"Jody Lynn Nye - Everything to Order" - читать интересную книгу автора (Nye Jody Lynn)

their beauty would be more pleasant if these ladies had the bloom of health upon them. They were all so
very pale. Perhaps in Rumania ladies of quality were not permitted or encouraged to take the air very
often. It was on the tip of Miss Carr's tongue to ask, but good manners took over. It was not a question
she would ever ask of an Englishwoman. She must not allow her training to desert her even though these
were only foreigners.
Pages, yawning openly due to the late hour, assisted the countesses in removing their coats and hats, and
vanished with the garments to the cloakroom. Miss Carr took the lead, escorting her visitors into the
salon. She heard a murmur of approval from behind her as she stepped aside to allow them to enter the
chamber ahead of her. The room, the most superior of the five that Mrs. Feldon-Jacobs maintained, had
walls covered in Regency-striped oyster silk with dark wood trim and doors. A vase of lilies stood on
one occasional table, and a vase of ostrich feathers adorned the other. She was pleased to see that the
porter had raised a good fire in the marble-lined grate, and begged the visitors to make themselves at
home. The second-eldest countess took the most comfortable chair, a luxuriously padded, chestnut-
coloured upholstered leather armchair with mahogany legs that sat at one side of the fireplace, and was
chased from thence by a glance from her senior. Strangely, the eldest did not sit down in it herself, but
left it for their fair-haired junior, who sank into it with the grace of a queen.
"How may our establishment assist you?" Miss Carr asked, standing before them a trifle nervously. In
light of the byplay she had just witnessed, she did not quite know which one to address.
"We do not wish anything that has been worn before by anyone else," the eldest said, settling herself at
one end of the bottle-green velvet couch at the other side of the hearth. "We are here for haute couture,
nothing less. This house has produced handsome wares in the past. That is what we wish."
"Made-to-measure, then," Miss Carr said, inwardly jubilant. Bespoke gowns were worth to the

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establishment ten to twenty times the value of off-the-rack garments. She tried not to look excited as she
opened her tiny notebook and raised her gold pencil. "Do you perhaps have a concept of what particular
needs in your wardrobe you wish to fill?"
The youngest, enthroned in the great leather chair, waved her hand dismissively. "We have not had new
wardrobes in ages, not ages! The whole ensemble, if you please. Evening dresses, walking dresses, night
dresses! We wish to see it all."
Less explosively, the others agreed. "Yes, show us your current line, if it is not too much trouble."
"Not at all," Miss Carr said. "We are pleased to do anything that will suit your convenience."
The eldest countess smiled her enigmatic smile. "I am most delighted to hear you say that."
Miss Carr bowed herself out to go to the robing room where the mannequins were waiting to hear what
garments they should don.
The girls sitting on couches and benches in their altogethers in the cloth-draped chamber looked up at
her as she entered. They had been drinking tea and coffee to stay awake. A few of them had taken naps,
but many of them were worn and a little pallid, looking older than their ages, which were from sixteen to
twenty years. They had all expressed themselves willing to work late for the bonus wages Mrs. Feldon-
Jacobs offered for this night. It was hardly a respectable time for young ladies to be out, but the owner
constantly impressed upon her staff that the customer was always right, and three ladies who wished to
be fitted for entire ensembles was not an opportunity to be missed.
"The whole line," she said. Excitement brought roses back into the girls' cheeks as they hurried to help
one another dress. "The first walkthrough should begin in ten minutes," Miss Carr announced, pitching
her voice slightly to carry over the hubbub. "Make your change in time for the second walkthrough and
wait for my signal. Repeat your promenade in the same order until I inform you to stay or go back to
your first costume." The girls didn't look up at her, busy as they were with corsets and petticoats, but she