6
Diana had very little confidence in her dancing ability, as it had been many years since she’d had lessons, and Regina had been out of society for so long that she was out of practice as well, so the two women decided to engage a dancing master to come every day in the ten days leading up to the ball.
They felt a little sorry for their instructor, Monsieur de la Tour, as he was a French émigré who had fled the revolution almost twenty-five years earlier at the tender age of sixteen and had eventually begun giving dance lessons as a way of putting food on the table. Though Diana supposed, as professions went, his wasn’t an unpleasant one. After her conversation with Mr. Dean, she’d been forced to acknowledge to herself that he was probably correct in saying it was no easy matter for a gentleman to earn an income, though she still contended that an impoverished lady had it far worse.
After a private discussion, Regina and Diana hit upon the notion of inviting Monsieur de la Tour to their ball. Although forty years old, he was a bachelor, and was certainly as deserving of an advantageous marriage as the younger son of an Englishman, as he had lost his fortune and property in France through no fault of his own. He was also a very personable man, with his dark hair and eyes, athletic grace, and Gallic charm. However, he appeared more startled than pleased by the invitation.
“I do not understand. You wish to engage me to work for the evening?” he asked them, puzzled. “You want me to be on hand to remind you of the steps should you forget?”
“Although of course we’d appreciate any reminders you think necessary, we’re inviting you as our guest,” Lady Regina said, still slightly red-cheeked and perspiring from the quadrille she had just finished, where she had obligingly performed the man’s part opposite Diana so Monsieur could watch them both.
“But it is quite scandalous to invite someone such as me to a society ball,” he protested.
Diana and Regina smiled at each other. “Most likely the ball itself will cause a scandal,” Diana said. “It is no matter, though, because we do not care.”
“C’est incroyable!” he exclaimed. “The English are always guarding their females from us poor dancing masters. They’d sooner invite the fox into the chicken . . . What is the word?”
“Coop,” said Diana and Regina simultaneously, and then smiled when Monsieur de la Tour repeated the word with his French-accented English.
Monsieur smiled as well, before sweeping them an elaborate bow. “I thank you, ladies, for the invitation; I am honored to accept. I have never before danced with any of my students for pleasure, though I take what pleasure I can in the performance of my duties,” he said, with a flirtatious glance at Regina. “I greatly look forward to dancing at your ball. Might I request a dance with each of you?”
The ladies happily agreed, Diana mentioning later to Regina that it was an inspired idea to invite Monsieur de la Tour, as there would be no other gentleman there who danced so well, and they would both feel much more confident with him as a partner.
“And perhaps one of the ladies will fall in love with him, and have a dancing partner for life,” Regina said, with a laugh.
Diana, who had noticed her friend seemed to take a great deal of pleasure in her dancing lessons, most particularly when the instruction involved waltzing with Monsieur de la Tour, wondered if Regina herself might be developing a fondness for the gentleman. And if she were, Diana thought it was a fortunate thing she could afford to marry him.
The Ladies of the Registry met at Lady Gordon’s townhome to make the final arrangements for their ball. There were now eighteen members of their group, and Diana felt they were the best of the bunch, as they did not look down their noses at Lady Regina because of her lost reputation, or sneer at Miss Jarmyn, whose fortune had been acquired from her grandfather, a Yorkshire millowner. They were also fully aware that their participation could cost them vouchers to Almack’s Assembly Rooms or invitations to Carlton House, and they were willing to make that sacrifice.
Even Diana, as removed from society as she was, had heard of Almack’s. Dances were held there every Wednesday evening during the season and were by invitation only. To be given vouchers to Almack’s was the ultimate sign of social acceptance. While noble birth was an important consideration, it did not guarantee entry, nor were all those of inferior birth denied admittance. After all, Beau Brummel, the famous dandy, was a frequent attendee, and his grandfather had been a servant and his father a shopkeeper. Whether or not someone received a voucher was entirely due to the whims of a small group of seven women: the Lady Patronesses of Almack’s. These patronesses also required young ladies who had never yet danced the waltz in public to approach them for permission before doing so. To circumvent the patronesses’ authority and start a rival group could cause the Ladies of the Registry to be ostracized by their peers, who courted the favor of the powerful and prestigious patronesses. But Diana and the other ladies were not in fear of society’s disapproval. On the contrary, they felt they had played by its rules long enough or, as in Diana’s case, did not aspire to a position in such exalted circles. Somehow the very thing that had been the symbol of their helplessness, that directory which listed them as no more than a commodity, had now become a way for them to exert their independence, to rewrite the rules in their favor.
And they were quite literally rewriting them.
Lady Regina, seated at a desk in Lady Gordon’s library, spoke aloud as she scribbled on a sheet of paper.
“Number one: Any lady may refuse to dance with a gentleman and still have the option of dancing with another gentleman should she wish to,” she said slowly, squinting down at the sentence she’d written and nodding in satisfaction. She then looked up at the ladies who were seated around her and who were staring at her with expressions of shock and confusion. “Was that unclear?” Regina asked them.
“But . . . do you mean we can refuse any gentleman? And we don’t have to sit out the remainder of the dances?” asked Miss Meadows.
Regina looked back down at her paper. “Isn’t that what I’ve written? Should I phrase it differently?”
Lady Gordon intervened. “I believe, Lady Regina, that Miss Meadows, and some of the other ladies, are asking about the suitability of the rule, not its clarity.”
“Ah,” Lady Regina said. “Perhaps we should discuss it then. I realize that it’s considered impolite to refuse a gentleman’s offer to dance, and if a lady does so she’s required to sit out the rest of the dances that evening, but I believe that rule to be arbitrary, and well, stupid, and quite obviously designed for a man’s benefit, and not a woman’s.”
“I agree,” Lady Gordon said, nodding her head emphatically. “A woman should not be forced to participate in any activity with a gentleman if she does not desire to, and she should not be punished for exercising that right.”
Most of the ladies began nodding in agreement, though a few still looked uncertain.
“But what do we say?” Mrs. Young asked. She had been sought after even prior to her inclusion in the directory, as she was pretty and good-natured, and the late Mr. Young had been popular before his untimely death. “In the past, if I did not want to dance with a gentleman, I merely told him that I was not dancing that evening.”
“That is a very good question,” Lady Regina said. “Any suggestions?”
“We would still have to be polite. There is no sense in needlessly causing offense, or hurting some poor gentleman’s feelings,” Diana said, as she was very softhearted and could imagine how humiliating it would be for a shy young gentleman to be brusquely refused after having gathered his courage to approach a lady and request a dance.
“Perhaps it should be the ladies who ask the gentlemen to dance,” Miss Jarmyn said, and even Lady Regina looked a little surprised at this suggestion.
“What do you think?” Lady Regina asked Lady Gordon.
Lady Gordon addressed the group. “I think that if any of you ladies desire to dance with a gentleman who has not asked you, then you should inform one of the hostesses: me, Lady Regina, or Mrs. Boyle, and we will present you to the gentleman as a desirable partner.”
“And if you do not want to dance with a gentleman, you can merely say, ‘I thank you very much for the invitation, but I beg you to excuse me,’ ” suggested Lady Regina. “Hopefully there will not be so many undesirable gentlemen present that you need refuse them.”
The ladies nodded agreement to this, some of them looking quite relieved, and Diana doubted very many, if any, gentlemen would be refused, if merely the thought of such a prospect made the ladies this uncomfortable.
Regina had turned her attention back to her document and the only sound in the room was the scratching of her pen, as the ladies waited in silent anticipation. “Number two: A lady may dance with the same gentleman more than two times,” she read aloud, before adding: “should she so desire,” as she wrote down those words. There were little gasps around the room, but when Regina looked up, the expressions were pleased.
“Any questions or objections?” Regina asked.
“Exactly how many times may they dance together?” Miss Meadows asked.
“Why, I don’t know,” Regina said. “What do you ladies think?”
“Perhaps we shouldn’t impose a limit,” said Miss Jarmyn, who was beginning to appear quite the rebel.
“We could leave it up to each lady’s own discretion,” Diana said, “but we should keep in mind that a certain amount of restraint is usually advisable.”
“We wouldn’t want the gentleman to be too sure of himself,” Miss Ballard agreed.
The final rule the group decided upon was that any lady present at the ball was allowed to waltz.
“There is no point in waiting to get permission from the patronesses of Almack’s, as very few, if any of us, plan to attend their boring assemblies,” Regina explained. She didn’t add that they were unlikely to be invited anyway, once news of this scandalous ball had spread. This rule was unanimously and happily adopted, and shortly thereafter most of the ladies took their leave, although Regina and Diana stayed behind to finalize many other more mundane details with Lady Gordon.
Diana, who had never hosted a social event larger than an informal dinner, was thankful that they had Lady Gordon to guide them. Even Lady Regina, whose knowledge of such things was obviously greater than Diana’s, had never planned and hosted her own ball, though she had seen her mother do so.
Lady Gordon had been a widow for five years, but her husband had been quite active in political affairs before his death, so she was accustomed to entertaining and enjoyed doing so. She confided in Diana and Lady Regina that her marriage had been a happy one, and her one regret was that she and her husband had had no children. Upon his death his title and country home had gone to a distant relation, but his fortune had been his to bestow, and Lady Gordon had inherited most of it, along with the townhouse in Berkeley Square.
“I very much doubt I shall ever remarry,” she told Regina and Diana during their tour of the ballroom, as she looked around in fond reminiscence. “It was a huge surprise when I found I was included in this directory. Mr. Dean must not have realized I am two-and-forty. And while I greatly miss my husband, I realize I was more fortunate than most women to have fifteen years of happiness with a man who returned my affection, and who sought and valued my opinion. It would be very difficult to find another man like him, and I’d feel silly searching for one at my age.”
“You were fortunate, indeed,” Diana said emphatically, and then wished she had not spoken, as the other two ladies looked curiously at her. She hurried to change the subject. “Though I agree it would be difficult to find another gentleman worthy of you,” she said, with a fond smile at Lady Gordon.
“I’m sure most of the gentlemen are looking for a younger woman, with whom they can start a family,” said Lady Gordon with a momentary frown, before resuming her usual pleasant expression. “But my goal in doing this is not to find myself a husband, but to participate in Lady Regina’s very revolutionary and novel scheme to remake the typical gender roles in our favor. And, though I know one of the rules you probably intend to flout is that young, unmarried ladies must have an older female chaperone, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to have someone of the sort to lend respectability to your endeavor.”
“We greatly appreciate your doing so, Lady Gordon,” Regina told her. “Indeed, I don’t know if I’d be brave enough to undertake this at all without your support.”
The discussion then turned to some of the practical decisions to be made regarding the menu, and while Lady Gordon and Regina debated the merits of serving Punch à la Romaine, Diana studied their hostess.
Lady Gordon could obviously no longer pass for a debutante, but she was still a very lovely woman. It was her hair that proclaimed her age, as it had turned completely gray, but rather than detract from her appearance, the color seemed to emphasize her lustrous eyes, which were the color of an aquamarine gemstone. Her figure, too, was very pleasing and her movements graceful, and Diana suspected that some men might prefer her elegant maturity to less-polished youthfulness.
Now that she had gotten to know some of the other women, Diana felt much less apprehensive and was growing more excited about the upcoming ball. Although many of these women had been born into far more affluent circumstances than she had, they had all experienced the restrictions brought on by virtue of their sex, and now they were getting the opportunity to taste some of the freedoms that a gentleman took for granted. Of course, they were all very little things; so trifling that a man would probably find them ridiculous. But having been trapped in a gilded cage, even a short flight was better than never once being allowed to spread one’s wings.