The It Girls Page 3

  “I thought you said strangling corpses for a minute.”

  They both giggled. “That’s what the fashions men design do to us, make of us,” Lucy declared. “Our corsets force us into a swooping spine shape.”

  “Ha. S also for silly? Or better yet, S for your swell and smashing sewing?”

  “Stunning.”

  “Superior! Oh, Lucile Sutherland, the things you say and do!”

  “Indeed! The things you read and ought to do!”

  They smiled at each other. “More to come,” Lucy promised and bent back to her task.

  This wasn’t going well, Lucy thought, as she tugged up her long, white gloves again. Oh crumbs—the left one had a stain from a drop of red punch on it, but the pale green gown she’d made for herself looked fine.

  In the awkward silence between her and Cecil as they sat out a waltz in one of the alcoves in the upstairs ballroom at Government House, she tried one more time to get her beloved beau on track. Why was he suddenly speechless? It was surely not that he was being posted to Gibraltar, for he was excited about that, though she considered it another exile assignment. Why not someplace exotic and romantic, somewhere in the Mediterranean? But he was to be off in a fortnight, so they had to settle their relationship and plan a future wedding now, as she’d been heavily hinting to him.

  “What I meant was that I shall miss you terribly,” she tried to explain again, backtracking a bit on her emotion. “My feelings for you are so strong that I wanted you to know I feel committed to future plans—especially since you’re leaving, so I pledge you my trust.”

  He shifted on the wooden seat again. He was sitting even more bolt upright than usual. She should have tried this outside in the moonlight, but he’d seemed so avid as they had danced, and Mother had always said to strike while the iron was hot.

  “Ah,” he said, “it sounded for a moment as if you were pledging me your troth—you know, wedding words.” He forced a stiff smile.

  With a nod, she looked into his wide, blue eyes, waiting, waiting. For heaven’s sake, the man was not dense. He was twenty-two and well enough educated. She had been so certain he would not only take her pledge of love to heart, but respond in kind, so they could make some serious plans. More than once over the last few months, he’d whispered that he adored her and could not live without her. So was that all a ploy to get her alone in the gardens?

  “I will miss you, too, of course,” he said, looking as jumpy as if his seat were suddenly hot. “And write to you.”

  All those kisses and caresses, she thought. Was she the dense one? Hadn’t that all meant love? How dare he lead her on. At the least he should ask her to wait for him!

  “I need some more punch,” he said, “and to talk to Gareth about something. Of course, I’ll fetch more for you, too, and be back in a trice.”

  Her handsome, nattily attired, beloved military man nearly fled in full retreat. Dashed, devastated, she blinked back tears. Did he intend to ask Gareth what to do? Gareth had liked her too. Should she try to make Cecil jealous with Gareth? He needed something to wake him up to his feelings for her. Their union made sense and would be quite proper. His family was not noble, though well respected; through her own father, though he was long gone, she could claim some well-do-do relatives. She’d been so confident that her first real love would be her eternal one, just like Mother’s had been. She’d even told Nellie that Cecil would ask for her hand before he left for Gibraltar, and now this catastrophe!

  CHAPTER Three

  Nellie adored Paris. With Mother’s help, she’d been invited to visit by the kindly Mlle Duret, a dear old French lady who had enjoyed a respite in Jersey and taken pity on her. Mademoiselle spoke very little English, and Nellie had been shocked to learn that she couldn’t follow rapid speech. Still, she was learning to improve her schoolgirl version of that lovely language. And though she missed Mother—Lucy had gone off in a huge snit to revisit friends in England after Cecil failed to propose—Nellie loved Paris! She didn’t even mind that the old lady hardly had any young people around.

  Oh, the wide boulevards, like the one she was staying on, the Boulevard Malesherbes, were so spacious compared to Jersey’s narrow streets. The cafés, the handsome, well-attired people seemed so charming. The city was ablaze with lights at night. They were going this very evening to the Comédie Française to see a play with the famous British actress Sarah Bernhardt! Nellie wondered if she’d died and gone to heaven, well at least the French version of heaven.

  “Nellie, cherie,” Mademoiselle said in French as she looked up from opening the mail her butler had brought in, “the young man Trevor who called on us yesterday has asked to accompany us to the theater tonight.”

  At Mademoiselle’s announcement, Nellie’s heartbeat dashed to a faster pace. Trevor was an acquaintance of Mr. Kennedy’s relatives, so he’d come with an introductory letter, his intent being to pay his respects. And he obviously wanted to see her again. Dear Charles at Eton had never seemed so far away.

  “Oh, how kind of him,” Nellie said in her best French. Trevor Gingerich spoke both French and English—and usually whispered to her in her native tongue. Mlle Duret was also hard of hearing, so Trevor had murmured compliments that only ma cher femme could understand.

  “I hope your mama would not object,” her hostess went on. “My eyesight and hearing may not be as good as before, but I am as watchful as an owl, especially at night. Trevor seemed quite taken with you, yes, so I shall be watching his behavior, my dear.”

  And I too, Nellie thought with another shivery thrill. I too.

  Still deeply bruised and grieving from her Prince Charming turning into a frog, Lucy threw herself into social events at her friends’ estate at King’s Walden in Hertfortshire, England. A young set swarmed about the house, so there was not a dull moment. Yet she felt dull, as if her emotions were buried. She had adored Cecil and still longed for him to realize his mistake and, filled with jealousy she might meet someone else, come to beg for her hand. So she’d put on quite a show here, forcing herself to smile, to be chatty and—well, to seem interested as well as interesting.

  Indeed, she had met someone else, and he was paying her a great deal of attention, paying her court, as Nellie would put it from those medieval romance books she read.

  “James, there you are,” she said as James Wallace approached the garden bench where she’d been sitting and brooding. She held a parasol as the sun was warm. She realized she’d been nervously twirling it and held it still.

  Yet a bachelor at age forty, James was good-looking—almost handsome—and pleasant. He seemed quite smitten with her, which should have helped her loss of Cecil. His family was Scottish and his middle name was Stuart, which she imagined would please Nellie heartily, as that was the family name of Scots and English kings. She’d only known James for the week she’d been here, but he’d told her he had met her mother when she visited relatives near here and, he’d said, had found her almost as charming as her lovely daughter.

  Her interests matched his in that he loved to travel and went often abroad to France, even to Greece, Italy, and Egypt, where she longed to visit. He enjoyed other people and seemed to hold his liquor. He had a drink of his favorite whiskey in his hand right now as well as a glass of white wine he extended to her before evidently changing his mind and putting both drinks down on the bench beside her.

  “Walk with me, then?” he asked, extending his hands.

  She clasped his and he pulled her up, right into his arms. Her parasol tumbled and her poise did too. He had held her hands, hugged her, kissed her good night before, but this . . .

  A full-fledged, commanding kiss, lips moving, his hand skimming her hip. Finally, they came up for air. Even in the warmth of the day, she felt goose bumps skim her skin.

  “Lucile Sutherland, I adore you,” he whispered, nearly out of breath. “I want to hold you and keep you forever. Come, walk with me down the paths out here, I dare say, walk with me forever do
wn life’s path.”

  She wondered when Cecil heard she was betrothed if he would come for her, write to her. Maybe he would protest her wedding someone else. Maybe . . .

  Behind the yew hedge at the edge of the small maze, James was kissing her again. His hands ran riot on her back, her bum, too, crushing her to him. It was entirely exhilarating. She would not have to go back to live off Mr. Kennedy’s funds. Mother and Nellie could visit her at the house James had vowed to rent in a lovely-sounding place called Cranford Park located at Hounslow, a town near London where he had influential and well-to-do friends. He had praised the gowns she wore and complimented her cleverness to design them.

  “Marry me, my darling, marry me, and we’ll go away to fabulous places together. The world will be ours,” he vowed.

  Lucy was pretty certain she said yes.

  The passionate, violent drama Theodora stunned Nellie. Sarah Bernhardt was like no one she’d ever seen.

  Sarah Bernhardt was wafer thin, a far cry from the plump actresses Nellie had seen in drawings of newspapers or gazettes. Bernhardt was wide- and almost hollow-eyed in her dramatic grief and passion.

  Nellie felt she’d drunk the love potion Theodora downed in the play. And to see a woman take the lead in romance, seducing a man she was not wed to was thrilling. Indeed, even though Trevor surreptitiously held her hand in the dark and moved his knee against her skirts and whispered compliments in her ear, it was the passion of the play that moved her.

  She was nearly trembling with the impact of it all when she bid him good night at Mademoiselle’s home. Had Trevor been jesting when he had suggested they “fly away” together? The compliments he whispered in her ear would have set her hostess to booting him out the door, but the old lady had missed most of it. She must not realize his polite attentions hid his ardor.

  After all, Mademoiselle had accepted for both of them a visit with him to the gardens called Jardin des Plantes tomorrow. That no doubt seemed harmless enough, for Mademoiselle had whispered to her, “I hope your mother doesn’t think you are too young to have seen that tragedy, but I so wanted you to experience the Comédie Française and Sarah Bernhardt, quite the rage here as well as in your country.”

  As for Nellie, once Trevor had bid them good night and departed, kissing their gloved hands, she could not stop talking about Bernhardt’s amazing performance. Nellie recalled the news that their long-lost Lillie Langtry had become an actress, but could she emote like that?

  Evidently relieved her young guest was not in raptures over Trevor, Mademoiselle declared Nellie must have caught a touch of fever and sent her to bed after she drank a tisane to calm her nerves.

  But Nellie was mostly heated from the impact of the story and the vibrant emotions of the characters. Hatred and fear. Love. Yes, lust. And the power of a woman to control her own destiny, despite the strength of her husband, whatever the pain and passion!

  As the three of them strolled through the gardens the next day, it seemed Mlle Duret was smitten with tropical flowers and Trevor seemed smitten by Nellie. But she could not help but stare at the caged animals she’d never seen before—so rare and unusual, at least to her, especially the so-called Bengal tiger from India with its tawny orange fur and black stripes. It prowled; it slunk and roared.

  “That big, beautiful cat has your coloring exactly, mon cherie,” Trevor whispered in her ear, and his warm breath heated her. He squeezed her arm he held next to his ribs.

  “Frightening, the power of it,” Mademoiselle said in French from Trevor’s other side where he escorted the elderly lady also. “It—why, thank the Lord for this cage, for that beast looks ready to strike.”

  “The nature of the breed, the fierce female, looking for her mate,” Trevor said in French, again reserving his flirty bon mots for Nellie’s ears alone. And just wait until she told Lucy about being courted—maybe seduced—in two languages!

  As Mlle Duret turned away to look into the lion cage nearby, Trevor held Nellie back. “I still beg you to run away with me. To Italy, Spain, anywhere your heart desires, for I desire and adore you.”

  It sounded so romantic, so enticing, yet Nellie knew she had enough good sense not to promise to leave one place for another as Mother had done with Mr. Kennedy. And Trevor hadn’t mentioned marriage.

  “I shall consider it,” she told him with a smile, “but for a rather long while.”

  “Ah, you strike me to the heart!” he whispered, placing his free hand on his chest and managing a look wretchedly forlorn. “Your beauty, your coloring, golden red with your raven eyebrows. You are and will always be the striking tigress of my heart and in my dreams, ma Belle Tigresse!”

  The very afternoon Nellie returned to Jersey, Mother opened the letter from Lucy, who was still in England, even before Nellie could tell her all about seeing Sarah Bernhardt. She began to read the letter aloud, then gasped and screamed, collapsing on the divan in the parlor.

  “What? Is she all right? Mother, what?” Nellie cried and sat beside her. She seized her wrist that held the letter. “Is she ill? Worse?”

  “Worse,” Mother croaked out and burst into tears.

  Nellie seized the letter and skimmed it. Betrothed? Lucy was betrothed! But to whom? She had hoped for Cecil to get final leave before Gibraltar to follow her to England, but—who was James Stuart Wallace?

  “Is it just that we don’t know him?” Nellie asked. She put her hand on Mother’s arm to pull it away from her face.

  “I know him. Know of him too,” she choked out.

  “Tell me. She must have met him before. She’s only been gone a little over a week.”

  Mother gripped her hands hard in her lap. Nellie could not recall seeing her in such panic or distress. She’d always been disciplined, a good soldier in this campaign—this battle—to leave her own family behind in Canada and care for Mr. Kennedy, whom she could never love.

  “We’d best read the entire letter,” Mother said, swiping at the tears on her cheeks and then producing a handkerchief she slid under her eyes. “James Wallace can be smooth, but he’s a rounder, a roué with a taste for liquor, gambling, and women. He must be near forty and doesn’t have a home, travels a lot, I take it.”

  “W-well,” Nellie stammered, “she would like that. And she’s much more practical than me, though she’s so very opinionated.”

  “I heard he’s a spendthrift and has debts—gambling debts, creditors.”

  “Surely she knows all that. Lucy’s whip-smart. Someone must have told her, or we can reason with her.”

  Mother just stared into space, as if seeing something that wasn’t there—or looking for answers. Nellie read the entire letter aloud. Lucy would design and sew her own wedding gown. They would rent a house in someplace called Cranford Park in Hounslow near London, where they could enjoy all the city had to offer. James had some lovely friends she had yet to meet . . . Please, would Nellie stand up with her? The wedding would be small and was set for 18 September this momentous year, 1884, in London . . . They hoped to travel to wonderful places, especially to the Mediterranean in the winter months . . . Mother and Nellie would always be welcome to visit and, of course, Mr. and Mrs. James Wallace would come to Jersey now and again . . . please be happy for her, since this was best . . .

  “She’s done this on the rebound from Cecil,” Nellie muttered and started to cry too. “Our little family—the three of us—our real family—will never be the same. Oh, Mother, we’ve lost her!”

  “Dear God in heaven, she’s lost her mind.”

  CHAPTER Four

  Lucy’s desire as a young bride was to look both virginal yet grand, and she felt she’d managed to pull that off with the gown she’d made for herself. The candlelight satin, pleated and draped in front and blooming in back over a bustle, was enhanced by a lace train attached to her forehead circlet of late rose blossoms. The train of the skirt pulled several feet of scallop-hemmed and embroidered skirt. The effect, she knew from staring at herself for hours in a
full-length looking glass, was to make her seem to float down the aisle.

  In truth, she felt she dragged. Her eyes were still rimmed with red from sobbing herself to sleep.

  “Oh, Nellie, what have I done? I hardly know him.” She’d admitted her worst fears to her sister last night. Nellie had sat on the bench at the foot of Lucy’s bed while Lucy paced in a swirl of skirts from her night robe. “I know James drinks too much, but so do a lot of men. At least he’s never sloppy or loud about it. Well, now that he’s settling down at last and declared his undying love, he’ll have to change some of his ways,” she’d insisted, hitting a fist repeatedly into the palm of her other hand. “I know Mr. Kennedy only got worse, but—well, at least James has money. He wants a son, and he’s observed more than once that girls seem to run in our family, but he loves me anyway.”

  Nellie had tried to comfort her, but she’d been listening and nodding. Finally, they’d lain down on the bed in exhausted silence and held hands. In her heart, in the quiet, Lucy had vowed to forget her foolish first love and be a good wife to her husband.

  “Lucile Christiana,” the presiding vicar’s voice intoned as James held her hand, jolting her back to the present, “do you solemnly pledge . . .”

  Things seemed to be happening around her but not to her. It was like a dream, like that drama Nellie had described with Sarah Bernhardt as Theodora who had drunk a love potion and then fallen madly in love with the first man she saw. Like a tragedy, only one where everyone did not end up dead on the stage.

  Strangely, when the service was over and they turned to face the small gathering of family and friends—more his than hers—as she paraded with James down the aisle with Nellie and her two other bridesmaids behind her, she had a strange idea, almost a vision, one that hardly seemed suitable on her wedding day, but that gave her hope nonetheless. She could show these people a parade of women wearing her designs and that she could create frocks and gowns not only for Mother, Nellie, and herself, but for others.