June Calvin Read Online Free PDF Page B

couches and sphinx chairs he disdained; to be summoned there was sufficiently unusual to make Davida uneasy.
    “Yes, Papa?” she queried, nervously fingering a stray curl.
    Sir Charles grinned at her. “Don’t look so alarmed, child. You’re not here for a scold. Your mother and I have been holding something of a council of war.”
    “War, Papa?” She returned his smile and slid into the indicated chair. Her parents were sitting side by side on a leather sofa, and she had the strong feeling that just before she’d entered the room they’d been sitting much closer to one another.
    “Yes, Davie, war! Petticoat doings, to be sure, but no less serious for all that. Now, about the gown you’ve chosen for the Stanhope ball. Your mother tells me you initially had some doubts about its modesty, but that fancy French modiste talked you around. Is that true?”
    A blush spread over Davida’s cheeks. The gown was of a deep rose color which she favored because it was highly flattering to her coloring. But the bodice had alarmed her by its plunging neckline, especially when the modiste had virtually ordered her to wear one of the new “divorce” corsets to lift and separate her bosom.
    “You have zee nice leetle figure, ma’amzelle,
mais certainment
not what will demand the
gentilhomme’s
attention,
non?
But with my design, you will be the cynosure of all eyes.”
    To her mother’s demur she had responded forcefully,
“C’est le dernier cri
, I assure you,
madame.
”
    “Your mother has confessed to me that she had doubts about that gown, and I see by those flags in your cheeks that you still do.”
    “Yes, Papa.”
    “We cannot risk anything daring now, Davie,” her mother explained. “I confess it was wrong in me to let Madam talk us into it. I think you should wear another gown instead. It is doubtless too late to have another one made, so we will have to select something very demure from your wardrobe.”
    A happy thought occurred to Davida. “There’s the one that she has yet to complete. You know, the pale green lawn.”
    “Yes, I had quite forgotten it. It is unexceptionable. We’ll call on her tomorrow and make sure it will be ready by Saturday.”
    “Well, that’s settled then. Now that you have your uniform, my little soldier, what do you say to some reinforcements?”
    Davida crossed the room and knelt in front of her father. “Oh, Papa, you’re thinking of going with us!” Her father detested balls and routs, and routinely avoided them if at all possible.
    Sir Charles ruffled his daughter’s dusky curls. “If you don’t think I’ll spoil your campaign?”
    She took his hand and held it to her cheek. “I’d like to have you there above all things.”
    His voice was husky as he raised her. “Then your mother and I will take our carriage, as Lord Pelham’s will be quite full. Now run along to bed and get some rest. A well-rested soldier fights best!”
    Davida hugged both parents fervently and dashed up the steps, tears in her eyes. Her prayers that night were that she not let her parents down, but somehow be a credit to them.
    ***
    The Stanhope ball was, in some ways, anticlimactic after all the nervous excitement leading up to it.
    Davida had urged her seamstress to finish the new gown of pale mint green lawn, with a demure smocked bodice, high waist, and tiny puffed sleeves. The hem was caught up in scallops to reveal a lacy white underskirt. Worn with the pearls her father had given her for her eighteenth birthday, it was all that was proper for a young lady in her first season.
    Madame Poincarré had designed it for her rather disdainfully, as suitable for evenings with elderly maiden aunts and the like. Now it loomed as the single most important gown in Davida’s wardrobe!
    She spent an unusual amount of time on her toilet that night, nearly driving her maid frantic with requests to try her hair, first one way, and then another, before settling on her usual simple style of curls