Susan Wiggs - The Mistress

“You can gild that lily all you like,” Phoebe had said to Lucy as they were getting ready for the evening. “But anyone with half a brain will know she’s just a common weed.”

“Half a brain,” Lucy had laughed and whispered in Kathleen’s ear, which burned with a blush. “That leaves out most of the people at the soiree.”

They stepped into the powder room decked with gilt-framed mirrors and softly lit by the whitish glow of gaslight sconces. The three young ladies stood together in front of the tall center mirror—Lucy, with her black hair and merry eyes, Phoebe, haughty and sure of herself, and Kathleen, regarding her reflection anxiously, wondering if the vivid red of her hair and the scattering of freckles over her cheeks and nose would be a dead giveaway. Her long bright ringlets spilled from a set of sterling combs, and the flush of nervousness in her cheeks was not unbecoming. Perhaps she could pull this off after all.

“Lord, but I wish Miss Deborah had come,” she said, leaning forward and turning her head to one side to examine her diamond-and-emerald drop earrings. The costly baubles swayed with an unfamiliar tug. Other than girlish games of dress-up, which she had played with Deborah when she’d first gone to work as a maid at the age of twelve, Kathleen had never worn jewelry in her life. The eldest of five, she had never even received the traditional cross at her First Communion. Her parents simply hadn’t had the money.

“Deborah wasn’t well,” Phoebe reminded her. “Besides, if she had come, then you wouldn’t have had her fabulous gown to wear, or her Tiffany jewels, and you’d be sitting at the school all alone tonight.”

“Cinderella sifting through the ashes,” Kathleen said tartly. “You’d have loved that.”

“Not really,” Phoebe said, and just for a moment her haughty mask fell away. “I do wish you well, Kathleen. Please know that.”

Kathleen was startled by the moment of candor. Perhaps, she thought, there were some things about the upper classes she would never understand. But that had not stopped her from wanting desperately to be one of them. And tonight was the perfect opportunity.

The well-tended young ladies of Miss Emma Wade Boylan’s School received scores of invitations to social events in Chicago. Miss Boylan had a reputation for finishing a young woman with charm and panache, and charging her patrons dearly for the privilege. In return, Miss Boylan transformed raw, wealthy girls into perfect wives and hostesses. A bride from Boylan’s was known to be the ideal ornament to a successful man.

The gathering tonight was special, and well attended by members of the elite group informally known as the Old Settlers. As it was a Sunday, there would be no dancing ball, so it was dubbed an evangelical evening, featuring a famous preacher, the Reverend Mr. Dwight L. Moody.

Proper Catholics were supposed to turn a deaf ear to evangelists, but Kathleen had always been challenged by the notion of being proper. Besides, the lecture was nothing more than an excuse for people to get together and gossip and flirt on a Sunday night. Everyone—except perhaps the Reverend himself—knew that. It was all part of the elaborate mating ritual of the upper class, and it fascinated Kathleen. Many a night she had stayed back at the school, paging through Godey’s Lady’s Book, studying the color fashion plates and wondering what it would be like to join the rare, privileged company of the elite.

Tonight, fate or simple happenstance held out the opportunity. Miss Deborah had taken ill and had gone home to her father. As a lark, Phoebe and Lucy had decided to try what Lucy termed a “social experiment.”

Lucy swore that people were easily led and swayed by appearances, and there was no real distinction between the classes. A poor girl dressed as a princess would be as warmly received as royalty. Phoebe, on the other hand, believed that class was something a person was born with, like straight teeth or brown hair, and that people of distinction could spot an imposter every time.

Kathleen was their willing subject for the experiment. She had always been intrigued by rich people, having lived outside their charmed circle, looking in, for most of her life. At last she would join their midst, if only for a few hours.

“Are you hoping for a private moment with Mr. Kennedy?” Lucy asked Phoebe teasingly.

“He will surely be the handsomest man in attendance tonight,” Phoebe said. “But you’re welcome to him. I have a different ambition.”

“What is wrong with him?” Kathleen asked, remembering the godlike creature she had watched in the gazebo. She knew that if Phoebe had wanted Dylan Kennedy for herself, she would have had him by now. “What aren’t you telling us?”

“The fault is not with Mr. Kennedy, but with our dearest Phoebe,” Lucy said, her voice both chiding and affectionate. “She has set a standard no mortal man can possibly meet.”

“What is it that you want?” Kathleen asked.

“A duke,” Phoebe whispered, nearly swooning with the admission.

Kathleen burst out laughing. “And where do you suppose you’ll be finding one of those? Beneath a toadstool?” She feigned a mincing walk and stuck her nose in the air. “You may call me ‘your highness’ and be sure you scrape the floor when you bow.”

Lucy swallowed an outburst of laughter. “Isn’t a royal title against the law?”

“In this country,” Phoebe said with an offended sniff. “And it’s ‘Your Grace.’”

“You mean you would leave the States in your quest for a title?”

Phoebe stared at her as if she had gone daft. “I would leave the planet in order to marry a title.”

“But why?” Kathleen demanded.

“I wouldn’t expect you to understand. Honestly, you’ve never known your place, Kathleen O’Leary. Deborah spoiled you from the start.”

“That’s because Deborah is smart enough to see that divisions of class are artificial,” Lucy said. “As I intend to prove to you tonight.”

“Let’s not quarrel.” No matter how hard-pressed, Kathleen always found it easier to tolerate Phoebe’s snobbishness than to try to reason with her.

She checked inside her beaded silken reticule. As ornate as the crown jewels, the evening bag was anchored by a tasseled cord to her waist, the crystal beads catching the light each time she moved. As a lady’s maid, she knew the contents of a proper reticule: calling cards, a tiny vial of smelling salts in case she felt faint, a lace-edged handkerchief, a comb and hairpin, a coin or two.

Because she was Irish, she could not deny a superstitious streak in herself. Before leaving the school tonight, she had snatched up a talisman to carry her through the evening. It was a mass card from St. Brendan’s Church, printed in honor of her grandmother, Bridget Cavanaugh. The sturdy old woman had died three months earlier, and Kathleen ached with missing her. It seemed appropriate and oddly comforting to slip the holy card into her reticule, as if Gran were a little cardboard saint carried in her pocket. She lifted her chin and squared her shoulders. “I am as ready as a sinner on Fat Tuesday.”

She and her friends slowly approached the salon, their footfalls silent on the carpet patterned with swirling ferns. Kathleen savored every moment, every sensation, knowing that memories of this night would sustain her through all the long years to come. She tried to memorize the plush feel of the thick carpet beneath her feet, which were clad in silk slippers made to match the Worth gown. She felt the rich, heavy weight of the emerald-and-diamond collar around her neck, and the tug of the matching earrings. She listened to the polite, cultured burble of conversation in the grand salon. To her, the mingling voices sounded like a chorus of angels. Everything even smelled rich, she reflected fancifully. French perfume, Havana cigars, fine brandy, Macassar hair oil.