A Lady in Disguise

by Sandra Byrd

“It’s not autumn!” I declared.

  “Put on the dress, please, miss,” Charlotte said.

  Gladly!

  I slipped into the dress with Mother Martha’s help, and the girls sighed.

  “Oh, it’s . . . it’s perfect,” Charlotte said. “Even the Maid side is perfect.”

  “It’s my first masquerade ball as attendee,” I said. “I’ve never had my own disguise before—imagine that!”

  “We’ve all been around masquerades our entire lives,” Mother Martha stated.

  Well, I guessed that to be true. She’d been in theater, too.

  She continued somewhat strangely, her voice almost warning. “Pride can masquerade as standards; control can masquerade as a concern. Self-righteousness masquerades as religion.”

  The room was silent with that unexpected truth. I stepped on the dressing dais and looked in the mirror. The room was quiet with a holy hush. The left of me was costumed as the young daughter left without a protector—no loving father to watch over her. She worked hard and hoped for the best.

  The right side of me was a fairy tale, gauzy water-kissed fabric that rolled and curled like a frothy wave every which way I turned, perfectly accented by crystal beads. I turned toward Mother Martha for approval.

  “You’re beautiful,” she said. I held back the tears. It was almost the voice of my mother. Almost.

  “It’s interesting.” I tried to bring the conversation back to where I could control my feelings. “Women at these balls are always told how beautiful they are, but in truth, it’s the hair and the jewels and the gowns and the shoes that have been made by rough hands, hands like ours, hands that struggle to put food in our mouths and find a blanket to sleep under that make them beautiful. Lady Tolfee shall not be pleased if I upstage her.”

  “But you will,” Mother Martha answered. “Because it’s not her night. It’s yours.”

  “Mine?”

  She reached for Little Women and read out a passage: “Love is a great beautifier.”

  I gasped. “I am not in love!”

  “Yes you are, yes you are!” the girls shouted. “You are!”

  CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX

  I arrived on time at Tolfee House. I raced up the back stairs—fitting, I thought, for a woman who would be half maid that night. But I’d enter the ball by the front stairs. I suppressed a smile.

  “My dear! How shall I do without you?” Lady Tolfee asked, and her lady’s maid and I helped her into her Fire and Ice gown. Better than I’d fare without her, I thought. There was no doubt she would be the stunning center of attention. She put me, just a little, in mind of Cinderella’s stepmother with her overbearing manner.

  “I shall miss dressing you,” I whispered to Lady Mary as I helped fasten her gown.

  “And I shall miss you.” She took my hand for a moment. “I know what it’s like to be on Mother’s dark side.”

  After they had left, I helped myself into my gown, because I had lost Lady Tolfee’s favor. I had lost her lady’s maid’s favor as well. But Ruby had done my hair perfectly, and I’d had it held with a scarf till I arrived. It was a beautiful swirl of blond. Mother Martha had crocheted me a fine net studded with crystal beads, and they caught the light everywhere. I knew I would make an impression. There was only one person I cared to impress. I made my way down the back staircase, and then walked into the ballroom. The murmurs started immediately.

  “Perhaps she should have dressed half as a copper and half as a criminal,” someone whispered cruelly behind my back. “Seems like it would have been easy enough to puzzle out that costume.” The voice was a woman’s. I did not receive a warm welcome from many others; they had, apparently, been informed of my father’s troubles, or considered me otherwise ill-suited for present company. I turned and smiled at her. She smiled, thinly, and slunk away.

  I turned back and then I saw him. His hair curled over the collar of his costume, which I could not completely make out. Within a moment, he took my hand. “Lord Lockwood,” I said.

  He grinned. “If you’re not going to call me Lumpy, then perhaps Thomas will do.”

  I echoed the sentiment he’d expressed months ago, quietly. “Thomas will most certainly do.”

  He swept me into his arms, possessively, and we joined a dance just about to begin. I wanted to melt into his arms without reserve. But there were unresolved concerns. I held back just a little.

  “That is a magnificent gown,” he said. “The fabric is lovely. I was so disappointed to see the fabric I’d gifted to you appear on Lady Tolfee for the Silver and Gold Ball.”

  I nearly tripped. “You’d sent that?”

  He smoothly kept me in the dance. His hand on my back fitted perfectly, like the hand of a musician caressing the neck of a cello. We were two pieces, a flawless fit. “Yes.”

  “Why didn’t you tell me?” I asked. “I should never have parted with it.”

  The orchestra played, and the music expanded through the room and then exhaled outward—the windows and great doors had all been opened to the street to let in the breeze.

  “I knew the gift was too dear for a man to gift to a lady he was not formally attached to. And yet it was so beautiful; your hair is so blond it may be spun silver. I wanted you to have it. I wanted you to love it, and wear it, and to see you in it.”

  I sighed. “I did love it. I’d wanted to keep it. I suppose I should have followed my instincts and done so. Mrs. W convinced me I should sell it and donate the profits.”

  His hand flexed. “It was Judas who said the perfume used to anoint Christ should have been sold and the money given to the poor.”

  I pondered this truth for a moment, till he spoke again, quietly.

  “I’m sorry you had to hear that comment about your father,” he said. “Just before I came to take you from the foot of the stairs.”

  “My costume,” I said. “You overheard.” He nodded. The dance was nearly over.

  “I had heard the rumors, of course, but would not engage in gossip with you about something so hurtful. Has anyone spoken about it of late?”

  “The son of . . . my father’s inspector friend has. He feels as though, well, as though he should protect me.”

  Thomas grimaced. At the idea of another man protecting me? Or because he felt I needed protection? “I see. If there was nothing there to prove, then it will die down again. In time, people will forget.”

  The music stopped, and I pulled away from him. “Do you believe he was guilty?”

  He held my gaze. “Do you?”

  Did I? I slowly shook my head. I did not want him to think ill of Papa, either. But I needed help. “I do not believe my father was guilty. But I admit I do not know for certain.” I did not tell him, of course, but that was the first night I had left the picture of the smiling young woman at home in the bedroom cubbyhole. I hadn’t wanted her company or reminder.

  “I’ve followed every lead presented that might clear his name. I’ve made enquiries about something bad happening on King Street, which my father was involved with in some manner. My solicitor shut me down. Should I pursue it?”

  His face grew hard. “Do nothing to put yourself at risk,” he said.

  “I won’t,” I said. Think you I am no stronger than my sex / Being so father’d . . . I knew I’d follow whatever leads might bring me to clearing my father’s name. We were in the midst of the crowd again, so I lowered my voice.

  “There is one other path I might pursue. I have some certificates, investment certificates, of Father’s. Could you, would you look at them sometime and let me know if you believe them to be, well, legitimate? I know you are familiar with such things.”

  “Yes, of course. As the Season is concluding and Jamie’s medical treatments are completed for a few months, I’d planned to leave London tomorrow. Duty, not passion, calls.” He grinned at me. “I will return by Monday, the twenty-fourth of September, when I have some transactions to conclude. Will that be soon enough?

  “Certainl
y. Thank you.” I had an overwhelming amount of sewing to do and could not imagine there would be any reason to press the case sooner; Collingsworth had already viewed and returned them. I wanted to have the answer, and then again I did not. There was a reason, after all, that Inspector Collingsworth had taken, and then held, the certificates, a reason I could not discern by reading them.

  It was time for us to change dance partners. I danced with a portly man who was dressed half hawk, half dove. I complimented him on his costume. He complimented me on mine, and he said with many of the matrons present he felt more mouse than hawk, and we laughed. We danced near a couple, and I noticed a huge ruby ring on that man’s forefinger; I’d seen it before. Where?

  Oh, yes. At the dinner at Thomas’s club.

  My next partner, too, was pleasant and funny. He had the dramatic happy/sad hypocrite masks on.

  “What a clever costume,” I said.

  He looked at me and grinned. “I’m the only honest man here tonight, aren’t I?” He made me laugh, and when he asked me for a second dance, I agreed. We discussed theater and politics and potato soup, which he was unaccountably fond of, and then the music ended. He looked as though he was going to ask me for a third dance, but Thomas came and tapped the man’s shoulder and held his hand out to me. He looked warily at my admirer and I hid a smile.

  “Lockwood,” the man said, somewhat coolly.

  “Moreworth,” Thomas answered and nodded before he whisked me away. “I could have come half as Prince Charming, half as a shoe shine, had I known you would be dressed like this,” Thomas said, his voice softer now. “So we’d match.” His costume was half king and half commoner, sewn straight down the middle, front and back, fabrics carefully selected and skillfully merged to convey the theme but be attractive, still. I’d thought it wasn’t as clever as it might be until I saw the V on the kingly half. Then I applauded the homage.

  “Henry V,” I whispered.

  He bowed his head. “I hoped you’d be pleased.”

  “I am indeed.” I enjoyed his happy company so much just then, I could not bear to think of bringing up his purchase of the acreage at Winton. What did it matter? The property was gone anyway.

  It would not matter . . . if I had not wanted a future with the man. But if I did then I had to know his heart was honest. That had not been proved.

  I must ask.

  I sat the next dance out, watching from the sidelines as the young woman who had so coolly assessed me at the club dinner danced with Thomas. Lady Tolfee danced with a man who was half chimney sweep and half broom, his black hair held straight up from his head like bristles.

  It was almost like being at the theater. A fat man was dressed in costume, left half sewn to represent capital, rich with gilt, while his right-hand side depicted labor and a poor man’s threads. A particularly prickly matron appeared as angel from the front, but when she walked past you could see her costume depicted devil from behind. I thought about costumes and masquerades. Perhaps we all wore one, even in plain dress.

  I remembered what Mrs. W had told me when I’d shared my shock at the high-end brothels in the West End.

  Those pretending to be and do good, angels of darkness parading as light. Some start out that way and some, just like those angels, start in goodness and then are tempted and fall. Oh yes. There are plenty of evildoers right here . . . and also in the fine country houses of Hampshire. That kind of wickedness just has practiced manners and is better-dressed.

  Thomas came to claim me to dance . . . again. Eyebrows were raised; I cared not.

  His hand went round me again, and I wished for it never to be removed. When it was over, he bowed to me, and then said, “Let’s repair to the gardens so we can talk.”

  Ah, yes, the promised talk. I had a few topics I wanted to discuss as well: the purchase of my acreage and the identity of the young lady I’d seen him escort into the carriage in front of the Lyceum.

  In the center of the property was a courtyard square with plants and chairs and statues, a garden of sorts. There were other groups and couples mingling, and Thomas found us a quiet corner with a bench.

  “I’m so glad you came tonight,” he said. “Else I’d have found another way for us to speak before I depart London.”

  “I am, too.”

  He took my hands in his own. “I’m sure you’ve heard I was married,” he began. It was, I admitted, a difficult way to begin a conversation.

  “Yes,” I said. “And she’s passed away. I’m very sorry.”

  “I am, too,” he said. He looked at his hands holding mine. “She was a good woman. A young woman. We didn’t know each other well, of course, but that is how these things are done. We’d met a few times, and I found her pleasant, and she, me. Her family had land and other capital resources; I, of course, have a title, an established family, and resources of my own. Our fathers decided . . .” He shrugged. “And we acquiesced. We were young, and knew no other way.”

  I nodded, not wanting to interrupt. An undercurrent of laughter filtered up and clashed into a brackish blend with the gentle string instruments playing inside.

  “She was kind enough, though we shared no interests, and shortly after our marriage she became with child. When it came time for the baby to be born she knew something was wrong. She sent for me at the end and pled with me to care for the child no matter what my feelings had been for her. I replied, of course I would, horrified and brimming with regret that my lack of warmth would have been so obvious, and the last thing on her mind as she neared her death. She wished me peace and happiness, joy and the truest of loves. And then, she died.”

  His face contracted a little, and I thought he was going to cry, but after a moment, he regained himself. “Our child died, too.”

  Ah. So this was the cause of the wince when I’d mentioned at our first meeting that Mamma had nearly died giving birth to me. I reached over, so I held both his hands in mine. “I’m so very sorry for your loss, what a devastating heart blow. I wish there were more that I could do, but I can say I understand that kind of pain, having lost my own parents.”

  “I gave back her land, you know.” Thomas looked into the distance, reassuring himself as much as telling me, it seemed. “To her family.”

  I understood. “You realized then that you loved her, and you couldn’t bear to have it near you.”

  He shook his head. “Quite the opposite. I knew I did not love her as I should have, could I have done it over. I would not profit from her death. Father was not pleased. But it would have been, at best, unchristian and unsportsmanlike. I hadn’t paid for it but had received it anyway, and it was mine to do with what I pleased. If the child had lived, of course, I would have kept the property and passed it along to her as it was her due—” He stopped abruptly and blushed.

  Which is, I knew he was thinking, exactly what my mother did not want to do with me and Winton Park; rather than have me inherit it, she’d planned to give it away if it had come to her first. In spite of myself I felt a little knob of irritation and the subtle rebuke.

  “But the greatest regret I have is knowing that I loved the child more than I loved its mother. Marianne will never know the kind of true love that she wished for me. I’d feel guilty enjoying what she can never now have. One doesn’t marry for love alone. Not in our circle.”

  “My mother did,” I said quietly, and he flinched. I hadn’t meant it to be a subtle rebuke of its own to parry the one he’d offered about keeping the property for his child. Just a way of keeping my mother and father with me, as I remembered them, and perhaps an indication of the differences in our upbringing. “But I completely understand that’s not how it is, for the most part.”

  Thomas waited until a group of people who had come near moved away. “I have worked tirelessly since that day to do right by people, to be honorable, to do my duty by all. I have distanced myself from those who carouse and plunder or lie or make light of life so I can redeem myself in some way for the love I could not o
ffer her. It is, perhaps, why I feel so drawn to help Shaftesbury and his causes.”

  Lord Shaftesbury, I knew, was present at the Twin Ball as well—I’d just seen him in the garden, looking toward us before disappearing into the house again. He looked very old.

  “Has working for charitable causes helped you find that peace and joy, the happiness and love?”

  He smiled, and his face warmed brilliantly again; I recalled the day I’d met him, truly, the day we buried Papa, and his smile had melted me then, as now.

  “Miss Young,” he started.

  “Gillian,” I said softly.

  “Gillian,” he said. “Gillian. I have said it in my head and my heart—and in the solitude of my chamber—but to say it aloud to you! Yes, Gillian, that is the most wonderful thing. I have found all of those things, not through duty . . . but with you.”

  With me!

  He’d also said his class did not marry for love.

  Ah! My heart sank. He had not mentioned marriage.

  “You bring me peace and joy and delight and interesting conversation. I laugh again, now, and I hope I bring you laughter, too.”

  “You do,” I said. “You are, decidedly, everything I had hoped for in a . . .” I could not say husband! And yet I did not want my feelings to go unacknowledged, as he had so openly shared his. I continued, “. . . a man, but did not know that till we met.” I said no more as someone came by and stopped to speak quietly to Thomas; he nodded and then said he’d be in shortly, before turning back to me.

  Marry well, someone you trust and love without reserve, a man who can rescue you, my little damsel in distress, should you need it, Papa had said. Did I trust Thomas? Would he prove honest? There was only one way to learn.

  “I must ask. Did you buy some acreage from my father when he visited with Inspector Collingsworth?”

  Thomas’s face wrinkled with confusion. “Your father never came to Hampshire with Collingsworth that I know of.”

  “But you’d said, when I buried Papa, that he had.”

  Thomas shook his head. “No, I said they’d both been there. But not at the same time. Your father came and yes, he did sell some acreage from your trust to me, the arable land.”