by Evie Dunmore
Chapter 19
I may have an idea how to use the magazines,” she said when everyone had gathered round the rug on her chamber floor.
Her friends looked up from the chaos she had created last night, eyeing her with varying degrees of intrigue.
“I’m all ears,” Lady Salisbury said. She was comfortably settled in the wing chair in a pool of morning sun, her cane leaning against the armrest.
“It is not a coup anymore,” Lucie conceded. “But rather, a gradual undermining.” She picked up a copy of the Discerning Ladies’ Magazine. “These periodicals tell women everywhere, every week, how best to dress, cook, act, and what happens in society. These could be powerful vehicles, Trojan horses, if you will, as long as we ensure that every section relegates a suffragist message—but in a subtle manner.”
Blatant astonishment filled the room. Possibly because she had used the word subtle.
“See here,” she said impatiently. “It is hardly a new idea to use periodicals to inform women readers about politics. There was the English Woman’s Journal, and the Female’s Friend, for a start. However, these magazines all perished after just a couple of years in circulation. The readership was too small; even if all women miraculously agreed with the Cause, budgets are still tight, and much as it pains me, few can afford to choose critical essays over advice on how to run an efficient household. I therefore suggest we make it convenient and feasible for women to have both: household and fashion advice, and gentle reminders that we are, in effect, chattel. In one periodical.”
Her suggestion was met with silence.
“You look like Lucie,” Hattie said, her eyes suspicious slits. “But you do not sound like her.”
Lucie gave her a speaking glance. “I’m not incapable of changing tactics.”
“I do like the sound of it,” Annabelle said. “But what precisely is the plan? We cannot just abandon our report.”
“No,” she said quickly, resentment hollowing her stomach at the very thought. “No. We will publish our report. Each of us must try and look for a solution, preferably before the vote on the amendment in autumn. In the meantime, we must put these periodicals to a good use. For example, I should like to add a new section. We print the less harrowing letters, altered and shortened, from the pool of letters we have collected, and we shall have them answered on the page by a lady of good standing.” Her gaze landed on Lady Salisbury. “It would resemble a dialogue rather than a lecture or provocation. It would still bring delicate matters into respectable drawing rooms.”
Catriona was nodding along, which was a good sign because she was usually the first to see a problem. “I like it,” she said. “This format already exists in science journals: readers send in questions and the answers are printed for everyone to see.” She hesitated. “It’s on matters of science only, of course, not of a private nature.”
“But women’s matters are of a private nature,” Annabelle said. “It is why we feel alone with them.”
“I like the idea, too,” Hattie said. “It reminds me of the question-and-answer section in my subscription periodical for girls, which is very popular.”
“What questions do they print?”
“Oh, nothing political. Queries regarding recommendations on novels; experiences with dieting pills; how to pronounce certain words and the meaning of foreign-language terms. . . .”
“Dieting pills,” Lucie said. “Rather sinister, if you ask me.”
Lady Salisbury cleared her throat. “Have I understood you correctly—you suggest I counsel women in a magazine column with camouflaged suffrage messages?”
“Not just a column—at least two pages. And we can write the answers if you don’t wish to ponder them—but we do require a well-respected name on those pages.”
Hattie rubbed her hands. “It’s cunning.”
“The idea has merit,” Lady Salisbury agreed. “I shall give it due consideration.”
“We could undermine the fashion section, too,” Hattie suggested, her cheeks flushing with excitement. “There’s the new Rational Dress Society and I think quite a few ladies would be open to new, more accommodating designs.”
Lucie gave her an appreciative nod. “That is exactly the sort of thing I had in mind.”
“How about the story on the last page,” Catriona said. “We could feature only heroines who aspire to be free and equal.”
“Or the ones who are terribly wronged by society,” Hattie said, “so the reader wants to begin a revolution on her behalf!”
A smile tugged at Lucie’s mouth. For the first time since Tristan had invaded London Print, she was excited at the prospect of having a publishing house at her disposal, half of it anyway.
“Presently, we just have to all agree on the new direction,” she said. “Pandemonium by stealth.”
“It is an excellent direction,” Annabelle said.
“Hear, hear,” said Lady Salisbury.
“But how shall we get these reformed periodicals past Lord Ballentine?” Catriona asked. “Nothing would stop him from vetoing these changes, either.”
“I’m quite put out,” Lady Salisbury said indignantly. “Lord Ballentine is a resplendent specimen of a man, but how very rude of him to ruin our plans at the very last minute.”
“Indeed,” Lucie said darkly. “Leave him to me. If he hinders us purely out of spite, when our changes might well prove popular with readers, I shall just have to spite him back.”
“That sounds awfully juvenile,” Lady Salisbury remarked.
“Oh, it is,” Lucie said. Then she groaned and buried her face in her hands. “It will take years before our manipulations show any effect—how am I going to stand the wait?”
“By keeping your eyes on our victory,” came Annabelle’s voice.
“A long queue of women on Parliament Square, ready to cast their first vote,” Catriona added.
“Lady Lucinda, first female member of the House of Lords,” Hattie said. “I’m demanding the exclusive right to paint your portrait for Westminster.”
Lucie looked up. “I’ll try not to be insufferable until we launch the revised issue.”
“We shall hold you accountable,” Hattie assured her. “You are doing very well so far.” Turning to Lady Salisbury, she added: “Lady Lucinda is in the process of improving her reputation.”
Lady Salisbury’s brows rose high. “Ah. I have noted that you look very fashionable.” She appraised Lucie’s mauve walking dress with a sweeping glance.
“It is not just my wardrobe,” Lucie said. “Reacquainting myself with certain factions of society is next on our list.” She glanced at the ornate clock on the mantelpiece. “I should not miss the main breakfast time.”
Lady Salisbury tutted. “Why did you not tell me that you were ready for such a thing?” She reached for her cane and heaved herself to her feet. “Come. I shall make introductions for you.”
Lady Salisbury’s idea of making introductions was to herd them out onto the sunlit lawn of Claremont’s English Garden after breakfast. Gauzy white canopies and wicker chair arrangements invited meandering guests to gather and chat and have a cup of tea al fresco. A croquet game had been set up in the middle distance near a copse of trees, and the players’ squeals of amusement reached their small group with the breeze.
Lady Salisbury walked ahead with Catriona, who was a lady herself, while banker’s daughter Hattie and black sheep Lucie were to inconspicuously trail behind at a small distance. And then the countess surprised Lucie by approaching Lady Wycliffe of all people, who, with Cecily in tow, was making conversation with two elderly matrons. Lucie and Hattie were half past the small group when Lady Salisbury’s head whipped round.
“Ah, Lady Lucinda,” she exclaimed, as if surprised to see her. “Why, what a lovely dress, what an unusual color. Come closer, let my old eyes see.”
Ri
ght. Lady Salisbury was taking a great gamble, sticking her nose into the politics of an estranged family. Of course, it would work very much in her favor if she were to be seen conversing with her mother. . . . The countess closely admired perfectly regular shades of mauve. “Isn’t it lovely?” she asked with such enthusiasm that Lady Wycliffe was compelled to feign a double take at the dress and admit that yes, it was lovely indeed.
A polite exchange on fashion ensued among the older women, when from the corner of her eye, Lucie saw Lady Hampshire approach, gesticulating and in deep conversation with a white-haired, bearded gentleman.
The marchioness’s eyes promptly lit on Lucie’s mother. “Lady Wycliffe,” she exclaimed. “I have been looking for you—we were just discussing Professor Marlow’s latest research on hysteria.”
“I say,” her mother said faintly. “How intriguing.”
“Very much so,” Lady Hampshire said. “Professor Marlow shall head the Royal Society in no time, mark me.” The ladies shuffled backward as she determinedly maneuvered the man into their circle. “The duke extended an invitation to the professor upon my personal request, and I declare there is something greatly philosophical about a man who places knowledge above etiquette when required. Now, do you recall the article I am drafting on the unruly wombs of spinsters—”
Professor Marlow cleared his throat, his expression grave. “Considering the presence of innocent ears, may I suggest we close this delicate subject for the time being?”
Lady Hampshire stiffened, then assessed Cecily and Hattie with a dour glance.
“We were just sharing stories about cats,” Lady Salisbury said cheerfully, when there had been no such sharing. But Lady Hampshire’s imperious visage brightened at once. “Well, you would,” she said. “Like myself, Lady Wycliffe is an expert on the subject and one of the few with foresight on the matter of housecats. When the rest of society still considered these elegant creatures lowly mousers, we remembered how the ancient Egyptians revered them as gods, did we not?”
“Indeed we did,” Lucie’s mother said.
Lucie vaguely remembered her mother’s cats: pampered, ill-tempered beasts that had roamed freely in her chambers and that had been transported to obscure cat fairs in plush crates. She had always suspected her mother had done it to annoy Wycliffe, who had never ceased to comment on the inanity of keeping kitchen animals upstairs.
“The Egyptians mummified them,” Lady Hampshire said. “I have had the fortune of obtaining one such cat mummy from Dr. Carson—I presume you have heard of him?”
“I’m afraid not,” Lady Wycliffe said, looking repulsed.
It was the moment when something possessed Hattie to say: “Lady Lucie has a cat.”
“Oh?” Lady Hampshire said. And nothing more. Her beady eyes, however, were sweeping over Lucie from head to toe, as though she had only just noticed her.
Her mother leaned toward her, ever so slightly. “What breed?” she asked.
“I wouldn’t know,” Lucie said slowly, a little alarmed at having her mother leaning in on her. “She’s black. She’s a foundling.”
“Faith,” Professor Marlow said. “A barn cat—in the house?”
“A misplaced cat, rather,” Lucie said. “Her attitude is far too entitled for a cat of humble beginnings.”
The professor frowned, but her mother nodded, as though she found it a perfectly valid argument, and so Cecily began nodding along, too.
“Her name is Boudicca,” Lucie said, feeling Lady Salisbury’s prodding stare.
“After a belligerent pagan queen,” Professor Marlow said. “How droll.”
Lady Hampshire was still quietly assessing her.
“You are very trim, Lady Lucinda,” she now said, scrutinizing Lucie’s narrow waist. “Have you employed a tapeworm, by any chance?”
Her mind blanked. Was this a trick question? An insult? A jest?
“Excessive slimness in a female is usually a sign of a highly nervous disposition,” Professor Marlow remarked. “I recommend long, regular lie-downs.”
She was of a mind to do the man bodily harm with Lady Salisbury’s cane, but both Hattie and Catriona suddenly remembered they were urgently required at the croquet game, and whether they could be excused, and their arms looped through Lucie’s, left and right, and steered her away.
“Now,” Hattie said brightly as they headed toward the copse, “this went well.”
“Well?” Lucie said. “They loathed me. Tapeworms?”
“She was just trying to make conversation, Lucie.”
“She insinuated I have a parasite.”
“Some ladies ingest them to stay slender,” Hattie said earnestly. “A lot of ladies bond over dieting advice.”
“And yet I cannot see her asking my mother such a question.”
“No. She’d rather discuss hysterical wombs with her in front of a crowd,” Hattie said.
An unexpected giggle bubbled up in her throat. “Oh, Mother was not impressed.”
She glanced back over her shoulder. Her mother was still making conversation with Lady Salisbury. But she caught Lucie from the corner of her eye. Lucie held her gaze. So did the countess. The subtle connection lingered until Cecily leaned in close and drew Lady Wycliffe’s attention to herself.
“I think it was a success,” Catriona said. “You were seen having a conversation with influential people and, most importantly, your mother . . .”
“Look,” Hattie said. “Lord Peregrin is playing—he will let us join.”
Montgomery’s younger brother had already spotted their trio. He delayed his swing with the croquet mallet and raised a hand to where his hat would have been in a more formal setting. He was casual today in one of Oxford’s colorfully striped boater jackets, and his blond hair, lightened by the sun, was ruffled by the breeze.
Catriona suddenly became heavy on Lucie’s arm. A nervous flush had spread over her cheeks. “Perhaps I’d rather go and have some punch,” she muttered.
“You can’t,” Hattie muttered back. “He has already seen you.”
“My ladies, Miss Greenfield,” Lord Peregrin hollered, and as if to leave no doubt that he had seen them indeed, he gave a wave with the mallet, missing Lord Palmer’s curly head by a margin.
“Drat,” Catriona whispered.
It was a little bewildering, seeing her normally unflappable friend so flustered, but Lucie recalled that a few months ago, Catriona had taken Peregrin’s side during a tiff with the mighty Montgomery himself. She slowed, baffled. “Do you . . . like him?”
“Shhh,” hissed Catriona.
“He can’t hear us yet,” Hattie murmured; evidently, she was well-informed on the matter.
“It does not matter, anyway,” Catriona said, sounding glum. “He called me a good chap.”
Hattie came to an abrupt halt, her mouth an O of outrage. “He has done what?”
Catriona adjusted her glasses. “After the episode in the wine cellar, when he thanked me, he said I was a really good chap. Clearly, he does not class me as a female of the species.”
“The cad!”
Catriona sighed. “He’s hardly the first to do so. Onward.”
Pay him no mind, Lucie wanted to say. At nineteen, Lord Peregrin was wet behind the ears compared to Catriona’s three-and-twenty, and in any case, he was underservant of her brilliance. However, there was apparently, sadly, no logic to emotions pertaining to men. As they had approached the group of gentlemen, she had caught herself looking for a tall libertine with copper hair among them, despite his crimes being far more insulting than calling her chap.
She took Catriona’s hand and nodded at the players. “Will we have to feign ineptitude and miss all the goals?”
“Of course,” Hattie said cheerfully. “At least if you wish for one of these gentlemen to ask you to dance tonight. A waltz, wasn’t it? I
recommend Lord Palmer, he has light feet and a secure grip.”
“I despise having to hit a croquet ball at just the wrong angle.”
Catriona clasped her hand more tightly. “I shall win it for us,” she said softly. “I never dance.”
* * *
Tristan couldn’t recall a ball duller than this, and it had not even begun. Cecily hung on his arm, smelling and looking like a rose in a pink gown with rows of tassles and pleats. He was shadowed by Lucie’s taciturn mother and Tommy Tedbury, who held a grudge against him, and the constant presence of the trio felt more constricting than the knot of his bow tie, which was choking him unpleasantly ever since he had picked up Cecily and the countess from their suite.
As they crossed the Great Hall, a few chaps of the old Eton posse loitered in his path, tumblers in hand. Weston, Calthorpe, Addington, and MacGregor, from what he could tell at a glance, and they promptly cried his name with brandy-inspired enthusiasm.
He turned. “Tommy. May I entrust you with Ceci for the remainder of the way?”
He was already planting her gloved hand on his former playmate’s arm.
Thomas Tedbury gave him a sullen stare. “It’s hardly seemly to pass a lady off like a parcel, Ballentine.”
“I’d never consider her less than precious cargo,” Tristan said, and sauntered off toward the cluster of Etonians.
Their demeanor had hardly evolved since boarding school days; it was the same banter, the guffaws, the shoulder-slapping. The changes were on the surface; hairlines were receding, floridness advancing. Still the better company right now, all things considered.
“I would rib you about your pretty poetry,” Addington said, tipping his glass toward him, “but I’m not hankering after a knife in my back when I least expect it.” His grin didn’t touch his eyes. Addington had earned a proverbial knife or two in his back at Eton, because a younger boy’s only option to defend his place in a boarding school hierarchy was to become creative. And what Tristan had lacked in discipline, he had always more than adequately compensated with creativity.