the fireplace, and was chased from thence by a glance from her senior. Strangely, the eldest did not sit down in it herself, but left it for their fair-haired junior, who sank into it with the grace of a queen.
“How may our establishment assist you?” Miss Carr asked, standing before them a trifle nervously. In light of the byplay she had just witnessed, she did not quite know which one to address.
“We do not wish anything that has been worn before by anyone else,” the eldest said, settling herself at one end of the bottle-green velvet couch at the other side of the hearth. “We are here for haute couture, nothing less. This house has produced handsome wares in the past. That is what we wish.”
“Made-to-measure, then,” Miss Carr said, inwardly jubilant. Bespoke gowns were worth to the establishment ten to twenty times the value of off-the-rack garments. She tried not to look excited as she opened her tiny notebook and raised her gold pencil. “Do you perhaps have a concept of what particular needs in your wardrobe you wish to fill?”
The youngest, enthroned in the great leather chair, waved her hand dismissively. “We have not had new wardrobes in ages, not ages! The whole ensemble, if you please. Evening dresses, walking dresses, night dresses! We wish to see it all.”
Less explosively, the others agreed. “Yes, show us your current line, if it is not too much trouble.”
“Not at all,” Miss Carr said. “We are pleased to do anything that will suit your convenience.”
The eldest countess smiled her enigmatic smile. “I am most delighted to hear you say that.”
Miss Carr bowed herself out to go to the robing room where the mannequins were waiting to hear what garments they should don.
The girls sitting on couches and benches in their altogethers in the cloth-draped chamber looked up at her as she entered. They had been drinking tea and coffee to stay awake. A few of them had taken naps, but many of them were worn and a little pallid, looking older than their ages, which were from sixteen to twenty years. They had all expressed themselves willing to work late for the bonus wages Mrs. Feldon-Jacobs offered for this night. It was hardly a respectable time for young ladies to be out, but the owner constantly impressed upon her staff that the customer was always right, and three ladies who wished to be fitted for entire ensembles was not an opportunity to be missed.
“The whole line,” she said. Excitement brought roses back into the girls’ cheeks as they hurried to help one another dress. “The first walkthrough should begin in ten minutes,” Miss Carr announced, pitching her voice slightly to carry over the hubbub. “Make your change in time for the second walkthrough and wait for my signal. Repeat your promenade in the same order until I inform you to stay or go back to your first costume.” The girls didn’t look up at her, busy as they were with corsets and petticoats, but she knew they heard her.
She returned to the salon, clasped her hands together nervously and beamed at her guests.
“We shall be ready to present our line to you shortly. In the meantime, may I offer you refreshment?”
“Thank you,” said the second-oldest, raising her hooded eyes to Miss Carr. The glance was piercing and disquieting. Miss Carr suppressed a shudder. “But not just now.”
“Of course,” Miss Carr said, feeling her heart flutter. “I…
Countesses, how shall I address you to distinguish among you? Are you perhaps sisters?” she asked, though she couldn’t see how the third woman might have been related to the first two. “Or are your husbands brothers? Cousins?”
“We are all the wives of the great Count Dracula,” said the second woman, with great pride.
“Our ways are not your ways, I know,” the eldest countess said. She smiled, showing her teeth. All three had red, lush lips framing perfectly white teeth.
“I hope you will not think that I am questioning your ways!” Miss Carr exclaimed, shocked.
“No. Of course you are not,” the eldest Countess Dracula said, with a smile.
“Indeed, it is a fascinating concept of those of us in England,” Miss Carr went on, “that a man should have three wives, rather like a Turkish sultan.” The ladies, to her great surprise at women of such elegance, all spat on the white silk carpet.
“The Turks,” said the eldest, disdainfully. “The Turks are barbarians.”
“I apologize,” she said hastily. “I did not mean to offend.”
“It is not you,” said the second-eldest countess. “It is the Turks who offend by their existence.”
Miss Carr was relieved having just experienced an inner vision of the countesses sweeping out of the salon and into the night, outraged; and herself, standing on the very same stoop the next morning, unemployed, having wasted resources of the House of Feldon, then driven away the customers. She supposed that her grandmother might have made a similar gesture regarding the French, so perhaps the ladies’ reaction was not so outrageously exotic as it at first seemed. What an odd thing it must be to be a co-wife, she thought, like those people who lived in the American states. What were they called, Mormons? Miss Carr had thought that the religion was new, but it might have originated in the Balkans, for all the proponent was a man called Joseph Smith. Perhaps there was a Rumanian equivalent of the name.
Mannequins swirled into the room like a bouquet of flowers. Each turned this way and that before promenading slowly around the room clockwise, then counterclockwise. In all, each spent nearly ten minutes displaying the dress she was wearing. The girls may have come from the poorer classes, but each one was attractive, perfectly groomed, and bore herself with the carriage of a queen, full tribute to Mrs. Feldon-Jacobs’s rigorous training.
“You must tell me, Countesses, if there is any dress that appeals to you that you would wish to try on yourselves. We would be more than happy to assist you during the second showing.”
The visitors chatted excitedly among themselves in their own tongue, leaving Miss Carr to watch the mannequins. One young woman was particularly good. Miss Carr recalled that her name was Claire Stimson, and that she was new to the House of Feldon. The dress she wore was Miss Carr’s favorite of the season’s line. The cream-silk evening dress daringly displayed a good deal of long, slender neck and the upper curve of the bosom before falling into becoming puffs of satin around the bust and shoulders, fitting tightly at the waist, and bustled with Alencon lace at the rear of the smooth skirts. Though the decolletage was much lower than a modest lady might find comfortable to wear, Miss Stimson still managed to assert dignity. Miss Carr watched her with approval. The three countesses sat up and showed great interest in Miss Stimson’s ensemble, eyeing the model hungrily.
“Ah!” one of them exclaimed, in English. “Yes, this is precisely what we have come for.”
They seemed particularly taken by the demeanor of the mannequin herself. Miss Carr thought that she would recommend the girl for promotion when the new line was brought out in the spring. The lovely gown concealed beneath it, Miss Carr happened to know, an entirely new kind of corset that Mrs. Feldon-Jacobs had designed for not only bestowing the wasp-waist so vital to the year’s fashions, but subtly lifting the bosom. The undergarment was not yet complete, and had to be pinned together. It was surely very uncomfortable, yet Miss Stimson carried herself with aplomb.
“Ye-es,” said the eldest, slowly, avidly, staring as Miss Stimson turned and pirouetted. “Exactly, exactly so.” The mannequin looked to her employer. Miss Carr nodded, indicating she was to remain in the room. How could Miss Carr possibly send her away, with all three Countesses Dracula staring at the model gown with such interest that their mouths were slightly open. Miss Carr was faintly troubled by their very red lips. Such vivid paint was not the fashion for respectable women in England, but foreign customs were different.
And yet women talked the same the world over. The middle sister-wife had been keeping careful track of the various fashions that had been displayed.
“I want the evening dress in crimson. I believe it was the sixth dress,” she said. Miss Carr went down her list to verify that it was so. “I shall also have the walking costume in midnight blue with white fur, the ninth selection. I shall look very elegant in it, should I not? The morning costume, number two in black and cream striped silk, is very handsome. I think highly of the fourth gown, the tea dress, although the dusty pink will not suit me. Does it come in other shades?”
“Of course, Countess. I have squares of the colors available for you to examine,” Miss Carr said, adding up the value of each costume in her notepad and coming up with a most attractive sum, and the other two had not chosen yet!
Disconcertingly, the countesses appeared to divine her thoughts.
“You must not think we are extravagant, my dear Miss Carr,” said the eldest, raising an eyebrow dark as a raven’s feather on her pale forehead. “It is only our due from our lord and master. For the trouble he has caused us,
