Stephanie Barron - Jane and the Barque of Frailty

“And if Malverley alone, of all his set, neglects to pay court to Julia Radcliffe,” I said slowly, “that fact in itself must be considered significant. I shall take my leave of you, sir — and must thank you for putting me in the way of considering this tangled business in an entirely new light.”

I RETURNED TO SLOANE STREET, AND FOUND ELIZA gone out — our Chawton neighbour, Miss Maria Beckford, having called with her Middleton niece to take my sister for an airing in the Park. I had an idea of the petulant Miss Middleton, forced to sit opposite two elderly ladies, in a hired barouche that must be accounted insufferably dowdy; and sighed for the lost ambitions of girlhood.

I whiled away an hour in perusing a guide to the peerage I discovered among Henry’s books, paying especial attention to those lateral branches and degrees of cousinage obtaining among the most elevated families in the land; and then I penned a firm note of my intentions to Sylvester Chizzlewit. Manon was so good as to carry it to Lincoln’s Inn Fields — but my second letter, to William Skroggs, she refused to accept. She regarded Bow Street and all its kind as the worst of London’s evils; and so, in the end, I was forced to run that errand myself.

Wednesday, 1 May 1811, cont.

AS IT HAPPENS, I WAS FORCED TO PLACE ALL MY confidence in Eliza — as is so often the case. Who else should know better how a Fashionable Impure must look, in order to gain admittance to the Cyprians Ball?

“Ring for Manon,” my sister instructed briskly, “and Madame Bigeon as well. We shall have to alter one of my gowns on the instant! I am not so tall as you, Jane, but I daresay we may contrive a lace flounce to make up the difference — and it will do very well if your ankles are exposed, and your stays rather tighter than not, as display must be the order of the evening.”

“Must it, indeed?” I faltered. “But Julia Radcliffe always appears so elegant!”

“Be assured that rather more of her elegance will be visible tonight. A ball-dress, off the shoulder, with considerable décolleté—and your hair dressed with diamonds!”

“But I have no diamonds!”

“Then let them be paste! I am sure quite half the Snug Armfuls will be wearing nothing but such trumpery — and will be clad in the most shocking peacock colours! I can do nothing about that, I am afraid; you will have to go in straw-coloured silk, for it is just the gown to suit the purpose — and quite eighteen months old, so I shall not mind a bit if we must cut it to shreds.”

Manon and her mother appeared in the doorway of Eliza’s boudoir. Manon, as should not be surprising, had begun to look a trifle weary.

“Mademoiselle is attending a fancy dress party this evening,” my sister said, in a voice that brooked no argument, “and will require a little contrivance in her gown. Manon, have you time to step round to the Pantheon Bazaar?”

“Naturally, if madame wishes it.”

“We require quantities of false diamonds for the dressing of our hair, and loo masks — as we shall have to go disguised.”

“We?”I repeated, thunderstruck.

“I adore masquerades,” she said comfortably, as she lifted the straw-coloured silk over my head. “It puts me quite in mind of the old days, at Versailles. I should not submit to being left behind for anything, Jane — and I daresay I shall give some of those Demireps a run for their money.”

She stepped back to survey my appearance; I felt both naked and foolish, and could not meet her scrutiny.

“Sandals, I think — and we shall paint your toe-nails with gold leaf, as it is considered very fast. Madame Bigeon, a quantity of wadding, if you please — we must endeavour to provide mademoiselle with a bit more décolleté … ”

If it wasthe dirtiest hotel in London, the quantity of candles, and the magnificence of the scene within the assembly rooms, contrived to dazzle the eye so thoroughly that every hint of grime was obscured. Eliza and I alighted from our carriage a few minutes past ten o’clock, and were admitted without much more than a cursory perusal of our figures and dress; two such bold pieces as we presented, the better part of our faces obscured by black loo masks and our hair dressed with gems, should never be turned from the Cyprians Ball.

I am not sure what I feared more: to have my bottom slapped in a familiar way as I attempted with dignity to negotiate the stairs; to find that my arm had been pinched, or my skirts snapped above my heels; but the attitudes of the horde of gentlemen lounging along the banisters were refreshingly circumspect. If their eyes roved over the frank presentation of my charms, they kept their opinions to themselves; all but one foxed fellow, who studied Eliza with protuberant eyes and snorted, “Damme! If it ain’t mutton dressed as lamb!”

I grasped my sister by the wrist, the better to prevent an unseemly fracas as she rounded on the jackanapes indignantly, and whispered, “Never mind! You are not here to make a conquest, recollect — but to preserve your innocence and reputation!”

“Then I fear we are the only ladies likely to do so,” my sister returned grimly.

The assembly rooms were in fact two dining parlours thrown together, by the elimination of certain doors, and the contiguity of a passage, with a small anteroom at its far end — Limmer’s being not the sort of place to run to dancing, in the ordinary way, and thus failing to possess a ballroom. Indeed, I had heard my brother Henry refer to the place as akin to Tattersall’s, where gentlemen of the turf laid bets of an evening in the smoke-filled coffee room. But the Patronesses, as Mr. Chizzlewit had called them in unconscious mimicry of Almack’s, had worked their magic in transforming the dingy place, with yards of striped silk suspended from the ceiling to suggest an Oriental tent, and quantities of blooming lilies in tubs, grouped round a dais, on which the musicians played.

“Well, my dear, if the quality of the refreshments is any indication,” Eliza observed, as she sipped at a glass of champagne, “this is most certainly the anti-Almack’s. All one ever receives there is tepid lemonade. I do believe the Demi-reps have hired Gunter’s! Only observe the lobster patties!” [29] Gunter’s was the foremost confectioner of Regency London and was frequently hired to cater the refreshments at private debutante balls. — Editor’s note .

“Pray pardon the intrusion,” said a gravelly voice behind us, “but I could not help noticing how ravishing you appear this evening, my sprite! Such a bewitching colour! So entirely suited to one of mature years, and experience. ”

I turned, and found to my astonishment that no less a personage than Francis Rawdon, Earl Moira, hovered on the fringe of our charmed circle. The core of my being was seized with apprehension, as tho’ with a vise; I could no more speak than I could trust myself to glance at Eliza. She had been acquainted with Lord Moira these ten years at least; and her husband was the man’s banker! Had the Earl detected us in our scandalous subterfuge? Should we be disgraced, and exposed?

He bowed to both of us, but extended his hand to my sister — who might certainly be declared ravishing, by one several years her senior, as she stood ample-bosomed in her claret-coloured gown. Moira, it appeared, followed the Prince Regent in his tastes — that Royal personage being known to favour well-endowed ladies of a certain age.

Eliza uttered an hysterickal giggle that could not be suppressed — put her champagne glass into my hand with trembling fingers — and dropped the curtsey that had graced Versailles itself. As I watched her sweep into the waltz on Lord Moira’s arm, I reflected that so game a pullet as the Comtesse de Feuillide should never betray my schemes.