Read the first chapter of Emma Donoghue's new book
This select band call themselves the World, being convinced that there is no other - or none that matters. Their number is composed of the great and grand: gentlemen and ladies of note (of family and name, of fortune and distinction, of fashion and figure). There are two points of controversy. The first, whether persons of no Breeding, who have achieved high fame and elevated station through their own merits, can be considered members of the World? The second, conversely, whether those members of the higher orders (by which we distinguish the Gentry and the Peerage) who have failed to inherit any of the fortune, elegance or other distinguished qualities of their Ancestors should be considered to have forfeited their membership? To put it in simpler terms, who is the true lady of the Beau Monde: the lovely Miss F-rr-n, whose birth is shamefully low but whose shining talents have won her unfading laurels on the stage of Dr-ry L-ne, or old Baroness Dung-Hill, who starves and mumbles in her brother's west wing and hasn't been to town for a new gown since the last Coronation?
Beau Monde Inquirer, March 1787
The Thames was loosening, its thin skin of ice cracked open by thousands of small boats, as if spring were on its way. The carriage with the Derby arms gilded on the side forced its way down Whitehall through a tangle of vehicles and pedestrians. 'The traffic, these days.' The Earl of Derby sighed.
Eliza Farren leaned across her mother to pull open the blue velvet curtain. The sun splashed her face like water. 'The Richmonds must have a marvellous view, right across to St Paul's and south to Surrey.'
'Mm. I'd never choose to live anywhere but Mayfair myself,' said Derby, 'but I suppose the Duke needs to be close to Parliament.'
Only a few minutes to Richmond House, now; Eliza's stomach was as tight as a nut. Despite the fur-lined mask, her cheekbones ached with the cold; she withdrew into the hood of her cloak and her hands crept deeper into her muff. Had it been a mistake? She'd bought it only yesterday on Oxford Street; it struck her now as ludicrously large, like a fluffy, bloated dog squatting in her lap. Her mother was right that the muff was all the ton, but that didn't mean it would please the people Eliza was going to meet today. How fine the line between fashion and vulgarity and how easy to stray across it. Perhaps she should leave the thing in the carriage.
'Of course, the one I've been longing to have you meet is the Duchess's half-sister, Mrs Damer,' said Derby. 'She's an original; reads Latin better than most of us Etonians. Her parents were enlightened and hired the best of tutors for the girls. I've known Anne Damer all my life and never experienced a moment's tedium in her company.'
On Eliza's other side her mother pressed her lined face to the glass, then recoiled from its bite. The women's feet sat together on the pewter warmer; the daughter's in pointed yellow silks, the mother's in brown leather. Over the years, Eliza had pressed some recently fashionable skirts and bodices on Mrs Farren, calling them cast-offs, but she'd never been able to persuade her to give up her boots. Eliza untied her mask now, tapped her mother's wrist and mouthed the word mirror. Mrs Farren fished it out of her skirts, as blank-faced as a pickpocket. Head turned away from Derby, Eliza checked her face in the small oval of glass. Had she rouged a trifle too high for three o'clock? The handkerchief was ready in her mother's hand. Eliza gave each cheek a quick wipe.
Her stomach made a discreet grumble; she'd had nothing since her morning cup of chocolate, though her mother had brought up toast, devilled eggs and cold beef on a tray. Eliza, who had the benefit of her mother's constant service and company, often reminded herself to be grateful. Mrs Farren had seen two daughters in the grave already; fifteen years ago she'd thrown in her lot with Eliza, the one with a chance of making the family's fortune. Peggy, the other surviving daughter and a toiling actress up in York, quite understood.
