“Ah, ma’am — always a pleasure to see you!” cried Madame Clarisse, abandoning her burdened client and dropping fervently into a low curtsey. “What a picture you do make, to be sure! Silk velvet, I’ll be bound, and the plain white muslin train, as must be proper. Straight from La Belle Assemblée, or I miss my mark!”[17]

“But, unfortunately, from last April’s number,” Mrs. Challoner replied tranquilly. “I am sadly behind the fashions in England, as you see — and must endeavour to make amends. I expect a party of guests at the Lodge in a few days, and should blush to appear in such disarray. I wonder, Madame Clarisse, if you might spare me an hour this morning?”

“Oh — but of course — indeed, I can spare you any amount of time, Mrs. Challoner, for I am sure Mrs. Phillips” — with a careless wave at the expectant mother — “and Miss Austen will prove no very great charge upon my labours.”

Sophia glanced sharply about the room. “Miss Austen, did you say? But where is she?”

I stepped forward and offered the apparition a courtesy. “Good morning, Mrs. Challoner! I must count myself fortunate that we meet again! May I have the honour of introducing my brother to your acquaintance?”

Frank, though a trifle awed by the lady’s fashionable looks, managed a neat leg.

“Captain Austen, of the Royal Navy: Mrs. Challoner, of Netley Lodge. Mrs. Challoner was lately taken off of Oporto, Frank, by His Majesty’s forces.”

“Good Lord!” my brother exclaimed. “I was in Oporto myself, you know! What vessel was so happy as to bear you home to England, ma’am?”

“The Dartmoor, commanded by Captain Felbank.”

“Then I may declare that you were in excellent hands. You enjoyed a safe passage, I hope?”

“Not a moment of sickness, though the weather was abominable. Are you presently on shore-leave?”

“I may wish for such blessings at every hour, ma’am — far oftener than I enjoy them. I am returned to port but a day, and may expect to quit it on the instant. Such is the nature of war. My dear Jane — time wastes, and I must leave you—”

“Pray urge your dear wife to call in Castle Square.”

Frank kissed my hand, bowed again to Mrs. Challoner, and completely ignored her elegant dresser in passing through the door.

The burdened Mrs. Phillips took herself off, with an air of oppression and ill-usage on her countenance. I could not blame her, for the contrast between Mrs. Challoner’s blooming looks, and every other person in the room, was almost too much to be borne. I am sure that Madame Clarisse would have given me several broad hints to be gone, with the promise of a fitting at another time, should my discomfiture prove more convenient to the mistress of Netley; but in this the charming Sophia would take no part. She insisted upon seeing me fitted out in my dreadful black bombazine, and though I blushed to be critically surveyed, while Madame Clarisse knelt at my feet with a quantity of pins in her mouth, I could not demur. I might have pled fatigue, and departed in the direction of my home — but that I abhorred the loss of such a prime opportunity of furthering my acquaintance with the Peninsula’s most potent weapon.

“What do you think, Eglantine?” she enquired of her dresser as the two gazed at my reflection.

“I cannot like the style,” the Frenchwoman replied in her native tongue; “it is too plain about the neck for prettiness, and taken together with the dull black of the fabric, must make the lady appear a penitent.”

I understood this frank opinion well enough to flush an unfortunate red; but if Mrs. Challoner observed the change, she did not regard it.

“I wonder if Madame Clarisse is familiar with the demi-ruff à la Queen Elizabeth, pleated in Vandyke?”

“To be sure I am familiar with it!” the modiste cried. “Mrs. Penworthy has been wearing the same these five weeks and more, with an olive-green walking dress in Circassian cloth. Buttoned down the front it is, and formed high in back, with open lapels at the bosom. The sash is salmon pink, and tied in small bows on the right side. Over her left arm, Mrs. Penworthy affects a shawl of pale salmon figured in dark blue — quite elegant, I’m sure, when worn with straw-coloured gloves and shoes.”

“But I am in mourning,” I reminded them gently, “and must make do with black.”

Madame Clarisse rose to her feet, and surveyed me with a practiced eye. “She has the bosom for it — the sash should go high under the arms, to frame her décolleté. I suppose we might cut the middle anew, and set in the buttons on the bodice with a white chemisette behind the open lapels. Forgive me for speaking as I find, Miss Austen, but you’ve rather a short neck — and the white demi-ruff, Vandyke-stile, should lengthen its appearance to admiration.”

“But is so much attention to fashion, at such a time, entirely proper?” I suggested feebly.

“There’s no harm in setting off the black with a touch of linen,” rejoined the modiste stoutly, “and no dishonour intended to the Dear Departed, neither.”

With the French dresser urging her support in flurried accents, and Sophia Challoner draping a pleated collar high about my neck, and prescribing a change in coiffure — parted down the middle, with curls on either side — I found myself suddenly transported to giddy heights: to an admiration of my countenance and figure I had long since abandoned, and a conviction that with a trifling expence, I might achieve an accommodation with the hated black I had never before envisioned.

“You must never wear such a dismal cap on your hair again,” Mrs. Challoner enjoined, “for it makes you look a good deal older than I’ll warrant you are. What would you suggest, Eglantine, by way of headgear? An Incognita, trimmed Trafalgar style? A Polish Cap, bordered in sable? Or an Equestrian Hat of black, ornamented with leaves?”

All three modes were assayed, and I professed myself most partial to the Equestrian, as being the more suitable for a Bereaved.

How proud my dear Lizzy should have been!

How ardently she must have urged me to adopt the new mode in deference to herself — who was always so elegantly attired! How vital it suddenly appeared, that I should purchase these paltry additions to a costume infinitely worthy of them — and refashion my old gowns, too, under the instruction and ingenuity of Mrs. Challoner!

“Do not be fretting the cost, Miss Austen,” declared Madame Clarisse, “for the work on the gown is a matter of a few days, and the fribbles and frills amount to no more than. . let us say, forty-eight guineas complete.”

“Forty-eight guineas!” I cried, aghast.

“Including the hat. And for such a paltry sum, you shall be the admiration of all Southampton!”

Madame declared in triumph.

A wave of heat washed over me, followed sickly by a flood of chill. Forty-eight guineas! When I lived on a mere fifty pounds per annum — and the year was nearly out![18] At present I could command no more than seven pounds in my private funds, and the idea of petitioning a loan of my mother — or poor Martha, for that matter — must be entirely out of the question. Pride forbade it; pride, and the necessity of adopting economy, when one lives as I do in the most straitened circumstances. Mortification overcame me. I glanced at the modiste — saw the incomprehension in her looks — and then at Sophia Challoner.

She placed her arm about my shoulders and spoke in the gayest accent. “My dear Madame Clarisse, you have exhausted Miss Austen with your efforts, and I am certain that you have exhausted me. I think it best if we repair to a nearby pastry shop, and indulge in a restorative cup of tea. I am longing for a bit of shortbread, and I have heard that Mrs. Lacey’s is nonpareil. Will you accompany me, Miss Austen? Or do I impose upon your morning?”