Page 28 of The Cornish Mermaid

Little did she know that Morvoren’s had been highlighted just the week before her holiday so was looking at its best, even though in dire need of a wash. Loveday had confined it in a low bun, but after twenty-four hours of traveling, that had started to come loose, and the breeze had fluffed her hair out around her face.

Ysella’s own hair was not the boring brown she’d claimed but a rich chestnut, a few shades lighter than her brother’s. “Nonsense,” Morvoren said. “You have the most gorgeous curls. Mine tends to frizziness if I’m not careful. I’d love to have hair like yours.” Ysella’s hair had been piled up on her head and bound with a gold silk scarf, leaving small curls clustering about her forehead and ears. Very Jane Austen.

Ysella patted her hair and beamed but without a trace of vanity. “My abigail, Martha, is very good with hair and needs only to see a style to be able to reproduce it for me. When I go to London for my debut next year, I shall be taking her with me. I can ask her to show your maid how to do your hair if you like.”

Her debut? Of course, young ladies in the past had to “come out” and be presented in society when they reached marriageable age, in order to catch themselves a suitable husband. How very different this world was from Morvoren’s own, where you just met boys in school or at university or at the pub and fell into relationships with them.

Morvoren smiled and nodded to the offer. “Thank you.”

“Now,” Ysella said, already moving on and forgetting about hairstyles. “We shall need you out of this dress and all those petticoats. How Mother ever wore those things I do not know. I’ll call Martha and she can help us.” She went to the door where a tasseled rope hung and gave it a tug. Nothing happened, but presumably somewhere within the house Martha had heard her summons.

Within two minutes, Martha arrived with Loveday in tow. The latter had put on a clean apron over her traveling dress and swapped her straw bonnet for a lacy mob cap. Her eyes were round with wonder and her cheeks glowed even more rosily than normal.

“Now, Martha,” Ysella declared, eyes sparkling. “We have a job to do here, and it is to turn Miss Lucas into a fashionable young lady.” She was very much entering into the spirit of Pygmalion. “To start with, we need these dreadful old clothes off her, and I think the blue sprigged muslin will set off her eyes to perfection.” She encompassed Loveday with her zeal. “And you, Loveday, will learn from Martha how to dress your mistress’s hair so it cuts the mustard.” She gave an infectious giggle. “This is going to be so much fun.”

Feeling as though Ysella thought her a giant doll to dress up, Morvoren let them divest her of her many layers with great relief. Surely, beneath Ysella’s floaty, high-waisted muslin gown there couldn’t be as much upholstering as her mother’s old dress had required?

Once she was down to those gappy knickers, Morvoren’s three dressers decided that what she needed after so long on the dusty road up from Cornwall must be a bath. This she couldn’t argue with, nor did she want to, but what she hadn’t counted on was the fact that they wanted to be present while she took it.

Two footmen carried a large metal bath into the bedroom, hot water arrived, in buckets, and at last Martha declared the bath ready.

The footmen had set up a fancy painted wooden screen around the bathtub and, throwing caution and modesty to the wind, Morvoren stripped naked and got in. What utter bliss the hot water was.

Some time later, Morvoren emerged, glowing and clean, and a delighted Ysella supervised her dressing from the ground up.

“I said this would be fun, didn’t I? And I was right.” she declared gleefully as Martha fetched out various different garments and laid them out for inspection while Loveday looked on, wide-eyed and open-mouthed.

To Morvoren’s surprise, more stays were involved, but this time shorter, far gentler, and less intrusive ones, akin to a modern bustier. She’d have preferred to do without them altogether, but, as words of protest would have been ignored, she stayed silent. If she was stuck here in 1811 for a while, then she’d have to conform, at least until she found her feet. And besides which, even the most modest of busts needed control. She didn’t want to go bouncing out of a low-cut dress like Ysella’s at an inopportune moment.

“Now for the blue sprigged muslin,” Ysella declared, as Martha fetched it from an enormous wardrobe.

It was indeed a lovely dress with a high waist and delicate puff sleeves. Morvoren smiled in pleasure as she looked down at herself in it. “I have to admit this is a lot more comfortable than your mother’s old dress. I can almost forget I have stays on.”

“Of course you can,” Ysella rejoined. “I never notice mine at all. Now for some perfume, just here behind your ears and a dab on each wrist I think. Mama says you should apply it on, what was it, pulse points. I’ve no idea why but she’s always correct.”

Martha, with an air of smug superiority, showed Loveday how to pile Morvoren’s hair up and secure it in position with a blue silk scarf. Ysella, who appeared unable to keep her hands to herself, tweaked a few curls about her forehead, and Morvoren’s new look was complete.

“There,” Ysella declared with satisfaction, standing back to admire her work. “That’s so much better. I have plenty of clothes I can lend you while you’re here with us, and we can visit my dressmaker and have her take your measurements for more gowns. Although you seem to fit in my clothes perfectly well, and I have plenty, so she might not need to. Come and admire yourself in my cheval glass.”

The cheval glass turned out to be a mirror set in a wooden frame on some kind of swivel. Unlike a modern mirror, the reflected image was a little watery and darker than Morvoren was used to. However, it showed her a girl from the pages of Sense and Sensibility or Pride and Prejudice, with her hair as prettily styled as any Jane Austen heroine. She had truly been transformed, and if she dared admit it, felt quite pleased with the result.

“But what about her shoes?” Martha asked, indicating Morvoren’s now stockinged feet with a curl of her upper lip. “She can’t go putting those big ugly things back on. It’ll spoil the picture she makes.” Wrinkling her nose, she held up the trainers.

Loveday, who’d been a little overawed throughout the process of transformation, joined in with enthusiasm. “Her feet was too big for Miss Elestren’s old shoes an’ boots, so we had to let her keep those things on.”

Morvoren eyed her trainers, now almost the sole reminder of her own world. She didn’t want to lose them. “They’re for running. And they may look odd to you, but I can assure you that they’re very comfortable.”

Martha gave one of them a tentative sniff. “Bit smelly. I haven’t ever seen any lady wearing shoes for running.” She paused. “Fact is, I ain’t never seen a lady running.”

Ysella laughed. “Although I daresay a few could do with being able to.” She extended her own daintily clad foot and put it beside one of the trainers. “I wonder if my shoes might fit dear Miss Lucas. My feet are larger than Mother’s. If not, I fear we’ll have to raid the wardrobe of one of the maids. I’m sure at least one of them has big feet—they certainly sound like they do first thing in the morning when I’m still in bed and they’re going about their chores.” She turned to Martha. “The soft kid ones I think, as they’re most likely to stretch and not rub Miss Lucas’s toes.”

As Martha hurried to find a spare pair of Ysella’s shoes, Morvoren turned to her hostess, determined to set something straight. “I wish you would call me Morvoren. Miss Lucas makes me feel like an old lady of fifty.”

Ysella’s smile widened. “Why of course. And you shall call me Ysella, although Kit calls me Yzzie when he’s not being quite as starchy as he’s been today.”

Martha brought the shoes, which to Morvoren’s relief were only a tiny bit tight. She put them on and stood up, feeling every inch the Regency lady.

She was just admiring her newly upthrust breasts, when a sudden thought struck her. Never having mixed with the nobility before, she had no idea what she should call any of them. She needed to know before she put her foot in it. “Would you mind telling me how I should address your mother?”