“Thank you, if it’s not too much trouble.”
Josephine laughed. “Not at all. Baxter will be pleased to have another victim of her vicious hairdressing. Don’t say you haven’t been warned.”
Alice laughed too, though she was surprised that Henry’s sister’s manner was so cheerful and warm. It did not match the formality of the house, nor her polished accent.
Josephine led her inside a room with an enormous bed, three times as wide as the small one in Alice’s garret at Charlotte Street. It had four carved wooden posts and was surrounded by curtains held open with frilled ribbon.
“I’m just next door if you need anything,” Josephine said. “Baxter will bring a gown to you and I’ll come and fetch you for supper.”
“Yes, please. Thank you, Miss Evesham.”
Josephine smiled and shut the door.
Alice went to the floor-to-ceiling looking glass and examined her reflection.
She looked like a hedge-bird—more appropriate for begging at the stable door of this palace of a home than for sleeping in it. Her gown was rumpled and her hair was matted up in torrents from the hooded cloak. Her mother would have a fit, her looking such a shambles in a place as fine as this. Alice, girl, pin up your hair and act the lady.
Hearing Mama’s voice so clearly in her mind knocked the wind right out of her. She remembered the words Henry had murmured through the wall the night before:
Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
For you are with me.
She had not prayed in years. But the soothing nature of those words called out to her, and she knelt before by the fire and clutched the little harp that dangled from the necklace at her throat.
I’m coming, Mama. Please wait for me.
The words did not feel like enough. She tried again.
Dear God:
Was that how one prayed properly? Was it like writing a letter?
I know I have not been a faithful correspondent, and it’s selfish of me to resume our acquaintance only to ask you for a favor. But please, if you receive this message, let her live. Grant me the time to say goodbye.
God gave no sign of having heard her, but the door swung open and a woman marched in carrying a beautiful blue gown embroidered elaborately with lavender blossoms.
“You Mrs. Hull?” she asked.
Alice nodded.
The maid curtsied. “Baxter, madam. Miss told me to pin you into this. Let’s get you undressed.”
Alice had not been dressed by someone else since she was a child, and she did not know what to do. But Baxter’s fingers were so brisk that before she knew it she was out of her drab gown and dressed in a fabric as soft as clouds that smelled of rich people.
“Now, your hair,” Baxter said. “This flat look doesn’t suit your wee head.”
Alice was not sure whether to laugh or cry at this observation. Her hair was not her crowning glory, especially after a day in the rain and snow. “Not much to be done about that. My hair is lank by nature.”
“Not when I’m dressing it, it’s not,” Baxter said, with a wink. The woman sat Alice down at a pretty gold table and began doing violent, painful things to her scalp, something between massage and torture. Baxter used her comb to tease the strands into whorls that she held in place with hairpins, moving them rapidly from the pocket of her apron to her mouth to Alice’s increasingly tender head.
“There we are,” she said, stepping back, so Alice could see herself in the mirror.
“Oh my,” Alice breathed at her reflection. The dress was not immodest but cut much lower than the high-necked gowns that made up her Charlotte Street wardrobe. The dark blue set off her eyes, making them more violet than brown. But her hair was the real miracle. Baxter had removed Alice’s middle part in favor of an intricate high chignon that swooped elegantly above her hairline, making her look, if not tall, positively regal.
Baxter winked, smoothed Alice’s gown to fall more gracefully about her shoulders, and left as briskly as she had arrived.
Alice could not help casting a sly smile at her reflection. She looked like quite the Lady Miss. Perhaps this was her sign from Henry Evesham’s God, for her mother would cackle with pure glee at the looks of her right now.
Josephine came to get her and led her downstairs to a formal parlor where the family was gathered. “Prepare yourself for the festivities,” she said in a dry whisper.
Despite the sumptuous surroundings and flickering candles, the mood in the room was palpably grim. A thin, impeccably dressed gentleman wearing a powdered wig seemed to be presiding, and beside him was a man who could have been his twin, were he not several decades younger and his own wig quite a bit taller. They were locked in a low conversation with Henry, who had to bend at the waist to match their shorter stature, and did not appear to be enjoying himself.
When he saw her, he broke away, looking at her with an expression almost like bemusement. She stiffened, worried that she had already done something amiss that might expose their lie.
“Why Mrs. Hull,” he said, his face breaking from perplexity into a cockeyed, boyish smile that made him look extremely handsome, and nothing like a minister. “Blue suits you.”
He’d never looked at her like that before. Like he was just a man, and she was just a woman.
“You look well yourself.” But then, he always did.
He smiled—a quick, private smile—more to himself than her.
Josephine looked from him to her and Alice paused—she’d forgotten the girl was right beside her. Evidently so had Henry, for he quickly stepped back, assuming a more formal posture.
“Let me introduce you to my family,” he said, leading her to the pair of men. “Mrs. Hull, this is my elder brother, Mr. Jonathan Evesham, and my father, Mr. Charles Evesham.”
She curtsied and said “good evening” and was relieved when both men gave her polite, dismissive bows and returned to their conversation.
She turned her attention to a collection of pale china vases placed on the nearest table, painted with purple flowers that resembled the ones embroidered on her dress. “So pretty,” she said offhand to Josephine, so that Henry would feel free to rejoin his father’s conversation rather than worry about putting her at ease.
“Why thank you,” Josephine said with an enormous smile. “I painted them myself.”
“I’ve seen similar in a little shop in Mayfair, but yours are so much finer. What talent.”
Josephine looked immensely gratified. “Papa fabricates them for me in his factory. I have a mind to sell them, but he believes I will never find a husband if I appear to have an interest in trade.”
“Men have such odd notions,” Alice sighed. She froze, for perhaps that was not the right thing for a proper widow to say.
Josephine just rolled her eyes. “Truly.”
“Why, the Lord Lieutenant has arrived!” a woman’s voice called from across the room.
Alice turned, and saw that the voice belonged to a drawing of a wealthy woman in a newspaper. Or rather, a woman who looked exactly like a drawing of a fashionable lady, with glossy dark hair piled in such an elaborate fashion above her head that it made the handiwork Baxter had performed on Alice’s tresses seem rudimentary. She wore a beautiful silk dress in a chestnut shade that matched her hair, and amber jewels set in yellow gold, so that when she moved it was like the colors of autumn swirled about the room.