Carola Dunn (3 page)

 “That’s good. Maman will know whether we need to send for an apothecary.” She hesitated. “Betsy, we’ll tell maman a kind man helped us, of course, but I see no need to mention what a...a personable young man he was.”

 “No,” Betsy promptly agreed, with a giggle and a sly look. “Nor there’s no need to tell
Madame
Mr Rufus is a young fellow, even.”

 “We shall just say he was most amiable, polite, and obliging.”

 “That he was, Miss Ros, that he was. And for all it was me he gave a hand to, if you ask me, it wasn’t me he fancied!”

Chapter 3

 Dusk was already drawing in on that last day of January, 1814, when the hackney stopped in New Bond Street. The new gas street-lamps had not yet been lit, but peering through the grimy carriage window, Rosabelle made out the house number.

 “Home at last!”

 Here were no bow windows such as displayed the wares of Hookham’s Circulating Library, just up the street, and many of the other fashionable shops. Number 34 looked like an ordinary town house, built of brick, five stories from semi-basement to attics. On the ground floor, next to the pilastered door, it had a single white-painted sash window. This was veiled in the sheerest of white muslins, concealing the interior while admitting daylight.

 Even as Rosabelle descended from the hackney, lights sprang up within the front room and a silhouetted figure closed heavy brocade curtains.

 “Don’t try to step down, Betsy. I’ll just pay the fare, then I’ll summon Jerry and Philip to carry you in.”

 She was opening her reticule when the front door flung open and two tall footmen in corbeau-coloured livery burst out.

 “Miss Ros, where’ve you been? Madame’s in quite a taking!” cried Jerry.

 “I’m afraid we have been gone longer than I intended,” Rosabelle said guiltily.

 “I’ll pay the jarvey, miss,” said the quieter Philip, reaching into his pocket.

 “Thank you. What a nodcock I am, worrying about whether I had enough money left! Mam’selle Betsy has hurt her foot, Jerry. You’ll have to carry her in.”

 Amidst good-natured teasing, Betsy was borne into the house. As Rosabelle followed, the nearest gas lamp flared into brilliance. Its light gleamed on the discreet sign above the door, flowing gilt script on glossy black, so familiar she rarely noticed it:
Madame Yvette, Modiste.

 From the front room emerged Madame herself, short and slim, the essence of Parisian elegance in her midnight blue poplin gown. She shut the door behind her with a firm click echoed by the click of the front-door latch as Rosabelle closed it.

 “
Enfin, chérie!
Where have you been?”

 “I’ll explain later, maman. You have a customer, have you not?”

 “Two. Business continues excellent for the time of year, thanks to the weather.” Madame noticed Betsy, whom the two footmen had deposited upon a chair in the entrance hall. “What is amiss?” she asked sharply.

 “Betsy has sprained her ankle. It’s quite swollen. I wish you will take a look at it.”

 “Poor child! I expect it just needs an arnica compress and a supportive bandage. In a few minutes I come, when Lady Withers leaves and Mrs Bowditch goes to a fitting room to have her measurements taken. Every year a little plumper, that one. Jerry, Philip, carry Mam’selle Betsy up to the drawing room, if you please.”

 Rosabelle went first up the stairs. At the top, she poked her head round the door of the office to say, “I’ll bring you Mr Braithwaite’s bills in a minute, Papa.”

 “I hope he doesna expect to be paid before the goods are delivered,” complained her father, a lanky Scot with a long face and sandy hair touched with grey.

 “He never has yet, Papa,” Rosabelle reminded him with an affectionate smile.

 “Och, they’ll all take advantage if they can, and don’t you forget it, lass, or ye’ll end up in the poorhouse when your mither and I are gone. ‘Many strokes, though with a little axe, Hew down and fell the hardest-timbered oak.’”

 “
Henry VI, Part 3
,” said his daughter pertly. It was one of his favourite quotations.

 She went on, following the footmen and Betsy into the elegant drawing room. The upper floors of the house, invisibly from the street, had been knocked into the house next door. Thus, the first floor afforded a comfortable dwelling for Madame, her husband, Kenneth Macleod, and her daughter.

 On the second floor were a spacious workroom and four storage rooms, for finished goods, work in progress, bales of cloth, and sundry sewing necessaries and trimmings. The garrets comprised living quarters for the servants and such of the seamstresses as chose to live in, while the basement contained the usual domestic offices.

 Cook must have observed Rosabelle’s return from the bitter cold outdoors, for she had scarcely settled Betsy on a comfortable sofa when one of the maids appeared with a steaming pot of tea. Rosabelle sent her for a second cup. After sitting in the draughty hackney, she and Betsy were both thoroughly chilled, though the room was warm.

 “I ought to get back to work,” Betsy fretted. “My ankle won’t stop me sewing. We’re busy upstairs, what with everyone wanting new pelisses against the cold.”

 It was true. Those ladies who resided in or near the metropolis were ordering warm mantles, cloaks, and pelisses in heavy velvets and woollen cloth, often lined and trimmed with fur. Though difficult to sew, these brought a correspondingly high profit.

 Many established customers also took advantage of discounts, carefully calculated by Mr Macleod, to order part of their wardrobes for the Season in advance. They ran little risk of finding their gowns already démodé when Spring brought the rest of the Ton to London. Madame Yvette’s creations had a timeless elegance which acknowledged the brief fads and fancies of fashion with at most a distant bow.

 So the seamstresses in the workshop above were well occupied, though by no means stretched to the limit, as they would be at the height of the Season.

 “You can go up as soon as maman has bound your ankle,” said Rosabelle. “And I’ll come and lend a hand shortly.”

 Between them, her mother and father had taught her every aspect of the business, from dress design and dealing with clients to keeping accounts and dealing with merchants. That afternoon’s outing to the City had been made, with swatches of material and a list of measurements, to order the fabrics chosen by customers to be made up. It was one of her favourite tasks. She was as good at haggling as Papa, and understood silks and velvets, muslins and worsteds, almost as well as maman. She loved the warehouses piled with bales of cloth in a rainbow of colours, some still exuding exotic odours from foreign climes.

 Another favourite task, and one she was better at than maman, was sketching designs, both ideas for gowns and specific gowns as they would look on specific people. Banking on her talent, Papa had started a small, monthly
Journal de Modes
, which had subscribers all over the kingdom.

 Rosabelle also enjoyed short stints in the workroom, whither she repaired after discussing Mr Braithwaite’s bill with her father.

 A low buzz of conversation filled the long, light and airy room, warmed by a Dutch stove at each end. Papa often grumbled about the price of coals, but maman pointed out, quite rightly, that cold fingers were clumsy fingers. Yvette Macleod prided herself on her practicality as well as her flair.

 “Me, I am a hard-headed shopkeeper in your nation of shopkeepers,” she was wont to say, “and comfortable, cheerful employees work far more efficiently than downtrodden slaveys.”

 As a result, never had Madame trained an apprentice only to see her defect to a rival, taking trade secrets with her. Her employees rarely left except to marry. Even then, they often returned once their children were grown.

 Such a one was Madame Blodgett, who was in charge of the workroom. Rosabelle asked her for a job to do, and settled at one of the long tables to apply jet beads to a disembodied bodice marked with an embroidery design in French chalk.

 Betsy had arrived before her. Her injured leg raised on a spare chair, she was chattering about the Frost Fair as she stitched a seam.

 “It was fun, wasn’t it, Miss Ros? Being in the middle of the river on the ice, and all the stalls and everything.”

 “Weren’t you afraid of sinking through?” someone asked.

 “Not me. I told you about the printing presses, putting out ballads about the freeze and such, and the taverns with tuns of beer. I reckoned if the ice was strong enough to hold them up, it wasn’t going to break up under my weight, not even on a donkey. I liked the donkeys ‘specially, even though I hurt myself. That Mr Rufus who rescued me was ever such an obliging fellow, wasn’t he, Miss Ros?”

 The question, and the look that accompanied it, seemed to Rosabelle full of innuendo. She hoped none of the others noticed it, and that the warmth in her cheeks was invisible as she bowed her head over her work.

 “Most obliging,” she said composedly.

 As Betsy continued her description of the fair—avoiding any details about Mr Rufus, Rosabelle noted with relief—Rosabelle took herself to task. All there was between her and the young man was a brief flirtation, amusing while it lasted but nothing to be sensitive about. Maman and Papa would never countenance a closer relationship with a mere shop assistant, even if Mr Rufus desired it, which Rosabelle had no evidence he did.

 Her busy days allowed little leisure for dreams of marriage. Her parents took no apparent thought for finding a husband for their daughter, concentrating on preparing her to run the business successfully when eventually she inherited it.

 At twenty she felt herself competent in every branch of the trade, wanting only the polish which practice would bring. What would maman and Papa say if Rosabelle announced that it was time she was wed?

 More important, what would they do?

 The occasional dinner parties would become more frequent, she supposed, with the guests chosen from those of the Macleods’ wealthy business connexions who had sons of the right age. Perhaps they might raise their sights to the banker, and even the lawyer, who handled their affairs.

 With a respectable dowry and the prospect of inheriting a flourishing business, Rosabelle was unlikely to suffer a dearth of suitors.

 She had met a few of the young men concerned. More than one had shown signs of interest, due—she thought she could claim without flattering herself—as much to her personal charms as to financial considerations. She was quite pretty to start with, and her mother had taught her to make the best of herself. Madame Yvette’s daughter must not be less elegantly dressed than her clients.

 The trouble was, not one of those suitable young men lit a spark in her as did the ineligible Mr Rufus. Not that he was particularly handsome, though his countenance was pleasing. He was lively, cheerful, and intelligent—witness the contrivance he had rigged up under the oven—besides being—

 “A most obliging person,” Betsy reiterated, chiming with Rosabelle’s thoughts. He had voiced his approval of her kindness to Betsy, she recalled.

 And he was without doubt a shocking flirt.

 “He laid out a whole sixpence so that every one of the good-for-nothing brats could go to the fair!”

 Rosabelle owed him that sixpence. She had to go to the Frost Fair tomorrow to repay him. More than likely she would discover she had grossly exaggerated his attractions in her mind. Finding him an ordinary impudent jackanapes of a common shopman, she would be cured.

 At dinner that evening, she told her parents all about her and Betsy’s adventures at the Frost Fair. “I don’t know what I’d have done if the pastrycook’s man had not come to the rescue,” she said. “He even laid out his own money for us. I promised to pay him today.”

 “How much?” growled her father. “How do you know he’s not cheating you?”

 “I saw and heard the transaction, Papa. You would not have me default on a debt, would you?”

 Glumly he shook his head. “Nae, lass. ‘No legacy is so rich as honesty.’”

 With a teasing smile, she continued, “Especially a debt for the excessive sum of...sixpence!”

 Papa’s laugh was a trifle sheepish.

 “Of course it must be repaid,” her mother said. “Sixpence is no small sum for a shop assistant who has, perhaps, a family to support, and it was
très gentil
on his part to help you. But there is no need for you to go, chérie. I must send one of the footmen on several errands tomorrow. It will not take him far out of his way.”

 “I’d like to go, maman, if you have no pressing need of me. I’d like to see more of the fair. And if you can spare one or two of the girls, I should like to treat them as I did Betsy. There may never be another Frost Fair in our lifetimes. It would be a pity if they all missed it.”

 Madame Yvette pursed her lips consideringly. “We are well beforehand with the work. Yes, it will not do to single out Mam’selle Betsy for such a treat. Take the next two on the list to go with you to the City, so no one can complain of injustice.”

 Accompanying Rosabelle on her forays to the wholesalers was a jealously guarded privilege. “That will be fairest,” Rosabelle agreed. “Thank you, maman. Fortunately, tomorrow is the first of February so I shall have my whole month’s allowance.”

 “
Mais non, chérie
, this is a business expense, to keep the employees happy.”

 “We s’ll all end up in the poorhouse!” Mr Macleod groaned. “How long is this Frost Fair to continue?”

 “Weeks, Papa,” Rosabelle said saucily. “There is no sign of a thaw.”

 “And if there were,” he grumbled, “I’d no be letting my lass venture onto the river ice, for all she’s wicked tease. Verra weel, then, a business expense it shall be.”

 Rosabelle blew him a kiss. “And I want to buy fairings for the rest, those who can’t go,” she coaxed. “Just in case the ice doesn’t last much longer. Nothing expensive. Gilt gingerbread, perhaps, so as to give my custom to the kind pastrycook.”

 “An excellent idea,” her mother approved.

 Outnumbered, Papa gave in, as usual. He kept a tight hold on the purse-strings, but once persuaded that an expenditure was reasonable—or would please his womenfolk for a reasonable sum—he was no nipfarthing.