the maid was clearing away the breakfast things. “How very much better you look today, Cassilda. Camilla tells me you feel well enough to sit up.”
“I really can’t play the invalid and continue to impose upon your hospitality any longer. Would it be possible that you might lend me some clothing? My own garments...” Cassilda frowned, trying to remember why she had burst in on her benefactress virtually naked.
“Certainly, my dear.” Mrs Castaigne squeezed her shoulder. “You must see if some of my daughter’s garments won’t fit you. You cannot be very different in size from Constance, I’m certain. Camilla will assist you.”
She was light-headed when first she tried to stand, but Cassilda clung to the brass bedposts until her legs felt strong enough to hold her. The maid was busying herself at the chest of drawers, removing items of clothing from beneath neat coverings of tissue paper. A faint odor of dried rose petals drifted from a sachet beneath the folded garments.
“I do hope you’ll overlook it if these are not of the latest mode,” Mrs Castaigne was saying. “It has been some time since Constance was with us here.”
“Your daughter is...?”
“Away.”
Cassilda declined to intrude further. There was a dressing screen behind which she retired, while Mrs Castaigne waited upon the chaise longue. Trailing a scent of dried roses from the garments she carried, Camilla joined her behind the screen and helped her out of her nightdress.
There were undergarments of fine silk, airy lace and gauzy pastels. Cassilda found herself puzzled, both from their unfamiliarity and at the same time their familiarity, and while her thoughts struggled with the mystery, her hands seemed to dress her body with practiced movements. First the chemise, knee-length and trimmed with light lace and ribbons. Seated upon a chair, she drew on pale stockings of patterned silk, held at midthigh by beribboned garters. Then silk knickers, open front and back and tied at the waist, trimmed with lace and niching where they flared below her stocking tops. A frilled petticoat fell almost to her ankles.
“I won’t need that,” Cassilda protested. Camilla had presented her with a boned corset of white-and-sky broche.
“Nonsense, my dear,” Mrs Castaigne directed, coming around the dressing screen to oversee. “You may think of me as old-fashioned, but I insist that you not ruin your figure.”
Cassilda submitted, suddenly wondering why she had thought anything out of the ordinary about it. She hooked the straight busk together in front, while Camilla gathered the laces at the back. The maid tugged sharply at the laces, squeezing out her breath. Cassilda bent forward and steadied herself against the back of the chair, as Camilla braced a knee against the small of her back, pulling the laces as tight as possible before tying them. Once her corset was secured, she drew over it a camisole of white cotton lace trimmed with ribbon, matching her petticoat. Somewhat dizzy, Cassilda sat stiffly before the dressing table, while the maid brushed out her long black hair and gathered it in a loose knot atop her head, pinning it in place with tortoise-shell combs. Opening the wardrobe, Camilla found her a pair of shoes with high heels that mushroomed outward at the bottom, which fit her easily.
“How lovely, Cassilda!” Mrs Castaigne approved. “One would scarcely recognize you as the poor drowned thing that came out of the night!”
Cassilda stood up and examined herself in the full-length dressing mirror. It was as if she looked upon a stranger, and yet she knew she looked upon herself. The corset constricted her waist and forced her slight figure into an “S” curve—hips back, bust forward— imparting an unexpected opulence, further enhanced by the gauzy profusion of lace and silk. Her face, dark-eyed and finely boned, returned her gaze watchfully from beneath a lustrous pile of black hair. She touched herself, almost in wonder, almost believing that the reflection in the mirror was a photograph of someone else.
Camilla selected for her a long-sleeved linen shirtwaist, buttoned at the cuffs and all the way to her throat, then helped her into a skirt of some darker material that fell away from her cinched waist to her ankles. Cassilda studied herself in the mirror, while the maid fussed about her.
I look like someone in an old illustration—a Gibson girl, she thought, then puzzled at her thought.
Through the open window she could hear the vague noises of the city, and for the first time she realized that intermingled with these familiar sounds was the clatter