Ravencliffe (Blythewood series) Read Online Free PDF Page B

lovely in it!” my grandmother barked. “We Hall women have always had good figures. Go and have a good time.” She waved her lorgnette at me. “Show all those Montmorencys and Rutherfords what we Halls are made of.”
    I kissed her cool cheek and hurried out before she could change her mind—or before I could. But now I was stuck sitting in a stifling-hot motorcar as Babson the chauffeur jockeyed for position in front of the Montmorency mansion. Staring up at the granite façade, I felt a bit as Marie Antoinette must have felt approaching the Bastille. I could see all my classmates emerging from their carriages and motorcars in frothy explosions of lace and ruffles. There was Wallis Rutherford in a peaches-and-cream pouf that looked like a blancmange. Her hair was piled high on top of her head and powdered white. She was followed by Alfreda Driscoll in a chartreuse confection that quivered like lime aspic in the glare of the photographers’ magnesium flash lamps.
    But as hideous as the dresses had seemed to me, I saw now what they really were—protective armor. Corset, bustle, and wire hoops sheathed in layers of lace and taffeta and damask formed a carapace that enclosed the girl beneath the costume. These girls—my Blythewood classmates—were clothed in their uniformity, protected by their families’ wealth and position. I, on the other hand, was about to stand nearly naked and exposed at the foot of this granite altar of high society.
    “Perhaps if we can’t get in we should just turn around and go home, Mr. Babson.”
    “Not a chance, miss,” Babson replied, nosing the Rolls into a narrow gap between a Benson and a horse-drawn phaeton. “You’re worth ten of them overdressed poodles. I’ve watched you make your way through streets on the Lower East Side what would make a stevedore quake, Miss Ava, and seen you face down gangs of strikebreakers at them meetings you go to at the Cooper Union. You hold your head up and do us proud.”
    I met Babson’s eyes in the rearview mirror and smiled. Having a chauffeur drive me to the settlement house and union meetings had been the one condition my grandmother had demanded to allow me to do “social” work. It had been embarrassing to be chauffeured around poor neighborhoods, and I had imagined it had embarrassed Thomas Babson to deliver me to such destinations. I’d had no idea he thought well of the work I was doing. It gave me courage.
    “Thank you, Mr. Babson,” I said. “I think I can now.”
    “That’s all right then, miss,” he nodded curtly. “Because here we are. Sit tight till I come around to get the door for you and I’ll give you my arm while you make your grand entrance.”
    I took a deep breath to steady myself as Babson got out.
This is silly
, I told myself.
You’ve faced down goblins and ice giants. What’s a handful of reporters and curious onlookers?
    A flash like lightning greeted my first step on the pavement, followed by a thunderous roar. Behind the flash of the magnesium lamps and the smoke they made was a crowd of spectators pressing against a line of policemen. There were mostly girls in the crowd—young girls like me, in shirtwaists and skirts, shopgirls and factory girls come to see the society debutantes in their fancy dresses. I remembered how Tillie always strained to make out the hats worn by the factory owner’s daughters. If Tillie were alive, she’d be in this crowd.
    “Don’t she look a dream!” I heard one cry. “Like something out of a fairy story.”
    If only she knew.
    “Miss Hall,” a voice beside me said, “you’re wearing a most unusual costume. Could you tell the readers of
The World
why you’re not dressed like the other young ladies tonight?”
    I turned to the reporter, hearing my grandmother’s voice in my head—
a woman’s name should only appear in the paper three times: when she’s born, when she marries, and when she dies.
I could murmur some inanity about liking feathers or a mix-up