by Diana Norman
She doubted it would help him even if she and Lady Judd were intimates. This wasn’t Boston where children of the two races played together—at least, until the approach of adolescence brought down the shutter between black and white.
Mrs Peplow had suggested to Dapifer in Makepeace’s presence that Josh be dressed in the costume and jewelled turban inflicted on other little black boys to be seen dancing attendance on their mistresses in the square. ‘It would make use of the child and add tone to Lady Dapifer’s equipage.’ Tone, her voice suggested, was otherwise lacking. In saying ‘no’ Makepeace’s tone suggested that what Mrs Peplow lacked was a kick up the arse. Later she asked Dapifer what became of those garish little boys when they grew up. He didn’t know.
On the matter of the Judds, Dapifer said that Sir Benjamin Judd was too unsure of his own social position to risk bolstering Makepeace’s. He was a Birmingham manufacturer made rich by the Seven Years’ War and had outlayed some of his money on a wife from the minor aristocracy, a baronetcy and a seat in the House of Commons.
Makepeace was drawn to Lady Judd because she didn’t conform to the rigid elegance of the rest of Grosvenor Square. A harassed-looking woman, she was invariably late emerging from her house to take her place in a carriage where Sir Benjamin impatiently awaited her, and when she did her appearance was never tidy. According to Fanny Cobb, Makepeace’s personal maid, the Judd household was unmitigated chaos.
But such warming inefficiency had to be regarded at a distance. Makepeace tried speaking on the one occasion when she had been on her doorstep at the same time Lady Judd had been on hers, but was ignored. Whether the un-neighbourliness was due to Sir Benjamin’s instructions, Lady Judd’s light blue noble blood or her loyalty to the first Lady Dapifer, Makepeace couldn’t tell. ‘Was she good friends with you-know-who?’
‘I doubt it,’ Dapifer had said. ‘The first Lady Dapifer was not a woman’s woman.’
So, nothing for it but to be ready for invitations when they arrived from elsewhere—if they ever did. Hence Mme Angloss.
‘Yes, I apologize for my wife’s hair, madame,’ Dapifer said, leaving the room. ‘A sore trial. No point in hiding it, though—you know my opinion on heads. Excuse me.’ He went out.
What were heads? And how did this female know his opinion on them?
Blast him, Makepeace thought, Mme Angloss dressed his wife.
He’d already been amazingly casual on this matter. ‘What’s wrong with the Yellow Room?’
‘It was hers.’
‘We’ll have it changed then.’
Immediately there was Signor D’Amelia, tall, sinuous and, it appeared, to rooms what Mme Angloss was to fashion.
‘What is your inclination, dear lady?’ Not, his expression added, that it mattered; he was the artist.
She was lost. ‘Clean, I guess, and no fleas.’
She could have said nothing better, it seemed. Signor D’Amelia was much diverted and spread the word that the second Lady Dapifer was a wit. His conversation revealed that he, too, had worked for Catty Dapifer.
‘He’ll think you’re stacking up wives to employ him.’
Her husband shrugged. ‘I understand he’s the best in his trade. She had a gift for finding the best. And the most expensive.’
He couldn’t see why Makepeace should mind employing the excellent also. Considering it sensibly, neither did she—yet she did; she might have no style herself but she’d be damned if she’d have it thought she was aping Catty Dapifer’s.
Luckily, Signor D’Amelia and Mme Angloss were prepared to create one for her.
D’Amelia’s sketches for the bedroom and its ante-chamber were lovely in themselves; the gold carpet remained but around it was a restrained freshness of pearl-grey plaster panels picked out in white, unfrilled, gold-threaded white hangings to the bed, and white pieces by Sheraton. ‘I see purity, purity, purity, lady, only the colour of your hair to blaze it.’
Dapifer said: ‘Very nun-like. I’ll feel like a ravisher in it.’ He handed the sketches back to her. ‘I can hardly wait.’
However, the one most appreciative of Signor D’Amelia’s art was Josh. The boy hung over the drawings and kept stroking the paintbrushes with which D’Amelia made alterations as if they were alive until he was allowed a sheet of paper and a brush to himself.
Mme Angloss was seeing purity as well. The room frothed with white, greys, creams, drabs, all the colours of a storm-tossed sea except green. ‘Line,’ she said, pointing at Makepeace but addressing Susan, ‘line is everysing. We follow client, not fashion—I spit me of fashion. La mode is what I say it is. What is it we ’ave here?’
‘Hair?’ ventured Susan.
Mme Angloss made a ‘taa’ with her teeth; hair was obvious. ‘Skin,’ she said, dragging Makepeace’s bodice down, ‘boules de neige.’ She patted Makepeace’s head: ‘Height.’ Then Makepeace’s cheek: ‘Voici la dame posée, bien sérieusement. Not a furbelow will I have, no falbalas.’ She snatched a luscious sample of ruching from Makepeace’s reluctant hand and stamped on it. ‘Nothing jolie for zis one. Pretty? I spit on it.’
‘You’re absolutely right, madame,’ said Susan. Makepeace sighed.
The preliminary sketches, which Mme Angloss scrawled in chalks on a drawing board rested on the seamstress’s back, were of breathtaking, simple, sweeping elegance.
Low, uncluttered necklines, tight sleeves over a plain cuff instead of the usual shower of lace, less emphasis on pannier hips and more on the bustle—‘I create a new ’oop for the world.’
If it was obvious how Mme Angloss earned her reputation, it was equally obvious how she made her fortune; Makepeace would require morning dresses, afternoon dresses, evening gowns, ball gowns, nightwear, wraps, coats—each one requiring a different fan, gloves or mittens—peignoirs, hoods, shoes, boots, slippers, stockings, on all of which Mme Angloss took a commission.
Oatmeals, greys, donkeys, olives and fawns highlighted the cream-white chalk with which Mme Angloss represented Makepeace’s skin. Caps—the ‘heads’—were almost an insult to the word, tiny strips or mere filets on a simple chignon.
‘For ze daytime. For ze evenings, zees. . .’ Deep, grape-dark purples, leonine tawny, bronzes—a stand-up-and-fight challenge to an era of pastels.
‘You . . . I’ll be noticed,’ protested Makepeace.
For the first time, Mme Angloss addressed her directly. ‘Madame, you are in a situation zat is noticeable all ways. Be ze mouse and zey laugh, ha-ha. Show panache and zey are angry, ooh-hoo, but I tell you, madame . . . I, Jeanne-Marie Angloss, tell you . . . wiz zees creations in two months all ladies scream to wear what you wear.’
This from the woman who’d dressed the exquisite dresser. Makepeace looked at her carefully. ‘All ladies?’
Mme Angloss’s lips curved very slightly. ‘All.’
‘Go ahead.’
They had a scuffle over the riding-habit.
‘I cain’t ride.’ Apart from days bumping along on a mule behind her mother during her father’s excursions into the wilderness, Makepeace had been glad to be too poor for equestrianism. In her view, horses stung people.
‘And what has that to do wiz it? Brewer, fetch ze ’abit we take to Marchioness Londonderry.’
‘I ain’t dressing for a horse that ain’t there.’
‘Ze horse does not ’ave to be zere.’ Mme Angloss’s point was that a riding-habit enabled Makepeace to wear black, a colour otherwise reserved for funerals. ‘An’ zat hair was made for black.’
So much was apparent when Makepeace, still protesting, was put in the Marchioness’s habit and looked at herself in the pier-glass.
There was a silence, then Susan said: ‘Guess you better take up riding.’
Makepeace released her breath. ‘Guess I had.’
The sound of wheels stopping at the house took her and Susan to the window. A closed, unmarked carriage had drawn up at the steps and a man was being bowed out of it.
‘D’you know hi
m?’
‘Wish I did.’
Mme Angloss from behind them said: ‘It is Lord Rockingham.’
‘He. . .buthe. . .’
‘Indeed,’ said Mme Angloss, markedly unimpressed, ‘I dress ’is lady.’
For a moment, it madly crossed Makepeace’s mind that this man, who had replaced the dreadful Grenville as Prime Minister, had come seeking Mme Angloss; it was barely less astonishing that he was calling on—not summoning, but calling on—her husband.
‘Now, madame, may I recommend one to create ze parfum for you, M. Goodbody—frangipane, per’aps—and for the hair M. L’Estoret . . . ’
By this time, Makepeace would have agreed to Torquemada and the consultation continued until a footman appeared to say her husband required her presence downstairs. She was still in the Marchioness’s riding-habit and, if she must meet a great man, not displeased to be seen in it. Susan went with her as far as Dapifer’s office door. ‘Shoulders soft now, small steps, curtsey like I showed you. First it’s “my lord marquis” and after that “your lordship”.’
Susan had been with Mme Angloss a week and was a quick learner.
Dapifer wet his lips on seeing his wife. They exchanged a glance of private, sexual glee. ‘Where’s the horse?’
‘Left it in the parlour.’
‘Your lordship, may I present my wife? Makepeace, the Marquis of Rockingham.’
‘The pleasure is mine, Lady Dapifer.’ He made it sound as if it were. ‘I am sorry to delay your ride.’
He was surprisingly young, mid-thirtyish, and with all the attraction of power, riches and a good tailor. Dapifer had said of him that he was on the side of the angels, which meant that he was a Whig and a liberal Whig.
‘You have no objection, Sir Philip, to my questioning your wife?’
‘Just don’t ask her to marry you, Charles, she gets violent.’
They sat down.
‘You want something to drink, your lordship?’ Makepeace asked, trying hard. ‘Tea? Brandy?’ She explained kindly: ‘The footman gets it.’
‘Thank you, no. This is a flying and very surreptitious visit. Lady Dapifer, as an American your views on the situation in our esteemed colony would be valuable. Your husband tells me nobody is better informed on the thinking of the . . . er . . . man in the Boston street. You believe the Stamp Act should be repealed?’
‘It surely should.’
‘So do I. There are . . . shall we say, elements, however, who will oppose a repeal tooth and nail, thinking it would be regarded as weakness.’
‘Ain’t weakness to admit a mistake, that’s strength.’ She liked Rockingham; he didn’t really want her opinion—she thought that he’d merely requested it out of courtesy to her husband. But she saw appreciation in his dark eyes—definitely, she must wear a riding-habit a lot—and an opportunity to do something for decent Americans.
She leaned forward to tap his knee. ‘Your lordship, you’re ruling us from three thousand miles away. Ain’t easy for you. Harder for us. We was doing fine but then all your acts come in, taking away our work, taxing us, telling us what to do in our own land.’
She would never forgive Sugar Bart Stubbs, never, but she understood the situation that had given rise to bastards like him.
‘See, your lordship, we got “elements” too and you gave ’em their chance to turn nasty. You want to keep ruling? Ease off the rein. Treat us like we was adult people. We’d trade with you happy enough iffen you just stop telling us how.’
It occurred to her, too late, that real society ladies weren’t supposed to lecture Prime Ministers on politics. She thought her husband, watching Rockingham, seemed amused. Well, he’d asked her opinion and she’d given it.
The Marquis said: ‘And Sam Adams?’
She was enchanted that he knew the name, and smiled. ‘You listen to Sam Adams more and a darn sight less to Lieutenant-Governor Hutchinson and we’ll all do just fine.’
Dazzled, Rockingham asked: ‘And iffen we don’t?’
Her smile faded. ‘You got a revolution on your hands. It’s war. And I don’t see how you can win—not against a whole continent.’
‘I don’t either.’ He got up, his face suddenly older. Perhaps he really had wanted to know what she thought and she’d confirmed a lot of other confirmations for him. ‘Thank you, Lady Dapifer.’
‘You’re welcome.’
Rockingham turned to Dapifer: ‘And how is young Ffoulkes?’
‘Stoical.’ The day after their arrival in England, Dapifer had travelled to Eton to see his ward. ‘He will be spending the holidays with us in Hertfordshire.’
On the way out the Marquis kissed her hand. To Dapifer, he said: ‘Well, Pip, your sybil is not only beautiful, she is honest and wise.’
‘Thank you, Charles. I know.’
They stood together on the steps to watch the carriage pull away. ‘Sybil?’ Makepeace said. ‘Ain’t good on names, is he?’
‘Oh, I think he’ll remember yours.’
The purpose of the call had been to ask Dapifer to go secretly to Bath, there to persuade Mr William Pitt to attend the House of Commons and speak for the repeal of the Stamp Act.
‘Pretty speaker, is he, this Mr Pitt?’ Makepeace asked.
‘Very. If anybody can magic the House and the country into seeing sense, he can.’
‘Hokey. Why’s he need persuading? And why you?’ Her husband had tried to give Makepeace insight into the politics of England but she had ended up confused; it had been more clear-cut in Boston. Grenville—who’d lost office—was a Whig. Lord Rockingham—who’d gained it—was a Whig. She said: ‘Most everybody in Government’s a Whig and nobody agrees with anybody, lessen they agree with the Tories.’
‘Exactly.’
‘But why you? You ain’t in Parliament.’
‘I am what I believe Aaron’s friends in the theatre would call a behind-the-scenes man. Rockingham knows that Mr Pitt, though gouty and sulking in his tent at the moment, trusts me. And I am a very persuasive fellow.’
‘Don’t I know it.’ She was proud of him. It kept surprising her that this unremarkable, gloomy-seeming man with whom she shared a bed should not only be not overlooked by this showy world—for grandeur of dress and manner, Rockingham, all velvet and lace, had put him in the shade, even Hutchinson back in Boston had put him in the shade—but be valued by it.
She said fondly: ‘I don’t know why you ain’t a marquis.’
‘Like Mr Pitt, I don’t relish a peerage. I accepted the baronetcy only to please the first Lady Dapifer.’
Makepeace never commented when he said things like that; it wasn’t her place to run the woman down. However, she could exult that big guns were being lined up on their side that could blow the exquisite one’s boat out of the water.
Mistress Catty ain’t got a Prime Minister in hers, she thought.
Dapifer was to be away at least a week. Since Susan would be following the peripatetic Mme Angloss about her business and Aaron, to his joy, was about to join a London acting company in which Dapifer had procured a place for him, it meant that Makepeace must be left in authority at Dapifer House without allies other than Betty, Josh and Tantaquidgeon.
Robert was accompanying his master, which was a relief; she’d be free of his exaggerated fawning at least. The kindness the valet had shown to Aaron and herself on the Lord Percy, she decided, had been partly because he had a quick sympathy for wounded creatures but also because she and Dapifer had been estranged. Now, once again, her position in his master’s affection was making him jealous.
Word that she’d taught Mrs Peplow a lesson had spread and the servants now treated her civilly, if with a coldness that stopped just short of insolence. Their resentment, she saw, wasn’t because she was an interloper but because she was an interloper of no higher class than their own. Catty Dapifer had been a capricious employer, sometimes over-generous, sometimes cruel, but they had expected nothing else from her—she was quality. Makepeace was not. Cru
el or kind, she would never make the grade that the tortuous snobbery of London servants demanded.
Given a free hand, she would have dismissed the lot and hired a new household with which she could have rapport, but the Dapifers were an old and traditionalist family, their servants were nearly all men and women who’d inherited their post from a mother or father who had inherited theirs. Makepeace considered it a system that had led to laziness and corruption, but Dapifer refused to let her change it. ‘Leave things alone. When my great-great-great-grandfather was killed at the battle of Marston Moor the soldier who tended him while he was dying was Jack’s great-great-grandfather.’
Jack was the decrepit senior footman and Makepeace privately thought that, if blood ran true, his ancestor had plundered the corpse.
She’d been studying household accounts that were alarming. Jack had already retired on a Dapifer pension but, returning to work, now received pension and wages plus two new uniforms a year. His was the most glaring example of Dapifer lenity but the case of other servants ran it close.
‘Yes, but why’s he need a powder allowance? His hair’s white already.’
‘Procrustes, if you wish to make economies, do. But we’ve trouble enough with America without you stirring up revolution at home.’
Indulgence, she decided, was her husband’s weakness. With less concern for others’ welfare and more for his own, he would not, for instance, have spared his first wife the indignity of bringing her before the English courts as an adulteress—and look what that had led to.
On the other hand, it had led him to the Roaring Meg. Fate was a mighty funny thing. She’d have to do what she could.
When Dapifer had gone, she began to do it, poring over the accounts with Betty. Makepeace had hoped her old nurse could assume her former occupation in the Dapifer kitchens but Betty had taken one look at the enormous charcoal range, the wet and dry larders, copper fountains, ice moulds, dripper, hastener, mills, had studied the menus of previous banquets—‘A man-of-war made of pasteboard to float on a great charger in a sea of salt to have trains of gunpowder to fire at eggshell boats filled with confection and rosewater’—and confessed herself beaten. ‘That ain’t cookin’,’ she said, ‘that’s archi’ture and I cain’t do it.’