A Song Twice Over by Brenda Jagger

little contriving – live here as its mistress, ordering her life according to her own judgement. Yes. There seemed no doubt that if she handled matters correctly her life as a fully adult woman could now – at last begin.
    â€˜Petticoats,’ she heard her mother say. ‘And chemises. At least four dozen of each, wouldn’t you think? Oh dear. I wonder how Miss Baker will ever cope with it? What with the bridesmaids’ dresses and the evening gowns, and something decent to go-away in. And then all our guests will be ordering new things for themselves, I dare say. Such a heap of work for the poor woman – Easter bonnet time and Christmas rolled into one. I shall have nightmares, I do assure you, in case she lets me down.’
    â€˜There are plenty of other milliners,’ murmured Linnet. ‘Manchester, perhaps? Or London?’
    Yes. Why not a trip to London for the trousseau? Linnet, with an eye to a trousseau of her own, would enjoy that and would certainly benefit, in the silk mercers’shops, from the overflow of Amabel’s generous heart. But Gemma, her mind on her own well-charted future, feeling that she was more than half way to taking the reins into her own hands, suddenly remembered the Irish girl, still waiting, she supposed, with her heavy bag and her bravely painted hat-box, her sparkling chatter of French and Venetian lace, the failing eyesight of her rival Miss Baker, and her own triumphs in the fabled rue Saint Honoré.
    â€˜Oh mother – by the way,’ she said, speaking briskly so that Linnet might hear her authority. ‘A young woman has called to see me – quite a talented dressmaker, I’d say, by the things she showed me. She’s waiting in the back parlour. And since we’re talking of petticoats, I’ll just fetch her.’
    And hurrying along the passage – not quite the mistress of the house as yet but, there again, no longer quite its unmarried, dependent daughter – she opened the parlour door and said pleasantly ‘Miss Adeane, I have just become engaged to be married. You may congratulate me.’
    â€˜That I do, Miss Dallam.’
    At once Cara’s eyes were swiftly, expertly measuring her, clothing her in bridal brocades and satins, a going-away dress for a winter honeymoon, feathered bonnets, embroidered, lace-topped gloves.
    â€˜You’ll be needing a trousseau then? A big one?’
    â€˜I do believe so. Would you come into the drawing-room to discuss your part of it?’
    Cara’s smile, banishing all traces of exhaustion, was dazzling. ‘With pleasure, madam .’ And to her surprise, the smile with which plain, sturdy, serious Miss Dallam answered her held a hint of mischief, the unremarkable brown eyes a most becoming twinkle.
    â€˜Good. But I wouldn’t mention your Madame Récamier. It may cause confusion. And as to the lace you showed me earlier, my mother won’t know the difference between Chantilly and Point de Venise. But my fiancé’s sister is there, and one has the distinct feeling that she will.’

Chapter Four
    Linnet Gage did not take kindly to Gemma’s ‘Protégée’as she at once chose to call her, although her objections were no more than soft-voiced little hints as to the unreliability of strangers, addressed carefully to Amabel. ‘One can’t help wondering where girls like that come from. Or, indeed, just where they go.’
    And had Amabel been slightly less enchanted by her new status as the mother of a bride she would have heard, drifting on the cool air behind Linnet’s voice, the suggestion of squalid city tenements, immodesty, strong drink and – above all – the dread, ever present in Amabel, of disease conveyed in the hem of a dress, the sole of a shoe, the point of an embroidery needle as it pressed typhoid or cholera or the pox into the lace insertions of her only daughter’s wedding lingerie; the