The Disdainful Marquis

by Edith Layton

  “Of course, we’ll have you back. We want you back so much we don’t want to see you go.” He laughed, and she laughed with him at his unfamiliar excursion into humor.

  “But I do worry about you. You are such a bright girl, Catherine, but you haven’t any experience of the world. I worry about you over there across the channel with a strange female in charge of your destiny.”

  “Oh I make no doubt,” Catherine laughed, “that she will sell me into bondage, and have me locked into a dank rat-ridden cell if I don’t do her bidding. Arthur, do understand, it’s not that I love you and Jane less that I wish to be independent; it’s that I love you the more.”

  “But if you feel that way, no matter what we say, why come so far, to London, to be a menial? Why not contemplate marriage? You are a fine-looking girl, Catherine.” Arthur was a little shocked by his presumption, but he was earnestly trying to counsel her, and was casting all inhibition to the winds.

  “Oh, I do contemplate it,” Catherine said ruefully, creasing her gamine face into a parody of sorrow and causing Arthur to chuckle. “But who is there to contemplate me? With all of two shillings as dowry. Arthur, there is no one for me at home. Perhaps there might be someone for me in London, or Paris.”

  “Your head’s been turned by those two dandies I saw you asking the duchess’s direction of when you got out of the coach,” Arthur accused.

  “No,” she said, “they were way above my touch. And one doesn’t meet one’s future husband in the street.”

  She rose and shook out her skirt.

  “Now, Arthur, shall we cry off this battle? You know, and I know, that the thing is done. Or are you trying to starve me into submission? I haven’t eaten in so long, I shall forget whether to use a fork or my fingers. Come, let’s have a lovely reconciliation over dinner.”

  Arthur sighed and rose, conceding defeat, and heeding the insistent clamor his stomach had been setting up for past hours.

  They sat in the hotel’s dining area and chatted amiably through all the courses. And by the time evening came Arthur bade Catherine good night at her door without one further premonition of doom about her future employment.

  In the morning they breakfasted in solemn silence, and then Arthur collected his bags and Catherine’s. She wanted to accompany him to the stage to say good-bye, but he insisted on loading her case into the hackney to drop her off first. “You must never go unaccompanied, Catherine,” he said sternly. “You must write us your address in Paris,” he cautioned, “and be quick to come home immediately if anything goes awry.”

  It was a bright morning, and the hackney found the duchess’s house with no trouble. As Catherine made to leave, Arthur stayed her. “Here,” he said gruffly, reaching into his pocket, “no young woman should go without funds,” and he pressed a small purse filled with coins into her hand.

  “But I shall be earning money,” she said, returning the purse. Then she bent swiftly and pressed a quick kiss on Arthur’s cheek, which made him color up. “I do love you and Jane,” she said in a shaky voice. “And I do thank you for all your concern.” And then quickly, before she should embarrass herself and Arthur again, she stepped out of the coach. Her trunk was handed down to her, and she stood on the curb, in front of her new home, and waved farewell to Arthur. The last look she had of him was of his worried face at the window.

  Then she turned and went to mount the stairs to the Duchess of Crewe’s house. There was no fog this morning and no mysterious gentlemen to unsettle her by saying that it was exactly the right place for her. But it was, and she went up the stairs.

  Chapter III

  As soon as the maid had left her, Catherine went to the window of her new room. And when she saw that she was safely two floors above the street level, and that there was no way any eyes but pigeons’ could peer into her room, she turned and went directly to her bed. And sat there, bouncing up and down, giggling softly to herself just like a child. For if this is what Miss Parkinson had meant about a companion’s life being a difficult one, she did not think she could have borne an easy one. The luxury would have flattened her completely.

  She had, late in the night, when all of London had lain sleeping, been too afraid and too apprehensive to sleep. For once she had realized the position was indeed truly hers, she had at last the leisure to be anxious about her future and the opportunity to have all the second thoughts Arthur would have wished her to have. It had taken all her courage to be confident and lighthearted when she had taken leave of Arthur.

  But once she had presented herself at the door, the butler had signaled to a footman, who invisibly signaled to a maid, and she had been, with no further comment, taken to her new room. And such a room! Catherine thought that no cosseted daughter of an earl could have been housed so extravagantly.

  The room was large and airy, with windows overlooking the street. It was furnished with graceful taste in hues of green and white, picked out with pale yellow. After a few minutes of dazed delight, Catherine shook herself mentally and went to the wash pitcher. After only a few seconds of admiring its graceful gold trimmings, she poured water into a bowl and resolutely scrubbed her face and hands. It was time for work. Later she might have earned the leisure to simply sit and admire her room. She braced herself and went downstairs to begin her duties as companion to the Dowager Duchess of Crewe.

  All her fine resolve was wasted. The butler informed her impassively that Her Grace was still abed, and, further, that she had left no message for her new companion. So Catherine spent her first full day of gainful employment too wrought up to properly luxuriate in her new quarters. Instead, she paced the room awaiting her employer’s summons.

  It did not come that day, nor the next, nor even the next. Catherine had time and to spare to memorize every detail of her delightful room. She was informed, each time she asked, that the duchess was variously occupied: at her mantua maker’s, with her man of business, or dining out with friends. And, no, she was answered blightingly each time she inquired, there were no shawls to be mended, nor was there any knitting to unravel, nor even letters to copy out. In short, there was nothing for her to do but to wait upon Her Grace’s pleasure. The members of the duchess’s staff were uniformly polite to Catherine, but all those she encountered as she drifted through the house in search of occupation seemed in some indefinable fashion to look down upon the new female in their midst. Contemptuous, and rightly so, Catherine felt, of a female who was clearly not earning her way.

  As the week wore on, Catherine began to wonder why the duchess had bothered to employ a companion at all. And once, in a small hour of the night, she sat straight up in bed in horrified alarm as she wondered whether the duchess was so advanced in years as to have forgotten the existence of her new companion altogether.

  However, in the sixth day of her employment, while she was reading through a volume of poetry, Catherine received a summons to be present at her employer’s side. She put down the volume with slightly trembling hands, smoothed down her wayward hair, and pinned a smile to her lips. At last, she would begin.

  The duchess was sitting up in bed when Catherine was shown into her chamber. Even in bedclothes, she looked imperious and dramatic. She squinted up at Catherine and then motioned her to sit down. She seemed to be consulting a list she had on her lap, along with the dregs of her morning chocolate.

  “There you are. Been settling yourself in, gel?” she boomed at Catherine.

  “Yes, Your Grace. I have been waiting for your summons, and ready to be of whatever assistance you require.”

  “Why would I require your assistance here, in my own house?” the duchess asked with amazement. “I have everything I need here. Got Gracie—she’s a lady’s maid who knows her business.” And here Gracie, who’d been picking up about the room, sniffed disdainfully, met Catherine’s eye for one bleak moment, and then went back to work. “And that old stick of a butler, Griddon, to see to the running of things, and Mrs. Johnson to order up the house. No, I don’
t need you yet, gel. Can’t keep calling you gel, neither; Robin’s the name, ain’t it?”

  “No, Your Grace. It’s Catherine.”

  “Catherine then. I’m getting all my plans in train for our little jaunt. Paris! It’s been years, and now we can go again. Parties and folderol, and good fun. I can’t wait. I called you here to see if you’re ready.”

  “I’ll be ready to leave whenever you are, ma’am,” Catherine said. “At a day’s notice.”

  “A day’s notice.” The older woman guffawed. “Not likely. Not with what all I’ve got to get readied. What are you wearing?” she demanded suddenly, staring at Catherine fixedly.

  Catherine glimpsed down at herself in horror, wondering whether she’d spilt something on her gown. But no, it was the neat pristine gray one she’d worn the first morning. It had been nearly a week since she’d arrived and she’d worn each of her gowns in succession, so if it was Thursday, it would have to have been her gray.

  “It’s ghastly,” the duchess went on. “Ain’t you got something livelier?”

  “I do have one gayer frock,” Catherine heard herself say, thinking of her simple sprigged tea gown, the prize of her wardrobe, that she kept for visiting at home, and that she had worn to a house party with much favorable comment.

  “It won’t do. I don’t know what your game is, and I don’t care. Maybe there’s some that like a gel that looks like a nun, maybe there’s a few that will find it amusing, but it won’t do. You’ve got to dress with some dash. I can’t have a little mouse, no matter how saucy a mouse, trailing through Europe with me. You’ve got to be togged out right.”

  Catherine thought with panic of how she could dress up her meager wardrobe with dash, for in truth, she realized, a companion couldn’t look shabby. Although her dress was considered proper by Kendal standards, this was, after all London.

  “Good thing I took a good look,” the dowager grumbled. “Get me my paper, and some ink, and a pen, gel.”

  Catherine hastened to obey the duchess’s command, and brought her writing implements from her inlaid desk. The dowager mumbled to herself as she scrawled a note, pushing aside coffee cups and napery as she did so.

  “There, good as gold. Go to Madame Bertrand, she’s the one Violet used to go to, and she looked fine as fivepence. Even Rose gave up her modiste when she saw what an eyeful Violet looked when Madame Bertrand got through with her. She’ll set you up.”

  “But,” Catherine protested, accepting the note the dowager thrust at her, “I haven’t received wages as yet, and I don’t think I can order a new gown as yet.”

  “I’ll stand the nonsense, gel, and I don’t want you ordering one gown. Give me that note back. I thought you was up to the mark. Why did that demned Rose have to go and get herself tied up?” the duchess complained as she scrawled another line on the bottom of her note. “Go out today and get yourself suited up in style. Got looks, but no style.”

  The maid who suffered to accompany Catherine to Madame Bertrand’s sat opposite her and looked everywhere but at her. She was a plump downstairs maid, and found getting into the carriage a treat, and had even vouchsafed as much to Catherine. But when Catherine had agreed eagerly, and tried to begin a lively conversation, the girl had recalled herself and shrunk back into silence. The duchess, Catherine thought, must be a high stickler for the social order of her servants.

  They rode in stately silence through the streets of town till the coach stopped in front of a plain shop window on one of the busier business streets. One dress was artfully arranged in the window, and a great deal of drapery covered up the rest of it. But as there was no name or even number visible, Catherine hesitated to alight. The coachman, a jolly-looking young freckled fellow, held the horses and sent a footman to lower the steps.

  “You’re here,” he said, leaning down and looking into the coach, and giving the downstairs maid a ferocious wink. She colored up and pursed her lips and looked expectantly at Catherine, so that Catherine had no choice but to dismount.

  Opening the door to the modiste’s establishment was like opening the door onto a new reality. Whereas the outside of the shop might have been discreet to the point of plainness, the interior reminded Catherine of what she had always imagined a harem to look like. There was a quantity of rich fabric tossed about a large carpeted room. Several couches and divans and chairs stood at odd angles everywhere. Bolts of scarlet velvet, royal blue gossamer, and shining emerald silks lay opened and half opened, spread out for display over all unoccupied surfaces.

  There were a few women dressed in dazzling style peering at the bolts of fabric, and, to Catherine’s surprise, there were also a few fashionably dressed men lounging or sitting and gazing at the women and each other through quizzing glasses. There was a low babble of talk as she entered, and, to her chagrin, the conversation seemed to come to an abrupt stop as she stepped into the shop. Both the women and the men, Catherine realized, were staring at her with undisguised curiosity.

  She held her head high and motioned the maid to sit, and when a small black-eyed woman approached, wearing a quantity of measuring tapes about her neck, as if they were a priceless necklace, Catherine held out the duchess’s note.

  “I am Catherine Robins, the Duchess of Crewe’s companion. She sent me here to purchase some gowns.”

  There was stifled laughter from somewhere to Catherine’s left, and the other occupants of the room began talking again, some, however, still staring at her fixedly.

  “Right,” said the little woman smartly. “She says you’re going to Paris. You’re dressed for a convent now. Come along, I’ll take things in hand.”

  She led Catherine, who was trying to hold her head high and ignore the attention she had caused, to the back of her shop. There, in another room, were several tables, each with a row of girls stitching. She walked past them and took Catherine to one of a few curtained partitioned stalls. As Catherine stood undecided as to what she should do next, one of the curtains billowed and a ravishing-looking woman stepped forth. She was tall and statuesque. Her hair, great golden masses of it, had come loose with her dressing, and she swung her hips slowly as she stepped up on a little dais in front of a mirror in the center of the room. Her heavily lidded eyes lit up with satisfaction as she caught her reflection.

  “Perfect,” she breathed.

  Catherine stood transfixed. She had never seen a gown so low in the front that most of its occupant’s person seemed to threaten to spill out at any moment. The fabric above the high waist seemed sufficient for a waistband, and the magnificent creature in the gown surely needed three times that much before she could go out in public. Still, she had to admit that the startling vibrant blue color and the extreme cut of the gown made the woman in it an unforgettably vivid picture.

  “He’ll be pleased,” the woman said and smiled at herself in the mirror. “But I want him to see me in the amber, so he’ll come across for that one.” And, without further ado, the sensational-looking female reached behind her, unbuttoned a few buttons, and quickly slipped out a few pins. Then with a shrug, she stepped out of the gown, leaving her entire person, Catherine noted with shock, nude from the waistline up, and only wearing a gossamer-thin demi-train below.

  Catherine gaped. She had seen her sister nude, of course, on rare occasions when they were growing up. And seen herself, when she was undressing. But this female was as unaware of her nudity in front of strangers, even though they were all female, as a child might be. Although, she thought quickly, as she watched the woman’s eyes linger lovingly on her own reflection, she was not quite unaware of herself after all. And there was nothing childish in her expression of self-satisfaction. She swept past Catherine into her cubicle again. “Bring the amber one quickly,” she ordered. “He grows bored quickly.”

  The middle-aged woman looked at Catherine impatiently. “Come along,” she said. “Let’s have a look at you without that nun’s habit on. Come along, strip it off and I’ll be back to have a look-see. La Starr�
��s in a taking, and I have to get her amber gown seen to if she’s to get it from her gentleman today.”

  Left alone, Catherine hurriedly removed her dress. She held her discarded gown in front of her chest as she waited, chilled, for the dressmaker to return. There was a small mirror in the little alcove, she noted, and she realized that the other female could just as easily have seen herself there in privacy, without swaggering out to display herself in front of strangers.

  As she waited she could hear the voices of a few other women admiring their gowns or calling for changes in them. None spoke in the accents she thought acceptable for a lady. Bored, and feeling cold, she watched her reflection in the mirror. Her black hair had come loose from its pins again, and there was a high flush along her cheekbones. On an impulse, seeing her reflection clutching her gray gown in front of her, and hearing no one approaching, she lowered the gown from in front of herself. She gazed at the reflection guiltily. Hers, she thought aimlessly, were higher and a better shape than the other females’. And then, scandalized by her train of thought, she whipped the gown in front of her again and held it in a death grip.

  “Let’s have a look,” the dressmaker said, bustling into the alcove with her. “Take that gray rag away; I can’t see through it.”

  Catherine lowered the gown again, shrinking with embarrassment.

  “Right,” the little woman said briskly. “You’re a knockout all right. The dowager’s grown some taste, leave it to her. I know just the things that’ll do. Almost the lady, that’s the ticket,” she muttered to herself, and left again.

  “I can’t,” Catherine cried out, fifteen minutes later, as the dressmaker told her to turn around. “I can’t possibly appear like this in public. I am a companion, not an actress. This gown is lovely, but it is not seemly.” She had been resigned to the duchess providing her with a new wardrobe; after all, one’s employer had the right to dictate in matters of an employee’s garb. But this gown and the others that the dressmaker had shown her were out of the question. At the dressmaker’s brisk insistence, she had allowed herself to be pinned into it, but she knew it was entirely unsuitable in the dressing room, and now, in front of the mirror, in front of the other girls at their sewing, she knew it was impossible.