“Very good, mum,” replied the butler, the enormity of his assignment evident in his lined face. He bowed slightly and closed the heavy double doors behind him.
“Heavens! Whatever am I to do about your wardrobe? I do not suppose you have a trunk somewhere?”
“I’m sorry, Lady Dalrymple—”
“Call me Aunt Euphoria. It’s time you started getting used to it.”
“I have nothing but the clothes on my back, Aunt Euphoria. Such as they are.”
The dowager clucked her tongue. “I thought as much, of course. Oh, if only the wish were father to the deed.” Lady Dalrymple tugged at an embroidered bellpull.
C.J. surveyed the deplorable condition of her gown and, remembering the zipper, drew the now-shabby coquelicot scarf about her. “Can we not simply tell them that I caught my heel in a stone and took a fall in the road?”
“Augusta Oliver is a perceptive woman, Cassandra. Her two most positive attributes are that she employs an incomparable modiste, and that she eschews cream in her tea. She is also the most powerful tabby in Bath. Needless to say, Gustie is my dearest bosom friend. No, my dear, we must have a proper remedy, albeit a temporary one.”
In response to the summons, Saunders appeared through the double doors.
“Stand next to my niece, Saunders.” The maid gave Lady Dalrymple a look of perplexity. “There is no other young female person in the room, Saunders. Back to back with my niece, Cassandra Jane, if you please.”
The lady’s maid eyed the newcomer with suspicion but hastened to obey her mistress. She and C.J. were roughly the same height, although Saunders was a good deal less curvaceous.
“Yes. It will have to suffice,” her ladyship sighed. “There is nothing else to be done at such short notice. Saunders, you will be so good as to lend Miss Welles your Sunday frock for the duration of the day. Tomorrow we shall pay a call on Mrs. Mussell to have some new gowns made up. No expense will be spared. And Saunders?”
“Yes, your ladyship?”
“My niece will be staying with us from now on. You are not to address Lady Cassandra as ‘your ladyship,’ but will refer to her as ‘Miss Welles.’ Please see Miss Welles to the blue room, and take care that she is provided for as she may require. I will make inquiries for young ladies in search of situations so that Miss Welles may have her own lady’s maid in future.” The countess smiled, once more revealing her deep dimples. “I would not wish to tax your good nature any more than my own personal needs demand.”
“Yes, mum,” responded the maid, curtsying to her mistress as she beckoned C.J. to follow her.
Even when Saunders appeared to crack a smile, C.J. thought the woman looked grim. While Lady Dalrymple was possessed of a definite playful streak, her lady’s maid was a mirthless creature entirely lacking a sense of humor. A rather odd match, that. She refused Saunders’s assistance, terrified that the already suspicious domestic would discover the zipper in her costume. C.J. took her cue from the countess, asserting that she could not abuse the maid’s good nature by overtaxing her, and that as her ladyship no doubt required her services, C.J. would willingly dress herself.
Saunders, who was not particularly eager to increase her duties, nonetheless departed with a degree of hesitation. For a gently bred young lady to dismiss a servant in favor of dressing herself was irregular behavior indeed. There was something about this newfound “niece” of the mistress that did not tally. The girl was a parvenue, perhaps, or a fortune hunter who preyed on good-natured elderly women of uncommon wealth and generosity.
Saunders inclined her head and listened for a moment outside the closed door of the blue room, certain she heard “Miss Welles” lock something away. Not customarily prone to the peregrinations of a fanciful imagination, the lady’s maid resolved to learn the truth about the soi-disant Miss Welles and to maintain a vigilant aspect where the visitor was concerned.
After locking the distressed yellow muslin dress in the uppermost compartment of a mahogany highboy, C.J. slipped the small iron skeleton key into her reticule. Having dismissed the servant, she had no alternative but to dress herself. Saunders’s simple “round gown” was deceptively difficult to don, infinitely more complex than Lady Wickham’s ugly brown livery. C.J.’s own lightweight petticoat sufficed as an underpinning, but as she and Mary had always helped one another to dress, it had never occurred to her how hard it was to fasten a garment while she was corseted, however lightly, by her wrap stays, which resembled a modern sports bra.
At least the small bustle pad that puffed out the back of her gown just below the shoulder blades was secured to the stays’ ties by two long strips at the back, just the way her By a Lady accessory functioned. But the easy part was over. C.J. now regarded the gown as though it were a Rubik’s Cube, engaging in several sallies of trial and error before successfully dressing herself. She finally determined that the narrow bands from the front waist passed through worked loops at the center back bodice and had to be held in position there before being tied at the center front under the bodice itself. Her arms ached from trying to hold one part of the dress while tying another. No wonder people had ladies’ maids! C.J. struggled to button the high stomacher. Although it was snug, she was grateful to be fastening something in front of her chest, rather than straining to reach her back. She made a mental note to eventually thank Milena, should she ever see her again, for the anachronistic zipper.
It seemed like hours before C.J. reappeared in Lady Dalrymple’s drawing room, reattired in Saunders’s church dress, with its modest neckline and nondescript hue. She felt like
