Perdita by Joan Smith

the probability was that Lord Stornaway would be chasing off to Newmarket, I felt we might have a brief respite in a closed carriage. One can hardly incarcerate a girl like Perdita. She would only climb out a window and go straggling down Bond Street alone.
    “I suppose there is no harm in that.”
    Then I went to bed and prayed for rain.
     

Chapter Eight
     
    God was not listening to my prayers. The morning dawned fair and warm. It was all I could do to keep Perdita home till after luncheon. We did not see a sign of John all day. Despite his late carousing, he was up and gone from the house before we came downstairs. He had to crowd a whole year’s social activities into six weeks.
    It was not necessary to ask Mrs. Alton for the loan of her carriage. She offered it. We had no fear of encountering Lord Stornaway poring over the gloves and stockings and fans at the Pantheon Bazaar, and that was where we spent our afternoon. Mrs. Alton had forwarded some large but unspecified sum to Perdita, every penny of which she had to spend. She bought paste buckles for slippers, kid gloves, ribbons, sugarplums, anything that fell under her eyes. I spotted Phoebe, bent on an errand similar to our own. It was feathers that occupied her interest. Jostling about the countryside was hard on her three plumes.
    "Well if it ain’t Miss High-and-Mighty!” she declared in a loud, vulgar voice when she saw us. I see your new patron has come down heavy,” she went on, casting a jealous eye on our footman, whose arms were laden with our purchases. “Who is he, eh?”
    “Lord Stornaway,” Perdita told her, with a spiteful little smile.
    “I knew it! I can spot a lord a room away. Listen, dear, he had a friend with him the first time. You remember that dark-haired fellow, heavyset, that was dangling after me?”
    “Mr. Stafford,” Perdita admitted, enjoying the game of teasing her old rival.
    “Is that his handle? If you happen to bump into him, you might let him know I am at liberty. You know where I’m putting up.”
    “Did the interview at the Garden not go well, Phoebe?” I asked.
    Remembering her proud boast of the day before, she immediately tried to cover her gaffe. "The deal is pending,” she said grandly. “It never does no harm to have another egg in your basket. They want an ingenew, but I feel my talents lay elsewheres. When a lady reaches her mid-twenties, she wants to go on to other parts. That trollop of a Polly is casting sheep’s eyes at Mick, trying to con him into letting her play Miranda in our new play coming up. We done it a few seasons ago. I’ll not play second lead to no female, and so I told Mick. Would yez like to stop off for a cup of tea, girls?”
    A small crowd was beginning to gather around us. There was that in Phoebe—the loud voice, the sable wrap and ostrich plumes—that attracted attention, offstage or on. I was not eager to continue in her company.
    “We have to leave now,” I told her.
    "Lord Stornaway is so jealous if I am gone long,” Perdita added mischievously.
    “You’ve ended up in the honeypot for sure,” Phoebe said wistfully. “Remember what I said about Mr. Stafford.”
    “I’ll remember,” Perdita told her, then the two of us hastened off, while the footman stood behind, smiling after Phoebe’s retreating form, till we had to call him to attention.
    "There's a fine figure of a woman,” he said.
    Perdita examined him with some interest, but in the end shook her head, withholding the address. The great Phoebe was not ready to settle for a footman yet.
    The remainder of the afternoon passed pleasantly with a drive through Hyde Park, and later admiring our shopping after we got back to Alton’s. The modiste arrived to present our gowns to us. Perdita looked every bit as overdressed as I feared she would in her heavily trimmed gown, while my own was cut lower in front than I had intended. I feared Aunt Maude would be scandalized with it, but Mrs. Alton found it “quite