Betina Krahn (46 page)

“Yes, Your Honor?” Cole straightened and the rising noise in the gallery damped to see what he wanted.

“You do intend to marry the woman, do you not?”

Cole glanced at Madeline’s surprised face and laughed. “I do indeed, Your Honor … if she will have me.” He looked down at her. “Will you? Will you have a reformed cynic and renewed believer for your husband and partner?”

“Marriage? Goodness. Well …” she stammered, looking up into his warm gaze. “What would I do? I mean … I don’t know anything about being a wife. I’ve never really expected to get married and do all the regular things.”

“Angel, with you nothing will ever be ‘regular’ or ‘usual.’ ” He chuckled, pulling her against him. “I think I rather like that idea.”

“Would you want children … and summer picnics … and family Christmas trees … and punting on the river … that sort of thing?”

He couldn’t tell if that was hope in her eyes or horror. “I believe all of that is negotiable. Except perhaps the ‘children’ part. I’m not sure that’s entirely in our control. But, I think I might like to see a little Mandeville or two running about in Ideal clothes.”

“Say
yes,
consarn it!” came a roar from the gallery. “My leg is killing me!”

She laughed and slid her arms inside his proper legal silks.

“I think I might like that too. Oh, yes, Cole Mandeville. I’ll marry you.”

The mantle was being hung with garlands of fresh pine and balsam, festooned with holly and red velvet ribbon, and extra candles had been placed for lighting, all over the Duncan-Mandeville house in St. Crispin. The tantalizing aromas of pudding and gingersnaps and all manner of cakes and candies filled the house as Davenport and Hannah worked to finish treats for the Christmas party Madeline was giving for the village children, the next day.

Madeline heard Mercy answer the front doors and shortly Beaumont Tattersall appeared with a sheaf of papers in his hands. When he saw her up on a chair putting the finishing touches on the ribbons over the mantel, he gasped.

“Lady Madeline! You must come down from there.” He hurried to take her hand and help her. “His lordship would have a conniption if he were to see that.”

It was true. She looked down at her mounded belly beneath her cleverly draped jersey gown and sighed. Cole had become a “nanny” in earnest,
these last few weeks … curtailing her physical activity and endlessly fussing over her. Of course, he also rubbed her back and massaged her feet at night … and made her midnight cocoa …

“Don’t tell on me and there’ll be a little something extra in your Christmas stocking,” she said.

“There already is,” he said with a mischievous twinkle. “Emily has … well, she has agreed to marry me.”

“Why Beaumont, how wonderful! Congratulations!”

There had been a veritable epidemic of matrimony in the last six months. Three of the four Ketchums had married newly hired seamstresses and settled down this autumn. Fritz Gonnering and Maple Thoroughgood married on Sweetest Day. And recently, Jessup Endicott and Charlotte Thoroughgood had stunned the entire village by announcing plans to wed … sending Calvin Ketchum off to join the Foreign Legion. Cole shook his head at that last pairing and declared that there was no accounting for taste. Madeline laughed and agreed, saying: “Just look at us.”

“Now, about these production figures, Lady Madeline—”

The parlor doors flew back with a bang, and in from the hall waggled one very large balsam fir tree … with two human creatures embedded in it. Roscoe peered at her through the branches. “Here she is, yer ladyship. Th’ finest tree in all England.”

“In the tub in the corner,” she said, pointing and watching as they struggled to erect and stabilize the Christmas tree. It fell twice, beaning Algy once, before they finally set it properly. It was a beautiful tree indeed … perfect for candles and garlands and ornaments made by the village children. When Roscoe and Algy finally got something right … it was really, truly right.

“The figures?” Beaumont called her attention back to the papers in her hand.

“Oh, yes.” She looked them over and frowned. “Not much improvement in the bodices and knickers, I see.”

“But in the children’s clothes—every time our output doubles and the orders quadruple. We can scarcely keep up. And those new styles you introduced, with the new collars and trims … everyone agrees they’re going to sell like lemonade in July.”

She carried the figures into the library, where Cole was working on a brief for a case he was bringing in London, after the turn of the year. He had gone back to practicing law, but in a newly created firm that specialized in serving philanthropic organizations and charitable trusts.

His eyes lit up at the sight of her and he put down his papers and slid back from his desk to welcome her onto his lap. “Why so serious, angel?” He scowled and peered over the edge of the papers she held.

“It’s the monthly sales figures. The children’s clothes are absolutely booming. But my knickers and bodices are sitting still by comparison.” She looked at him with an exaggerated pout to her lip. “Why doesn’t anybody like my knickers?”

“Ohhh, angel,” he said with a chuckle, giving her bottom a suggestive pat. “I like your knickers. In fact, I’m crazy about them.…”

In Devonshire, at Mrs. Southerby’s School for Young Ladies, the senior girls were getting ready to depart for Christmas with their families. And in the dormitory, three friends were opening gifts they had gotten each other.

“Oh! Just what I wanted!” one declared holding up a pair of Ideal knickers.

“I got one too!” said the second girl, inspecting hers, admiring their simple ruffles and soft fabric. “Look at the embroidery … that blue stitchery looks like cutwork.”

“I hope, I hope—yes! Ideal knickers!” The third girl
giggled, holding them up to her waist. “Won’t Mistress be scandalized!”

On the palatial estate of the wealthy Earl of Cortland, the beautiful young countess was selecting jewels to wear for the dinner party she was giving in half an hour. “Mimi, I have a little something for you,” she said, holding out a box with a lush red bow to her French lady’s maid.
“Joyeux Noël.”

“Pour moi, madam?”
Mimi said, her large, liquid brown eyes lighting with pleasure. She tore open the ribbon, plunged through the tissue, and came up with a ruffled, flirtatious pair of Ideal knickers and a satin-trimmed bust bodice with pearl buttons.
“Ohhhh, madam. C’est délicieux!”

“Aren’t they, though,” her ladyship said, casting an eye over her shapely little maid. “But Mimi, bear in mind … if
his lordship
ever sees them, you’re fired.”

In the ladies’ retiring room of the East India Building, a number of typewriters had met for a bridal party for one of their members, who was marrying a young law office clerk. “We all chipped in on the silver candlesticks and there was money left over. So we got a little something just for you,” one said, handing the glowing bride-to-be a box from Liberty of Regent Street.

The bride opened the box, held up the Ideal bodice and knickers, and blushed thirteen shades of red. The others howled.

Across London, Temperance and Morality Union President, Mrs. Sylvia Bethnal-Green was preparing for bed. Behind her dressing screen and beneath her heavy brushed flannel nightdress, she peeled off her stays and gave a great sigh of relief.
On the bed, watching avidly, was round and ruddy-faced Colonel Nesbitt Bethnal-Green.

“I have a little something for you,” he said in a voice one would use to coax a wary kitten to one’s hand. He produced a box from behind his back. “Christmas early.”

“Don’t be silly, Nesbitt. I couldn’t,” she declared, scowling. But as she stared at that glossy red ribbon, curiosity got the best of her. She settled gingerly on the side of the bed … a safe distance away and tore into the box.

“I have it on good authority that this is the coming thing,” the colonel said with a hopeful bit of lust in his voice. “I hope you like it … 
buttercup.”

Sylvia Bethnal-Green pulled back the tissue and stared, aghast, at a ruffled pair of Ideal knickers.

Rarely have two characters wormed their way so deeply into my heart as Cole and Madeline have. I wanted their midnight chats over cocoa to go on forever.

I owe debts of love and gratitude to my sister, Sharon Stone, and to editor Wendy McCurdy, for their contributions and support during the writing of this book.

The Victorian clothing reform movement began as far back as the 1850’s, both in England and the US, largely in reaction to those extremes of fashion, the corset and the crinoline. Medical practitioners and midwives had railed against the evils of tight lacing for decades, but it was the later Victorians with their zeal for reform and their yen for the romantic and classical styles, who produced the first serious effort toward eliminating corsets. The intrepid Amelia Bloomer, of New York, and her friend Dr. Mary Walker experimented with female trousers, wore them for
nearly twenty years, then later abandoned them. By 1881 and the birth of the Reform Dress Society in London, other factors were making clothing changes possible. Women were taking more active roles physically, encouraged by the resurgence of interest in physical fitness and culture. Believe it or not, the general acceptance and popularity of the bicycle played a major role in clothing reform. A woman could have an eighteen-inch waist or a bicycle … not both. Increasingly, women chose the bicycle.

As to the specifics of the story … reform garments were indeed offered for sale at Liberty on Regent Street in London. As in Cole and Madeline’s story, the general desire for fashions requiring corsets proved to be stronger than logic, reason, hygiene, and comfort combined. Women did not abandon corsets
en masse
until after World War I, and then, most often, because they were relieved to give up the extra pounds of linen in the weekly wash.

As in the story, the one true success of the clothing reform movement in late Victorian times was in the rethinking and redesign of children’s clothing. Until then, children were dressed as adorable toys (Lord Fauntleroy), as miniature men and women (corsets, stiff collars, and all), or in cast-off adult clothing … seldom altered to accommodate their smaller frames. As a result of clothing reform and new Victorian ideas of childhood, children were liberated from the horrors of lacing and backboards before their mothers.

And on a final note … there are a number of ideas in Cole and Madeline’s story that I find intriguing. I strongly believe that we generally see what we look for, that we often get just what we expect in life. Thus, it behooves us to cultivate hope and goodness and caring in ourselves and others. If we look for it, it’s there. This does not negate the pain and sorrow and difficulty in life, but it does give us something to live by and to hope for.

Lastly, I do believe that many of us may have indeed been influenced, perhaps even rescued by unlikely angels. And if we are open to the possibilities for good in the world, we may find ourselves called upon to be “unlikely angels” too.

Thank you, Irwyn Applebaum.

Betina Krahn
lives in Minnesota with her two sons and a feisty salt-and-pepper schnauzer. With a degree in biology and a graduate degree in counseling, she has worked in teaching, personnel management, and mental health. She had a mercifully brief stint as a boys’ soccer coach, makes terrific lasagna, routinely kills houseplants, and is incurably optimistic about the human race. She believes the world needs a bit more truth, a lot more justice, and a whole lot more love and laughter. And she attributes her outlook to having married an unflinching optimist and to two great-grandmothers actually named Pollyanna.

On Sale in February

L
ONG
A
FTER
M
IDNIGHT
by
New York Times
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RIS
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