Chorus of the Dead

Chapter 8

Chapter 8

Make no deep scrutiny

Into her mutiny

Lady Bettiscombe's Millinery was the finest hat shop in all of London. It was the perfect place for a privileged young lady like Margaret Marshall to spend her exorbitant allowance on frivolous and pretty things. It was a place to indulge herself, forgetting the sordid affair the day before between Peter and their father.

"Good day, Miss Marshall!" Lady Bettiscombe smiled from the arrangement she was primping at the window. "I have some lovely peach ribbons for you. They just came yesterday."

"Sounds lovely." Margaret smiled, and pulled her gloves off one finger at a time while Lady Bettiscombe retreated to the backroom.

Lady Bettiscombe had found herself in dire straits a few years prior, after the sudden death of her deeply indebted husband. Accustomed to a life of leisure Lady Bettiscombe decided to use her talent for design, and her well to do connections, and opened a hat shop. She created the most elegant designs, at least in Margaret's estimation, and she soon won over many of the women who once counted her as an equal. Now it seemed no one cared for her past and many flocked to her tiny hat shop to plunder her creations, making Lady Bettiscombe a very rich woman in her own right.

Margaret spotted an arrangement towards the back of the store, a variety of green hats with ostrich plumes and sleek black and brown ribbons tied in extravagant bows. Green had become quite the fashion since textile mills discovered a way to make a true, vibrant green. Margaret ran her fingers over the smooth surface of the ribbon and smiled.

The door opened with a loud flourish of the bell that hung overhead. Two women, boisterously laughing, entered the shop, not seeing Margaret near the back behind some bolts of cloth and fabric.

"She is not the first one to tire of her husband!"

Margaret recognized the voice in an instant as Mrs. Delilah Robbins. She was a speculative woman, with a propensity to gossip wildly. "But the entire thing is quite scandalous. Leaving the city so abruptly, without so much as a word to anyone. Never thought I'd see the day," Delilah Robbins continued.

"Oh I saw it coming for years--" the other woman quipped but was cut short when Lady Bettiscombe returned.

"Good day ladies," she said. "What is this you say? What did you see coming for years?"

"Lady Marshall, of course. She's run away from home," Delilah said in that high pitched tone Margaret recognized her by. She often used a sing-song voice when she was excited to pass on her nuggets of titillating gossip.

Margaret clasped a hand over her mouth to muffle a gasp and then slipped further behind the cloth.

"I cannot say I believe it," she heard Lady Bettiscombe say. Her voice was soft and almost apologetic. No doubt she questioned whether to tell the women that Lady Marshall's daughter was hiding amongst the fabric.

"I can," Mrs. Robbins laughed. "Those two were ill-matched from the beginning. She's so headstrong and... unladylike in many respects. I am sorry to say it ladies, but it does not surprise me in the least."

Margaret heard the voice of Mrs. Robbins becoming closer and closer to her, and then imagined the woman standing practically on top of her as she crouched in the shadows. Margaret gripped her mouth tightly, struggling to remain silent in the midst of such accusations. She could not stifle the tears that spilled over her cheeks. To be talked about in such a way, her family's respectability coming into question, was horrifying to behold. She bit her lower lip hard and closed her eyes to stave off the tears.