Page 24 of The Wallflower Manifesto
“It is something new,” Millie whispered back, giving her friend’s hand a reassuring squeeze. “Come, let’s get you a drink.”
Dot followed obediently, watching the clinking of silver on plates and the buzz of excited gossip and laughter with a wary sort of fascination. When a glass of deep amber liquid was put into her hand, she did not hesitate to take a hard swig.
Evidently, Dot needed the liquid courage, for she didn’t sputter or wince at all as the fiery liquid went into her belly. And, a few moments later, she sighed and her shoulders eased.
“Better?” Millie asked, amused.
“I thought you hated things like this,” Dot replied instead of answering, turning to face her friend with bafflement etched allover her delicate features. “You used to say you preferred an evening locked in your room over all else.”
“Ah,” Millie said, color rising a bit in her cheeks. She accepted her own glass from Ember, who had leaned in for her answer from across the bar, and took a sip, contemplating the question. “I think,” she said after a moment, “I think it is a matter of context. It isn’t to say that I don’t still enjoy locking myself in solitude, but perhaps it is not theonlything I enjoy anymore. This has all been such great fun with Lady Bentley, who does not keep me on a leash. I hated balls and roux with my mother because it was riddled with pressure and rules and unbelievable anxiety.”
“I was much the same,” Ember said with a raise of her auburn brows, “when Mr. Withers, my husband, died. Suddenly, all the things that I thought I hated had a new color to them because I was a widow and not a wife.”
“Yes, exactly.” Millie nodded, relieved. “I’m not a debutante anymore. I’m not a hopeful or under scrutiny. So it feels very different.”
“Did you not feel the same when you became a wife, Dorothy Fletcher?” Ember prodded, tilting her head as she refilled Dot’s glass.
“I suppose,” Dot admitted, thinking about it with a twist of her lips. “Yes, I suppose I don’t feel like an interloper now, when I escort Miss Lazarus into Society. I certainly would have before I married Silas.”
“To interlopers,” Ember suggested, lifting her glass. “May we always get away with it.”
“God willing,” Millie agreed with a chuckle and another pull of her drink.
“No you don’t!” called Mrs. Wainwright, her face already red with excitement and perhaps from the whiskey too. “Toasts are for all guests tonight. What are we celebrating?”
“Access to freedom,” Ember provided, pacing back to the center of the guests. “Lady Bentley and I as esteemed widows, Dot as an equal partner to her husband, and Millie as a bonafide lady’s companion. The rest of you, I hear, are wealthy spinsters.”
“Comfortable,” Mrs. Goode corrected with a blush. “I wouldn’t say wealthy.”
“Not in mixed company, anyhow,” Mrs. Smith agreed. “It wouldn’t do to have the vultures hearing.”
“Everyone’s a vulture in a gambling den, dear,” Mrs. Goode replied with a shrug.
As conversation began to cluster off again, Millie turned to Dot with a curious expression. “Miss Lazarus would have benefitted from being here tonight, don’t you think?”
Dot gave a startled bark of laughter, shooting a look of incredulity at her friend. “I think she’d be rather overwhelmed and scandalized, Millie. She’s just a girl in her debut year with barely a reputation to ruin being at such a gathering. I imagine she’d be quaking with fear in a corner.”
Millie allowed herself to smile at the image. “Perhaps, but the poor thing was so distressed at not being the perfect English rose and belle of her first ball. If she could see all the women in this room whose lives have taken less traditional paths, don’t you think that would bring her comfort? I wish someone had shownme something like this when I was nineteen and afraid of the world.”
“Perhaps you can explain it to her, then, the next time you meet,” Dot suggested, leaning against the bar and popping a chilled grape into her mouth. “I confess, I would have liked such knowledge at a young age too.”
“I have seen and realized so many things this Season, Dot,” Millie mused, watching the Spinsters as they made merry. “I wish we all hadn’t been led down the garden path like we were as young girls, told and terrorized that there was only one way forward, one way to thrive.”
Dot considered her, a fond smile forming on her lips. “Yes,” she agreed. “You are much changed. I imagine the journal you’re filling now is a great deal different to those that came before.”
“It’s already nearly full,” Millie admitted with a laugh. “I am planning to buy a new one with this week’s wages. Perhaps I’ll come over to Bloomsbury if you wish to help me search.”
“I’d like that,” Dot answered. “But for now, I think you’ll need to refresh me on the rules of Hazard.”
“Capital idea!” Ember cut in again. She was apparently very skilled at listening to multiple conversations at once, as just now, she was standing between Mrs. Billings and Goode. “Why don’t we all gather round and I will impart upon you the house rules for Hazard.”
“Excellent,” clipped Mrs. Smith, adjusting her spectacles. “Who doesn’t love making things a bit hazardous?”
Silently, Millie agreed.
PHASE IV: BLOOM
CHAPTER 10
