I'm high and I'm feeling anxious
Inside of the CVS
When she turns 'round halfway down the aisle
With that 'you're on camera' smile
Like she wants to try me on

4th January, 1895 — House of Lytton’s Atelier, Diagon Alley

She had decided, in the wake of Annie’s urging at that stupid booth the other day, that this year she could afford to be bolder.

Effie was less sure how one spontaneous bonbon could rewrite the wiring of her personality, but she had almost come around to appreciating the thought of it, just symbolically. Perhaps she would be bolder this year. The first of January had been her twenty-sixth birthday, and already she was going into a year in a better place than usual. Last year had ended in more success than failure – she had Brooks, and Brooks was willing to actually marry her, and that had opened up her future in new ways.

And getting married did usually come with a wedding, so... They had not begun to plan, exactly, and she knew it would be small, for the pair of them had friends more than family, and it might be frivolous to spend her savings on the occasion, but – it was something good to look forward to, and if she could not indulge in this, what could she indulge in?

So she had, against her better judgement, made an appointment at a fashion house to see about a wedding dress. She would get the rest of her trousseau at the usual places, of course, but one gown of higher quality was a small reward. Unfortunately, Effie had been bold enough to come alone (and she did feel awkward talking too lightheartedly about her engagement to Annie or Hanna, dwelling too much on her good luck in front of them when they were growing more desperate every day), and had thus found herself following the modiste around, bombarded by questions she did not know the answers to, and then trussed up into a sample dress for the fashion plates she had been looking at, as an idea of something they could make.

The modiste abandoned her to consider while she went to help another customer, and Effie glanced at herself in the mirror, critical and self-conscious at the large sleeves, the shine of the cream fabric, the pearl trim at her neck and her sleeves. It felt like a lot. (But possibly she was less self-conscious of herself than usual, which was – strange?)

“Is it – too much, do you think?” she asked the other current occupant of the fitting rooms (though she didn’t know how she had mustered up the courage; she would never have dared, usually). She had not more than glanced at her yet, but the woman seemed... vaguely familiar; Effie couldn’t pin down the reason in that instant, only that she was certainly a socialite she had seen in attendance of most fashionable society events. So she would – know what she was talking about.

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Drusilla Pettigrew

  

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Dru wasn't much for fashion, in that it gave her no particular joy to go to the modiste and pick out new patterns and fabrics, or to be pinned into gowns and measured and taped and eventually have new things delivered. Not that anyone would have known it; she had her wardrobe replaced each season as a matter of course, a few dresses at a time, so that she wouldn't be seen as on the unfashionable side of society. This was one of her weekly chores, visiting to fashion house and allowing them to truss her up. This week was even less tolerable than usual, as the other woman who had been led into the fitting room beside her was uncommonly irritating. Some of this was her fault — she was flitting around like a bird and never giving distinct answers to any of the questions that were posed to her, always well and I suppose and do you think... Some of it was not her fault: she was being fitted for a wedding dress, and Dru had decided that the concept of matrimony annoyed her since she had heard through the grapevine that Brooks Watson was engaged again.

Technically speaking he had every right. Certainly Morrigan wasn't going to have anything to do with him moving forward, so if he wanted to be married, he would have to choose someone else. But deep down Dru felt as though this was monstrously disrespectful of him; that the only proper thing to do would have been to wallow in misery for the rest of his days, pining for Mor. Perhaps occasionally sending her desperate love letters which the pair of them could read over a glass of wine and poke fun at.

So she was already annoyed; when the woman asked her a question, she took it as an opportunity. "Oh..." she began, putting on a pained expression as if to say I wasn't going to mention it, but... "I really couldn't say. It's been years since my wedding. The fashions have... certainly changed." She glanced down at her own gown — elegant by comparison, with puff sleeves that drew in to a striking silhouette at her upper arm and a front modeled after a man's suit lapels. None of the individual elements of the other woman's dress looked overdone, but she did seem to have committed to too many of them at once — or maybe it was only Dru looking for fault. She never had to look for long when she was in this sort of mood; finding fault was a Rowle family strength.

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ty MJ <3

There was something in the pauses that made the other woman’s answer sound less friendly than it was, something that made Effie glance at her in consternation and read the expression as the truth of it. It was too much, then: the surface politeness could not cover it.

Effie, at this stage, would ordinarily have regretted asking; the best thing to do now would probably be to say a hasty thank you, get out of this dress, and carefully extricate herself from this whole place. She could find a serviceable dress from a pattern at Gladrag’s. She was out of her depth here.

But this year apparently she was holding herself to better account, because present Effie reminded herself she had every right to be here, and be as ridiculously fashionable or merely ridiculous as she liked. Effie followed the woman’s gaze down at her gown, which was – simple and striking and somehow elevated by its wearer, rather than drowning her out. (Effie suspected that in comparison she looked like she was drowning.) She had never thought that elegance could be careless, but somehow the woman beside her made it look so.

She had also been looking for perhaps a beat too long. Attempting to look – similarly casual, Effie covered a hand over the trim of her neckline, trying to gauge whether it would look better without so many of the pearls. “I don’t think that I have kept up with them very well,” Effie confessed, of modern fashions; she didn’t know why she had admitted this so blatantly, so tried for a polite inquiry instead. “When did you marry?”

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Sometimes when questions like this were asked Dru had to debate between downplaying it (to imply that she was younger than she was) or overstating it (to imply she was worldly and sage), but in this case she had already said years ago, and it didn't much consideration to realize that by comparison with the woman in the wedding dress being experienced was the greater advantage. "1888," she said. "With bridesmaids in embroidered purple silk. Have you picked your bridesmaids' gowns yet?" she asked. Superficially this was polite conversation, but she was supposing the woman hadn't and intended to make her feel insecure about either way. Her bridesmaids' gowns had been embroidered purple silk, but saying so was also a bit of a flex when it came to expense. Embroidering on silk often lead to tearing the fabric, so it was terribly expensive, and purple was the most finicky of the dyes even with the help of magic. It conveyed that no expense had been spared — which was true. Dru had asked for the moon from her soon-to-be groom, and he had gone through with every request she made, however ridiculous. She suspected he had been something of a romantic back then. Maybe he still was. She didn't bother to know.

"You'll want to consider how the gown looks surrounded by bridesmaids," she pointed out. "Competing styles would clash."

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ty MJ <3

Effie had opened her mouth again to ask about what the woman’s wedding dress had been like, but she stopped at the question about bridesmaids. No, no indeed she had not – she was clearly doing this all wrong. She ought to have asked her mother about the proper order of things, only she scarcely saw her muggle mother more than a few times a year: she was more likely to ask the landlady of her boarding house or Annie’s mother, frankly.

But since she had not yet asked her friends to be bridesmaids – Annie and Hanna, of course; who else? – she couldn’t have picked their gowns. But she supposed it made sense, to settle on all the details in combination, and not shop for herself alone.

“Oh, well – no, not yet,” Effie admitted, embarrassed of how impractical she had been by coming here at all, as if she were so fanciful as to be swept up by the whole affair of the wedding (more than the mere prospect of being married in itself). She wanted, suddenly rather desperately, to get out of the sample dress, but she glanced about and the assistant was – nowhere in sight to help her out of it. She cleared her throat, a little uncomfortable. “But it will only be a small affair,” and she could absolutely not afford the expense this woman had evidently gone to, with embroidered silks and heaven-knew-what-else, “so they will be – simple, I’m sure.” Annie liked soft colours, pinks and purples. Hanna liked brighter yellows and blues. Perhaps a light blue, then, or a lilac, would suit them both well? Oh, what did it matter: Effie would rather let them choose, themselves. Whatever they did, she supposed it would not go at all with this dress. “But that is good advice – thank you, Mrs. ...?”

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Dru seemed to have done her work well. The younger woman looked abashed, and she was already trying to backtrack and undercut herself as she spoke. Only a small affair, everything simple. She didn't believe she deserved much; Dru could feel the sentiment behind the words. Since invoking this sort of feeling had been her express purpose in this conversation she felt gratified by it.

"Drusilla Pettigrew," she said with a smile, in a much better mood now that she had successfully destroyed someone else's. "And you? Miss —?"

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ty MJ <3

The other woman seemed friendlier now, which might have made Effie feel better, if not for the name. The name was familiar enough to her that she took another look at the woman, a swift, wide-eyed double take; a cold feeling pooled in her stomach when she realised she was right. This was why she recognised the woman after all – a friend of Miss Selden’s.

Effie had not gone out of her way to think on Miss Selden, Brooks’ ex-fiancée, but she was not a complete stranger to the London library or to society: she had seen her around. And alright, maybe she had looked, once or twice, since courting Mr. Watson; she had certainly seen this Mrs. Pettigrew arm-in-arm with Miss Selden more than once.

She was overthinking, Effie thought, even as her posture stiffened awkwardly in this dress. Play it cool, she told herself; a friend of Miss Selden’s need be nothing terrible to her. “Clarke. Euphemia Clarke,” she answered, feeling abashed and defiant simultaneously. She assumed – she hoped – that Brooks was no longer in their circles; there was no reason Mrs. Pettigrew should know whom she was marrying. “Well,” Effie added, with a fleeting smile, when defiance won over embarrassment, “for a least a little while longer.”

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She recognized the name immediately. Of course when she'd heard that Watson was engaged she'd found out all the details at once, though she hadn't been able to put a face to Euphemia Clarke until now. She had a fleeting regret that she hadn't been more sociable earlier, and gotten more details about the wedding through casual conversation. Mor might have wanted to know (and Dru would have enjoyed being in the position of deciding whether she ought to know; sometimes Dru knew what was best for Morrigan better than she did herself). But she hadn't known then that the wedding in question would be of any interest to her at all — the vast majority of them were not — and it wasn't entirely a loss, because she had rather dampened the dress-shopping outing. Mor would doubtless appreciate that, if nothing else.

"Oh," she said, making her face a perfect image of polite surprise. "The new one." Her tone was impassive, but she had chosen her words carefully to convey both that she knew precisely who this woman was, and also that in Dru's estimation she was entirely insignificant.

She could not be allowed to proceed thinking she had won anything. The only reason she was marrying Brooks Watson was because Morrigan had decided not to; she was picking up leftovers. She ought to feel at least as abashed as she had seemed earlier, about the bridesmaids dresses, not smiling about her upcoming change of surname.

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ty MJ <3