The Other Side of Mrs. Wood by Lucy Barker

Author:Lucy Barker [Lucy Barker]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780063317314
Amazon: 0063317311
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2023-06-26T23:00:00+00:00

Eliza and the hired help were waiting outside the séance room, as planned, spreading sheets across the floor ready to receive the feather-covered guests. They tumbled out from the gloom, as excited and giddy as foals, blinking in the bright light of the hallway while Eliza steered them into a space, ready for plucking.

Guests called to one another as the help set about plucking the feathers from their clothes, taking champagne from a circulating tray and sharing delighted thoughts on how much fun it had been.

But then … it was taking too long.

‘Are you not finished yet?’ asked the Dowager as two girls worked together on her woollen shawl. ‘I need to sit.’

‘I can’t go home like this!’ said Colonel Phillips, his seat almost entirely coated in down but refusing any help in brushing himself off.

Frustration prickled through the hallway, the excited laughter and chatter quietening as the clock ticked on and dresses and trousers and jackets and shawls remained covered in stubborn white fluff.

‘I can only apologise for my naughty spirits,’ said Mrs Wood as brightly as possible, taking over the circulation of the champagne and truffles on a large silver tray. ‘Send us any cleaning bills you may encounter. I shall ensure I cash them in when I see those mischievous souls in Heaven!’

‘I’m not sure you’re going to Heaven,’ said Colonel Phillips, furiously picking at his hair before the mirror.

‘Oh pish, Colonel.’ She raised a saucer of champagne towards him which he took with a growl of thanks. ‘Imagine the story you can tell in the club tomorrow!’ He shook his head but drank anyway.

‘I most certainly will be sending you a bill,’ said an irritated voice and Mrs Wood turned to see Mr Clore, fluff in his pomade and a thorough coating of feathers along his left leg. ‘This is new and I have no idea if I shall ever get all this nonsense off.’

‘I shall take it up with the sprites,’ she said, laughing as she passed the tray to Miss Newman, who was going around stuffing loose feathers into a cotton bag, so much fluff caught in her hair she looked as though she’d been plucking geese for Christmas. ‘Those spirits don’t know what they’re doing!’

‘No, they don’t,’ Clore said. ‘What possessed them? Look!’ He spread his arm wide to the rest of the house and Mrs Wood began to take in the whole, awful show before her. ‘It’s as though we’ve been tarred and feathered!’

‘You’re exaggerating,’ she said, forcing her smile to stay put.

What was happening?

Here was Lady Harrington, her beautiful peach velvet gown speckled with tufts of white; here was one of the Miss Greens with a fox fur stole now almost entirely goose; Mr Humboldt pointing out each tiny piece of down on his trousers and insisting that the girl assigned to him pick each one out; Mrs Preston wheezing in a chair.

They had loved the feathers in Siena, hadn’t they? So much so that when she got to Florence, they had called her Señora Piume and toasted her with tall fizzing glasses.

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