LTSV - Side Stories - 5 - The Makeover (Patreon)

Cecily had never set foot in an atelier before Lady Vesper dragged her into one.

To be clear, she still felt awful and wanted to just lay down and sleep until the world ended, but she only had the one dress to her name and a single flannel nightie a nun had dug out of the donation bin for her to sleep in. Her dress was rumpled and starting to smell, because she didn’t dare try to do laundry yet. The laundry area in the indigent’s dormitory was open to the back alley because even the homeless in the Capitol had more than one dress to their names and she wasn’t about to risk washing her dress while wearing nothing but a thin cotton nightdress that was too short on her. She’d made do with washing her underpinnings and hoping for the best.

Vesper Coventry was a taller, sharper version of Violet Coventry, which meant she was as beautiful as the bare edge of a saber with Violet’s same amethyst eyes. Her hair was darker, though; the color of sunripened wheat rather than white electrum. If Cecily was meant to be related to the Coventry girls, then she had no idea where her coloration could have come from. 

Well, Viola had pink hair too so there must be a source of it somewhere in the family line.

Cecily’s new eldest sister had arrived like a lightning strike, when Cecily was about to line up for her chore assignment after breakfast. The senior priestess in charge of the dormitory had called her out of the line and brought her to the front office, where Vesper was waiting by the open window overlooking the hanging potager garden that fed the dormitory’s needy residents. It wasn’t easy to grow vegetables this far into the city center, but the Temples had utilized every bit of vertical space they could manage with massive drip towers that slowly rotated throughout the day to maximize their exposure to the sun. The potager garden hadn't been built for aesthetics, but it was awe inspiring in its own way; a towering structure built with the singular purpose of feeding as many mouths as possible.

Lady Vesper turned as she heard the door open and Cecily felt her heart stop. She could mostly force herself to not think about the part she’d played in Violet’s possible expulsion from polite society. Usually, she had other things on her mind. Usually, she was not face-to-face with Violet’s elder sister. Lady Vesper’s eyes were glacial. If Cecily had wondered if the Coventry family was angry with her, then she didn’t need to wonder anymore.

It wasn’t like she didn’t deserve the blame. After all, wasn’t Violet bearing the consequences of Cecily’s cowardice? She’d thought if she could get through to an early graduation, then she could tell Andrei the truth. She would have never believed that the court of public opinion could outweigh actual, tangible facts until she saw it happen in front of her. She had to make things right and, now that father had thrown her out, what was there to stop her from telling the truth? Andrei might have been disappointed in her, but even he had to admit that he was hard to reach whenever Violet was nearby and hadn’t listened when she tried to reign him in. There was something wrong between those two, but Cecily had never been privy to exactly what that thing was. 

She ignored the part of her heart that wanted to remind her of all the times she’d asked Andrei to not jump to conclusions or shout at Violet in public based on no evidence other than his feelings. Yes, she’d publicly disagreed with him whenever he started telling the world that Violet was the one who put razors in the seams of her dresses or locked her in the sports shed and he hadn’t listened to her. It would be different once she’d graduated and could tell him, right out, that her stepbrothers lived to make her miserable. 

Violet, on the other hand, had known a secret shameful truth that would have destroyed the fragile peace Cecily had found at school and she had never breathed a word of it. She’d held silent for months, even when she could have used Cecily’s weakness to divert people’s attention off of her and point them towards Archie and Fergie, who deserved it.   

Andrei would surely listen now that they weren’t all in school together, right? He would be able to listen to her now that Violet couldn’t walk by and accidentally turn his brain off like a dog who just saw a cat. It wasn’t like he enjoyed Archie or Fergie’s company or had any reason to protect them. 

(Cecily still didn’t know why Violet had chosen to keep silent. Had she understood what would have happened to Cecily if anything bad happened to her brothers because of her? Or was Cecily so insignificant to her that she’d forgotten about what she saw that night.)

Cecily clawed together a little composure and curtseyed lower than she had to. “Lady Coventry,” she murmured with her eyes downcast.

“Is this all your luggage?” Lady Vesper asked, without preamble.

Cecily looked up and saw her sad little kerchief bundle, which had been put away in her locker just that morning. She flushed. “Yes, Lady Coventry,” she squeaked. “I–I didn’t have time to pack.”

“Hm,” Lady Vesper said as she turned to the senior priestess. “May we have a moment of privacy?”

‘Here it comes…’ Cecily thought as the priestess bowed and left them alone in the room. In a way, it was almost a relief for someone to finally be angry with her. Andrei and the others kept going on and on about how she didn’t owe Violet any sympathy, even though there was no proof Violet had even done anything wrong. 

“What is this?”

Cecily felt a fingertip touch her collarbone and looked down to see the livid red mark left behind by the terrible burns she’d gotten during her last beating, which had involved a lit candelabra. She’d healed the burns, but the inflammation had to ease on its own. There was also a bruise and a few small cuts along her shoulder that the priests had been forced to leave in place, since healing the burns had demanded so much from her body. The gown she’d borrowed to work in had a wide collar and showed everything.

Well, now she knew whether or not Violet had ever told her sister anything about that night when she walked in on Cecily in the bath. If she had then Vesper wouldn’t have had to ask.

“Oh, that—I had a disagreement with my stepfather before I left his house,” she said dully.

“Hm,” Lady Vesper said again and looked her over, this time focusing on her clothing. “This won’t do. You look like you’re about to mop out a gutter. Am I to understand that you do not have anything better in that parcel?”

“My dress was too burnt to salvage,” Cecily said to the floor. “I donated the remainder of it to the rag and bone bin for the Temple to sell.”

Lady Vesper didn’t say anything, but let herself into the corridor and addressed her assistant, who’d been waiting outside the door. “Miss Park, come collect this bag, please. We’ll be stopping at Gordon’s and I’ll need to trouble you to visit a department store while we’re occupied there to purchase appropriate luggage.”

Miss Park nodded with her shoulders back and said “Ma’am” in much the same way soldiers said ‘sir’ when they meant ‘yes.’

The efficient Miss Park collected Cecily’s bags and led them outside to where a large berline type carriage was waiting by the curb, where it was being guarded by another woman in a dark uniform with a star on one shoulder. The two assistants handed Cecily and Vesper into the carriage. Miss Park joined them inside and the other took up the driver’s seat. 

Lady Vesper pulled out a folio of papers and began reading as soon as they pulled away from the Temple. It was clear to Cecily that conversation would not be encouraged here and her hands itched for her lacework. She hated to sit with nothing to do. Her thoughts always started to spiral and they had plenty to spiral around, lately.

‘Gordon’s’ turned out to be ‘Gordon’s Prêt-à-Porter’, which was a small readywear boutique with an in-house seamstress who could take in clothing on the spot. They had a little gold sign on the door that said ‘by appointment only’, but that door also opened as soon as Lady Vesper’s carriage touched their curb. A woman in a sunny yellow gown with a measuring tape around her neck stepped out and dipped a gorgeous half bow as Lady Vesper stepped out.

“Lady Coventry!” she greeted Lady Vesper with every evidence of real pleasure. “This is a rare delight! Welcome back. I received a gown just the other day that no one could do justice except you and I was hoping you would find time to come see it.”

“I am not here for myself today,” Lady Vesper demurred. “I have come to outfit my relative with an appropriate wardrobe.”

“Ah, Lady Violet is with you?” the proprietress turned with a dazzling smile that faltered when her eyes settled on Cecily in her shabby undyed smock dress and mismatched ankle boots. Whatever she thought about Cecily’s appearance did not escape the net of her professionalism. She graced Cecily with a glowing expression. “A new customer! Please, come inside. You will hardly recognize yourself when we finish with you.”

That wouldn’t be hard. Cecily hardly recognized herself, these days.

Lady Vesper excused herself to make a call as soon as Miss Gordon had Cecily stripped out of her sackcloth dress and was fussing with her hair. The priestesses had trimmed the burned bits out of it, but they didn’t practice cutting hair and her ends were all patchy and uneven. Miss Gordon made dismayed noises when Cecily admitted she’d recently lost a lot of length in an accident.

“Such a lovely texture!” she mourned while also boosting Cecily’s curls around her face. “I think we can work with this. Shapely bobs were all the rage when I was a young woman and I remember how they were done. You’ll need to shape your curls at night with soft rollers or pins, but the silhouette won’t be that different from what young ladies of your age like these days. You might find that you like the decreased weight on your neck and scalp. There’s a reason why ladies of my generation cling to the style. It’s terribly comfortable.”

Miss Gordon made good on her promises and Cecily could hardly recognize the girl in the mirror. She looked like she was properly on the cusp of womanhood rather than lagging behind her peers by actual years. Miss Gordon outfitted her with a small wardrobe that only enhanced what the haircut started. Cecily opted to keep her collars and sleeves modest. All the clothes were infused with climate control magic that would keep her cool in the summer and protect her fair skin from the sun. Cecily opted for simple, well cut suits in light colors and a few comfortable house dresses in lawn cotton. She was looking forward to university and she recalled that the ladies there didn’t wear uniforms. They wore simple functional things that were easy to move in and still had some structure. 

Miss Park arrived with a new trunk and valise. Miss Gordon’s assistants immediately set about filling them with shirtwaists, stockings, foundation garments, and leisure wear. Meanwhile, Miss Gordon used an advanced motus spell to tailor Cecily’s entire new wardrobe in the space of thirty minutes. 

By the time Lady Vesper let herself back into the atelier, Cecily had been transformed. Miss Gordon had even used a little makeup on the marks creeping up the back of her neck that Cecily hadn’t noticed until she was turning around in front of a mirror.

Lady Vesper looked her over with a short, but approving nod. “Better,” she said. “I have another errand that cannot wait. I will need to impose upon you to wait for me while I visit an indisposed relative. She has had a recent emergency and I need to see her immediately. She has taken rooms at the Royale. The lobby there is comfortable. I do not think that it will take long. Afterwards, we can discuss your living arrangements.”

Cecily wasn’t about to tell Lady Vesper what she could or could not do, so she just nodded—or, at least, she would have. Lady Vespers’s crystal began to glow and emit a thin clear tone as soon as Cecily’s chin started to move. Lady Vesper frowned.

“Excuse me,” she said, and stepped outside again.

She had a complicated expression when she returned a few minutes later. 

“Nevermind,” she said. “You’ve been invited and will join us for luncheon.”

All of a sudden, Cecily had a complicated feeling to go along with Lady Vesper’s expression.

-Fin | Cecily Side Story 5

AN: I skipped the beating scene because I just don’t want to write it. We all know what happened. We don’t need every particular detail.