The Shadow and the Star (2 page)

The shock of alarm which Leda experienced at confronting this notion would have made Miss Myrtle snort. Miss Myrtle had been of a courageous disposition. Miss Myrtle would not have lain frozen in her bed, her heart pounding. Miss Myrtle would have leapt to her feet and taken hold of the poker, which would have been placed in a conveniently handy position next to her pillow, because Miss Myrtle had made it a point of habit to plan ahead for just such an emergency as not finding oneself alone in one's own room in the dark.

Leda was not made of such stuff. She knew she'd been something of a disappointment to Miss Myrtle in that respect. She did have a poker, but she'd forgotten to arrange it close by before she went to bed, being ever so weary, and the daughter of a frivolous Frenchwoman.

Unarmed, she had no choice but to take the next logical step and convince herself that there was most certainly no one in her room. Decidedly not. She could see most of it from where she was, and the shadow on the wall was only her coat and umbrella on the hook where she'd hung them a month ago, after the last cool weather in mid-May. She had a chair and a table with her rented sewing machine; a washstand with a bowl and pitcher. The shape of the dressmaker's dummy by the mantelpiece gave her a momentary start, but when she squinted more closely, she could look right through the open weave of the torso and skirt to the square shape of the fireplace grate. She could see all of these things, even in the dark; her bed was pushed up to the wall in the little garret, so unless this intruder was hanging from the ceiling beam above her like a bat, she must be alone.

She closed her eyes.

She opened them again. Had that shadow moved? Was it just a bit too long for her coat, fading down into the obscurity near the floor? Was not that deeper darkness the shape of a man's feet?

Nonsense. Her eyes were gritty with exhaustion. She closed them again, and took a deep breath.

She opened them.

She stared at the shadow of her coat. And then she threw back the sheet, scrambled up, and cried, "Who is it?"

Nothing but silence answered this comprehensive inquiry. She stood in her bare feet on the cool, rough wood, feeling foolish.

With a sweeping circle of her pointed toe, she passed her foot through the deep shadow beneath her coat. She took four steps backward, toward the fireplace, and groped for the poker. With that instrument in hand, she felt much more the mistress of the situation. She moved the poker in the direction of her coat, jabbing the iron rod all round in the fabric, and then waving it into each deep corner of the room and even under her bed.

The shadows went perfectly empty. No hidden intruder. Nothing at all but vacant space.

Her muscles went slack with relief. She put her hand on her breast, said a little prayer of thankfulness, and checked that the door was still locked before she returned to bed. The open window was safe enough, backed up on the sludgy canal, and accessed only from the steep rooftop, but still she kept the poker close by her on the floor.

With the much-mended sheet pulled up to her nose, she settled back into an agreeable dream in which a stuffed finch, very pretty and genteel, so much in the correct mode that one might be persuaded it was superior to both the plums and the cherries as an elegant trim for an Olivia bonnet, took a prominent role.

The Jubilee drove everything and everyone to a mad pace. It was barely full light when Leda trotted up the back stairs in Regent Street, but the girls in the workroom were all bent over their needles under the gaslights. Most of them looked as if they'd been there all night—which they likely had. This year, the annual rush of the Season accelerated: the parties, the picnics, all the pretty girls and stylish matrons in a tide of engagements and amusement for the Jubilee. Leda blinked her tired lids and blinked again, as she and the first hand among the seamstresses unfolded the vast puff of fabric from her basket. She was exhausted; they all were, but the excitement and anticipation were infectious. Oh, to wear something like it, the lovely thing! She closed her eyes again and stepped back from the ball gown, a little dizzy with hunger and agitation.

"Go and get a bun," the first hand told her. "I'll warrant you didn't finish this a moment before two in the morning, did you now? Take tea if you will, but hurry along. There's an early appointment. They've a foreign delegation to arrive at eight sharp—you're to have the colored silks ready."

"Foreign?"

"Orientals, so I believe. Their hair will be black. Mind you, it won't do to bring out the sallow in their complexions."

Leda hastened into the next room, gulped down a sugary cup of tea along with her bun, and then ran upstairs, greeting the resident hands as she whisked past them. On the third floor, she ducked inside a small room and slipped out of her plain navy-blue skirt and cotton blouse, bathed in lukewarm water from a tin bucket and porcelain sink, and went trotting down the hall in her chemise and drawers.

One of the apprentices met her halfway. "It's the tailor-made they've selected," the girl said. "The plaid silk—in honor of Her Majesty's affection for Balmoral."

Leda gave a little cry of vexation. "Oh! But I—" She caught herself up on the verge of making the very vulgar admission that she could in no way afford the new outfit. But it was to be the uniform of the showroom for the remainder of the Jubilee; she would be obliged to have the cost taken out of her wages.

With Miss Myrtle gone everything was really very difficult. But Leda would not cry about it, no indeed, she would not, no matter how lowering it was. It was only that she'd had so little sleep, and rested uneasily, and woken late and cross. She felt more inclined to kick than to weep, for Miss Myrtle had planned so carefully for the future, and left a proper will and testament, in which the lease of her little Mayfair house where Leda had grown up was left to a nephew, a widower just shy of eighty, on condition that Leda was to be allowed to stay on and manage it for him, with her own bedroom to remain hers if she so wished, which she very much did wish.

The widower had agreed to it particularly, and in the solicitor's office he had even said it would be an honor to have Miss Myrtle's young lady hold house for him, and just when everything was settled to their mutual satisfaction it was painfully unlucky of him to walk into the path of an omnibus, leaving no will or heirs or even an expressed opinion on the matter.

But there, that was a man for you. A rather foolish sex when all was said and done.

The Mayfair house had gone then to some distant cousin of Miss Myrtle's who couldn't see her way to living in it herself. Nor to keeping Leda on for the new tenants. Leda was too young to be an acceptable housekeeper; it was not done. No, not even if Cousin Myrtle, a Balfour,
had
brought up Leda in South Street. An ill business, that, to take a girl out of the gutter and put her above her natural place. The cousin wondered at it, she did indeed. But then,

Cousin Myrtle always had been peculiar—the whole family knew it—never mind that she had once been engaged to a viscount; she'd stepped out with
that unspeakable man
instead, and put herself quite beyond the pale, and hadn't even had her marriage lines for her trouble, had she now?

Nor could the cousin quite see any possible way to keep Leda on in any other capacity, not for any amount of work or plain and fancy sewing, nor bring herself in conscience to write a character so that Leda could apply as a typist. The cousin was very sorry, she was sorry indeed, but she didn't know a thing about Miss Leda Etoile except that her mother had been a Frenchwoman, and where was the good of writing something such as that in a referral?

And indeed, as Leda had quickly found, it seemed that there were only two sorts of houses where a young lady of genteel manners and dubious French background would be welcome, and the showroom of a fashionable dressmaker was the mentionable of them.

Leda took a deep breath. "Well, we shall all look the veriest Highland fling in the plaid, shan't we?" she said to the apprentice. "Is mine made up?"

The girl nodded. "I've only to tack up the hem. You've an eight o'clock appointment. Foreigners."

"Orientals," Leda said as she followed the white-aproned girl into a room where stray scraps of material in all colors and patterns littered the carpet and one long table. While Leda tightened her corset and adjusted the wire hoops of the
tournure
behind her hips, the girl shook out a heap of green and blue plaid. Leda lifted her arms to allow the dress to fall over her head.

"Orientals, are they?" the girl mumbled around the pins in her mouth. She plucked them out and tacked deftly. "Them ones who wrung chickens' necks in the Langham Hotel?"

"Certainly not," Leda said. "I believe it was a sultan who—ah—precipitated the unfortunate incident of the poultry." Wringing chickens' necks was not a subject suitable for mention by a lady. Conscientiously, she made an effort to improve the girl's mind. "The Orientals are from Japan. Or Nippon, as it is properly called."

"Where't that be, then?"

Leda frowned, a little uncertain of her geography. Miss Myrtle had been a strong proponent of female education, but lacking necessary equipment—a globe, for instance-some of her lessons had made only a rather vague impression.

"It's difficult to describe," she temporized. "I would have to show you on a map."

The girl's needle flashed in and out of the silk. Leda wrinkled her nose at the reflection of the plaid dress in a cracked pier glass. She didn't care for these strong patterns, and worse, the stiff silk didn't drape well over the
tournure
. "See how it protrudes at the back." She plucked disconsolately at the generous fall of material behind her hips. "I look suspiciously like a Scottish hen."

"Oh, 'tisn't so bad, Miss Etoile. The green's nice enough with your eyes. Brings out the color. There on the table's the cockade you're to wear in your hair."

Leda reached over and swept up the decoration, tucking it into the dark mahogany of her hair at several different angles before she was finally satisfied with the effect. The cockade's dark green plaid was almost lost against the deep color of her hair, so she arranged the ornament with a rakish tilt. Miss Myrtle would have taken one glance and pronounced the effect rather too coquettish for elegance. She would then have found occasion to mention that she herself had once broken off an engagement with a viscount—a most imprudent action, she would admit—but girls of seventeen could frequently be counted upon to be foolish. (Here there always followed an expressive look at Leda each time the story was told, whether Leda happened to be twelve years old or twenty.) Miss Myrtle herself inclined to a genteel understatement of effect. That this refined inclination accorded conveniently with a very limited wherewithal to purchase vulgarly excessive trimmings and fashionable frivolities was a fact kindly overlooked by Miss Myrtle's intimate circle: delicately bred ladies of similar circumstances who found themselves in complete agreement on the point. But Miss Myrtle was passed away, and however much honored in Leda's memory, such simple tastes were not in vogue for a showroom woman on the premises of Madame Elise, by Special Appointment dressmaker to H.R.H. the Princess of Wales. The tailor-sewn plaid it was to be, and the price of the elegant, tasteful Olivia bonnet Leda had been dreaming about (ready-made, with the chaste addition of a stuffed finch) was undoubtedly half gone in the cost of the golden medallion on the plaid cockade alone.

Mrs. Isaacson, present force behind the pseudonym of the long-vanished Madame Elise, came quickly into the cutting room. She handed Leda a set of cards, wordlessly looked her over, and nodded briefly. "Very nice. I approve of the hair ornament—well-placed. Help Miss Clark to arrange hers as jauntily, if you will. The girl is drooping." She flicked her finger toward the cards. "There will be some English ladies with the foreigners. I believe that Lady Ashland and her daughter are also dark. Daylight and candlelight, the complete trousseau. Concentrate on the jewel-tones and perhaps pink—not a hint of yellow in anything, mind you—although ivory might do; we shall see. It's a large party by the time they all arrive—six or seven at once. It's my understanding that they may all wish to be advised together. You'll be required to step forward if I need you."

"Of course, ma'am," Leda said. She hesitated, and then forced herself to add, "Ma'am—might I speak to you in private, if you have a moment?"

Mrs. Isaacson gave her a shrewd look. "I've no time to be private with you just now. Is it about the new showroom dress?"

"I'm living out, ma'am. At this time—it is…" Oh, how awful it was to be forced to speak like this. "I'm in difficult circumstances at present, ma'am."

"The cost can be subtracted from your wages, naturally. Six shillings a week was the amount agreed upon in your contract."

Leda kept her eyes lowered. "I cannot live upon the remainder, ma'am."

Mrs. Isaacson stood silent a moment. "You are obliged to dress yourself appropriately to your position. I can't permit an alteration in the contract, you understand. The terms were clearly stated to you when you came to us. It would set a precedent I cannot afford to set."

"No, ma'am," Leda said faintly.

Another little silence passed, barely endurable. "I shall see what can be arranged," Mrs. Isaacson said at last.

Relief flowed through Leda.

"Thank you, ma'am. Thank you." She sketched a curtsy while Mrs. Isaacson lifted her skirt and turned away.

Leda looked down at the cards. As was becoming standard practice in this year of exotic visitors, someone from the Foreign Office had sent along helpful etiquette tickets. Below the date were the scheduled appointments.

Japan party—8.00 a.m.

H.R.H. the Imperial Princess Terute-No-Miya of Japan. To be addressed
Your Serene Highness
. No English.

Imperial Consort Okubo Otsu of Japan. To be addressed
Your Serene Highness
. No English.

Lady Inouye of Japan. As daughter and representative of Count Inouye, Japan Minister of Foreign Affairs, to be addressed per diplomatic usage
Your Excellency
. Fluent English, educated in England, will interpret with no difficulty.