The Magnificent Masquerade (5 page)

The next morning proved to be so full of hectic
activity that Kitty had no time to think. There were three trunks to pack,
dozens of people to take fond leave of, addresses to exchange, and a special
assembly of the entire faculty and student body (arranged by Miss Marchmont to
honor her departing pupil) to attend. By the time the assemblage had been
dismissed, the carriage was in the drive, the gatekeeper was loading Kitty's
trunks upon it, and Emily was waiting at the door with Kitty's bonnet and
pelisse. Only then did Miss Marchmont remember that she'd done nothing about
Lord Birkinshaw's request to find an abigail for Kitty. "Oh, dear!"
she gasped, stricken.

"Where on earth shall I find someone for
you now?" Kitty was so depressed at having to make this untimely departure
that the subject didn't even interest her. "I'll manage without one,"
she told the headmistress, taking her bonnet from Emily's hand and thrusting it
carelessly on her head. "But I can't allow you to travel all the way to
Suffolk
unchaperoned," Miss Marchmont stated flatly. "We must think of
someone ..."

"Father's coachman will provide all the
chaperonage I need. Besides, in my present mood I don't want to endure the
company of some insipid biddy. If I had to listen to hours of nonsensical
babble, I'd have the vapors."

Miss Marchmont snorted. "Vapors, indeed! I
don't believe you even know what they are."

But Kitty didn't hear. Her attention had been
caught by Emily, who was waiting to help her on with her pelisse.

Kitty's eyes lit up. If any of her friends had
been watching, they would have recognized at once the dawn of a mischievous
idea. Emily, she thought, Emily! Why didn't I think of her before? She'd be
perfect!

Kitty turned to Miss Marchmont slowly. "Of
course," she murmured softly, "if I had someone like Emily for my
abigail..."

Emily gaped. "Me?"

The headmistress frowned. "Are you
speaking of our Emily? No, no, my dear, Emily is quite out of the
question."

"Really, Miss Marchmont?" Kitty
looked curiously from one to the other. "Why is that? I'm sure my father
would pay her well. And she and I have become very good friends. I know we'd
suit-"

"Emily is not a servant!" the
headmistress said firmly. "Her position here is something quite
special-"

"I think I'd like to go with Miss Jessup,
ma'am," Emily put in quietly.

Miss Marchmont's brows knit. "Are you
serious, girl? You cannot wish to spend your life as a mere lady's maid-"

"But it wouldn't be for life, ma'am,"
Emily pointed out. "Only for a fortnight, isn't that so?"

"That's true, Miss Marchmont," Kitty
said in eager support. "Only until my parents come to
Suffolk
for me."

The headmistress was not convinced. Taking
Emily's arm, she led the girl aside. "Emily, my dear," she said in a
low voice, "I don't wish to question your judgment, but I think you are
making a hasty, impulsive leap. You know that I've been grooming you for a
better life than you would have as a maidservant. I believe you capable of
becoming a teacher... to join the faculty here, if you wish, or elsewhere, when
you are ready. You will be able to earn a respectable competence and live the
life of a gentlewoman. Do not throw that prospect aside on a sudden whim!"

"I know this is very sudden, ma'am. But
surely a short time away from the academy would not ruin my prospects here,
would it?" Emily asked.

"No, of course not. You would be most
welcome to return at any time. But why do you wish to waste even a fortnight as

Kitty Jessup's maid?"

Emily lowered her head. "It is difficult
to explain. Please don't be cross with me, ma'am, for I don't mean to sound
ungrateful for all you've done for me. But ..." She hesitated.

"Go on, girl, I'm listening," Miss
Marchmont said impatiently.

"I've never spent a night away from here
since I was nine." She raised her head and looked her mentor squarely in
the eye. "Going away with Miss Jessup will be like a ... a holiday, don't
you see?"

"A holiday? No, I'm afraid I don't see.
Kitty Jessup is a clever, taking little minx, I admit, but how can doing her
hair and pressing her skirts and running about at her beck and call be
considered a holiday?"

"Because it would be a change, you see. I
shall be able to look out of a window onto something new. And it is Miss
Jessup, you know. She's so completely-how shall I say? Unpredictable. I have a
feeling in my very bones that going off with her will be an adventure!"

Miss Marchmont studied her protege for a long
moment. Then she merely nodded, turned, and strode back to Kitty.

"Very well, Miss Jessup, you win. You may
have Emily as your abigail for a fortnight's adventure."

Kitty squealed in delight and threw her arms
around her new maid. "Oh, splendid!" she cried. "That's
absolutely splendid!"

Emily smiled one of her rare smiles. "Yes,
miss. Splendid."

"Then let's not stand here gaping at one
another," Kitty said, bouncing about in impatience. "Run and get your
wrap at once!"

"But I have to pack my things-"

"Never mind that. I have more than enough
for both of us." And without giving her time for more than snatching up
her shawl and giving Miss Marchmont a quick embrace, Kitty took the girl's hand
and pulled her to the carriage.

"Oh, dear... this is all happening so
quickly!" Emily gasped, pausing at the foot of the carriage steps.

Kitty grinned. "That's how adventures
usually start."

"Adventures?" Emily gaped at her
aghast. "How did you-?"

"Miss Marchmont said the word, and I
understood at once." She turned the bewildered Emily about and propelled
her up the steps. "If it's adventure you want, my girl," she said in
her ear, "adventure you shall have."

Chapter Five

Kitty waited until they'd left
London
far behind before
she told Emily her plan. By this time Emily (who'd kept her nose pressed to the
window, utterly fascinated with the passing scene) had become so enchanted with
this glimpse of the world beyond the gates of
Marchmont
Academy
that any lingering doubts about the wisdom of her decision to leave the school
were completely dispelled. But when Kitty unfolded the details of what seemed
to Emily an insane scheme, those doubts came hack at once. "Change places,
miss? Pretend to be you? You're cozening me, aren't you? I couldn't! Not in a
Million years!"

"Don't be a goosecap! Of course you
could." "Miss Jessup, stop hamming me! You can't seriously wish me to
take your identity! To wear your clothes? To eat at the table with his
lordship? To sit and chat with him? If you think me capable of doing all that,
you've taken leave of your senses."

Kitty took no offense. She was accustomed to
this sort of reaction. Every one of her wild proposals to her schoolmates had
met with a negative reception at first. She'd always found it necessary to
overcome a barrage of opposition, but her enthusiasm and her powers of
persuasion had always won the day. She would win this struggle as she'd won all
the others. "Believe me, Emily," she said, her eyes shining with
excitement as she launched into an argument, "it won't be nearly as
difficult as you imagine. You wanted an adventure, didn't you? This will be the
greatest adventure of your life."

"I didn't bargain for this sort of
adventure, miss. It could never work! I've been a maid-of-all-work all my days.
I've never even set foot in a great house, much less sat down to dinner with a
nobleman. I wouldn't know what to do ... or say! I would die!"

"You underestimate yourself, my dear.
You'd be much better at it than I, I assure you. Miss Hemming says I'm the
greatest gawk alive. You, on the other hand, are graceful and pretty and speak
in a lovely, low voice. You've been at the school for longer than I-why, you're
going to teach deportment to clods like me! You're much more a lady than I
could ever be. Really!"

Emily eyed her employer suspiciously. "You
needn't flummery me, Miss Jessup. I know butter sauce when I smell it."

"It's not butter sauce, Emily, I swear.
You'll find the whole thing much easier than you expect. All you need do is be
yourself. Just act a bit proud, don't pick up anything anyone drops, don't call
me miss, and don't curtsey to any of the servants, even the most hoity-toity of
them."

"I just couldn't, Miss Jessup, I know
it!" Emily insisted, feeling a rising panic. "And I'm not sure you
could do it, either. You don't know what it's like to be a maidservant. I can
assure you, you'd not find it pleasant."

"I'm not afraid of hard work. I think I
should like it, rather. It will be like ... well, like an actress playing a
role. I think I

could make a rather good actress if I set my
mind to it."

"But I don't think I would make a good
actress, miss. Not at all! Besides, I don't know what you hope to gain by such
a deception."

"I'll gain time, if nothing else."
Kitty's voice quivered with earnest conviction. "I'll be able to observe
Tobias Wishart without his knowing. I'll take note of all his faults. By the
time my parents arrive, I'll have gained sufficient information to plead my
case to my father. And even if I can't convince him that the match would be
unsuitable, the Wisharts, when they learn what I've done, will be so disgusted
with me that they won't wish me to wed into their family."

"But what if you find that you like Mr.
Wishart? It will be too late then to make amends, won't it?"

"Yes, but it's extremely unlikely that I'd
like him well enough to wish to wed him. That's the whole point, don't you
see?" All the excitement of game-playing seemed suddenly to fade from her
eyes as a shadow of sincere distress suffused her face. "I'm too young for
marriage, Emily," she said quietly. "I

haven't even lived yet. I want to be free for a
while. I want to meet hundreds of eligibles before I'm shackled. To be thrust
right from the schoolroom into wedlock seems to me to be vastly unfair. I
shan't have had a chance to have fun! I want to go to parties, to flirt, to
dance, to break a hundred hearts before I'm saddled with a husband. Do you
understand?" Emily shook her head. "No, I don't think I do. If a
nobleman wanted me for a bride-to take me to live in his great estate, to
provide me with servants and lovely clothes and jewels, to give me the freedom
to spend my days with books and a pianoforte of my own-why, I'd think I was the
most fortunate girl in the world."

"That's what you think now. But if you had
to spend weeks, months, years with a stuffy old bore of a husband who would be
forever giving you orders and scolding you for buying too many hats and keeping
you from going to parties with your friends and expecting you to sit on his
knee whenever he liked ... well, you might not think yourself so fortunate.
Meanwhile, I'm offering you the chance to live your dream, if only for a
fortnight. You'll live on a great estate, with servants and lovely clothes and
all my jewels (which are not worth a queen's ransom, I admit, but my
grandmother's pearls are quite lovely, and I have with me a garnet brooch that
was given to the third Lord Birkinshaw by Charles the First), and you'll be
quite free to read and play the piano to your heart's content."

Emily was not convinced. "And when the
deception is discovered, and I am being marched off to the gallows, I can
console myself with my memories of my magnificent masquerade, is that it?"

"Nothing dreadful will happen to you,
Emily, I promise! I shall take all the blame. I shall declare that I forced you
into this deception and that, since you are in my employ, you had no choice but
to obey. Please, my dear, say you'll do it. It is the only way I can think of
to save my life."

Emily wrung her hands nervously. "I don't
wish to disoblige you, miss, I truly don't. But my innards are shaking already.
I'm bound to make a botch of it."

"No, you won't, Emily. I'll be your
abigail, at your side whenever you need me. It's only for a fortnight, after
all."

Emily had to succumb. She would be given no
peace until she did, she knew. When Kitty Jessup made up her mind, there was no
stopping her.

When Kitty realized she'd won, she embraced the
maid with a glad cry and immediately set about implementing her plan. She
undressed herself down to her under-petticoat made Emily do the same. The two
changed clothing, Kitty giggling with pleasure at her transformation into
shabbiness and Emily moaning with trepidation despite the unaccustomed but
pleasant sensation of silk and lustring against her skin. Kitty's clothes were
a bit too large for Emily, but the girls managed to make do with the help of a
few pins from Emily's (now Kitty's) well-stocked pocket. When the clothes had
been exchanged, Kitty turned her attention to their hair. She undid Emily's
braid and recombed her hair into a more stylish knot at the nape of her neck,
making sure that a few soft tendrils were permitted to escape at the sides of
her face. Then Emily loosened Kitty's fashionable bun and let the red tresses
hang loose in their natural disarray. This would do for a housemaid during
travel, she warned, but Kitty would have to pin it up or braid it during her
"working hours." For the time being, however, Emily provided her with
a shabby mobcap which partially covered her unruly locks. The cap was an
unmistakable symbol of her new station in life, and it would suffice to make
her hair presentable.

The only real difficulty the girls encountered
occurred when they tried to exchange footwear. Kitty's foot was larger than
Emily's; she couldn't squeeze her foot into Emily's worn boots without giving
herself a great deal of discomfort. In the end each girl had to wear her own.
"No one will notice," Kitty said reassuringly. "During the
bustle of arrival, everyone will be too busy to notice our shoes. And once
we've unpacked, we can stuff the toes of all my slippers with paper. You'll do
very well that way. As for me, I'll scuff up the tips of these half-boots in a
coal scuttle at the first opportunity. We shall brush through, I promise you.
Well, how do I look?" Emily had to admit that Kitty looked every inch a
dowdy little Irish housemaid. But she would not agree that she, Emily, could
ever pass for a great lady. It was not until Kitty placed her feathered bonnet
upon Emily's head and made her look into a hand mirror that Emily was
convinced. Seeing herself so splendidly arrayed left her speechless for a
moment.