Love Comes Home by Molly Clavering

Author:Molly Clavering
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dean Street Press
Published: 2021-03-15T16:00:00+00:00

The class was held in a long room, one of a nest of halls in a building in Queen Street. Several girls and one or two older women were already there, pinning on old lace curtains to each other’s shoulders to represent trains, with a good deal of chatter and laughter, which ceased abruptly as the pouter-pigeon figure of Madame, trotting on tiny high-heeled shoes, still phenomenally active, came briskly into their midst.

Followed an hour of strenuous activity and merciless criticism, during which lack of breath and cracking knee-joints were never considered. Madame, well over seventy, was indefatigable. Raising her skirt to show a pair of short but still shapely legs, she performed a series of deep and elegant curtseys, talking the whole time, undistressed by her exertions.

“Lock the knees—so—” she said briskly. “It maintains a better balance. Now, Miss Cranstoun, the head lowered as you make your obeisance, raised to look at their Majesties as you rise. Yes. that is quite nice. Graceful, not too stiff, but the tempo is a little on the slow side. Miss Magdalen Cranstoun, a trifle less jerky, if you please. No, no, Miss Graham, that will not do. Please remember that you are not taking part in a contra-dance. This is a court-curtsey, not a bob. Mrs. Devine, I recommend for you and the other married ladies a curtsey slightly less deep. To fall over would be an everlasting disgrace both to you and to me. For a married lady, the stateliness of her deportment should take the place of depth in the obeisance. The débutantes, of course”—sweeping their shrinking forms with a keen glance—“will curtsey to the ground. Do not poke the head forward, Miss Graham. Remember never to turn your back on the Throne, Miss Magdalen Cranstoun . . . No, ladies, if you smile, it must be with the eyes only. Kindly bear in mind the fact that you are being presented to your Sovereign. A smile suggests familiarity, as to an equal. . . . Gather the train with grace, Mrs. Riddell, do not clutch it as if it were a woollen shawl. Allow the fan to droop across the body towards the floor while curtseying, Lady Jones, it gives a good line. I do not approve of fans being unfurled. It is too reminiscent of the stage, too flamboyant altogether. . . . There will be no necessity for you to pick up your own trains, ladies. You may not stoop in the Presence. A pace will gather them and throw them over the left arm, which should be gracefully extended to receive them. If you should be sitting down later on, I beg that you will not fling yourselves into chairs like sacks, but will subside with dignity—so. It will do more justice to your lovely gowns and feathers. The right foot drawn back to the chair, with the weight of the body poised on it, the left pointed—so. And now”—her class, drawing inaudible breaths of relief,

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