1794 - Charlotte by Karen Hawkins

Author:Karen Hawkins [Hawkins, Karen]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Published: 2018-03-21T18:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 7

T he meeting with the dressmaker was as unpleasant as Charlotte had expected. Madame Guillemot was a thin, gaunt woman with a heavy, questionable French accent and a militaristic approach to fittings that would have made a general proud. She knew she’d landed quite a significant client with the Harringtons, but apparently it wasn’t enough to be paid her weight in gold. She demanded respect and made sure everyone remembered who the expert was.

And truly, as much as Charlotte hated fittings, there was no denying the woman knew her craft. Madame, ever punctual, arrived exactly on time with a retinue of harried looking assistants, young women with matching expressions much like that of hunted deer. In addition to her harried servants, she also brought twelve partially finished gowns, six pairs of new shoes, ten chemises made of spider-web fine lawn, numerous stockings and bonnets, hats and cloaks, and a dozen sheer night rails with matching peignoirs.

Overwhelmed by the rustle of lush silks and heavy brocades, Charlotte winced to think of the outrageous sums Mama was paying. The thought made Charlotte all the more determined to do her duty by the fitting, even though she’d have preferred to have a nail driven into her foot than stand for hours on end while stuffing herself into gowns far more lavish than any she’d ever owned.

It didn’t help that a few moments into the ordeal, Aunt Verity had whispered far too loudly to Charlotte that she rather thought Madame’s accent to be fake, for she sometimes forgot it all together. Thus, Madame was in a far from charitable mood when it came to the fitting itself. She tugged and pinned, poked and prodded, and repeatedly hissed, “You must stand still!” until Charlotte was ready to scream.

She was relieved when, three long hours after Madame Guillemot arrived, Aunt Verity had finally had enough, telling the woman that if she couldn’t work with the fittings she had, then they would hire someone would knew how to use their time ‘more efficiently.’ True to her charade, this had caused Madame to fly into a raging Gallic tirade where she’d had the ill fortune to call Aunt Verity ‘out of fashion.’

Aunt Verity had seemed half asleep during the modiste’s tirade, but Charlotte soon discovered that her aunt did not suffer insults lightly. The second the modiste paused for breath, Aunt Verity had answered, calling Madame every name in the book but polite. But as Verity had spun her tirade in pure, perfectly spoken French, Madame couldn’t retort, for her atrocious accent and lack of vocabulary would have completely unmasked her.

The only thing Madame could do was retreat. Fuming and unable to reply, Madame had taken out her fury on her harried assistants, snapping at them until everything was packed into their bandboxes and cloth sheaths. The assistants, their arms piled so high that they could barely see where they were going, hurried from the room while Madame, ever the actress, paused dramatically on the threshold. “I must warn you that I will be speaking with Mrs.

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