Page 30 of The Marriage Articles

She would not ask. He knew that with the plainness of long acquaintance compressed into a few weeks. He would have to tell her himself, and do it tomorrow morning before she could laugh the subject away. The best shops in Bond Street must be engaged, providing morning dresses, walking gowns, and evening wear in proper number, with whatever else he could induce his independent wife to wear.

Darcy blew out the candle and lay down in the dark. It was some time before sleep came, for he was smiling.

Chapter Sixteen

Elizabeth stood on a low platform in Bond Street with her arms held out from her sides, while two girls on their knees pinned muslin round her hem. The clock on the mantelpiece said ten in the morning. Five days married, and this was her first true sight of the town. Until today her outings as Mrs Darcy had begun at the front door and ended at the square garden railing, a footman trailing behind, and she had not minded the confinement. The looking glasses stood between the tall front windows. In them she could see Smith at her shoulder, calm as ever, and the modiste circling her with a tape measure round her neck, a general surveying ground she intended to take.

While the pins went in, she turned over what Mr Darcy had said at breakfast two days ago. He had asked her, not told her, whether she would like an appointment at a modiste. It had been put to her as a right already hers, a perquisite of her new name, and offered over the toast rack with no more ceremony than if he had been asking whether she took sugar. She was to be dressed without regard to expense. The money was the one part of the arrangement that had never troubled her. What stung, standing here while a stranger’s assistants handled her old muslin with the gentleness people reserve for things already condemned, was the sudden, mortifying consciousness that her Miss Bennet clothes would not do. The wife of Mr Darcy could not enter a drawing room dressed for Longbourn. Society judged women on these things, and the knowledge sat badly with her, and it was no less true for that. Very well. If she was to be judged, she would give the judges something worth their trouble.

The modiste, whose name was Madame Foucault despite being English to the bone, completed her circuit and addressed herself to Smith rather than to Elizabeth. “And what has Mrs Darcy brought up from Hertfordshire with her?”

“Three morning gowns, madame,” Smith said. “Two walking dresses. One evening gown, the sprigged muslin, and a silk for best that was new at Michaelmas.”

“A silk for best,” Madame Foucault repeated, and the warmth of it landed like a slap she had not been braced for. “Well. We shall soon put that right. Mrs Darcy will forgive me for saying that what answers in Hertfordshire does not answer here.”

“Mrs Darcy forgives a great deal,” Elizabeth said, “when it is put to her directly.”

Madame Foucault’s mouth tightened into the shadow of a smile, and from that moment she spoke to Elizabeth and not around her. “Then directly, madame. A Season wardrobe is in truth six wardrobes in all but name. Morning dresses for calls and for the daytime, in cotton or a light wool. Walking dresses in a sturdier fabric, hemmed higher, with half-boots, for a lady who walks. Carriage dresses for travel and for visiting. Dinner dresses in silk or a fine muslin, cut lower at the neck. Evening dresses for the opera. Ball dresses for the assemblies. Does Mrs Darcy walk?”

“Mrs Darcy walks,” Elizabeth said. “Frequently alone, and indifferent to weather.”

“Then the walking dresses are where we begin, and the half-boots.” The modiste turned to Smith. “And Derbyshire, I am told, is cold?”

“Yes, madame,” Smith said. “The winters come down off the hills and stay. Mrs Darcy will want heavier gowns than she has ever owned, and a spencer and a pelisse that are meant for weather and not for show.”

Madame Foucault was already naming fabrics under her breath, counting on her fingers. “A fine merino for the winter walking dress. A heavier silk for the carriage. Velvet for the pelisse, lined, and I will not hear argument on the lining.”

Two assistants brought the bolts out one after another, holding each up to the light from the windows. Elizabeth examined them with a quiet attention that was not quite approval. The pink sarsenet she set aside as too youthful for her. The yellow figured silk, which in the long glass gave her rather the air of a convalescent than a lady in health, met the same fate. Fine muslin sprigged with silver she admired, yet declined in the same breath, for to admire a thing was not the same as to be willing to be seen in it. The pins came out of the muslin round her. The modiste talked of necklines, and when the talk turned to the evening gown, Madame Foucault suggested frills at the elbow and ribbons at the bodice in the manner of the present season.

“No,” Elizabeth said.

“No, madame?”

“No frills. No ribbons. Plain cut, in whatever fabric we choose, and if the ton objects, the ton may take it up with me.”

A pause, while the modiste looked at her with the reassessing air of a woman revising an estimate upwards. “Plain cut wants a finer fabric, madame. Ornament hides a great deal. A plain gown announces itself.”

Elizabeth felt a momentary shrinking of the heart at the extravagance, yet told herself Mr Darcy had meant every word of his assurances, even if the liberty felt daunting. “Then we shall buy the finer fabric.”

“Very well, ma’am.” No argument, no sigh, only a small nod to the senior assistant, and the bolts that came out next were of another order entirely. Elizabeth noted, with the part of her mind that kept accounts whether she wished it to or not, that she had just raised the price of her own principles, and that the man paying had told her to.

Then came the cap. Madame Foucault brought it herself, lace-trimmed, on a cushion, the kind of cap married women wore indoors, and held it out as though it were a coronet. “For the mornings at home, madame. And for receiving.”

Elizabeth looked at it. “No cap.”

“Madame?”

“I do not like caps. I shall not wear one yet.”

The cushion was withdrawn, the matter closed. The green silk came forward near the end. The assistant held it to the light, and the light came through it the colour of deep water. Elizabeth stopped the fitting. She put her hand flat on the bolt. The silk was cool under her palm. A handsome fabric. More than handsome.

Smith came close, and spoke low, at her ear. “The colour complements your eyes, ma’am. You should take it.”

Elizabeth kept her hand on the bolt a moment longer. Then decided. “The green,” she said to Madame Foucault, “for the dinner gown.”

“An excellent choice, madame.” And it was said without flattery.

The evening dress came next. Madame Foucault held up a pale silk, almost the colour of moonlight, and turned it so the light moved across it like water. “For the opera, madame. The present fashion is a small ruching at the sleeve, and a ribbon worked through the bodice. Quite the present mode. Very elegant.”