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bait_backupIt’s awfully white, don’t you think?
*Not that it’s any sort of a surprise, exactly. This is the third fitting in as many weeks and she’s watched in the mirror as the dress has taken shape around her: bracelet-length sleeves, the tight and shiny cuirass of the bodice, a great bloom of voluminous skirts, all blinding and brilliant white.
It was really the only choice. The wedding is to be more Esmerelda’s than either of theirs, a placatory gift to soothe her, or at least distract her, from the marriage that has somehow earned her permission if not exactly her blessing. To that end it’s to be a thoroughly Anglo wedding, of course, and the past few weeks have been a bewildering swirl of alien customs and oh-but-we-must-have’s: an extensive menu and flower arrangements and musicians and other things that Amrita has simply nodded her head at numbly. And of course the thing simply demands a white dress. Evan’s favorite pastime may be indulging her every last whim but the truth is, if Amrita is to carve out even the barest facsimile of peace with this woman, now or ever, it won’t do to rub her face in it--to add public insult to injury, to put a baldly obvious face on the scandal and stalk down the aisle in scarlet like a fallen woman in a wireless serial.
But it made a decent bluff. To that end she’d done her time at Craven and Stone and had come up with armloads of distraction: heavy books of traditional zardosi embroidery, of court paintings of Rajput and Maratha brides, each and every one one in brilliant red and gold. It had worked, and Amrita had gotten mostly what she wanted otherwise, and she is mostly very pleased with what she sees. But there’s a bit of a helpless chill, now, as she looks at the white-gowned girl in the mirror: she’s helplessly reminded of her mother in mourning at her own bedside, of every widow in her wide extended family--not an auspicious connotation by any means.
Antoinette Bertille herself is there, a stout and silly woman with a mop of red curls who is fussing over Amrita with pincushion in hand. As she makes her little adjustments here and there, the woman’s gaze flickers nervously between where Amrita stands on the little pedestal before the mirror and the chair where Esmerelda is enthroned in silence.*
*Not that it’s any sort of a surprise, exactly. This is the third fitting in as many weeks and she’s watched in the mirror as the dress has taken shape around her: bracelet-length sleeves, the tight and shiny cuirass of the bodice, a great bloom of voluminous skirts, all blinding and brilliant white.
It was really the only choice. The wedding is to be more Esmerelda’s than either of theirs, a placatory gift to soothe her, or at least distract her, from the marriage that has somehow earned her permission if not exactly her blessing. To that end it’s to be a thoroughly Anglo wedding, of course, and the past few weeks have been a bewildering swirl of alien customs and oh-but-we-must-have’s: an extensive menu and flower arrangements and musicians and other things that Amrita has simply nodded her head at numbly. And of course the thing simply demands a white dress. Evan’s favorite pastime may be indulging her every last whim but the truth is, if Amrita is to carve out even the barest facsimile of peace with this woman, now or ever, it won’t do to rub her face in it--to add public insult to injury, to put a baldly obvious face on the scandal and stalk down the aisle in scarlet like a fallen woman in a wireless serial.
But it made a decent bluff. To that end she’d done her time at Craven and Stone and had come up with armloads of distraction: heavy books of traditional zardosi embroidery, of court paintings of Rajput and Maratha brides, each and every one one in brilliant red and gold. It had worked, and Amrita had gotten mostly what she wanted otherwise, and she is mostly very pleased with what she sees. But there’s a bit of a helpless chill, now, as she looks at the white-gowned girl in the mirror: she’s helplessly reminded of her mother in mourning at her own bedside, of every widow in her wide extended family--not an auspicious connotation by any means.
Antoinette Bertille herself is there, a stout and silly woman with a mop of red curls who is fussing over Amrita with pincushion in hand. As she makes her little adjustments here and there, the woman’s gaze flickers nervously between where Amrita stands on the little pedestal before the mirror and the chair where Esmerelda is enthroned in silence.*
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no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:05 pm (UTC)This entire family stands with Him. Myself included, though I am not part of the army itself, as a means of protecting the business if anything were to go--awry. By joining the family, you join Him. You may be called upon in service, as would any children you might have.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:09 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:11 pm (UTC)He didn’t say--
*She shuts her mouth, narrowing her eyes.*
Tell me what happened. Was it the most recent excursion?
no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:32 pm (UTC)The ninth. I was waiting up, and--that was all. He’s fine now, obviously.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:33 pm (UTC)Clearly I underestimated you.
But you see what I mean. Another bride, from a related family--they would already know, I wouldn’t have to ask. If you weren’t aware, or if your allegiances lay elsewhere, there would have to be arrangements to ensure my family’s safety, if you find such loyalties too compromising. Weaker women might shy from such things.
*She pauses, and tugs on the sleeve again. It’s as close to an apology as she’ll ever come.*
I’m glad he’s involved you. It’s best to be involved.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:36 pm (UTC)*The word she is trying to say is worried, but it is so pathetically inadequate that she can’t even manage it, and she has no idea how they ended up having this conversation in the first place, and all in all she almost prefers sniping at one another over lace versus zardosi and the size of the crinoline to the bewildering frankness that is suddenly coming out of Esmerelda--or herself, for that matter. Regretting having said anything at all, Amrita just lapses into a fidgety silence.*
no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:40 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:41 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:42 pm (UTC)*She plucks at the shoulder of the gown again, but it’s more of a fussing, motherly motion this time than one intended to criticize the dress and the woman in it.*
We should get Antoinette back in to fix this. It’s a mess, for being so close to the wedding.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:46 pm (UTC)It certainly is.
no subject
Date: 2011-06-27 10:54 pm (UTC)They produce lovely work here--it’s beyond compare--but their precision is oft enough found wanting. I have a Russian tailor who is much better getting the fit perfect, if that’s paramount, but I think we need the kind of creative vision this place will give us for your dress. I find that right around the third fitting it all just comes together. But, of course, one must find the time for three fittings--
*Esmerelda points her wand to the door again. The woman waiting outside, slouched against the opposite wall with her heap of measuring tape and pins, starts and then steps back into the room.*
We’ve come to a decision, I think. We will stay on white. But the fit about her middle is still abominable.