that she looked like a portrait, extremely beautiful but somehow unreal. Then, just as Elizabeth was beginning to be unnerved, she gave a slight shrug of her shoulders and said, ‘It is not important, only that he has not told you my English, it is not very good. You will forgive me if the things I say do not always make sense?’
‘Of course,’ said Elizabeth. ‘Your English is, in any case, far better than my Italian.’
They laughed and then Sophia turned back to the clothes and said, ‘Now, which dress is for you?’
Elizabeth looked through the glorious gowns made of rich fabrics in blues, yellows, and scarlets. She took out a dress of deep blue velvet, which was criss-crossed with a latticework pattern in gold, matched by the slashes in the sleeves which allowed the gold silk of the undersleeve to be seen. She held it up, the candlelight winking on the gold thread woven into the latticework.
‘Ah, yes,’ Sophia said, ‘That is very beautiful. It is well chosen. Try it on!’
Sophia helped Elizabeth to slip out of her own gown and into the antique costume. As Sophia fastened it, Elizabeth looked at herself in a mirror and was surprised at what she saw.
‘I look quite different,’ she said.
‘Already the transformation, it takes place,’ said Sophia, standing behind her.
The dress was fitted at the waist, showing Elizabeth’s figure, which was usually disguised beneath her high-waisted gowns, and the fuller skirts flowed in folds to the floor. The dress was cut low at the neck with a square neckline, and it was richly embroidered with more gold thread.
Elizabeth was reminded of her childhood, when she and Jane had dressed up in Mrs Bennet’s old clothes for a game of charades. They had loved the rich fabrics and hooped skirts, and they had taken great pleasure in trying on a variety of wigs.
‘And now, you must choose a mask.’ Sophia showed Elizabeth a collection of masks of all shapes and styles, saying, ‘We Venetians, we love our masks. We have worn them always, until Napoleon; he banned them. But they are a part of us, a part of our heritage. We love mystery and the thrill of the unknown. It is a good thing for a nation of explorers! So much do we love it that even at a ball, we must explore: we explore each other.’
She picked up one of the masks.
‘See, here, we have a mask that covers the whole face; the features, they are richly moulded. And see,’ she said, picking up another mask, ‘here we have the flatter masks. This one, it has no fastenings, only a bar at the back to be held between the teeth.’
Elizabeth looked at it curiously, saying, ‘It must be very uncomfortable.’
‘But yes, it is true, that mask is not comfortable at all, and it makes conversation impossible. You will not wear that one. Perhaps you like this one?’
She held up a full face mask which was supported on a stick, but after holding it in front of her face for a few minutes, Elizabeth realised it would soon make her arm ache.
‘I think this one,’ she said, choosing a half mask that was held on by a band passed round the back of the head.
‘Si, that is a good one. It is still possible to eat and talk with the mouth being uncovered, but the nose and eyes are obscured, as well as the cheeks and forehead, so the mystery, it is preserved. You will set the others guessing! Your hair, it must be changed too. The styles of the day were similar but not the same. It must be parted in the middle and smooth over the top, with waves down the side of the face and the fullness pulled back into a—’ She broke off and said something in Italian. ‘No, it is no good, I do not know how to say it in English, but no matter, my maids, they know how to arrange such styles and I will send one of them to help you on the day of the ball. It is very important to make it right,’ she said, ‘otherwise it spoil things.’
At last they went downstairs, to find that dinner was being announced. As they went into the dining room, the talk of the ball became interspersed with other topics of interest, and to the Italians one of the greatest topics of interest was their art. Alfonse declared that Titian was a better artist than