the first circles of elegance. Her premises, thickly carpeted and expensively furnished, was empty of any other customers that morning, which Hetty noted with relief – not guessing that Madame had ruthlessly cancelled all other appointments that morning for this express purpose. Miss Clithero might be one of the least fashionable ladies amongst Madame Picard’s clients, but her fortune was one of the greatest, and Madame Picard was not immune to the allure of having an heiress as a loyal customer. She welcomed Hetty with all the warmth of an old friend and ushered her into the back room of the shop. There, Hetty shyly unveiled the prints she had brought with her – all save for that final gown of pale-blue satin, which would, she had decided, require too much bravery at the current moment.

Madame Picard looked the papers over, all approving smiles. ‘Yes, I see exactly. Let us begin.’

In the next moment, her underlings came back carrying dresses for every occasion, all of a greater complexity and hue than Hetty had ever known: figured, embroidered, flounced and braided; adorned with blond lace or knots of ribbon; some embellished with spangles, some with pearl rosettes, some with silver fringes.

‘What do you think?’ Madame asked.

Hetty stared at the sea of fabric around her, not at all sure what she ought to say. This was the first time she had ever visited a modiste with only her maid for company. Ordinarily Lady Allerton had so many opinions that Hetty was not required to supply her own.

‘Perhaps you would like to try?’ Madame Picard suggested.

In the next moment, Hetty was standing upon the dais, the first gown pinned about her and Madame Picard gazing at her expectantly. ‘Do you like it?’

Hetty did not know how to answer. Did she like it? It was certainly very different to the gowns she usually wore, in a brighter colour than she was used to and fitted more tightly at the waist – but was it better? She felt odd, somehow overexposed and trapped at the same time, and her cheeks were stinging with instinctive mortification as she gazed at her reflection. She certainly did not resemble the lady who had worn just such a gown in La Belle Assemblée – but she was never going to, was she?

‘We will try another,’ Madame Picard decided after several beats of silence.

‘I am sorry,’ Hetty said. ‘I am just an awkward shape, I think …’

Madame shook her head. ‘It is not so.’

With a wave of her hand, she beckoned her underlings forward, and they tried again. And again. Indeed, for the next fifteen minutes, Hetty felt she tried on every possible configuration of fabric in the whole room, and she began to wonder if this whole exercise was utterly futile, and she ought just to buy something in order to depart.

Thus, when she regarded herself in a festoon of salmon drapery, flounced at the hem and the cuff, for she had not been brave enough to insist otherwise, Hetty declared only ‘Lovely!’

Madame Picard regarded her with some suspicion. ‘What do you truly think?’

She was plainly not about to accept anything less than genuine enthusiasm. Hetty tried to muster up more convincing adjectives, but wilted under Madame’s quelling gaze, and suggested, tentatively: ‘I wonder if perhaps I … resemble a crustacean, just a little?’

‘Is this positive?’ Madame Picard checked, the term ‘crustacean’ never having been before used in her shop.

‘Well …’

‘It is not positive,’ Madame Picard decided and had, with one motion of her hand, her attendants whipping the gown from Hetty once more. They repeated this exercise upwards of a dozen times, but never did Madame Picard express a hint of impatience in her voice or on her face. In the presence of such an obvious ally, Hetty felt herself begin to calm. Her body, which had entered the shop as tense as if she were under attack, softened, and her mind calmed enough that she could begin to see the wisdom of Timothy’s advice and Madame Picard’s direction.

Gone were the walking dresses of cream and rose, for – after liberal experimentation – they found that amber crape suited her the best. Gone were the ball gowns of ivory white, and in their place cerulean blue and sea green – and once Madame Picard had understood Hetty’s aversion to excessive froth (which made her feel as if she were being strangled by lace) they dealt together even better. Indeed, whether it was the soporific effects of the tea Madame Picard supplied or the steady stream of compliments she peppered throughout, the flattering effect of low lighting or the lengthening mirrors, but not an hour later, Hetty was able to look into the reflection and perceive herself as a tasteful stranger, wearing a demi-toilette of mulled muslin that made elegant length out of awkward limbs; a gown of sea-green silk that brought warmth to her cheeks; a tightly fitting riding habit of blue cloth that she should never have dreamt would have suited her and yet …

‘You like it?’ Madame Picard said.

‘Yes,’ Hetty said. ‘Yes, I like it.’

Surely this, at least, was worthy of a second glance?

CHAPTER IV.

STREETS away, still ensconced in Berkeley Square, Arthur’s spirits were far from cheerful. He had lain awake for much of the night. Accustomed to sleeping in a camp-bed, surrounded by the snores of a hundred sleeping soldiers, one might easily assume that the softness of a four-poster bed and the quietude of a secluded London townhouse guaranteed a restful sleep. On the contrary, Arthur had found these novel comforts more oppressive than peaceful, and with his mind still reeling from the revelations of the prior day, he had not fallen asleep until the early hours of the morning.