Page 27 of Restored
Mabel sighed. “My dressmaker persuaded me into it,” she said. “I wanted to stick with the same pattern I usually have her make up for me, but she kept saying no one gets their gowns made up like that anymore.” She made a face. “I’m not awful keen on these new fashions. Bloody great sleeves like legs of mutton.”
Her own sleeves only featured a very small puff at the shoulders, but Kit didn’t comment.
“In my day,” Mabel went on, “there was such a wonderfulloosenessof dress. So freeing, it was!” She gave a happy a sigh, then met Kit’s gaze. “I sayin my day, but in fairness, when I was young, it was as bad as now, if not worse—all stays and petticoats and being laced up and having your hair piled up as high as a bloody tower with paste and gawd knows what in it.” She made a face. “Butthen, when I got to be a bit older—when I was making good money, shacked up with my old marquess—oh, the clothes I had then, Kit! Us working girls would just put our stockings on, pull a muslin gown over the top, and call ourselves dressed!” She laughed immoderately. “Why, you could have your la-las right on show and no one blinked an eye!”
“Woo!”
The piercing shriek from the cage in the corner made Kit jump.
Nell Gwyn was awake.
“Woot-hoo!” The parrot whistled, then, sing-song-like,“Show me yer la-las!”
Kit shuddered discreetly. The parrot’s voice was uncannily like Mabel’s, whilst being oddly flat and strange. Coming out of that of unmoving beak, it was like some kind of horrible magic. Between the talking and the endless, demented whistling, Nell Gwyn made him feel horribly unsettled, but Mabel adored the creature.
“Are you awake again, my angel?” she said now. “Kit, let Nell Gwyn out, will you?”
Kit got up and went over to the cage, undoing the little latch on the door and opening it so the bird could hop out. She was mostly grey and white, with an odd flapping bit of orangey-pink tail that Kit always thought looked tacked on and that made her look quite comical.
Just then, Gracie came in with the tea tray.
“Woo-hoot!” the parrot shrieked from the back of the chair she was perched on. “Show us yer la-las, Gracie!”
Gracie just about dropped the tea tray, and Kit had to rush to her side to help her balance it.
“Thank you,” she gasped as he helped her lower it onto the table.
The unapologetic bird flapped lazily over to Mabel, coming to land first on the arm of her chair, before hopping up on to her shoulder and rubbing her head against Mabel’s turban.
“You’re a lovely girl, aren’t you, Nelly?” Mabel crooned affectionately, and the bird whistled back in that uncanny way that was somehow both tuneless and musical. Mabel fished down the side of her chair and pulled out a somewhat crumpled reticule. Digging her hand in, she brought out a walnut and offered it to the bird. Nell Gwyn took hold of it in one large claw and started in on it with her powerful beak, scattering tiny pieces of shell all over Mabel’s lap.
Mabel, seeming unperturbed, returned her attention to Kit. “So, what about you, Kit? What’s your news?” She accepted a cup of tea from Gracie with a quick smile and immediately began to nibble the delicatefinancierbalanced on the saucer.
Kit paused. For a moment, he considered telling her he’d had Henry Asquith asking to see him, but he wasn’t sure he was up to listening to what would inevitably follow. Even after all these years, she could still wax lyrical about Henry’s failings for an inordinately long time.
“I’ve not much news,” he said. “Jean-Jacques popped by yesterday.”
“How is he?” Mabel asked. “Still married to that ugly cook, I see.” She held up the last morsel of thefinancierbefore popping it into her mouth.
“Don’t be unpleasant. Evie isn’t the least bit ugly, and you know it,” Kit said repressively.
“Well, she ain’t pretty,” Mabel said. “Not like you.”
Kit half laughed, half sighed. “Firstly, I’m not pretty, and secondly, I have never at any point in my life had designs on Jean-Jacques, so you needn’t talk like Evie and I are rivals. In fact, if it came down to it, and I had to choose between them, I’d pick her. Her baking’s worth the loss of a friend.”
Mabel shrugged unapologetically. “Just as well with a face like hers.” She turned to Nell Gwyn, handing over a second walnut. “You agree with me, don’t you, angel?” she crooned.
“Woo-hoot! Kit’s a pretty boy!” Nell Gwyn shrieked in reply.
Kit flinched and Gracie sent him a sympathetic look.
“Fine,” Mabel said, “you don’t fancy Jean-Jacques. So whohaveyou got your eye on?”
Kit shook his head, smiling ruefully. “I don’t have my eye on anyone. The last thing I need is a man.”
“Oh, don’t give me that,” Mabel scoffed. “You’re soft as butter, you. What you want, deep down, is someone on the other side of your fireplace.”
Kit chuckled. “You must be getting me mixed up with someone else. I’ve never wanted anyone like that—never even looked. I’m perfectly happy on my own. I’m like a tom cat.”