Miss Eugennia Welch made a face at herself in the Pier glass mirror on her rosewood dressing table.
“Stop that at once,” her companion and abigail, Miss Martha Tindale, demanded with a sniff in disapproval. She gave Eugennia’s long hair an extra tug with the silver-backed brush she had been pulling through it. “Have you never heard that the good Lord could freeze your face and you’d be stuck that way forever?”
“What a tarradiddle,” Eugennia scoffed. “I’m quite glad you took up with someone sensible like me. I’d hate to hear such nonsense repeated to someone who might actually believe it.”
The older woman humphed as she busied herself in plaiting the soft light-brown tresses for the complex bun Eugennia normally wore. “I know you’re no fool. Sometimes I find myself in awe of the vast store of knowledge you’ve amassed. I certainly would never have had the courage to pursue such studies.”
The clipped tone implied she wasn’t entirely sure such studies were proper for a young lady. Society tended to agree with her. Once the topic had been insects, and Martha had followed Jenny about Hyde Park while she captured an amazing assortment of multi-legged creatures to observe. Martha had complained that the horrid things would get loose. Very likely she’d woken repeatedly each night they had been in residence to make sure she hadn’t expired from their bites, even though Jenny had been thorough in the plans for their captivity.
Jenny’s study of the heavenly bodies had also interrupted Martha’s sleep, if for another reason entirely. She’d dragged her companion from her bed in the middle of the night to watch for a comet. It wasn’t her fault the silly thing failed to arrive as planned. Martha had vastly preferred Jenny’s study of landscape paintings. She and her companion had toured a number of the local town houses to see some of the fine examples on display there. Accompanying that painter to Kew Gardens to capture a group of trees on canvas had been invigorating.
Now Martha screwed up her long, thin face and narrowed her eyes at a recalcitrant strand of hair that seemed determined to evade her. So much for fearing the Lord would freeze her face. Jenny wrinkled her own nose experimentally, then schooled her face as Martha’s gaze met hers in the mirror.
“Well, honestly,” Martha said with another sniff, “why are you so out of countenance today? If you’d like to try another style, you have only to say so.”
Jenny plucked at the cream lace on the sleeve of her puce silk morning dress. “I’m sorry, Martha. Don’t be vexed with me. This style is fine. It’s just that everything is so very predictable—my hairstyle, my days, my life, even your reaction just now. Don’t you ever wish things would change?”
“Certainly not,” Martha declared. “My life is just right, thank you very much.” She must have noticed the sadness creeping in to Jenny’s expression, for she softened. “But we could try something different with your hair, if you’d like.”
Jenny shrugged. “It doesn’t matter, Martha. Changing my hair won’t change the way things are.”
Martha affixed the last pin in place, and Jenny rose to wander to the nearby window, parting the blue velvet drapes to gaze down at the small garden behind her town house.
“But what exactly is wrong, Eugennia?” Jenny could hear the concern in Martha’s voice. “What is it you want to change?”
What indeed. Jenny watched a breeze bend the stalks of the jonquils below her. She ought to be as content as Martha, even if she hadn’t been able to settle her mind on any particular new course of study of late. She had certainly attempted to craft a life that would lead to contentment. Although she had dutifully made her come out and entered the whirl of the Season in her eighteenth year to please a doting father, her father’s passing two years later had opened the way for an existence she’d thought would more suit her temperament. In truth, she found very little of interest in the balls and routs and teas she was expected to attend. She felt far more fulfilled in intellectual pursuits and sharing her findings with people of similar interests.
In the last six years, she had created a home that contained all the comforts one might need, including a staff who, for the most part, had seen her grow up and were excessively fond of “our Miss Jenny.” She had a carefully selected circle of well-read, cultivated friends who visited with just the right frequency so as not to become cloying. She had a wider circle of acquaintances whom she had met through her various studies, including an entomologist, an Egyptologist, and a quartet of musicians who seemed proud to say she sponsored them.
Each room in her home, like the bedchamber in which she stood, was decorated in tones of blue and rose and saffron. Each piece of furniture had been hand-picked or made to her design. Her bedroom, for example, was done in the Chinese style, with dragons carved on the matching rosewood dressing table, dresser, armoire, and headboard; gold and silver embroidery on the rose satin coverlet, bed hangings, and drapes; and gold fans decorating the blue satin-hung walls. The Aubusson carpet beneath her had been commissioned to her specifications to match the room, with a blue and rose dragon at opposite corners, each holding a gold fan.
She had a regimen of activities that included her studies, trips to various booksellers and lending libraries, a daily constitutional, and an occasional cultural event in the evening. Her tremendous fortune left to her by her father ensured that she would want for nothing. Indeed, she had been pleased to use it to purchase many unique and notable items that were scattered about the house in glass cabinets.
But lately the carefully dusted, well-polished cabinets seemed to her a symbol of her life. The very things she thought would bring her contentment instead made her feel trapped, smothered in an airless existence. Even her studies failed to satisfy.
She had never been one for melancholy self-reflection. She found it much easier to analyze a situation or even the reactions of another person than to understand what drove her to act in a particular manner. However, she suspected that wanting a different hairstyle this morning was merely a symptom. She had an overwhelming urge to do something radically different, to break the glass that seemed to hang around her and…
And do what? What exactly should she change? She had tried any number of studies, from science to art to history, but none amused her of late. It seemed foolish to throw out her friends or move to the Continent on an emotional whim. Even new clothes seemed a ridiculous waste of her time. She let her eyes focus on the faint reflection of herself in the window pane. The problem was deeper than a mere change of scene. Her very image seemed to bother her. Why?
She was no beauty, but neither was she a hag. Her long silken hair framed a face that was distressingly round, with cheeks that tended to resemble two ripe red apples when she blushed. Her figure and frame were far too rounded to carry off the willowy Grecian look that was all the rage. Her hair was a shade between blond and brunette, and her eyes between blue and brown, as if her coloring had as difficult a time as her mind in knowing what it wanted. She had large eyes, a stub of a nose, and a generous mouth. In all, she had determined long ago, it was not a picture to inspire a man to poetry.
Good heavens, was that it? Romance and marriage had seemed to pop into her mind with surprising frequency of late. She’d initially thought the trend a result of the recent marriage of her friend, Joanna Lindby to the dashing Lord Trevithan, but she suspected the obsession was also a symptom of her advancing age and the appellation of spinster that seemed to be hanging over her. A shame, for she’d thought she’d put such petty concerns behind her long ago.
Her attempts at the social whirl had been less than successful from the first. She could never bring herself to utter the drivel that young ladies were expected to spout at the least provocation. Any man who could only converse about the weather, his horses, or the latest fashion earned her instant contempt, which she found impossible to conceal. She couldn’t paint, her embroidery was a shamble, she was tone deaf, and she had never learned to execute even a country dance with grace. Yet she forced herself to participate in the meaningless ritual at least twice a year on the conviction that one must contribute to the social order. The carefully chosen ball or rout inevitably left her delighted to return to the simplicity of her everyday existence. Unfortunately, her latest foray into Society a few months ago had left her unaccountably moody, and she was very much afraid she knew why.
“You told me some nonsense, Martha,” she said with a sigh, turning from the window to find her companion looking at her with a worried frown that only made her small grey eyes appear smaller. “Now I’ll tell you some. Do you know what I dream about?”
“No,” Martha replied, obviously fascinated. She perched on the edge of the four-poster bed, black bombazine skirts swinging against the rose satin bed cover. “What?”
“A handsome prince. You know, like the fellow in The Sleeping Beauty? We read that story a year or so ago, by Planche.”
“French nonsense,” Martha said with an eloquent wrinkle of her long nose.
Jenny smiled. “Very well, I read it then, just about the time I also read Perrault’s Fairy Tales. Both of those books had heroines who are rescued by handsome charming princes just as I wish to be rescued. Well, perhaps not a prince, precisely. But very handsome. And charming.” She tried to think of an image other than the one that had been haunting her but none other came to mind. “Do you remember the very tall gentleman who asked me to dance at the Baminger ball last November?”
Martha frowned. “Not particularly. Why?”
Jenny returned her frown. “You cannot have missed him, Martha. He was quite the most presentable man at the ball.”
“Well, there were a great many presentable men at that ball, if you ask me,” Martha maintained. “You cannot expect me to remember this one over that.”
Jenny sighed. “Perhaps he asked me to dance while you were talking to Lord Davies. Miss St. John will surely remember him. To my mind, he was unforgettable.”
“What has this to do with the way you feel?” Martha demanded.
“I find myself imagining a prince as handsome and charming as my dance partner,” Jenny confided. “Only in my dreams he rides up to my doorstep, strides into my sitting room, and declares, ‘Miss Eugennia Welch, I intend to marry you,’ just like that.” She giggled, and even to her ears the sound was unexpectedly girlish. Then, seeing Martha’s confused expression, she sobered. “Only that is never going to happen. I don’t even know the gentleman’s name. I was so shocked to be asked to dance that I’d forgotten we weren’t introduced. Besides, I’ve woven a very effective cocoon about myself with this life of mine, and, for all I might turn into a butterfly, I can’t get out. Do you understand?”
“No!” Martha slipped off the bed and stalked to the door. “Hairstyles, princes, butterflies. Honestly, Eugennia, sometimes I don’t understand a word you say.” She turned to eye her mistress sternly. “All I can say is that you better watch what you wish for. You just might get it!”
Jenny laughed. “Another dire prediction? Oh, Martha, there’s precious little fear of my getting my wish. Why, I would more likely be struck by lightning than to have someone suitable propose out of nowhere.”
Martha clapped her hands over her ears with a shriek. “Not another word! Think shame on yourself for tempting fate!”
Jenny laughed again and opened her mouth to make another jest when there was a sudden pounding at her bedchamber door. Martha leapt away from it as if it had struck her.
“Who is it?” Jenny called, her heart starting to beat faster.
“Mavis, mum. Mr. Fiching sent me. You have a caller downstairs.”
Martha gasped. “See what you’ve done!”
“Oh, hush,” Jenny snapped, patience gone. “It’s probably Susan to discuss the next book for the reading circle.” She reached for the door handle, and Martha dashed in front of her.
“Don’t go, I tell you. It’s something dreadful, I can feel it!”
Jenny shook her head, but she raised her voice to speak through the door. “Do you know, Mavis, is it Miss St. John?”
“No, mum,” Mavis’ voice came back sounding a bit subdued, but it could have been because of the thickness of the door. “Mr. Fiching said it were a gentleman.”
Martha braced her thin back against the door, looking like a crow defending a choice morsel. “You see!”
“Oh, Martha, please,” Jenny said. “Mavis, tell Mr. Fiching I’ll be right down.” She eyed her distraught companion. “Really, Martha. I promise you it will prove to be someone from a charity or perhaps a solicitor. Gentleman caller indeed. I’ll be through with him in less than a quarter hour, and nothing will have changed. You needn’t even bother to come down.” She frowned so quellingly that Martha moved away from the door, still quivering. As Jenny turned the handle, Martha’s hand shot out to stop her. “Jenny, wait!”
Jenny paused, brow raised.
Martha swallowed. “If it is a handsome prince, wouldn’t you like me to change your hair?”
“My hair,” Jenny declared, “is just fine, and I defy any prince, handsome or not, to tell me otherwise.” She sailed out of the room.