by Tonya Bolden
Victoria thought she saw a hint of a smile when Miss Hardwick responded, “Perhaps there is hope for you yet.”
Miss Hardwick returned to her big desk and to her black bag. Out came two books. She placed one on her desk, handed the other to Victoria.
“We will start with this. Let it be your Bible. Title page, please. Read it.”
Victoria turned to the page. Her heart sank.
“The—The Ladies’ Book of—”
“E-ti-ket.”
“E-ti-ket.” Victoria repeated hitting the t and the k as hard as Miss Hardwick had.
“Do you know the meaning of ‘etiquette’?”
“No, ma’am.”
“Your answer is insufficient.”
“But, ma’am, I truly don’t—”
“You should have replied along the lines of this: ‘No, Miss Hardwick, I do not know the meaning of the word “etiquette.”’ ”
Victoria lowered her head, but only for an instant. Looking up at Miss Hardwick she said, “No, Miss Hardwick, I do not know the meaning of the word ‘etiquette.’ ”
Again a hint of a smile.
“Etiquette is polite behavior, decorum, good form.”
She lost Victoria after “polite behavior.”
“Continue reading.”
“and Manual of—”
“From the beginning.”
Victoria cleared her throat. “The Ladies’ Book of Etiquette, and Manual of Politeness.”
“Continue.”
“A Complete Hand Book for the Use of the Lady in Polite Society.”
“Continue.”
“Containing Full Directions for Correct Manners, Dress, De— Depot—”
“Deportment.” Miss Hardwick was pacing again.
“Deportment.”
“Do you know the meaning of the word ‘deportment’?”
“No, ma—I mean, no, Miss Hardwick, I do not know the meaning of the word ‘deportment.’ ”
“Deportment is how one carries oneself—in private and in public. Does one move, sit, stand, like a queen or a country bumpkin?”
Victoria nodded rapidly, keeping her head up.
“Continue,” commanded the Griffin.
“Deportment and Conversation; Rules for the Duties of Both Hostess and Guest in Morning Receptions, Dinner Companies—”
“Sit up straight. Hold the book twelve to fourteen inches from your face and keep your head up.”
Victoria made the adjustments, wondering if “morning receptions” was a fancy way of saying “breakfast.”
“Continue.”
“Dinner Companies, Visiting, Evening Parties and Balls; A Complete Guide for Letter Writing and Cards of Compliment; Hints on Managing Servants, on the Preservation of Health, and on Accomplishments.”
“Is something wrong?”
“No, Miss Hardwick.” Victoria took a deep breath, continued reading. “And Also Useful Receipts for the Complexion, Hair, And with Hints for the Care of the Wardrobe. By Florence Hartley.”
Wardrobe as in a piece of furniture or clothes?
At the bottom of the page Victoria saw that this was not Miss Florence Hartley’s only book. She had also written the Ladies Hand Book of Fancy and Ornamental Work.
Victoria’s heart was in her mouth. Will I have to read that book too?
“Now turn to Contents.”
Victoria tried to steady her hands as she turned pages. She gulped when she reached Contents. “You want me to read all this too?”
“Victoria, your question is wrongly put. What you should have asked is this: ‘Miss Hardwick, do you wish for me to read all of this as well?’ In polite society it is bad form to be stingy with words.”
Victoria took another deep breath. “Miss Hardwick, do you wish for me to read all of this as well?”
“There is no need for that, Victoria. However, I would like you to review the contents.”
Victoria caught herself slouching. She straightened her back, steadied her hand as she stared at the Contents page.
“Conversation” was followed by “Dress” was followed by “Traveling.” On and on it went.
“How to Behave at a Hotel” … “Visiting—Etiquette for the Hostess” … “Visiting—Etiquette for the Guest” … “Table Etiquette” … “Conduct in the Street” … “Letter Writing” … “On a Young Lady’s Conduct when Contemplating Marriage …”
The book was over three hundred pages long. Victoria had a monstrous headache. It wasn’t that she had never read books that long, but they were novels, biographies, autobiographies, not books crammed with rules.
“Let it be your Bible,” Miss Hardwick said again. She then proceeded to inform Victoria of her schedule.
Before Miss Hardwick dismissed Victoria she made her hold out her hands.
Palms up.
Palms down.
“You have been in service.”
Victoria nodded.
“The feet, please?”
Victoria took off her stockings, her shoes.
Heel up.
Heel down.
Heel up.
Heel down.
Victoria was awash with shame as Miss Hardwick inspected her feet.
“I see that you have been allowed to go about barefoot,” said the Griffin with raised eyebrows. Victoria felt like a mangy cur dog.
When dismissed, Victoria couldn’t get her stockings and shoes on quickly enough, couldn’t get to her room fast enough. Once inside, back pressed against the closed door she burst into tears, clamped a hand over her mouth.
Get ahold of yourself!
She couldn’t.
Victoria wrapped her arms around herself when the tears subsided. Limply, listlessly she walked over to the narrow window.
Dorcas Vashon had instructed her to keep the curtains drawn always. And she did, but occasionally she peeked out, as she did now.
A tubby man in a brown sack coat and brown pants and wearing a broad-brimmed hat walked briskly past a lanky lad leading a pony cart loaded with melons.
Farther down the street, a woman in a dingy check gingham dress was scolding a little girl.
Next door, a wide, squat woman was scrubbing three front steps.
Laughter rose from the street below. Hearty laughter.
From afar steamboat whistles and honks, horses in a trot.
Victoria wondered about the people she saw on the street. Was the tubby man a butcher? Baker? Had the lad’s family grown those melons? What had the little girl done to make the woman in the dingy check gingham so cross? Was the wide, squat woman the Missus of the house or a servant? Whoever they were, Victoria envied them. They were out and about, living.
They didn’t appear to have a worry in the world about their deportment and e-ti-ket.
FILLING UP TOO FASTLY
The hushed house had more routine than Miss Abby’s.
Rise at six o’clock, followed by breakfast at seven o’clock, followed by lessons—etiquette, elocution, deportment—followed by tea at two, followed by fifteen minutes of walking at a moderate pace in the backyard, followed by more lessons—penmanship and poetry recitation—followed by calisthenics in the backyard, followed by forty-five minutes in her bedroom in quiet contemplation, followed by lessons on the waltz, the two-step, followed by …
Daily, along with newspapers, Victoria had to read an assigned passage from Ladies’ Book of Etiquette. And there was Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management; Comprising Information for the Mistress, Housekeeper, Cook, Kitchen-Maid, Butler, Footman, Coachman, Valet, Upper and Under House-Maids, Lady’s-Maid, Maid-of-All-Work, Laundry-Maid, Nurse and Nurse-Maid, Monthly, Wet, and Sick Nurses, Etc. Etc. Also …
Aloud in the schoolroom, Victoria had to read sections of another Beeton book: Beeton’s Housewife’s Treasury of Domestic Information: Comprising Complete and Practical Instructions on the House and Its Furniture, Artistic Decoration, Economy, Toilet, Children—
There was that word again!
Etiquette.
Followed by Domestic and Fancy Needlework, Dressmaking and Millinery, and All Other Household Matters: With Every Requisite Direction to Secure the Comfort, Elegance, and Prosperity of the Home.
The fact that the book was “profusely illustrated” did nothing for Victoria’s spirits. When she first scanned the list of illustrations she might as well have been reading a foreign language for the most part.
“Air Brick.”
“Bed of Ware, The Great.”
“Cantilevers Supporting a Balcony.”
“Charlton House, Kent.”6
This second book of Mrs. Beeton was more than a thousand pages.
Thank heavens the Spencerian Key to Practical Penmanship was under two hundred pages. “Position gives power,” it stated. “Good penmanship requires an easy, convenient, and healthful position.”7
Every weekend Victoria had to read a book from the schoolroom’s frightening shelves.
Anna Karenina … Middlemarch … Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea … Black Beauty … The Mystery of Edwin Drood … The Way We Live Now …
Inexplicably petrified as she stared at the bookshelf on Miss Hardwick’s first Friday, Victoria couldn’t pick a book. So much choice was mind-boggling.
“She who hesitates is lost!” snapped Miss Hardwick, standing behind Victoria. The Griffin plucked a book from the shelves and thrust it into Victoria’s hands.
Bleak House by Charles Dickens.
Victoria’s mouth fell open. That book was so thick, heavy. More than eight hundred pages long.
Lessons on math, history, geography. Needlework. Cooking lessons too. Victoria was most on edge when made to set the dining table.
Knife. Spoon. Fork. That’s all she had known at that house on Minis Street. At Miss Abby’s too, except there she had learned about butter knives and parfait spoons. Now she had to deal with a dizzying, daunting list, a new deluge of rules.
To the left of the plate: short fork, the salad fork.
“One inch from the table’s edge, if you please, like the plate.”
Then the longer fork—the dinner fork.
To the right of the plate: long dinner knife—
“Blade facing the plate, please,” instructed Miss Hardwick through gritted teeth.
Then the—
“One inch from the table’s edge!” the Griffin huffed.
Teaspoon.
Soup spoon.
Parallel to the table’s edge: dessert spoon and dessert fork.
Left of the dinner plate a bread plate with a bread knife upon it.
Upper right of the plate: water glass, wine glass.
Victoria fought back tears when Miss Hardwick said, “This is the setting for a simple dinner.”
What other kinds of dinners are there?
“For formal affairs …”
“Between the salad fork and the dinner fork—” Victoria paused, determined to get it right. “The fork about the size of a salad fork only with three prongs—”
Even when she got it right she was wrong.
“Tines,” Miss Hardwick corrected. “Tines.”
“Tines,” Victoria repeated, upper lip atremble.
“And the name of this fork?”
“Fish fork.”
“The dessert spoon and fork above the plate, slightly to the left, making room for a place card,” instructed Miss Hardwick. “And if both coffee and tea are to be served …”
More formal meant more glasses too. Added to the water goblet …
Some nights Victoria couldn’t sleep for the clatter in her head—pastry server, bonbon server, stuffing spoon, fish serving knife, fish serving fork, salad servers, asparagus server, sardine tongs, lobster fork, lobster pick, cheese scoop, sugar shell—
Sterling silver versus silver plate. Bone-handled, pearl-handled, onyx—
And every mistake put her in a panic, left her sick inside.
Forgetting the fish knife.
Mixing up the butter knife and the butter spreader.
Failing to align the utensils with the plate.
Confusing the lemon fork with the oyster fork.
Putting down the wrong soup spoon—
“Round-bowled for cream soup, oval for clear,” Miss Hardwick corrected one day with a huge sigh of disgust. “Abandon all hope, I say,” she added under her breath, then to Victoria, “What soup is on tonight’s menu?”
“Consommé Robespierre is on tonight’s menu, Miss Hardwick.”
“And does Consommé Robespierre contain any cream?”
“No, Miss Hardwick, Consommé Robespierre contains no cream.”
“Therefore, Victoria, which is the correct soup spoon for tonight’s supper?”
“For tonight’s supper the correct soup spoon is the oval soup spoon, Miss Hardwick.” Now Victoria knew how Binah felt. She couldn’t hold on to all this information, all the details. Her head was filling up too fastly.
Ma Clara had always told Victoria how bright she was, and Victoria had always prided herself on her brains, on being smart.
But smart next to who—?
She meant whom?
Binah?
Victoria would give anything to be doing simple things.
Reading Binah a story.
Preparing Ma Clara’s foot soak.
She missed Binah’s carefree ways, Ma Clara’s stories.
Miss Abby was on the strict side but nowhere near as demanding as the Griffin.
Life was so much easier in Forest City.
The Blue Willow dishes Victoria and Dorcas Vashon had been eating from was the nicest china Victoria had ever seen, but after the arrival of the Griffin they dined on dishes that belonged in Buckingham Palace.
Heavy crystal glasses.
One set of dinner plates had pink roses on its border. Another yellow pansies. A third was rimmed in gold.
Most intriguing was one set of breakfast dishes. Bright white with green dragons and phoenixes. The way they swirled around the edge of the plates, the middle of the teacups, Victoria was betwixt and between as to whether they were engaged in a dance or a chase.
And a green phoenix? Whenever Victoria came across any mention of a phoenix it was red. For a phoenix was a fire bird, rising from ashes. Reborn. New. Stronger.
PÄ-ˌTĀ-Də-ˌFWÄ-ˈGRÄ
More bewildering was the food, especially dinners.
Up from the basement now came feasts, a daunting array of dishes, many of which gave Victoria a mumble mouth when she first tried to pronounce them.
Like Consommé Robespierre.
Chateaubriand, Potatoes Lyonnaise, Charlotte Russe, Roasted Tongue, Galantine of Game, Venison Chops.
While Victoria’s taste buds were getting accustomed to strange new dishes, Dorcas Vashon was usually content with a bowl of soup and a salad, a plate of roasted vegetables, or succotash.
“If you don’t mind my asking, Miss Dorcas, why is it that you do not eat meat?” Victoria ventured to ask one day.
“More healthful for me, my dear.”
Ham Timbales.
Timbales à la Rothschild.
Baked Salmon with Sauce Hollandaise.
Broiled Quail.
Roast Canvas-Back Duck.
Terrapin, Stewed à la Willards.
Back home Victoria had only known oysters fried and raw. In Baltimore she learned of Scalloped Oysters, Pickled Oysters, Oysters au Gratin, Oysters à la Poulette.
“Pä-ˌtā-də-ˌfwä-ˈgrä.”8 Miss Hardwick had her say that over and over until she mastered the term for a fancy paste that tasted a lot like the liverwurst Mamma loved.
Victoria loathed the taste that asparagus left in her mouth. She was sickened by that gelatinous salmon mold.
What she would give for a meal of Limpin’ Susan or Frogmore Stew. At times her mouth watered for a plate of rice and redeye gravy. Some days, oh, how she ached to be on Miss Abby’s back steps with Binah and a bucket of steamed crabs—the two eating themselves silly, their
mouths and hands dripping with butter and tasty crab juices, their bare feet swinging in the breeze.
“No bare feet.” That was another of Miss Hardwick’s rules. “Not even when you are in your bedroom.”
Every night before slipping into bed Victoria had to rub her feet and hands with a strange concoction so much less lovely than Ma Clara’s balm. Victoria then had to put her hands and feet in small muslin drawstring sacks.
Reading, writing, arithmetic. The proper way to sit, stand, talk, laugh, curtsy, hold opera glasses, retrieve a handkerchief from a purse, good topics of conversation, bad topics of conversation, how to sneeze, how to identify fine china, how to fashion her hair into a pompadour.
How to walk with purpose, how to stroll, how to hand a servant a calling card, how to—
Miss Hardwick’s overriding, ultimate rule was this: “Whether you are out for a stroll or in the privacy of your boudoir, always conduct yourself as if you are being observed.”
Then came the day when Miss Hardwick marched Victoria to the parlor, now crowded with trunks that had been delivered just that morning.
Miss Hardwick plucked dresses, skirts, and blouses from one trunk in particular.
“Arms out, please.”
She piled clothes onto Victoria’s outstretched arms.
She did the same with a few stunning gowns from a different trunk.
From the smallest trunk Miss Hardwick picked out several pairs of shoes. With those in hand she ordered Victoria to follow her up to the classroom, where she began to school her on what to wear when out walking, for a dinner party, for a picnic, when invited for tea, what to pack for a time in the country, what to …
Lessons, too, on fabrics, styles, and technical terms for different parts of an outfit. And Miss Hardwick now had Victoria reading Godey’s fashion magazine with engravings of women smartly dressed, women who seemed very aware of being observed.
Victoria did enjoy playing dress-up, relished the challenge of choosing the right pair of shoes for such and such dress. Right purse. Right hat. What colors suited her best. Playing dress-up was the only sunshine in her lonely life.