Corsets, Gossip and Sad-eyed Detectives.

Today I'm sharing another exclusive excerpt from A Loveliness of Ladybirds.

Enjoy!

***

“It’s no good, Mary,” she gasped out, clutching the cast-iron bedstead. “Help me out of this bodice and loosen the wretched contraption beneath. I shan’t be able to eat a morsel at the wedding breakfast in this torturous device.”

But Lucy Greenwood waited in agony, and in vain, to be relieved of her pinching corset and the new gown over it.

“You look a fair treat, Miss Lucy,” was the only response she received, followed by the comfort of, “That shade of blue suits you. Would never expect it to, since it’s such an innocent shade, but it does.”

Ignoring the cheek of that comment, Lucy turned, with both hands on her waist, and spoke carefully. “Mary, undo me. I can barely breathe! It simply won’t do!”

Her assistant watched her lips and then gave a complacent reply. “Don’t be daft. You’re in it now, Miss Lucy. Like a sausage inside the casing. It’ll take too much bother squeezin’ you out again and the carriage will soon be here.  You don’t want to be late or they’ll start without you. Besides, you look like a picture in one o’ them ladies’ magazines. Don’t want to spoil that by getting you all undone again.”

“Which will do me no earthly good when I drop down dead in the church aisle.” This time she signed with her fingers, trying to conserve her breath.

“You’ll make a handsome corpse, though.”

“I shall take comfort from that then, shall I? Better be a good-looking cadaver than a plain woman still breathing.”

“That’s the idea, Miss Lucy.” Thoroughly unconcerned by her friend and employer’s plight, Mary opened the creaky little dormer window of the bedchamber. “You stand here and take in some fresh air. You’ll feel better. There’s a nice bit o’ breeze.”

“What does it matter how much air there is about, if I cannot squeeze any into my lungs?”

But while her assistant looked out of the window and into the street below, Lucy stole a quick, sly assessment of her appearance in the long mirror.  

Reluctantly she observed how the corset beneath the gown gave her an exceedingly elegant figure, and the robin’s egg blue silk— which she had feared to be too young for her— was very becoming in the sunshine. A few too many ruffles, but it was not her choice. She must grin and bear it.

“It could be worse, I suppose,” she murmured, pressing her shoulders down and her chin up. “One does not want to look too completely heinous at the wedding of an old friend.”

“Aye. You’ll do,” Mary shouted over her shoulder. “As long as you don’t eat anything or try to sit down. Or go climbing any trees.”

“And that was just the very thing I planned to do at this wedding. Climb a tree.”

“There you are then. What’s all the fuss in aid of?”

Lucy shook her head. “My membership in The Rational Dress Society will be revoked if they ever see me in this outfit.”

And she was hungry already. Not a good beginning when there was no room to put the lightest morsel of food.

An immediate vision of herself consuming unladylike amounts of festive ham at the wedding breakfast, with burst seams, hooks flying in all directions and rolls of flesh revealed to the startled guests, rendered her dizzy with amusement suddenly. Or else blood was rushing to her head and flooding her brain, having been forced up there by the spiteful machinations of that new corset. There was certainly a strange excitability in the atmosphere on this sunny morning.

“I know how prisoners felt just as the door of the iron maiden was closed upon them,” she wheezed. “Goodbye, air! Farewell, life!”

But Mary was looking down into the street, again now, her broad, sturdy, farm-bred forearms resting on the windowsill. Whenever she was not wearing her special hair comb with the hearing device attached to pick up sounds in her deaf ear, she was in her own muffled world. Unless actually paying attention to the mouths around her, of course. She was a very adept lip-reader when she wanted to be, which was not often. Most folk, according to Mary, had nothing worth hearing to say.

“Must be a rich fellow,” she said. “The groom. Reckon that’s the carriage just pulled up.”

Lucy joined her at the window to inspect the box barouche creaking to a halt below. “I know little about Sir Buxton Hardwicke, except his political leanings.” She wrinkled her nose. “And I have nothing good to say about them.”

“My pa always says a woman shouldn’t take an interest in politics. She shouldn’t have any hopinion, he says, unless a man, as knows better than they, takes the time and trouble to give her one of his.”

“Yes, Mary, I am acquainted with your father’s views on life. They are much the same as those maintained by others of his gender. But I must manage the best I can, since I have no man so generously gifting me with a share of his opinions. Thank goodness!”

As that fine carriage stood below, the shop fronts of Charles Place were suddenly seized by a flurry of awakening business. Curtains twitched like the ruffles of Flamenco dancers’ skirts and doorknockers up and down the row required immediate polishing. Not to mention front steps— already swept once this morning— apparently demanding a second brush. And in the midst of this activity, a small figure scurried out of the shop beneath them to feed the waiting horses with some carrot.

“Look at that little nitwit, feeding our hot-pot bits ‘n pieces to somebody else’s beasts,” Mary grumbled. “She’d give our supper to the town’s stray cats every night, if I didn’t watch her!”

Little Ivy Dimmock, former workhouse waif and scullery maid, had worked at Lucy’s cake shop and tea room since the previous autumn and was mostly an eager helper, but also a day-dreamer with a terrible penchant for wandering off with a spoon in one hand, chocolate on her lips, and almost no recollection of what she was meant to be watching on the range. It did not take much to distract her. On this fresh, spring morning, with the doors and windows open to let out the kitchen heat, the clip-clop of those sleek horses, pulling a fine carriage slowly over the cobbles with great ceremony, must have drawn her away from the pots and pans.

“Best make sure she’s not left the caramel to burn again,” Mary muttered. “Dozy ‘apeth.” She hurried to the door, but paused there and signed to Lucy, “You look lovely, Miss. If that detecting fellow could see you in that dress, he’d stop dilly-dallying and pull his boots up.”

Lucy reached for a woolen shawl and tossed it over the mirror, obscuring her reflection. “I can assure you, Mary Hobson, I am not waiting for a man to do anything of the sort. How many times have I told you that I have no intention of ever marrying anybody?”

Mary signed again, “I did not mention the word marriage.”

“Good. See that you don’t!”

“He says he’d never marry again, in any case.” Those quick fingers added. “Once was enough, it seems.”

“There you are then,” she snapped, pulling her window shut with a clang and a squeal of the rusty latch.

Trust Mary to choose one of his conversations as worthy of observing, she mused. There was no doubt that her surly assistant had taken a liking to Detective Inspector Deverell. And one could count the number of people Mary Hobson had time for on the fingers of half a hand— with young Ivy being the half— so this was no small achievement for the fellow. Of course, Deverell was a quiet sort of man. He did not flounder about in self-important impatience. Since all his workings went on inside, as Mary had remarked once, whenever he did speak, he had something interesting to say and, in the telling of it, he did not shout at her as if he thought her stupid. He had also bought Mary a new sewing box for Christmas, as a thank you for mending his old coat. The young woman had never quite got over it, and every time she had cause to open the lid of that pretty little box, she made sure to remind anybody nearby that he had fetched it for her all the way from London— a place she had never been and never expected to visit.

Only six months ago, London was little better than Sodom and Gomorrah, in Mary Hobson’s mind. But now, since Detective Inspector Deverell— and her smart, new sewing box with all the velvet-lined compartments— came from that place, it could be regarded with less antipathy.  Even a little awe.

The fact that she still referred to him as “That Detecting Fellow”, as if she did not recall his name, fooled nobody.

“I thought Ivy was the one with a head full of romantic nonsense,” said Lucy sharply. “It had better not rub off on you, Mary. I rely upon you to be the voice of reason when I’m not here. I cannot have you both floating in the clouds.” She swiped her bonnet from where it perched on the nearest cast-iron bed-knob. “Detective Inspector Deverell and I are friends. That is all.”

But sometimes it felt as if she spoke his name aloud much too often.

Thought about him too frequently.

Worried about winning his approval and his admiration far too much. Especially when she had no idea that he ever thought about her at all. 

Although, that was not entirely true, was it?

Lucy looked down at the bonnet in her hands, running a silk ribbon through her fingers. There were, occasionally, sparks of light in the darkness. After all, he had purchased for her a bicycle— ordered that too, at great expense no doubt, all the way from Lockreedy and Velder’s Universal Emporium in London—but he did so anonymously on that occasion, not wanting her gratitude, apparently. The man must not realize that he was the only soul to whom she’d ever confessed her desire to traverse the streets of York on her own set of wheels. So, of course, she knew at once that it was a gift from him.

But then he had bought a gift for Mary too, so perhaps it was simply a kindness and she should not read so much into it.

There were other moments too, that teased her to think he liked her company. He came sometimes for tea and listened with good-natured forbearance to her chatter. But he was not one for grand gestures, mushy poetry and passionate exclamations. On the contrary, at times he looked at Lucy as if he suspected her of plotting some wicked crime.

Lushly-maned Samson, with sudden foresight at his disposal, would have regarded Delilah and her scissors with only half as much trepidation.

She shot another frown at the veiled mirror.

Tolly Deverell was a man who would never admit that she looked nice unless the compliment was pried out of him by a crab fork. Even then he would make it seem as if she was up to no good by looking thus. Impossible man. Really, she did not know why he constantly popped up in their kitchen conversation. She ought to curb that habit before the speculation between her staff got out of hand.

Mary was watching her with narrowed eyes. “Are you and he still friends then?” she said, carefully pronouncing her words.

Lucy paused in the process of tying her bonnet ribbons under her chin. “Why?” she asked airily. “What can you mean by that? Why would he and I not be friends?”

Her assistant heaved a shrug. “Just that the last time he left here he didn’t seem to be in a very merry mood and that was a fortnight since.”

She gave a little snort. “Have you ever seen Mr. Deverell in a very merry mood, Mary?” He took life extremely seriously, carrying all the world’s troubles on his broad shoulders, as if he could trust nobody else to do it.

“He hasn’t been back since though, has he?” said Mary.

Yes, she was well aware of that. It had been two weeks and three days, actually. She resumed the tying of her bow, staring up at the low, crooked ceiling beams which appeared to her, quite suddenly, as disapproving eyebrows.

“Thought perhaps you hurt his feelings with that sharp tongue o’ yourn,” Mary added, looking at her fingernails. “Don’t know why else he’d have a face like a slapped arse when he left.”

“Mary! Language please! We do not have arses here. Slapped or otherwise. This is not a farmyard or a naughty boy’s boarding school.”

“What do we have then?”

“Posteriors. If we must have anything of the sort!”

Mary looked wryly amused. “I’d say we must. Can’t let the hot air and wind out without one.”

“And Mr. Deverell is a grown man,” Lucy added, trying not to get all high-pitched and indignant. “How on earth could I have upset him with a few words? It was merely a debate. We’ve had plenty of those before and no doubt we shall have many more.” She paused again. The thought of never enjoying another discussion with that man was intolerable, an icy spear to her heart. Surely, he would be back again to sit in her tea room, looking vastly uncomfortable among all the dainty china and making her wait on tenterhooks for his verdict of her latest creation. Of course, he would come back. Why would he not? She reached for her gloves where they sat upon the quilted coverlet. “What is the meaning of that face, Mary Hobson?”

“I’m sayin’ nowt. You know more about men than I do.”

“You most certainly will say, Mary. You began this discussion.”

“I’d best go down and make certain that dozy girl en’t set the shop ablaze.”

“Mary, you will stay here and explain what you mean by describing Mr. Deverell’s expression in those terms.”

“Now, remember, Miss Lucy, you’re to deliver the cake first to the hotel and then the coachman will take you on to the church to join the others. I’ll make certain the tiers are all set safely in the coach so they get there undamaged, shall I?”

“I will manage the cake. I do not need reminding to watch one of my own creations. I insist you tell me why you think Mr. Deverell is no longer—"

“Caramel, Miss Lucy. Burnt. Pans to scrub. Tea to brew. We cannot all stand about gawpin’ at ourselves in the glass. You know what they say about Satan and idle hands. And vanity.”

“Mary! Do not leave this room! Come back and—"

The assistant deliberately looked at her feet, backed out and shut the door, her boots clomping noisily down the stairs to the kitchen, leaving Lucy alone.

“Damn this corset!” She shouted, “And how many times have I told you not to call me Miss Lucy. I am not somebody’s maiden great aunt with an ill-tempered lapdog, a pickled liver and a lorgnette.”

No answer, of course. Mary would pretend she did not hear, even if she did.

Now Lucy truly felt constricted and hot. Just when she wanted to be serene and cool-headed in her pastel silk.

Not friends? It had not occurred to her that Deverell might be staying away deliberately. Never expecting to have his full attention, she had thought him simply busy. As was she, of course. A woman with a business to run did not have time to sit idle, wondering about gruff, sad-eyed detectives.

She told herself that constantly. Almost as often as she thought about him.

Illustrations used here: Vintage clipart and "A Cup of Tea" by Walter Granville Smith 1904.