A London Season by Anthea Bell

had no doubt that once he had heard dear Miss Grafton, he would not demur at adding her to their number.
    Such indeed was the case: the rather pernickety elderly musician, who unenthusiastically presented himself in Upper Brook Street to hear yet another well-born young woman show off her mediocre accomplishments, came away frankly astonished by his good fortune, and more than ready, in addition, to furnish Lady Yoxford with the name of an acquaintance of his who gave voice lessons. This acquaintance, an Italian of excitable disposition who had been a notable singer himself in his prime, was heard by Beale the butler muttering in his native tongue as he left the Yellow Parlour after his second visit to Miss Grafton. Stopping short as he reached the front door, he appeared, though still speaking Italian, to be expecting some comment from the butler.
    “I beg your pardon, sir?” inquired Beale.
    “A thousand pities — I say, a thousand pities, n o?” translated Signor Pascali, apparently addressing himself rather than Beale, after all. “Yes, a thousand pities! Che voce ! With such a voice, to be born to rank! E un disastro ! ” And with this he hurried out, falling into indistinct but plainly ferocious Italian once again.
    Alfred, the new footman, goggling after him, so far forgot himself as to ask, “What maggot ‘ ad ‘ e got in ‘ is ‘ ead, then, Mr. Beale? Lor ’ ! Was it Miss Grafton ‘ e meant?”
    “Foreigners, as is well known, are apt to be Peculiar in their conduct,” pronounced Beale austerely. “But that, young Alfred, is no reason for you to overstep the line and pass remarks about the Family!”
    “No, Mr. Beale,” agreed Alfred, meekly accepting rebuke.
    Persephone seemed very well pleased with both her musical mentors, so that, Elinor considered, was all very comfortably settled. She had been a little afraid at first that her charge might become mulish when required to tear herself from the piano to spend time in the choosing and fitting of new gowns, but luckily Persephone was not quite so single-minded as to despise pretty things. And no girl could have failed to be enchanted by the lavish display of gauzes, muslins, cambrics, silks and organdies and aerophanes laid before her. Mademoiselle Hortense, the dressmaker patronized by Lady Yoxford, was delighted by the prospect of dressing Miss Grafton, who, she saw at a glance, would do the greatest credit to her own skill in cutting and the industry of her busy seamstresses ’ fingers. Persephone and Elinor spent many a happy hour poring over fashion plates with Lady Yoxford and the dressmaker, choosing the patterns and fabrics for morning and evening gowns, carriage dresses, walking dresses, pelisses, redingotes. Miss Downing of New Bond Street, to whose millinery establishment Isabella directed her cousins, was enthusiastic too: the higher-crowned hats and broader - brimmed bonnets now coming into the mode would set off Miss Grafton ’ s delicately rosy cheeks and soft dark curls to perfection. And then there were visits to warehouses which seemed to both Elinor and Persephone a riot of colour and luxury, and where they purchased ribbons, laces and trimmings, gloves and handkerchiefs, stockings, tuckers, fichus, reticules and fans — there was apparently no end to the things a young lady of fashion and fortune needed in her first Season!
    Without knowing just how it had come about, Elinor too found herself the possessor of a number of new garments. Her objections had been overborne when she protested that she must, indeed she must pay for them herself, out of what seemed to her the amazingly lavish sum upon which Sir Edmund had insisted as her salary. She fancied that his sister must share some of his talent for diplomacy, since without actually saying so, Isabella conveyed the general impression that it was a mere matter of course for Elinor to be provided with a new wardrobe, implying that Sir Edmund would find it tiresome if she