“Madam,” Mr. Edifice began, “It is impossible to receive so signal an honour—”
“Hssst! Mr. Edifice! Wait until she is seated!”
Having shushed the curate, Mrs. Blodgett directed her husband to escort Mrs. Perceval to a chair which had been thickly festooned with fabric rosettes. The lady seated herself and looked around, with an encouraging smile.
“Ahem! Madam, it is impossible to receive so signal an honour as that which has been conferred upon us, and not experience the warmest sensations that gratitude can inspire. Distinguished as you are, by every virtue which can do honour, and add lustre to your rank, compassion for the disadvantaged is by no means the least amiable or prominent feature in your truly estimable character. Indeed, the words of the poet are very apt here: Non minus sanctitate quam genere nobilis, ‘no less good than great.’
“Just as Athena, the exemplar of wisdom and womanly virtues, who, rendered by the artist’s hand in eloquent marble, presided over her temple in the city which bears her name, so, indeed, we invite you to preside, as our very own patroness of the needle arts, over the city of Camden—which unfortunately does not bear your name—but Camden, we are told by the antiquarians, must take its meaning from the Latin, campus, meaning, field, and therefore we may draw the parallel between pastoral fields, and fields of industry, and the strewing of benevolence, further tended by the charitable exertions of the Society...”
Mrs. Perceval listened with every show of sincere attention, but a more discerning orator than Mr. Edifice might have perceived that his audience was beginning to stray as he moved from invoking Athena, and went on to the Nine Muses and the Three Graces and the Vestal Virgins and Britannia. Madame Orly was hopping back and forth from one foot to the other, for her boots were pinching her toes, and little Isabella Butters wanted a glass of water, and Mr. Blodgett had stopped listening altogether and was thinking about fishing, until finally an especially ornate rhetorical flourish from Mr. Edifice signalled to his listeners that his address was reaching its conclusion.
“...We are justly fearful, ma’am, lest we offend your modesty by expressing the character of your worth. We foresee also how needless any encomium will be of your merit. You have most excellently deigned to take notice of the humble efforts of the Camden Town chapter of the Society for Bettering the Condition and Increasing the Comforts of the Poor, and it is our most fervent wish that you will be pleased with what you find here at Blodgett’s Sewing Academy.”
Upstairs, Fanny and Matron could hear the low babble of voices through the floorboards. They heard the sonorous tones of Mr. Edifice, and the polite applause which followed. Then, Fanny knew, Mrs. Perceval would be invited to admire Cecilia Butters and her three daughters. And soon after, the prime minister’s wife would be among them! She smiled and gestured to her pupils to be quiet and listen carefully for the applause and sounds of admiration as the three Butters girls each came forward in turn to curtsey to the visiting dignitaries. Unseen by the waiting students above, Ethelinda and Rosamunde displayed their pretty frocks, and little Isabella was a charming miniature of her mother in a riding habit. But Fanny had arranged for an additional surprise—the Butters girls presented a doll, dressed in the latest fashions, to each of Mrs. Perceval’s daughters, a gift that had been prepared by Fanny and her pupils.
Fanny was gratified to hear a general hubbub, female voices predominating. Something, or perhaps everything, was meeting with great approbation below.
After a few moments, a shuffling of feet and a shifting of chairs signalled the end of the ceremonial portion of the program. Matron, unable to hold still for nerves, slipped upstairs to the cutting room to confirm everything was in readiness—spotless white cloths laid upon the cutting tables, all covered with cakes and fruit and sandwiches and cold chicken and soda water and punch, courtesy of Mrs. McIntosh and her housemaids.
The students were all commendably silent, listening intently for the tread on the staircase which would herald the arrival of Mrs. Perceval. Some of the girls had imagined that a prime minister’s wife would wear a coronet and an ermine robe, or cloth of gold spangled with jewels, and more than one was quite disappointed when a petite and elegant woman, in perfectly ordinary and sombre clothing, at last appeared at the head of an equally staid entourage.
Mr. Edifice and Mr. Gibson brought up the end of the procession and stood next to Fanny. They had time only to exchange smiles and nods, before the doings of Mrs. Blodgett and Mrs. Perceval claimed their full attention.
Matron and Fanny were presented, and they curtsied, and Mrs. Perceval expressed her surprise that the charity employed only one teacher. “This young lady is your only sewing instructress, is that correct?”
“At present, ma’am, the returns from our enterprise do not allow of engaging more,” explained Mrs. Blodgett, “but we trust, when more ladies visit our establishment and order their clothes from us, we will be in a position to employ more experienced teachers.”
“Ah!” remarked Mrs. Perceval, as Fanny, being powerless to say anything, silently absorbed the slight. “The distance from the shopping district is something of a drawback, perhaps.”
Mrs. Blodgett opened her mouth, as though to contradict the prime minister’s wife, closed it again, and nodded submissively. “This way, then, ma’am.”
Mrs. Blodgett had decided, for reasons which eluded Fanny, to show Mrs. Perceval the counting room and the embroidery frames and the cards of thread and every inanimate object in the place, before presenting the actual students to her.
“We have had this little dumbwaiter installed, which
