The Peculiar Pink Toes of Lady Flora Read online

  Rosie looked down at her simple, grey gown to which she'd seldom spared any thought. They should have seen her a moment ago, barefoot and wild-haired. That would have given them something to be scandalized about, she mused.

  "With a little tidying and polishing she'll do well enough for our purposes," said the woman. "Beggars cannot be choosers. Besides, too much beauty has its own burdens to bear."

  "I suppose you are right. We could hardly expect a goddess. This dowdy goose-herder must suffice."

  Before Rosie could say anything to defend herself or her looks— upon which she thought it very unfair to judge a person at first sight, and exceedingly hypocritical coming from a man who looked like a half-eaten Stilton cheese— the strangers prepared, with a great rustling and fussing, to depart again. And they were taking her with them, despite her shortcomings.

  "You are granted a great and wondrous opportunity, girl," the grim-faced woman announced, rising from the chair and whacking her companion's leg with her foot to stir him into activity. "No need to pack any of your things. They will not be required, and time is pressing. We must be on our way, for I prefer not to travel in the dark."

  The fog, on the other hand, did not concern anybody. Almost as if none of the others saw it.

  Goody Applegate gently explained to Rosie that these fine people had come to take her to live with them and meet her family.

  At once she protested, "But I would rather stay here, with you."

  "I'm afraid you cannot stay, my dear. It is time for another adventure. Now, you must be a proper lady and keep your shoes on. This world to which you go now is very different to the one you knew before, but you will soon find it just as familiar."

  Did these people who called themselves her family, mean to help her advance in society somehow? Surely their plans were charitable or Goody Applegate would not encourage her to go with them.

  But once Rosie was seated in that fancy carriage, the four sleek horses carrying her away through the thick cloud of fog, her new guardians began to explain their true purpose. At least, part of their plan was revealed.

  "From now on, girl, your name will be Flora. Lady Flora Chelmsworth. I am your Great Aunt Bridget, Lady Manderby. This—" the lady seated across the carriage jerked her head at the bitter, shriveled fellow beside her, "—is my eldest son, Sir Roderick, and you must refer to him as your cousin."

  It was then, as they travelled across the countryside in a bumpy carriage, that Great Aunt Bridget told Rosie the story of how she came into being— her ill-prepared birth at the side of the road, her mother's ambitions to rule London by squeezing it by the wealthiest tallywags, the hatbox, and her natural father's disinterest in the matter. Of course, it could have been any story the woman told her and it must be believed, for Rosie knew nothing of her history and Goody Applegate, when asked, would only say that it was not where one came from that mattered, but where one went and the good one did.

  And there was something familiar about the hatbox.

  So now, with the fog enclosing her like a fleece-lined envelope, deadening all sound but the scratch of Lady Manderby's voice, she heard, for the first time, that she was the bastard child of Earl Chelmsworth.

  "My nephew's legitimate daughter has not come up to expectations and so you must take her place, for the most important social season will soon be upon us, and we need a horse in the race this year. Do everything that Sir Roderick and I tell you, girl, and there will be a great reward coming your way. In the meantime, as Lady Flora you will be well fed, well shod, and provided with every comfort. Breathe a word about your true origins to anybody, however, and you will find yourself cast out as a thieving charlatan. Do I make myself clear?"

  "Er...yes, madam?"

  "You doubt, girl?"

  "Well, how are there to be two Lady Flora Chelmsworths? Won't it be remarked upon?"

  The grand folk seated across from her exchanged sly glances, as if they were surprised she had the capability of logical thought. "You needn't worry about that, girl. Now, as I was saying, you will live a life of comfort for as long as you do as you're told and remember that you are now Lady Flora. But if you spoil this for us, you will soon find yourself utterly alone, cold, hungry, penniless, friendless and quite without resources."

  "And very likely swinging from a hangman's noose," the smelfungus added, admiring his own unsightly reflection in the carriage window and adjusting a frail curl upon his crusty forehead.

  "Nobody is ever completely alone and without resources," Rosie replied solemnly. "We always have what the good lord gave us."

  He sneered. "Without the Chelmsworth name, girl, what the good lord gave you will only take you as far as the nearest bawdy house. Like your infamous mama before you."

  "Indeed," said Great Aunt Bridget with a ponderous nod of her towering wig. "So no further questions. Do only as you are told and you will be well taken care of. Now straighten your spine, shoulders back, chin up, and remember you're a Chelmsworth." After a pause, she added, "I do think, Roderick, that although she is plain, it is the sort of face that might, suddenly one day, bloom into something more. When nobody is expecting it and quite looking the other way."

  "If you say so. Not as if there is any other choice. At least she has a passable resemblance to the miscreant. I only hope you do not regret taking her in." Already, you see, it was his mother's fault and he prepared to distance himself from the entire affair if need be— if it all ended in disaster.

  But at the time, young Rosie did not think there was any danger in the masquerade. She looked around at her new circumstances with wide-eyed excitement. What could she possibly find to be wary of in those dainty, sugary little cakes, perfumed baths prepared for her whenever she wanted them, and nightgowns that caressed her skin with hitherto unknown softness?

  * * * *

  It did not take her many days to put the fragments of this story together and understand why she had been stolen away through the fog to play this new game, dressed up like a doll and paraded through the aristocratic ballrooms and drawing rooms of another world.

  Her family— as they referred to themselves only whenever she needed reminding of her "duty" to them—were desperate.

  Lady Flora Chelmsworth was supposed to make her first formal appearance in society that year. It had all been planned down to the minutest detail: the most fashionable gowns were made; invitations were groveled after and accepted with great sycophancy, and the family jewelry was discretely retrieved from under horse-hair mattresses, inside tea-urns and the hands of the pawnbroker.

  In short, considerable expense had been laid out for a stake in this "horse race" and much of that money had been begged, borrowed or outright stolen. Unfortunately, the official head of the family was Lady Flora's brother Francis, Earl Chelmsworth, a twelve-year-old boy. Since his parents had both died when he was eight, all his affairs were left in the hands of his guardians who, while the boy was still too young to know anything about it, had steadily spent their way through a good portion of the Chelmsworth fortune. Now, as Great Aunt Bridget said to her son— not knowing she was overheard— it was time to plug the holes in the dyke, because soon the boy earl would begin to ask questions and take greater interest in the running of his estate. Unfortunately it was years until he could make a financially advantageous marriage to save the family himself, therefore all hopes were pinned on his elder sister, all resources put toward her "coming out" this year with the intention of getting her a wealthy husband by any means and as quickly as possible.

  But Flora had other plans.

  Rosie learned that the previous earl's children— even the two who were legitimate— had seldom lived under the same roof. Francis was the golden child, the much awaited and needed son and heir, over whom great guard was kept. On the other hand, Flora, a truculent, angry girl, scrawny-limbed and ginger-haired, was viewed as a burden to the family accounts. Nannies and governesses left as quickly as they were hired. After her mother died, Lady Manderby was ca
lled upon to oversee the household at Wyndham, the family estate. Which is when Flora, with her penchant for asking questions and refusing to do as she was told, became an even less welcome presence in her own home. Her father had no time for her and Lady Manderby no patience. As a consequence the girl had been sent away, shuttled back and forth between distant, uncaring relatives. Anything to keep her out of their hair. When her father also died six months after her mother, Lady Flora's remaining guardian saw no cause to bring her back to Wyndham immediately. Instead she found just the place to put this inconvenient girl, far out of the way until she might be of use.

  Two elderly sisters, old maids, and distant Manderby relatives, who lived in their deceased father's cottage on the remote Isle of Skye, quite isolated from any sort of society, were in need of a young companion. They lived Spartan lives, were extremely pious, and had been raised strictly by their tyrannical parson father. It seemed, on paper, the perfect solution. Flora could be sent there to that lonely spot until she had outgrown her most awkward, troublesome years. Surely she could do no harm in that place.

  It had apparently never occurred to the combined great intellects of Lady Manderby and Sir Roderick that a girl bent on adventure can find it wherever she is put.

  As soon as the opportunity arose, rather than come home when sent for, Lady Flora ran away to a life of sin with a lusty young groom.

  It turned out that those two old maids had a distinct disadvantage when pitted against their young charge, for one was deaf and the other almost completely blind. A little fact that Flora had carefully concealed in her few letters home to Wyndham.

  Rather than face the scandal of this escapade, not to mention the loss of so much unsecured investment, Lady Manderby and her son had been obliged to find a hasty replacement in order to save the day, hide the truth of Flora's disgrace, and halt the family's descent into ruin. Thus they sought out the "by-blow" Rosie Jackanapes, who had almost been forgotten about until, by chance, she was remembered to be a girl the same age as Flora, another redhead and, the last time she was seen, bearing great family resemblance.

  It was feasible, Lady Manderby and her son had decided, that another girl, very similar in height, age, coloring and looks, could be brought home— as if from Scotland— and put into Flora's shoes. After all, the clothes were made, and all they needed was another girl to fit them. A more than fair resemblance to the real Lady Flora, and some hasty coaching, would allow an illegitimate half-sister to take her place in society, thereby successfully preventing any scandal.

  Everything was then set for Lady Flora's grand "coming out".

  Much of this, the young imposter discovered through eavesdropping and prying into the great aunt's writing desk full of unpaid bills, but a good portion became known to her through reading the real Lady Flora's diary, which had been returned from the Isle of Skye in a small trunk of her abandoned possessions. This secret little book was a treasure trove, stuffed full of the other girl's ruthless insight into everything and everybody. It was most enlightening.

  Great Aunt Bridget knew nothing about the diary. When the trunk arrived at Wyndham she was still too enraged to open it and had simply commanded the contents burned, but for some reason it was set aside in the girl's old room instead, as if she might come back one day to claim it.

  Rosie had been provided with one example of Flora's handwriting— a letter written during her time in the north— and from this she was meant to practice the style of penmanship and the signature. But she found the diary to be better practice, taking over the task of writing covertly in it herself each day, keeping a private record of her own transformation.

  For her this was all little more than a game, exciting and intriguing. It wasn't as if she passed herself off as a man or had killed anybody, and she'd never stolen anything in her life. Sometimes she remembered Sir Roderick's warning about a hanging or a bawdy house, but decided he must just have wanted to frighten her for his own amusement. He was an unpleasant fellow in general, who, being miserably inadequate and talentless himself, never had anything to say unless it was to dampen somebody else's spirits. His mother, at least, was the hopeful sort, even if it was born of desperation and denial. She even, occasionally, was seen to smile very slightly, although Rosie could never observe that expression without thinking she heard a faint scream, echoing through the distant corridors of the house.

  According to Great Aunt Bridget, their student was often as troublesome and waywardly inclined as the missing Flora— an unavoidable family trait perhaps— but the most irritating fault she shared with her half-sister was an inquisitive nature.

  "When do you suppose your great niece will come home, Lady Manderby?" the new Flora asked one day at breakfast.

  "Home? She has no home here now and had better stay away. She's ruined goods. Soiled. That girl set out to shame us all, but I refuse to let her behavior scar this family for good. Not a thought did she give to any of us, or to her poor brother. Selfish and spoiled to the end, she chose that penniless cock over her duty to marry well. Now the trollop can lie hungry in the filthy bed she made. She will never again be recognized by us."

  "But you have managed to conceal the misadventure. It might never be exposed and she could come safely back to Wyndham again one day, repentant, and with nobody the wiser. Surely she must return, and if she does her family must accept her back."

  "Must we? I think not. It is not merely the affair, girl. That might have been covered up at one time and the boy removed from her history, cut away like an unsightly carbuncle, but certain swellings cannot be so well disguised after a few months."

  "Certain swellings?"

  The smelfungus huffed sourly behind his paper. "I fear my country cousin knows nothing of the birds and the bees."

  "Nor does she need to know yet," his mother replied swiftly. "Time enough for all that on her wedding night. Thank goodness she is an innocent. That is one important feature the girls do not share." Then she turned to Rosie, adding firmly, "You will take her place and get the job done. You will do as you're told and save this family from the humiliation. I shall never forgive her. Never! The girl is nobody to me now and may as well be in her grave."

  "You had better hope she does not come back, had you not?" added Sir Roderick, not bothering to lift his head from the newspaper. "If she did, you would be out on your ear, little goose-herder."

  "I would go home to Goody Applegate," she replied firmly.

  "You have no home there any longer. That old woman looked after you while she was needed. She was paid a small annuity to do so. I very much doubt she will want an extra mouth to feed now that there is no money."

  "I can work to earn my keep."

  "Work? A lady of the titled classes does not work." Great Aunt Bridget smirked and shook her head, the little pearls that hung from her ears trembling as they often did when she had to waste her time explaining anything to her young ward. "But you will soon learn that for yourself. You will soon find that you prefer this life and all the opportunities now before you."

  Rosie quarreled no more and drank her hot chocolate. She did not care what they thought, for she was certain that Goody Applegate would welcome her back gladly. As far as she was concerned this was all merely a temporary arrangement, while she held a place at the table for her half-sister and helped conceal her scandalous liaison with a groom. Once the real Flora came back, Rosie could return to her own life elsewhere.

  In the meantime she would continue enjoying herself— and this abundance of sweet delicacies that she had never before tasted— making the most of her adventure.

  Despite the characteristics she shared with the real Lady Flora, Rosie's spirit differed in that it was merry, optimistic light-hearted and generous. Perhaps, had she been born into this life and had to live it longer, she too would have become as angry and ill-tempered as her half-sister, but it was all still new to her and she had not yet had time to tire of it.

  One day, while admiring the many beautiful go
wns in her great aunt's dressing room, she was treated not only to a brief, abridged history on the Manderby and Chelmsworth families, but also to a glimpse into her new guardian's amorous past, which was considerably less dry and drear than might have been expected. The lady, while showing off some jewelry from a box she usually kept secreted out of sight, told the story behind each piece, colorfully describing the gentlemen who once gave them to her. Sparing few details about their person, however gruesome.

  "This necklace," she said, lifting a stunning set of pearls and sapphires, "was a gift from a lover whose name I am not at liberty to say." She looked unusually coy, but pleased with herself. "Certain other ladies with whom he dallied are still, to this day, poisoned by their own bitter envy over this gift. One of them in particular claims that these pearls and sapphires should have been hers, but here they are mine...mine. It must kill her each time she sees me wearing them." Her eyes sparkled with as much intensity as those sapphires as she held them up to her face and chortled at this victory.

  Rosie asked politely, "Were you a courtesan too, like my mama?"

  Great Aunt Bridget's face turned crimson. "Certainly not! I am a lady."

  She wondered where the differences might be found, for it seemed to her as if it was always about the men and what one could get from them. One way or another.

  "I show you these things, girl, so that you understand. A lady can find her pleasures and her comforts inside the role she is made to assume in life. She might have to put up with some unpleasantness from a husband, but the rewards are considerable, if she learns how to play the game. Our victories may not be large, but we ladies must take them wherever they can be got."

  Admiring Lady Manderby's secret haul, Rosie's first thought was that it ought to be sold, to pay that pile of outstanding bills. But then she watched the lady's face change and soften as she held each piece and caressed it with trembling fingers. And then she realized that this was a collection of memories too precious to be given up— a beloved souvenir of Lady Manderby's past that not even her son, Roderick, knew about. Or else he would have wrenched it from her hands and sold it without another thought, for unlike his mother, he was not a man of any sentimental spirit.