Serial Fun - Installment 8

 

I am about to head up to the sewing room to cut out Muslin two for the MOG dress; hopefully I'll have some real fitting progress to report tomorrow.  Meantime, adding to the bit of nonsense that I've been posting.  If you've missed the earlier posts, click HERE to read from the bottom up, lol

Part Three -- The Dance

    Friday morning finally came -- clear and warm.  The palace buzzed all day with caterers preparing various delicacies, florists arranging fragrant bouquets for every available spot, palace servants hanging gossamer draperies around the ballroom and refreshment hall and seamstresses making last minute adjustments to gowns.  Rita’s blue silk moire, finished the day before, hung in her wardrobe ready for her to don at dinner time; the rose brocade was now carefully covered by the muslin dust cover that also covered the gloves and the crinoline and a few other odd items she thought might be useful.  Rita held her breath every time Esmerelda opened the wardrobe, but so far Es had not said anything about the dress.  Rita assumed that Esmerelda had seen that the dress was still in the wardrobe and was being too polite to say ‘I told you so.’   Rita could hardly wait to see Isabella in it.  Her biggest concern now was to get out to the carriage house with the dress and things for Isabella without being stopped or questioned.  She hoped that, since Esmerelda would be attending to the guests in the ladies’ lounge all evening, she would be free to sneak out after she had supposedly retired to her room to watch the festivities from her window.  

    Despite all the activity around her, the day seemed to crawl by.  She spent the afternoon being ministered to by Esmerelda...being bathed and manicured and curled so that she was as fine as any of the young ladies at the banquet.  Rita rather subconsciously knew the blue silk moire was quite becoming to her, and when Gregory observed that his little sister was looking very grown-up she was pleased and flattered, but her own participation in the banquet did little to distract her from her plans for the rest of the evening.  What everyone else assumed would be the high point of the night for Rita was actually just the prelude that, if the truth were known, she was rather impatient to be done with.  As soon as her parents and her brother bid her good night and went to receive the guests, Rita retired to her room.  Esmerelda accompanied her and stayed long enough to get Rita out of her fine dress and into her dressing gown, then also departed to tend guests.  Rita was finally alone.  

    She waited a few moments, to make sure Es wouldn’t return, then changed into a day dress, put on her dark cloak, picked up the invitation and the things in the dust cover and very carefully crept down the back stairs of the palace.  There were two palace guards at the rear door; she wasn’t expecting that.  She hadn't taken into account that there was higher security due to all the guests; the rear grounds were private. She stood in the rear entry trying to come up with a plan when one of the large carriages came to the rear of the palace; apparently the driver had dropped off his passengers and was attempting to turn around and got in the wrong drive.  The guards stepped away to help get the situation righted and Rita took a deep breath and scooted out of the door whilst the guards were engaged, hugging the shadows under the shrubbery along the walk as she slipped out to the carriage house.

            Jerry and Martin were waiting as promised, grandly dressed in the unmarked livery and extremely nervous.  She thanked them again for their help before giving them a few final instructions.  “One more thing,” she added, “My friend doesn’t know who I am...and that’s the way I want it for now.  Don’t give it away.  Call me “Miss Rita” for tonight, please...one “Your Highness” and everything will be ruined.”  She looked at them hopefully.

            “Yes, y--Miss Rita.”  Jerry acknowledged.  Martin, who rarely said anything at all, nodded.

            Rita took a deep breath.  “All right, then, let’s go.”  Martin helped her into the carriage, and Jerry eased the horses out the back drive to the rear entrance to the royal estate.  Rita had instructed Jerry to drive past their destination and stop around a curve, out of sight of the manor house.  When they went past it, she craned her neck and just glimpsed a carriage waiting by the door.  --So, she thought, --Isabella’s stepmother and stepsisters have not left yet.  Jerry guided the horses around the curve and turned the carriage around in an open field, then parked back on the road just out of sight of the manor house drive.  He then slipped down from the driver’s seat and walked around the curve a bit.  He returned in about ten minutes.

            “The carriage is gone, uh...Miss.”  Jerry reported.

            “Did you watch it until it was out of sight?”  Rita wanted to make absolutely sure they wouldn’t be seen by the rest of Isabella’s family.

            “Aye, Miss.  They’re gone.”

            Rita smiled in anticipation.  “Good.  Let’s go, then!”  Jerry climbed back up into the driver’s seat, and in a few moments, they pulled up at the front door of the manor house.

            Rita, so excited she could hardly stand it, climbed out of the carriage before Martin could even get around to hand her down.  With Isabella’s invitation in her hand, she ran up the walk to the front door and pulled hard on the bell pull and waited...and waited...and waited.  She began to wonder if perhaps the bell hadn’t worked, or if Isabella was hurt or ill and considered wandering about the house rapping on windows.  She backed away from the door a bit, turning to look and see if there were any lights visible from the inside when the door opened.  Isabella could not see Rita fully and said quite stiffly “Yes?”

            Rita turned back excitedly. “Isabella...,” she began, but Isabella cut her off as the color drained from her face and an expression of shock took its place.

            “Rita!  What on earth are you doing here?”  Closer now, Rita could see that Isabella’s eyes were red and puffy; she’d been weeping.  Well, Rita could do something about that.  She held out the invitation.  “I brought you something.”

            Slowly, clearly puzzled, Isabella took the envelope from Rita.  She looked at her name on the front and the royal seal on the back, then back at Rita, who was smiling broadly and having a difficult time standing still.  “Is this....” her voice trailed off as she opened the envelope.  While Isabella read the invitation, Rita slipped back to the carriage and pulled the dust cover off the dress.  She grabbed the dress and the satin mask and ducked back into the house to find Isabella sitting on a small bench in the foyer, stunned.  “This looks like a real invitation.” Isabella commented with more than just a trace of wonder.

            Rita was surprised.  “It is a real invitation.  You’re invited to the ball.”

            Isabella looked up at her.  “But I can’t go...I don’t have anything to we...”  She stopped in the middle of the word and her eyes widened as she saw the significance of the gown Rita was holding up.  She caught her breath.  “Oh, my...”  She stood up and reached for it, then dropped her hands and looked ruefully at Rita.  “My stepmother and my stepsisters are there...if they saw me...”  Rita didn’t say a word, but grinned and held up the mask in her other hand.  Isabella slowly took it and held it up to her face, a slight smile now beginning to show itself.  “Won’t I look ridiculously out of place?  It’s not a masked ball....”  She looked at Rita anxiously.

            Rita slowly replied, “Well...think how mysterious you’ll be...and they surely won’t recognize you, all dressed up and wearing the mask....”  One of the horses whinnied and stamped.  Rita looked at Isabella and grinned.  “The carriage is waiting....”

            Isabella took a deep breath and held it for what seemed to Rita an eternity, then suddenly said “All right...I’ll do it!”

            Rita gave a little squeal of delight and gave the gown to Isabella.  “I’ve got a few more things in the carriage,” she explained and dashed out to get the rest of the things she’d brought.

            The two girls were so busy that they talked only of the business at hand -- getting Isabella ready for the dance and discussing what Rita would need to do at the manor house while she was gone as they worked.  They did in forty-five minutes what had taken Isabella’s stepsisters a day and a half.  At eight-thirty Isabella was fresh and lovely in the rose brocade dress, which fit as if it had been made for her (just as Rita had known it would).  They’d brushed her hair until it shone, then pulled it up and curled it with Eugenia’s curling iron (Rita had a small burn on her thumb from picking it up off the hearth incorrectly).  Isabella had no jewels, but she pulled a small trunk from under a loose floorboard and took out of it a single strand pearl choker her father had given her for a birthday present.  It settled perfectly against the base of her throat.  Rita scarcely recognized the elegant young lady as the girl she’d mistaken for a peasant the previous week.  Isabella was lovely...Gregory just had to notice her!

            “That’s everything but shoes,” Isabella said as she slipped her hands into the long gloves.  Rita’s mouth went dry and she felt the color drain from her face as Isabella continued.  “I have terribly small feet.  We’ll see if they fit.”  She looked around a moment then frowned slightly.  “Where did you put them?”

            Rita looked at Isabella with a stricken face. “Shoes,” she said in a rather strangled voice.  “I forgot about shoes.”

            Isabella smiled at her.  “Oh, these won’t show so much.  It’s all right...don’t worry.”  She started to slip her feet into her worn leather work shoes.

            “No!” Rita protested.  “You mustn’t wear those...they’ll spoil your whole outfit.”  She pulled off her own shoes.  They weren’t dancing slippers, but they were better than the inelegant work shoes Isabella had.  However, she was dismayed to see that they were awkwardly too big for Isabella.  She did indeed have tiny feet.  Isabella felt desperate.  “There must be something we can do...do you suppose we could stuff the toes with something?”

            Isabella frowned, thinking.  “Perhaps if we....”  Then, her face brightened as inspiration came to her.  “My mother’s wedding slippers!”

            “What?”  Rita asked as Isabella again opened the small trunk that had held her pearls and drew out a velvet draw string bag.  To Rita’s amazement, the bag contained what certainly looked like a pair of...glass slippers!

            “Are they really glass?”  Rita gasped, astonished.  She’d never heard of such a thing.

            Isabella nodded.  “My mother had them custom made for her wedding.”  She set them down, slipped her feet into them and took a cautious step or two, then looked at Rita with a rueful smile.  “They’re not terribly comfortable, either.  The left one is a bit big.”  She sighed.  “I suppose I’ll be miserable with blisters by the time the evening is over, but they’ll have to do.”

            “Are you ready?”  Rita asked, excited for her friend.

            Isabella took a deep breath.  “My outside is ready, but my inside is terribly nervous.”  For the first time that evening, Isabella’s face reflected pure panic.  “Oh, Rita, do you really think I can do it?”

            Rita waved her toward the door and, as they began the descent from Isabella’s tower, told her firmly, “Of course you can...if you have the right attitude.  You can’t go looking like a mouse waiting for the cat to pounce on it.  You are Lady Isabella Savoy, after all, and you are as noble as anyone else there.  Forget about all this for one evening.  Hold your head up and dance and enjoy yourself!”  They were downstairs just as the hall clock struck the three-quarter hour.  Rita frowned a bit.  “It will be nine o’clock before you get there.  Three hours isn’t very long.”

            Isabella sighed.  “Yes, but I think you’re right that I need to leave at midnight.  I have to be back home and have everything back to normal well before the others return.”  Then she brightened.  “Still, three hours at a royal ball is far better than an evening of polishing silver!”

            Rita laughed.  “Well, I hope I don’t do such a bad job of it that your stepmother suspects you didn’t do it.”

            Isabella smiled grimly.  “Oh, she’d just scold me for being lazy and make me do it again.  But I don’t think I would mind!”

            Rita picked Isabella’s invitation up off of the bench in the foyer and handed it to her.  “You’ll need to show this at the gate and probably at the door.”

            Isabella took the invitation.  “How did you get this, anyway?”  she queried.

            Rita had hoped she wouldn’t have to answer that question and evaded it with “No time now!” as she shooed Isabella out of the door into the dusky evening.  Martin jumped up and opened the carriage door for Isabella and helped her settle into the seat.  “Don’t forget to leave at midnight!”  Rita called from the doorway as Jerry snapped the reins and they started off.  She waved until they were out of sight, then stepped back into the empty house and shut the door.  Now all she could do was wait.  “And polish silver,” she told herself out loud as she headed down the hall.  It was going to be a long evening.