Alex and Eliza: A Love Story(5)
Angelica and Peggy were already standing in the hallway when Eliza sidled behind them, hoping to escape notice. Angelica was resplendent in an amber gown, heavily embroidered with trails of green-leaved purple irises. Wide panniers beneath her dress gave her a striking hourglass silhouette, accentuated by a ribbed corset that cinched her already tiny waist even smaller, and pushed her breasts up and out. The expanse of bare skin was heavily powdered, as was her neck, face, and forehead, so that her skin had a moon-white purity, broken only by the pink pout of her mouth and flashing eyes. A powdered pompadour wig added nearly half a foot to her height, densely curled on top of her head and trailing between her bare shoulder blades in a few simple rag curls.
Mrs. Schuyler, dressed in a heavy gown of purple so dark it was nearly black, looked her eldest daughter up and down, then nodded once. “Impeccable.”
She motioned Angelica back and Peggy forward. Her gown was sea-foam green, complementing her emerald eyes. It was embroidered with blooming flowers rendered in brilliant amethyst, and connected by a delicate tracery of vines woven from thread of gold. Her panniers were smaller than her oldest sister’s, which only brought out the natural advantages of her lithe figure, as supple as a willow’s branch. Though her skin was more lightly powdered, her cleavage was just as pronounced as Angelica’s. As usual she had elected to wear her own hair. The waist-length tresses had been elaborately piled on top of her head in a pouf nearly as tall as Angelica’s wig. Eliza couldn’t imagine how Peggy and Dot had achieved such a sculptural effect in so short a time, but judging from the whiff of bacon she caught, they must have used enough lard pomade to fry up a full rasher.
Mrs. Schuyler pursed her lips and pinched the fabric of her youngest daughter’s sleeve between her fingers. “I do not believe I recognize the flower, Margarita.”
Peggy smiled bashfully. “It is called a lotus, ma’am. Apparently, it grows in the gardens of Cathay.”
Mrs. Schuyler was silent a moment. Then she nodded her head—the equivalent, for the sober matron, of a bear hug.
“Flawless,” she said. Then, sighing: “Elizabeth. Step forward, please.”
Eliza bit back a sigh of her own. She should have known she wouldn’t get away so easily.
Angelica and Peggy parted like theater curtains, and Eliza took a step forward. She was dressed in what she’d been wearing all day, a simple gown of solid mauve, its skirt pleated but unamplified by hoops or panniers, and delicately draped to reveal a darker purple panel beneath. The purple lacing in the bodice ran up the front rather than back, leaving almost no décolletage in view, though what skin was left uncovered was all but concealed beneath an intricately worked lace shawl, which Eliza had stitched herself.
Mrs. Schuyler’s expression didn’t change, but when she pinched Eliza’s sleeve as she had Peggy’s, she caught a little skin with her fingers. Eliza did her best not to wince.
“Is this . . . cotton?” Mrs. Schuyler said in a horrified voice.
Eliza nodded proudly. “American grown and woven, in the province of Georgia.” She shook her head. “I mean, the state of Georgia.”
Mrs. Schuyler turned away from her middle daughter even before she finished speaking, her dark eyes finding Dot’s, who stood well back against the wall behind her mistress. “I thought I selected the burgundy gown for Miss Eliza to wear.”
“It’s not Dot’s fault, Mama,” Eliza interjected. “The burgundy gown is too dark for my skin tone.”
Mrs. Schuyler didn’t take her eyes from Dot’s. “If she would spend less time in the sun as I ask,” she said, not to her daughter but to her daughter’s maid, “she wouldn’t have this problem. She is as freckled as a farmhand, and what boy wants to see that? A little powder to bring the down the tone and it will look regal.”
“Yes, ma’am,” Dot said.
“Mama,” Eliza tried again, “I think it incumbent upon patriotic ladies to lead by example. How can we deck ourselves out in exotic frippery and stuff ourselves with sweetmeats and pastries when so many of our soldiers are shivering in threadbare rags and subsiding on bones and beans?”
Mrs. Schuyler didn’t answer immediately. Then:
“Any moment now this house will be filled with more than a hundred representatives of the province, including more than a dozen suitable bachelors. Your sisters are suitably prepared to meet them, but, alas, you seem bound and determined to alienate them by downplaying the gifts with which our Creator has blessed you. In a more perfect world, you might be able to attract a husband with your mind, but as women we must play the hand that was dealt us. You will put on the burgundy dress that I procured for you—at no inconsiderable expense—and the wig and powder, and you will appear downstairs with a smile on your face, whether that smile is painted on or genuine. And you will do so within the hour.”
Eliza felt her cheeks color and wished she had used more powder, so she wouldn’t give away her anger. “New York isn’t a province anymore,” she said. “It has been a state since fourth of July, 1776.”
Mrs. Schuyler bit her lip. She drew in a calming breath before speaking. “Young men don’t like drab dresses,” she said in a clipped voice, “let alone girls who know more words than they do.” She turned back to Dot. “You will dress Miss Eliza in the gown I selected and not let her out of her room until her skin is powdered as white as the Catskill range.”