A Study in Silks

have lost, she’d left at once, collecting Imogen on the way. Without Gran, nothing would seem right anyway.

Evelina still hadn’t cried. She would, eventually, but the pain had gone too deep, like a splinter the flesh couldn’t eject until it had festered. All she could do was go forward, a twig in the stream, anchored to nothing.

Behind her, Lady Bancroft’s maid pushed another pin into Evelina’s dark hair, fastening in the headdress of feathers required by the Lord Chamberlain’s precise dress code. Usually Dora dressed her hair, but for the presentation Lady B was taking no chances.

“How does that look, miss?” she asked.

It would look fine, Evelina knew, because the girl was excellent at her work. Nevertheless, she forced herself to focus on her image in the mirror. A stranger looked back, the formal hairstyle and her mood conspiring to disorient her. “Lovely, Jeanette. Thank you.”

The maid left. Evelina stayed seated at her dressing table, feeling the morning flowing downstream. She was grief stricken, but nothing had changed. Not really. She would go to the presentation, make her bows, and go on. Marriage or college.

Why didn’t Nick tell me Gran had passed?

His omission hurt. But then it was old news to him, wasn’t it? Who was she to think that everything had remained the same just because she had left? And she hadn’t exactly taken the time to sit down with him and chat. No, I can’t blame Nick.

The rose was pressed between the pages of Barrett’s Guide to the Mechanics of Ancient Europe, the cover safely closed over the scarlet softness. A keepsake, and a token of what might have been. Nick was the king of his own world now, and she had no right to to drag him into danger. His weakness was his constancy, and she had to be wary of that for both their sakes. If she could wish for anything on this presentation morning—supposedly the open, O sesame to a young girl’s future—it would be a secure future for them both. Sadly, that meant leaving him be.

The clock—Magnus’s clock—chimed the quarter hour. Numbly, she rose, picking up her long white gloves and her fan.

Her mother had talked about Court. It had been Evelina’s bedtime story—the pretty dresses and nice manners, the gentry and glittering palaces, the assurance of heat and light and enough to eat. Being presented was the culmination of her father’s dreams when he ran away and took the queen’s shilling, signing up for a life of war just so he could better himself.

Evelina was completing the family mythology. She had won the brass ring.

She wished she could have been happy. To top off her gloom, there had been word that morning from Dr. Watson. Uncle Sherlock was back in England, but had stopped overnight to see Grandmamma Holmes. The old lady wasn’t well, and it was more than her usual complaints.

Despite their sometimes stormy relationship, the news had worried Evelina, but the last thing her grandmamma would thank her for was to forget Court and rush to her bedside in an excess of sentimentality. Grandmamma was expecting Evelina to eclipse her mother’s transgressions. Still, the timing couldn’t be worse, after hearing about Gran. Don’t make me lose them both. Not now.

A profound sense of loneliness engulfed her. There would be no one from either side of Evelina’s family to see her triumph.

Imogen and her mother had already departed in their carriage. Evelina would ride with the Duchess of Westlake—her sponsor and a woman she barely knew.

The duchess arrived on time, gathered Evelina into her grand equipage, and drove at a brisk pace to Buckingham Palace, where the Court Drawing Room was to be held.

The duchess was a large woman, gray-haired and without an ounce of nonsense about her. She looked Evelina up and down as if she were the latest addition to her stables. Whatever the woman’s willingness to be her sponsor, there was no doubting her preparation. She had brought a maid and two large bags filled with brushes, powders, ribbons, sewing equipment, spare gloves, and stockings. She was apparently an old hand at the debutante business and approached the affair with the vigor of a general contemplating the battlefield.

“Did you refrain from drinking tea with your breakfast?” the duchess asked sharply.

“Yes, Your Grace,” Evelina answered meekly.

“Good.”

Evelina had guessed why, and it turned out she was correct. The crush of carriages outside the palace was unimaginable. They ended up waiting for hours before they could alight and enter the stuffy antechambers, only to wait some more. The place was jammed to the rafters with women growing hungry and restless. There were no facilities of any kind for the comfort of the debutantes and their sponsors.

Evelina looked around for Imogen and Lady Bancroft, who was her daughter’s sponsor. The duchess spotted them first.

Despite the splendor of the occasion, Imogen was herself. “I can’t believe we’re doing this! And you’re doing it with me! I’d embrace you but we’d both wrinkle our gowns!”

Evelina laughed. The sheer bizarreness of the situation was lifting her mood a little, and the happy excitement of all the girls around her was contagious. Still, she wasn’t going to believe this was happening until she’d actually kissed the queen’s hand. “I’ll celebrate after, if I have any strength left. Apparently they mean this to be a test of endurance.”

“I went through this with my own daughters,” the duchess said with a sigh. “Each time I wonder how an empire that rules the world can manage to make a fifteen-minute job last all day.”

“I’m famished,” Imogen grumbled. It was nearing the three o’clock start time. They had left the house before nine that morning.

“The Lord Chamberlain is evil,” Evelina returned darkly.

The Lord Chamberlain ruled the presentations, and he did so with an iron sense of tradition. No newfangled inventions were found at these events, for all Queen Victoria’s fascination with clever devices and clockwork toys. The Lord Chamberpot—not everyone was equally in awe of the man—dictated who was acceptable to put before the queen, and what they should be wearing when it happened. To Evelina, it seemed like he had confused the whole thing with a wedding.

All the debutantes wore white dresses and long, gauzy veils. All the gowns had short sleeves and low necks. No wraps, shawls, or scarves were permitted without a doctor’s certificate. Apparently the Royal Court liked to see a bit of young female skin.

The regulation headdresses featured white ostrich plumes—three for the married ladies, two for the unwed—worn slightly to the left and curling grandly in the air. From the amount of fidgeting going on, it seemed most had trouble keeping them in place. The pins pulled at Evelina’s hair, dragging because of the weight of the ridiculous veil and feathers.

The girls were presented in order of rank. Evelina—daughter of an army captain—was near the end. Finally, it was time, and a sense of occasion infused her. Now was the moment she truly crossed into the world of the Quality. This was the mark of acceptance they recognized and her admission into Society. Thank you, Uncle Sherlock.

Evelina stepped into the drawing room and handed her card to the Lord Chamberlain with her left hand and clutched her bouquet with the right. The gentlemen-in-waiting rushed forward to spread out the wealth of her long train—regulation three yards long, fifty-four inches wide—behind her.

“Miss Evelina Cooper,” announced the Lord Chamberlain.

Evelina was suddenly faced with a large room filled with the pale butterfly forms of the court ladies and debutantes. Men in dark suits and uniforms punctuated the scene like exclamation points. But what fixed her attention was the group of figures at the opposite end of the room. Queen Victoria and two of the princesses were there, flanked by their attendants.

Small, plump, and gray-haired, the queen had celebrated her Golden Jubilee the summer before. Now, in her dark dress, she reminded Evelina just a little of Gran Cooper, a thought that brought a fresh wave of sadness.

As she drew closer, Evelina could see the old woman’s face. Shrewd eyes held a glint of humor. There was something in the endless parade of girls bravely struggling with their feathers and trains that amused the queen. She’s just like Gran. Stern, but there’s kindness there, too.