"Dart-Thornton,.Cecilia.-.Bitterbynde.02.-.Lady.Of.The.Sorrows.V2" - читать интересную книгу автора (Dart-Thornton Cecilia)

The lady's maid came willingly, red-eyed. Together they battled the endless buttons, the petticoats, the pinching, mincing little shoes.
Timidly: "Does my lady wish that I should soap her back!"
"No. I bathe alone." Providence forbid, that the girl should see the whiplash-scars.
Nervously: "Then shall I lay out Her Ladyship's raiment for the evening?"
"I have no other clothesЧonly what you see."
The girl's face crumpled as though she were about to cry again.
Rohain gathered her wits and said quickly, "Naturally, I shall require a more extensive wardrobe. You must soon expedite some purchases on my behalf." It is fortunate that so much money remains to me from the sale of the emerald.
The servant picked up her skirts and effected a dismal bob of acknowledgment.
Beyond the walls, the wind wailed.
ЧЧЧл╗ЧЧЧЧЧЧл╗ЧЧЧЧЧЧл╗ЧЧЧ
Bathed and dressed, Rohain sat before a many-mirrored dressing-table in which she could scarcely recognize herself, while Viviana brushed out her coal-black locks. The courtier was subdued, doleful. Recalling only too well her own servitude, Rohain's heart went out to her. Anthills could appear to be mountains if one were an ant oneself, condemned to live among them daily. Softly, she said, "I come from a faraway place where Court customs and ways are not known. This seems to trouble you. Why so?"
"Indeed, my lady!" Viviana blurted out. "It troubles me, more than all the wights in Aia, because it will trouble you, my mistress!"
"Why should my tribulations be yours?"
"As your servant, your standing reflects on me. I shall suffer for it."
"You speak with honesty, if not tact. How shall my plain manners trouble me?"
Viviana spoke earnestly. "My lady, there is a way of going on that is not commissioned by those holding office, yet it has grown up in our midst. Here at Court, there is a self-styled elite Set or Circle. The Royal Family and the dukes and duchesses are not part of this courtiers' game, but many nobles below the degree of duke are counted Within the Set or Out of it, with the exception of the very old and the very young. If one is regarded as being Within the Set, one must fight to retain one's hold, for if one is Cut, which means cast Out, there is little chance of regaining one's place."
"Is it so terrible, to be Out of this Set?"
"Indeed, I would say that life is scarcely worth living! Until she witnesses with her own eyes, my lady will not know of what I speak. But by then it may be too late. If my lady is not included in the Set, she will want to leave Court and then I shall be sent back to be maidservant to the unmitigable Dowager Marchioness of Netherby-on-the-Fens! I'd as lief die, in honesty. 'Tis unspeakable, the manner in which the Marchioness treats us. She is continually finding fault and slapping us with her broad and pitiless hand."
Rohain assimilated this information, staring unseeing into the mirror.
"Tell me more."
"My lady, as the daughter of an earl, you shall be seated amidst the cream of the Set at table tonightЧthe very paragons of Court etiquette."
"What makes you think I am the daughter of an earl?"
"Oh, simply that your finger displays no wedding band, ma'amЧdespite that I caught a rumor you were a widowЧand to be called by the title of 'Lady,' you must be the daughter of at least an earl, a marquess, or a duke. Yet since the name Tarrenys is not familiar at Court, methought it must be an earl, begging your pardon, Your Ladyship."
This was encouraging. Viviana possessed a certain acuity of mind, then, despite her frail emotional state. It seemed that during her stay at Court, no matter how brief, Rohain would need an ally. She studied the lady's maid in the mirror, seeing a rounded, dimpled face, a turned-up nose, a spot of color on each cheek, hazel eyes with brown lashes that did not match the bleached hair. A pretty lass, Viviana was clad in a houppelande of sky-blue velvet, with a girdle of stiffened wigan. In addition to the girdle, her waist was encircled by one of the popular accoutrements known as a chatelaine, from which depended fine chains attached to a vast assortment of compact and useful articles such as scissors, needle-cases, and buttonhooks.
"And I reckoned that my lady came from a faraway place," the girl chattered on, wielding the hairbrush, "because of the way m'lady thanked the Duke for his dinner invitation."
Rohain swiveled in alarm.
"Said I something incorrect?"
"Yea, verily, m'lady. A dinner invitation from a duke is a command. One must reply, 'I thank Your Grace for the kind invitation and have the honor to obey Your Grace's command.' I don't know what he thought, forsooth, but likely the lack of form did not irk him, for those of the Royal Attriod are above such matters."
"But you say that I will be scorned and reviled by others if I am ignorant of these complicated forms of etiquette?"
"In no small measure, m'lady! The cream of the Set can hang, draw, and quarter the ignorant, in a manner of speaking. Those they have scathed never prosper in Society. But 'tis not merely the forms of address and the slinguaЧ'tis the table manners and all. Entire libraries could be devoted to them. Coming from a high-born family, Your Ladyship will have all the table manners, I'll warrant."
"Not necessarily."
Unbidden, images formed in Rohain's mind; the table at Ethlinn's houseЧeveryone seated around, plucking food from a communal dish with their hands and wiping their greasy fingers on the tablecloth; Sianadh clutching a joint of meat in his fist and tearing at it with his teeth; thick bread trenchers used as plates, to soak up the gravies and juices and to be eaten last.
Rohain chewed her lip. To be catapulted from shame to glory and back to shame would be more than she could bear. And what if Thorn should attend this dinner, to witness her humiliation?
"Do the Dainnan attend the Royal Dining Hall?"
"Sometimes, m'lady, when they do not dine in their own hall."
"Are you acquainted with any of the Dainnan?"
"Not I, m'lady."
"Viviana, why do the noble courtiers insist upon this? These dialects, these intricate manners you hint atЧwhy are they necessary?"
"Marry, I vouch it is to show how clever they are, how much they deserve their station because they are privy to secrets of which the commoners know naught. Yet again, those of the highest degree do not concern themselves with slingua and such codesЧthey do not have to prove themselves worthy."
"Viviana, you are wise. I believe I have misjudged you. Teach me, that I may not be made an outcast this night."
"My lady, there is no time!" From somewhere down the labyrinths of corridors, a hum mounted to a reverberating crescendoЧthe sounding of a gong. "It is the dinner gong! In a few moments, a footman shall come to escort Your Ladyship to dinner. And then we are both ruined!"
"Calm yourself. Listen, you must help me. When I go to the table, stay beside me at all times. I will do as others do. Prompt me if I err."
"But my lady's hair is not yet coiffed appropriately!"
"Shall I wear the headdress to conceal it?"
"No, noЧthat design is not suitable for evening wear."
"Then attend to my hair."
"It will take longЧ"
"Nonsense! Do the best you can. We have moments, do we not?"
"Verily, m'lady."
Determinedly, Viviana swapped the hairbrush for a polished jarrahwood styling brush inlaid with colored enamels, its porcelain handle knopped with crystals. She twisted the heavy tresses, looping some of them high on her mistress's head. Securing them with one hand, she fumbled at the legion of assorted knickknack boxes, bottles, and jars set out on the dressing-table, fashioned from silver, ivory, wood, and porcelain. Rohain lifted a few lids, unscrewed several caps, to reveal pink and white powders, black paste, pastilles, gloves, buttons, buttonhooks, ribbons, decorative combs of bone, horn, or brass inlaid with tortoiseshell, silver pique barrettes, enameled butterfly clasps, scented essences, aromatic substances.