“You know very well that too much sleep always spoils your disposition! Here, slip your arms into the sleeves, and I’ll tie the sash for you since you seem incapable of making the slightest effort on your own. Mrs. Mackenzie offered me a personal maid to take care of you, but I had to refuse, of course, because of your immodest habit of walking around your room with nothing or hardly anything on. And you must understand, my dear, that even though we have allowed you a certain amount of freedom at home, other people will hardly understand or condone such pagan habits. Why, not even husbands and wives…” Harriet bit off her words sharply but not soon enough, for Alexa had thrown back her head and was regarding her curiously.
“Do you really mean that people who are married and have children, perhaps, do not see each other without their clothes on? Why, I think that not being naked and free together is the more barbarous custom. And…” But now it was Alexa’s turn to cut short her indignant flow of words and blush as the one memory she had sworn to put completely out of her mind came back with startling, unpleasant clarity.
“I should think you’d have the grace to blush!” Harriet snorted. “And I certainly hope you will never dare attempt to air those views in polite company! I suppose it’s because you spend too much time talking to those coolie women who walk around half-naked themselves. I should have gone along with your mother, and had your papa forbid you…but then…” Harriet suddenly sighed heavily. “I have never believed that females should be kept overly protected and ignorant either, and that is why I have been so free in my discussions with you and have allowed you to read certain books which although they are considered literature are also thought to be not fit for ladies to read.”
“Aunt Harry, I…”
“I do hope, my dear Alexa, that I have not been wrong to bring you up in the way I did. You are eighteen today and still more than half-child, in some ways, but I always wanted your eyes to be open when you became a woman.”
Alexa threw her arms around her aunt, hugging her fiercely. “Please don’t, Aunt Harry! I’m so glad and so lucky that I was brought up by you as I have been, with my eyes open. And in spite of the silly tantrums I throw sometimes and the angry things I say, you must believe that I will never let you down; especially not in public. I feel so sorry for those poor women who know nothing at all beyond how to sketch or paint with watercolors or play a tune on the pianoforte, and cannot even carry on an intelligent conversation with men on politics or hunting or horses…”
At this Harriet had to repress a smile, although she said with her usual brusqueness: “Well, I do hope you will speak with a little less frankness than usual on the topic of horse breeding and refrain from joining in arguments that concern politics or religion. And now get on with you and wash your face with some cold water. Your eyes are quite puffy from oversleeping.”
While Harriet bustled about the room Alexa’s muffled voice came from behind the lacquered screen that hid the washstand with its china pitcher and basin. “I promise that I will be charming to everyone tonight, even the bores, and that I will be decorous and demure and seem helpless and even a little silly, since that is what’s expected of a proper young lady.” She emerged toweling her hair, with those strange slate-colored eyes of hers sparkling in a way that Harriet mistrusted. “In fact, do you think I will find a ‘catch’? It might be an interesting experience to have a suitor, even if I might not decide to marry him in the end. But I suppose I really must learn how to be a flirt, even if it is only to find out if I can turn men into my slaves or not.”
“Alexandra!” Harriet’s voice carried a warning note, but Alexa only laughed, making a turban of her towel as she twisted before one of the full-length mirrors so that her silk skirts swirled about her long legs.
“Oh, but you must not worry that I shall do something to disgrace you. For since I have, thanks to you, dearest aunt, a passably good mind, I have decided to follow your advice and use my feminine wiles to the greatest advantage possible.” She was studying herself in the mirror as she spoke, especially her face. She looked so different with all her hair tucked out of sight. Was it possible that she could ever pass as a man? And then, sighing, Alexa decided not, putting aside one more childhood ambition of hers.
“Well? Trying to decide if your face is your fortune?” Despite her dry tone of voice, Harriet had come up to stand behind Alexa, watching, with a strange tug to her heart, the changing play of expression on the girl’s face as she stared at herself.
“I suppose I’ll never be a raging beauty, will I?” Alexa said diffidently. “Not one of the fashionable kind, anyway, with tiny rosebud mouths that simper instead of smile and faces like pink and white china dolls that don’t show feeling…”
“Sometimes it’s just as well not to show one’s feelings too openly,” Harriet said quietly, but Alexa was too caught up in her game of self-assessment to pay more than token attention.
“Oh, I think I know better than that, of course. But now you must please tell me frankly if my nose is too short—and too thin as well? And my eyebrows—how I wish they were more arched than straight. And…you see how they actually slant a little bit at the temples? But I suppose there is nothing very much I can do about all my defects, including the fact that dark eyes are hardly in fashion at the moment; unless I can manage to make myself all the rage by making every man think I am fascinating!”
“Well…” Harriet cocked her head to one side, studying Alexa’s eager face almost as critically as the girl herself had done, before she said judiciously: “At least you have quite an arresting face, my dear, which I consider the next best thing to being thought fascinating. You have white, even teeth and an attractive smile when you do smile, as well as nice high cheekbones and unusual hair-coloring…and that is quite enough, I think, since I do not on any account want to turn your head.”
“Oh, you could never do that, but you have paid me the greatest compliment in the world by telling me that I have an arresting face. Do I really? Perhaps I need not feel quite so nervous now that you have told me that. And at least I do not freckle under the sun. But…”
“Enough!” Harriet said sternly. “I want you to sit down and eat all of your breakfast before it gets too cold; and at once! There’s a lot to be done before we get you quite ready to be the belle of the ball tonight, my dear.”
“Belle of the ball” indeed. For all of her surface bravado, Alexa could not help the feelings of uncertainty and something akin to fear that stayed with her, making her wish fervently to be anywhere else but here, on exhibition before scores of watching, curious, critical eyes. But she wasn’t a coward, she told herself over and over again. And even if this ordeal seemed worse than facing a charging bull elephant, well, it would be over eventually, and until then all she had to do was to act. Pretend that she was someone else much older and much more experienced who was used to making slaves of men, that was all.
Pretend—an amusing game like “charades.” What role would she play? Cinderella? Cleopatra? Diane de Poitiers? Or innocent Little Red Riding Hood? Her hands felt clammy as she stood in front of the mirror as rigid as a statue while Harriet gave orders to four chattering “sewing women” who had been summoned to make last minute alterations to her ball gown. It had taken at least two hours to subdue her unruly curls into a fashionably sleek coiffure—looped braids on either side of a prim middle-parting threaded with pearl encrusted gold ribbons—a matching “ferronière” around her forehead.
Faint strains of music drifted up through the open windows, and Alexa could not help whispering, “We are not late, are we?” while Harriet was still trying to decide on what jewelry she should wear. From the case she had brought along with her Harriet produced several items, now holding them against Alexa’s bare throat and then discarding them.
“Not suitable…too opulent…not sapphires with a gold and white gown…” And then, irritably, “Of course we are not late! The musicians are merely tuning their instruments, that