"Ah, but of course, one forgets. Elle est tout sophistiqué, just like her charming curls. The old hairstyle of the Empire looks so fresh and modern on her." The dressmaker picked up another bolt. "Now this, perhaps, would be better."
Clad only in her chemise, Noelle stood on a small stool in the center of the room, thankful that the remainder of her carrot hair had fallen victim to Letty's scissors only the night before, leaving a short cap of curls. She was content to be a bystander as Constance and Madame LaBlanc discussed her. Since early morning she had been poked, prodded, and scrutinized from every direction. The garrulous little Frenchwoman's measuring tape had not missed a single curve of her blossoming figure.
Noelle's eyes wandered to the window, where raindrops were drilling against the panes. She was not going to be able to take a walk again today, the second day in a row. Still, there was something so agreeable about being inside on such a dreary day. So much better than haunting the wet, stinking alleys off Bow Street or Charing Cross Road.
As Noelle mused, Madame LaBlanc issued orders to her two assistants, sending them scurrying in a torrent of French and then countermanding her original instructions with conflicting ones. "Estelle, tu cagnarde, arrange cette chambre. Mariette, apporte- moi la soie verte. Celle-là. Non, tu imbécile, pas la verte, la blanche."
Madame LaBlanc handed Constance a small bolt of creamy silk. "Madame Peale, I must insist. Only this shade for Mademoiselle Pope's ball gown."
Constance unrolled the fabric and then held it out for Noelle to touch. "Do you like it?"
"It's beautiful." The delicate silk slipped through her fingers like raindrops. "I can't believe it's for me."
"Madame LaBlanc is correct, it will be perfect. Now, I think a rounded neckline, not very low…"
"Ah, but Madame Peale," the Frenchwoman interrupted as she began draping the creamy silk over Noelle's body. "A décolleté, perhaps a little off the shoulder, c'est à la mode. She is young, très belle. To show off a little is not too bad, eh?"
Constance threw up her hands in mock exasperation. "In truth, I don't know why I attempt to argue with you. Very well, I agree to the lower neckline but only if it is edged with a ruffle of the wide lace you showed me earlier. It will give a softness."
"Madame's taste is faultless, as usual." The submissive manner in which the dressmaker lowered her head did not fool either Constance or Noelle, and they exchanged a smile.
"Now, for the rest of the gown…" Constance began, only to be interrupted again.
"I'm sure madame will agree that the sleeve à la folle is too extreme." With an expressive lift of her eyebrows, Madame LaBlanc contemptuously dismissed the current fashion of grossly oversized sleeves. "I am certain you will prefer the balloon sleeve with a wide cuff in the same lace as the neck ruffle, noni"
For the rest of the day and much of the next, the discussions continued. Finally Madame LaBlanc and her assistants sealed themselves in the sewing room. But for Noelle, this was only the beginning.
Merchants arrived brandishing kid gloves and slippers with tiny bows. Shawls and reticules were purchased.
After several days, a simple cotton frock emerged from the sewing room, then another. Noelle slipped them on and pirouetted gaily in front of her mirror. A bolt of fine lawn was transformed into delicate chemises and petticoats. There was a beautiful morning gown, then an afternoon ensemble with a pleated bodice and tiny shoulder cape.
The days passed. A note arrived from Simon with a draft covering the first four months of her salary. The amount was staggering until, with Constance's assistance, she calculated the cost of the purchases that had been made on her behalf and, over the protests of her hostess, deducted a separate amount to pay her living expenses. She set aside the little that was left. Somehow she would have to get this money to the children. Otherwise she would find no pleasure in her new clothes.
The creamy silk ball gown was finished and hung carefully away in her closet. A gay sprigged muslin appeared. Noelle moved through her days as if in a dream.
The tutor Constance had hired appeared. The day of her first formal lesson she arrived in the library to find him standing at loose-limbed attention in the center of the room. Tall and spindly, he had thinning sandy hair and rimless glasses that kept slipping down his bony nose.
His adam's apple bobbed up and down in his cadaverous neck as he observed his new student. She stood before him in a lavender muslin frock. There was a delicate ruffle of deep violet at her throat and twin bands of the same color encircling the wide hem. A grosgrain belt emphasized her tiny waist. He took in the wide topaz eyes, the tawny cap of curls that barely brushed her ears. Oh, dear, he'd never imagined…
With shaking hands, he began searching the pockets of his ill-fitting jacket until he finally pulled out a much-abused scrap of paper. With his index finger, he shoved his glasses back on the bridge of his nose and consulted the paper.
"I'm looking for Miss Pope." His voice cracked like a pubescent choirboy's. Mortified, he tried again, but with little improvement. "I'm looking for Miss Dorian Pope."
Noelle suppressed a smile. "I'm Dorian Pope."
"Well, if you are M-M-Miss Pope, I think it is only I-I-logicai to conclude that I am to be your new tu-tutor. That is to say… I'm Percy Hollingsworth, instructor in history, geography, government, and ma-ma-mathematics."
Remembering Constance's instructions from the day before, Noelle glided toward him, her hand outstretched. "I am delighted to meet you, Mr. Hollingsworth," she carefully articulated.
Crimson crept up from his collar; he stepped backward. Recovering, he braced himself and took her hand only to feel his knees turn dangerously weak at the touch of her warm flesh.
Noelle's amusement was tempered with curiosity. Was it this easy to make a man behave like a fool? It was a new idea-an intriguing one.
Percy Hollingsworth proved to be an able, if somewhat unorthodox, instructor. Although he had had every intention of proceeding with Noelle's instruction in an orderly and sequential manner, she would tease him and torment him so that when the subject was not to her liking he soon abandoned the effort and let his student's natural curiosity and keen mind guide their lessons.
She returned from a walk, her magnificent eyes full of the beauty of a wildfiower she had discovered, and the lecture he had planned on ancient Greece was abandoned in favor of perusing Flora and Fauna of the English Countryside. When the London newspapers arrived each week, she pored over them-circling, underlining, demanding explanations.
She learned that Benjamin Peale had been with the Duke of Wellington at Quatre-Bras. The next morning she entered the library and presented her tutor with a handful of pebbles, ordering him to reenact the Battle of Waterloo on the library carpet. Constance, seeing the two of them sprawled so informally on the floor as she passed the door, had rushed into the library only to find herself ordered to take charge of Napoleon's main forces.
All in all, Percy Hollingsworth and Noelle were well satisfied with each other, and Constance was delighted with both of them. She was far from delighted, however, when a hastily scrawled note arrived one day from Simon:
My dear Constance,