The Duchess

by Bertrice Small

  “Rogue!” she repeated with a chuckle. “Then why did you ask if you already knew?”

  “Because, madame, you know more than I do, and usually before I do,” he explained. “Besides, I value your approval.” He bowed to her. “You ladies will excuse me,” he said, and hurried off.

  “Clever of Septimius to engage him,” Lady Bellingham said. “He is utterly invaluable, but I do not believe for one moment that I know anything before he does. What a flattering devil he is.” She chuckled again. Then she grew serious. “I understand there will be an unusual number of young eligible gentlemen this season, and fewer ladies than is usual. Both of you should have husbands before it is all over.” Then she thought a moment before she spoke again. “Olympia! My ball is in ten days’ time. It is always considered the official opening of the season. Do not accept any invitations before then for your gels. Those silly chits, just out of their schoolrooms, are even now parading themselves about the park, giggling behind their hands at the gentlemen. There isn’t one of them that I’ve yet seen who can hold a candle to either of your two gels. Of course everyone knows they have come to town, but keep them out of sight until the night of the ball. It will make their first appearance and entry into society spectacular!” She chortled wickedly. “All the men will want to meet them that evening. The doting mamas will be absolutely furious.”

  “What a wonderful idea, Clarice!” Lady Abbott agreed. “And as you have assured me that there are plenty of gentlemen to go around this year, I need not feel a bit guilty about using such a tactic.”

  “Zounds, Aunt, is that not devilishly wicked of you?” Allegra teased.

  “My child, do not use language like that,” Lady Abbott replied. “It is so common. There is nothing wrong with you and Sirena making a unique entrance into this world you are going to inhabit for the rest of your lives. It is really the best way to get you noticed immediately.”

  “Oyez! Oyez! Two prime young virgins with proper dowries, ready to wed. What am I bid, gentlemen?” Allegra mocked.

  “Allegra!” her aunt cried, distressed, but Sirena giggled.

  Lady Bellingham, however, burst out laughing. “She’s absolutely right, Olympia.” Then she turned to Allegra. “Yet, m’dear, how else are you to meet proper gentlemen?”

  “I am not certain I want a proper gentleman, madame,” Allegra responded, half seriously, half mischievously.

  “The naughty ones are more fun, I will agree, and I speak from experience,” Lady Bellingham said with a twinkle in her eye, “but it is the proper ones we marry. For our sakes. And for our families’. Sometimes you will find a unique gentleman with both naughty and proper qualities. However, they are very rare, m’dear. Do not fear, Allegra Morgan. I will be your guide. I will advise you myself, for I know all about the ten thousand, or the ton as some are now calling us. Trust me, and I will bring you safely through your first season. Hopefully your only season.”

  “I fear I shall need a pilot to traverse the choppy waters of society, madame. I cannot simper, or be coy. I think those attributes ridiculous. A gentleman with no more on his mind than cards and racing is as much of a featherbrain as a girl who thinks about nothing but gowns and balls,” Allegra said. “I shall be a difficult match, I fear.”

  Lady Bellingham reached out, and patted the girl’s hand with her own plump white one, which sported three beautiful rings. “There, there, my child,” she said. “There is someone for everyone. Of that I am certain.” Then she heaved her ample bulk from the bench, saying as she did so, “I have surely overstayed my welcome. Olympia, walk with me. Good-bye, my dear gels. I shall look forward to seeing you at my ball.”

  When the two older women left the garden Sirena spoke. “Mama says she is a power to be reckoned with in London society.”

  “She will be a good friend to us, and I suspect that we are fortunate in that,” Allegra noted shrewdly.

  “Do you think that she is right?” Sirena asked her cousin.

  “About what in particular?” Allegra replied.

  “That there is someone for everyone,” Sirena answered. “What if we go through the entire season, and do not find husbands?”

  “We will come back next year,” Allegra said practically. “Not everyone, I am told, bags a husband their first time out.”

  “But we will be eighteen in December,” Sirena said.

  “And we are seventeen now,” Allegra responded laughing. “Oh, sweet coz, I am not sure I am ready to be married yet. We are just out of the schoolroom. I should like to see something of life and the world before I am settled down into a dull married existence.”

  “But I want to be married!” Sirena said plaintively. “Mama won’t move into the dower house until I am safely settled with a husband. I hate living at the hall now. Charlotte so obviously dislikes us. She begrudges Mama and me every mouthful we eat or drink.”

  “Marrying to escape your sister-in-law is a rather bad idea,” Allegra said. “If we do not find husbands this season, sweet coz, then you shall spend the summer with me, and in the autumn I shall have Papa take us abroad for the winter months. We will return next season refreshed and most sophisticated from our travels. It will make us far more interesting than the schoolroom chits joining us next year. We shall be utterly fascinating to the gentlemen.”

  “Oh, Allegra, you are so sensible! I wish I could be more like you, but I really do want to find the man of my dreams, and have my own home.”

  “If that is what you wish,” Allegra responded, “then it is what I want for you, too, Sirena. You will not have a difficult time in finding suitors. Your background is impeccable. Mine, however, is not. Papa’s title is not very old, and my mother’s behavior will surely lead the gossips to believe I am like her.”

  “But you are so rich!” Sirena said frankly. “Mama says all else will be forgotten regarding your background because of your papa’s wealth.”

  “Oh, yes, my status as Papa’s heiress. But I don’t want a man marrying me just because I am my father’s daughter,” Allegra said.

  “You cannot escape what is fact,” Sirena replied.

  “I suppose I cannot,” was the thoughtful answer, “but I can certainly judge a man’s sincerity, I hope, which may keep me from an unhappy misalliance. My mother married Papa for his wealth when she did not really love him. If she had loved him she could not have fallen in love with her count and run away with him, could she?”

  “I suppose not,” Sirena said softly. Her mother had always cautioned her to avoid any prolonged discussion of Allegra’s mama. Pandora had, Lady Abbott told her daughter, been the youngest of their father’s children. Beautiful, winning when she chose to be, and utterly selfish from her birth, Lady Abbott said. Her divorce from Lord Morgan had been all her fault, not his; and as she would not allow Allegra to suffer because of her mother’s bad behavior, Sirena must avoid all conversation leading in that direction with anyone, including Allegra.

  It was at that moment that Lady Abbott hurried back into the garden. “Oh, my dears, you have made such a good impression upon Clarice Bellingham! She will lead you both through the season, she has assured me. Her approval is a guarantee of your success!” the good lady burbled. Then she hugged them both. “And Madame Paul, herself, has arrived with her assistants to personally oversee your fittings. I have explained to her that you must each have a ball gown ready for the Bellingham ball, and your court dresses almost immediately. Come along, now!”

  “Do you think Madame Paul will be as sparrowlike as Mademoiselle Francine?” Allegra whispered to her cousin as they hurried back indoors and up the main staircase of the house to their shared bedchamber suite.

  “I don’t know,” Sirena whispered back. “She is probably more formidable, for Mademoiselle was very deferential when she spoke of her.”

  Madame Paul turned out to be a tall, gaunt woman with iron gray hair, black eyes, and a commanding nature. When the girls entered the room set aside for the fittings she immediately cried,
“Off with your gowns, mademoiselles. Vite! Vite! The time, it is precious!”

  Madame’s two little assistants quickly stripped them down to their chemises. Madame clucked and fussed with seemingly shapeless piles of material while Lady Abbott sat expectantly in a high-back tapestried chair.

  “Mademoiselle Morgan,” Madame said, beckoning Allegra with a bony finger. “Ici, s’il vous plaît. Bess! The cream gown!”

  The garment, high waisted with a gently bouffant skirt, a gathered bodice, and short, tight sleeves with exquisite silver lace that hung just to above her elbow, was fitted on Allegra. The skirt’s hemline came just off the ground, and had a delicate silver lace overskirt. The rounded neckline was lower than any gown she had ever worn, and seeing her young breasts swelling above the gown’s fabric made Allegra blush. She struggled to pull the silk up.

  Madame yanked it down with a severe look at her client. “It is the fashion, mademoiselle,” she said in a stern voice.

  “Even for such a young girl?” Lady Abbott ventured hesitantly.

  “Madame,” the modiste said, “you are offering a new product. Do you not wish it to be seen to its best advantage? Necklines are low this year. Your niece has a pretty bosom, unlike some my studio is dressing, who will need certain … um, aids to show their wares.”

  “The gown is indeed lovely,” Lady Abbott said softly.

  “Of course it is,” Madame Paul responded. “No one takes the measurements like Francine. Come, mademoiselle, to the looking glass. I would have your opinion, for you are to wear the gown.”

  Allegra stared at herself in the mirror. How grown-up she looked. The faintly cream-colored silk with its silver lace overskirt was certainly the most beautiful gown she had ever possessed. She turned her head this way and that, admiring the image reflected back at her. The color of the gown brought out the translucence in her skin. Her mahogany hair looked richer, her eyes more violet. “Yes,” she said. Nothing more, but Madame Paul understood perfectly.

  “You will have a shawl, silver and cream, woven as if by spiders themselves, cream kid gloves that will come to the elbow, a very small reticule made from cloth of silver, and silver kid dancing slippers. You must wear only pearls with this gown, Mademoiselle Morgan. The impression you will give is that of elegance and utmost purity.”

  “Yes,” Allegra answered the modiste, unable to take her eyes off her image. What would Rupert think if he could see her in this gown, she wondered. Then, smiling, she turned to her aunt, questioningly.

  Lady Abbott nodded her approval.

  The gown was removed, and set aside to be returned to madame’s studio for the final finishing. Now it was Sirena’s turn. The dress for her cousin was equally wonderful. In the same style, it was of palest sky blue silk brocade with a narrow sapphire blue velvet ribbon belting the waist. The lace on the sleeves of Sirena’s garment was cream color, but there was no overskirt, making the dress quite different. The bottom three inches of the hem were pleated tightly. Sirena squealed with delight when she saw herself in the glass.

  “A cream lace shawl and elbow length gloves, a reticule and slippers the color of your belt, and for you also, pearls, Lady Sirena. The effect is delicate and fragile as is your blond beauty. Your mama will have to fend the gentlemen off, m’lady.”

  Both girls laughed at this pronouncement, and even Lady Abbott could not restrain a smile.

  “Ohh, Madame,” Sirena said, “If the rest of the wardrobes are as wonderful as these two gowns, we shall be the envy of London!”

  The modiste smiled archly. “And they will be, and you will be,” she replied.

  “What of the court gowns?” Lady Abbott asked.

  “Cecile, bring the hoops,” Madame said. “They are so awkward. I do not understand why your King George is so insistent upon them. Most young girls do not know how to wear hoops, and they certainly dare not sit in them.”

  “It is his custom, and he is a man who doesn’t move easily with change,” Lady Abbott said.

  “Are not all men like that?” Madame Paul responded with a shrug of her narrow shoulders. “Why should a king be any different? They bleed like any other as we discovered when they lopped poor King Louis’s head off his shoulders.” She shuddered. “Praise le bon Dieu that I had the presence of mind to escape France before that happened!”

  “Surely a respectable modiste woman would not be harassed,” Allegra said.

  “Mademoiselle, I created only for the aristocracy,” Madame Paul explained. “I worked with my sister and my niece. Francine came with me, but Hortense refused to leave France. She was killed along with many other innocents whose only crime was that they toiled for the nobility.”

  “I am sorry, madame,” Allegra replied.

  “As am I, Mademoiselle Morgan. I miss my sister.” Then the modiste was all business again.

  “These gowns must be ready for the Bellingham ball,” Lady Abbott told the Frenchwoman again.

  “Both wardrobes in their entirety will be ready two days before,” she promised Lady Abbott. “Your young ladies can then put on their new day dresses and parade about the park with the other misses.”

  “My daughter and my niece will not appear until the night of the ball,” Lady Abbott responded.

  “Ahh, how clever!” Madame Paul chuckled, looking with new respect upon Lady Abbott. The dowager marchioness was obviously not such a fool as she might appear. She chuckled again.

  True to her word, the girls’ new collection of wearing apparel arrived exactly when madame had promised them. They were brought by Mademoiselle Francine, who, having directed the footmen in unloading her carriage and the accompanying cart, presented her bill to Mr. Trent. She was mightily surprised to be paid immediately, and in full. Usually it took the rest of the season, and sometimes months afterwards to collect all that was owed them. Often her aunt would withhold the court presentation dress from each collection in order to obtain at least something of what was owed her. Mademoiselle departed smiling, and was distinctly heard to be humming beneath her breath.

  Allegra and Sirena could scarce contain themselves. Everything from the skin out was new and fresh. There were chemise dresses, and tunic dresses in fine cotton fabrics, striped and watered silks. There were shawls from India, velvet mantles, bonnets, a dozen ball gowns for each of them, matching shoes and gloves. There were silk petticoats, and fine lawn chemises as well as both silk stockings and tights. Honor and Damaris were kept busy the entire day putting away their mistresses’ new wardrobes.

  Lady Abbott encouraged her charges to rest until the night of their first ball. “You’ll get little rest once you have entered into society. You are already invited to a number of other balls, card parties, picnics, and teas. Mr. Trent has been kept quite busy going over all your invitations. Do you not find it amusing that although no one has yet seen either of you, you are already quite popular?”

  “I find it terrifying,” Allegra told her aunt. “My invitations are based upon my wealth. I could be as ugly as sin, Aunt, and with a face covered in warts, yet I should still be a succès fou among the gentlemen. They don’t know me. They don’t want to know me. They just want to marry my father’s heiress. Is it possible, given my circumstances, to find a man who will love me? I think not. Whatever match I make must be made for practical reasons. But I vow that while I must go to the highest bidder, he will have to be a man with whom I can get along.”

  “Oh, Allegra, do not say such awful things!” Sirena begged.

  Lady Abbott, however, sighed. Her niece was absolutely right in her assessment of her situation. “I am glad you are so prudent, and cognizant of your situation, Allegra,” she told her. “It is possible, however, to make a match with a good man in spite of your circumstances. Often, in time, love enters such a marriage, but if it doesn’t, at least affection and respect will do nicely, I think.”

  “That is terrible!” Sirena cried. “To go through life unloved by one’s mate? I could not survive it!”

&nbs
p; “You had best become more practical, daughter,” Lady Abbott said. “Once the bloom is off the rose, and you have filled the nursery with a new generation, your husband is, in all likelihood, going to return to London, and to the little mistress he has kept hidden away in a house near the park. That is the way of the world, Sirena. Not all men are like your late father or your Uncle Septimius.”

  Sirena’s eyes filled with tears, and her lower lip trembled, but she said nothing more. She was going to find a man who would love her forever. There was no use arguing with her mama about it. Mama just didn’t understand at all. She never had.

  The night of the Bellingham ball came, and at a quarter to ten o’clock in the evening Lord Morgan’s town carriage drew up before the door of his house. Lord Morgan and Charles Trent emerged dressed in fawn knee breeches with three silver buttons at each side of their legs, dark double-breasted tailcoats which were left open to reveal elegant waistcoats, ruffled shirt fronts, and beautifully tied white silk cravats. Their hose were striped black and white, and their black kid pumps sported silver buckles. They were followed by Lady Abbott who was wearing a rich plum-colored watered silk gown, a large powdered wig upon her head decorated with several white plumes sprinkled with gold dust and a diamond hair ornament. Lastly came Allegra and Sirena in their new gowns. The ladies entered the coach first, followed by Lord Morgan and Mister Trent. The vehicle then moved off.

  When they reached the Bellingham mansion on Traleigh Square, they found themselves in a long queue of carriages slowly snaking their way to the town house’s front door. As each coach reached its destination, footmen quickly opened the door, lowered the steps, and aided the passengers in disembarking the vehicle. Once inside there were more footmen to take the gentlemen’s cloaks, and maids to take the ladies’ mantles. The house, Allegra noted, was quite fine, but smaller than her father’s. Ascending the stairs they reached the ballroom where they again joined a queue waiting to be announced. As they reached the majordomo, Charles Trent leaned over, and murmured in his ear.