CHAPTER 14

I had never been in Mademoiselle Helene’s shop before in my life. Whenever my mother and I passed it on our way to go to market, she would point it out to me and say, “If your uncle Theobald decides to take an interest in your future, I daresay we could afford a gown from Mademoiselle Helene’s.” We were well off enough to pay someone else to make most of our clothing, but our tailor was the one a little way out of the center, where I had left Toby while I went to the Gypsy camp, not a fashionable dressmaker. Herr Groschen was a pleasant fellow who did his best to keep up with the fashions, and we always looked respectable and as much à la mode as necessary for a musician’s family. His shop was a pleasantly chaotic hovel filled with fabrics and ribbons and laces. He had one elderly assistant whom he never introduced but I thought was probably his mother, and children were always given sweets to stand still to be measured. I looked forward to going there. He always seemed to have the latest gossip about the people we knew, the tradesmen and their families, which of them had just had babies, which others had received government appointments, and so on.

I could see right away that Mademoiselle Helene’s establishment was much more formal and less friendly. A stiff, powdered footman greeted me as I entered a loge that had four doors leading off it in different directions, and a staircase directly ahead. The footman showed me into one of the rooms, much as one might in the private home of a wealthy person.

There I found my uncle apparently at his ease, drinking tea with a woman who was painted, powdered, and patched to the point that no single surface of her skin remained uncovered. She was squeezed into stays so tight that I wondered how she ever fit any food inside her belly, and her overskirt was caught up with ribbons so that she appeared to be seated on a silk cloud. Above her delicately shod feet her scrawny ankles could not be disguised by the finest silk stockings that must have taken weeks to knit but bagged in unattractive folds.

When I entered, she rose and gave me a tiny curtsy—I wasn’t important enough for more than that. “We are to get you up for a ball, I hear. Will this be your first? Yes, yes, of course. So young, so pretty. It is time to make the most of what God has seen fit to give you.”

She clapped, and three maids entered while she continued to chatter. They led me to a little platform and began removing my outer garments. I expected them to stop, but to my surprise they continued to unlace me until I stood in only my under shift and my quilted winter petticoat. When one of the girls began to untie my petticoat—which would leave me in my stockings and shift—I shouted out, “No!”

Everyone stopped and stared at me, but it was my uncle’s expression that was most disturbing. His eyelids were half closed and his nostrils slightly flared. He wasn’t exactly smiling, but his expression made me feel as if I were already completely naked. I folded my arms across my breasts, now starkly obvious without the stays to hold them flat against my chest.

“Come, Mademoiselle, we cannot measure you properly, and we have but one day to make your gown.”

“Kindly leave the room, Uncle,” I said, ignoring the dressmaker.

“Nonsense, my dear! I know more of fashion than you do and must exercise my superior judgment. And we are family, so there is nothing improper.”

I could have sworn I saw him wink at Mademoiselle Helene. I wanted to run from the room, but to move at that moment would expose even more of myself to the rude eyes of my uncle, so I just gripped my arms tightly and glared at him.

“The girl is modest. She is not of the world yet, you understand, Monsieur. Perhaps you would look away while we take our measurements, then when she is properly draped we can again use your practiced eye?”

Although I had been disposed to dislike the dressmaker, I could have kissed her then. My uncle could not argue with her reasonable request and so, taking one last look at me, he swiveled around in his chair and pretended to stare out of a window that had been painted over so that no one on the street could look in.

By the time we finished, my uncle had laid down a great deal of money to purchase a rushed order of three petticoats, a white silk overgown embroidered with tiny blue flowers and three rows of ruffles at the hem, new stays, a lace tucker, a pair of soft kid gloves, silk stockings, silk evening slippers, a fan with ivory sticks and embroidered silk leaves, several yards of ribbon to wind into my coiffure, a velvet mantelet lined with silk and trimmed with fur, a matching muff, and a black silk necklace. The finishing touch was a wide-brimmed hat with a large, blue ribbon on it to match the flowers on my skirt. I liked the hat best of all.

The maids had redressed me and fixed my hair so that I looked somehow a little smarter and neater than when I had arrived. As I stepped out to the street with my uncle, I noted that the lamps had already been lit and were casting a lurid light over people now dressed for their evening entertainments. My stomach growled. I wondered if I had missed dinner at home. He put out his arm for me to take but I pretended not to see it and walked a little ahead of him.

“It is customary for a girl to thank a gentleman who furnishes her with expensive new clothing,” he said.

I turned and faced him. “Thank you, Uncle, for fulfilling your promise to my mother so completely. I know she will be most grateful for the dowry at such time when I marry. Where shall I meet you to attend this ball?”

“We could have supper at my house before and then I could take you in my carriage,” he said, that look coming into his eyes again.

“I would not want to leave my mother alone for such a long time. It would be better if we met at the assembly rooms.” I would not give way in this. It was becoming clearer and clearer to me what he was about, and I didn’t like it in the slightest. I knew my father would never have let things get even this far. I doubted my mother really understood what she had agreed to on my behalf. And if she were well, she would have come with me.

My uncle struck his forehead with the heel of his hand. “How stupid of me! I am afraid you must come to the Graben to dress. I have asked Mademoiselle to deliver your garments there.” He shrugged and smiled. I felt like slapping him.

“Very well,” I said, trying to keep the anger out of my voice. “I shall bring my own maid to help me. Tomorrow then? At six?” I smiled inwardly at the thought of Greta’s presence to prevent any unseemly conduct on the part of my uncle. When we parted, I expected he thought he had arranged things completely to his satisfaction.

Far from being cross with me, my mother was so pleased with how things had gone with my uncle (who had sent word to her about the appointment at the dressmaker’s so that she would not worry) that she had asked Greta to keep some dinner warm for me and bring it on a tray to her room. She wanted to hear all about my new finery and the coming ball.

“I shall need Greta to help me dress,” I said, leaving out the details about my uncle’s behavior. I wanted only to secure my own peace of mind, not worry her.

“Greta? But she cannot leave me. I am as yet unable to rise from my bed. No, you had better make do with one of my brother’s maids.”

I had not expected this response. “But, Mama, do you think it’s entirely proper for me to go without my own maid?”

“If your uncle were not your uncle, then yes, I would agree. But as he is family, there can hardly be any question of impropriety.”

If only you knew, I thought. Yet I dared not say more. She was still in a delicate state of health. I would have to trust to my own wits to see me through. If I could survive wandering alone into a Gypsy camp, then what was one unpleasant uncle?

I was not at all at ease as I tried to close my eyes to rest for the next day. I had had to leave Zoltán without hearing the end of his explanation about my father, the Romany, and the Hungarian nobles. He had implied that somehow Papa had gotten involved in a cause that may have earned him powerful enemies. I still didn’t understand exactly how or why, and whether there was anything other than friendship for Zoltán’s father that would have made him do it. I needed to know everything. I determined that I would try to see Zoltán again the next morning. Perhaps he could also give me some advice about my uncle and the ball. Surely his sister had found herself in difficult situations with gentlemen. She was too beautiful not to have been an object of conquest many times. Somewhat comforted, I closed my eyes and tried to rest so that I could be prepared for what ever the coming day would bring.