Maskerade

“But we know the right kind of people,” said Granny.

“Oh, Esme!”

The shop bell tinkled in a refined tone, as if it were embarrassed to do something as vulgar as ring. It would have much preferred to give a polite cough.

This was Ankh?Morpork's most prestigious dress shop, and one way of telling was the apparent absence of anything so crass as merchandise. The occasional carefully placed piece of expensive material merely hinted at the possibilities available.

This was not a shop where things were bought. This was an emporium where you had a cup of coffee and a chat. Possibly, as a result of that muted conversation, four or five yards of exquisite fabric would change ownership in some ethereal way, and yet nothing so crass as trade would have taken place.

“Shop!” yelled Nanny.

A lady appeared from behind a curtain and observed the visitors, quite possibly with her nose.

“Have you come to the right entrance?” she said. Madame Dawning had been brought up to be polite to servants and tradespeople, even when they were as scruffy as these two old crows.

“My friend here wants a new dress,” said the dumpier of the two. “One of the nobby ones with a train and a padded bum.”

“In black,” said the thin one.

“And we wants all the trimmings,” said the dumpy one. “Little handbag onna string, pair of glasses onna stick, the whole thing.”

“I think perhaps that might be a leetle more than you're thinking of spending,” said Madame Dawning.

“How much is a leetle?” said the dumpy one.

“I mean that this is rather a select dress shop.”

“That's why we're here. We don't want rubbish. My name's Nanny Ogg and this here is… Lady Esmerelda Weatherwax.”

Madame Dawning regarded Lady Esmerelda quizzically. There was no doubt that the woman had a certain bearing. And she stared like a duchess.

“From Lancre,” said Nanny Ogg. “And she could have a conservatory if she liked, but she doesn't want one.”

“Er…” Madame Dawning decided to play along for a while. “What style were you considering?”

“Something nobby,” said Nanny Ogg.

“I perhaps would like a leetle more guidance than that—”

“Perhaps you could show us some things,” said Lady Esmerelda, sitting down. “It's for the opera.”

“Oh, you patronize the opera?”

“Lady Esmerelda patronizes everything,” said Nanny Ogg stoutly.

Madame Dawning had a manner peculiar to her class and upbringing. She'd been raised to see the world in a certain way. When it didn't act in that certain way she wobbled a bit but, like a gyroscope, eventually recovered and went on spinning just as if it had. If civilization were to collapse totally and the survivors were reduced to eating cockroaches, Madame Dawning would still use a napkin and look down on people who ate their cockroaches the wrong way round.

“I will, er, show you, some examples,” she said. “Excuse me one moment.”

She scuttled into the long workrooms behind the shop, where there was considerably less gilt, and leaned against the wall and summoned her chief seamstress.

“Mildred, there are two very strange—”

She stopped. They'd followed her!

They were wandering down the aisle between the rows of dressmakers, nodding at people and inspecting some of the dresses on the dummies.

She hurried back. “I'm sure you'd prefer—”

“How much is this one?” said Lady Esmerelda, fingering a creation intended for the Dowager Duchess of Quirm.

“I am afraid that one is not for sale—”

“How much would it be if it was for sale?”

“Three hundred dollars, I believe,” said Madame Dawning.

“Five hundred seems about right,” said Lady Esmerelda.

“Does it?” said Nanny Ogg. “Oh, it does, does it?”

The dress was black. At least, in theory it was black. It was black in the same way that a starling's wing is black. It was black silk, with jet beads and sequins. It was black on holiday.

“It looks about my size. We'll take it. Pay the woman, Gytha.”

Madame's gyroscope precessed rapidly. “Take it? Now? Five hundred dollars? Pay? Pay now? Cash?”

“See to it, Gytha.”

“Oh, all right.”

Nanny Ogg turned away modestly and raised her skirt. There was a series of rustlings and elasticated twangings, and then she turned around, holding a bag.

She counted out fifty rather warm ten?dollar pieces into Madame Dawning's unprotesting hand.

“And now we'll go back into the shop and have a poke around for the other stuff,” said Lady Esmerelda. “I fancy ostrich feathers myself. And one of those big cloaks the ladies wear. And one of those fans edged with lace.”

“Why don't we get some great big diamonds while we're about it?” said Nanny Ogg sharply.

“Good idea.”

Madame Dawning could hear them bickering as they ambled away up the aisle.

She looked down at the money in her hand.

She knew about old money, which was somehow hallowed by the fact that people had hung on to it for years, and she knew about new money, which seemed to be being made by all these upstarts that were flooding into the city these days. But under her powdered bosom she was an Ankh?Morpork shopkeeper, and knew that the best kind of money was the sort that was in her hand rather than someone else's. The best kind of money was mine, not yours.

Besides, she was also enough of a snob to confuse rudeness with good breeding. In the same way that the really rich can never be mad (they're eccentric), so they can also never be rude (they're outspoken and forthright).

She hurried after Lady Esmerelda and her rather strange friend. Salt of the earth, she told herself.

She was in time to overhear a mysterious conversation.

“I'm being punished, ain't I, Esme?”

“Can't imagine what you're talking about, Gytha.”

“Just 'cos I had my little moment.”

“I really don't follow you. Anyway, you said you were at your wits' end with thinking what you'd do with the money.”

“Yes, but I'd have quite liked to have been at my wits' end on a big comfy chase longyou somewhere with lots of big strong men buyin' me chocolates and pressin' their favours on me.”

“Money don't buy happiness, Gytha.”

“I only wanted to rent it for a few weeks.”

Agnes rose late, the music still ringing in her ears, and dressed in a dream. But she hung a bedsheet over the mirror first, just in case.

There were half a dozen of the chorus dancers in the canteen, sharing a stick of celery and giggling.

And there was Andre. He was eating something absentmindedly while staring at a sheet of music.