Doctor Who_ The Adventures of Henrietta Street - Lawrence Miles [85]
If this was how Scarlette treated Juliette, then it’s little wonder Juliette felt so dedicated to her duty. But Juliette was too intelligent and self-aware to be a mere pawn. Her own, illicit, experiments in alchemy prove that. So does her dream diary, in which the figure of _____ is sometimes depicted as a lover, and sometimes as a monster (albeit an exciting monster). Consciously or otherwise, she must have wanted to find an alternative to her destiny. And Scarlette? Scarlette and Juliette had the greatest respect and love for each other, there’s no doubt about that, but at the same time… at the same time, the Mistress was too strong of purpose to consider all the consequences.
In the last week of August, it became clear exactly how true this was when somebody threw a brick through the downstairs window of the House on Henrietta Street.
The women were in the salon at the time, idling the evening away, waiting for business that hardly ever came. Nobody ever found out who’d thrown the brick, although guesses ranged from rival prostitutes bearing grudges to hot-headed members of the watch who’d decided that nobody was going to come to Scarlette’s aid. The women panicked, not because they thought there was a real threat but because this was such a breach of decorum. The message was clear. This House was no longer protected.
When Scarlette came down from her boudoir, she waved the incident aside and said it was a simple matter to have the window mended. At this, Katya finally snapped. Katya, who’d stuck with the House despite her reservations, who’d somehow felt compelled to help the Doctor’s cause even though the Russian spy-network must have been able to find her better work elsewhere. She began screaming at Scarlette, claiming that the House was dying, that they were all going to starve to death if the babewyns didn’t tear them apart first. Scarlette was said to have reached for the shard of glass around her neck, only to remember that it was no longer there.
Finally, Katya started shrieking about the dress. That was probably the turning point.
The previous day, Scarlette had taken Juliette to a reputed couturier’s in Charing Cross. The dressmaker was well-thought‐of in society circles, certainly rather expensive. However, Scarlette had insisted that this wasn’t an ordinary wedding dress and that only an extraordinary dressmaker was up to the task. The man in the shop was apparently quite taken aback when Scarlette gave him the details, no doubt being of the belief that wedding dresses should be somewhat sombre in tone. To fashion one in red… and one so elaborate, with Scarlette specifying so many details about its exact dimensions and the materials to be used…
Nonetheless, the couturier obediently had one of his women take Juliette’s measurements while Scarlette watched with a zealous eye. On their return to the House, Scarlette refused to discuss the bill with anyone but Lisa-Beth. The women must have started itching right away.
So it was that Katya screamed at Scarlette, while Scarlette stood, unmoving, and took the abuse. And Juliette too said nothing, Lisa-Beth noting that ‘she simply watched and could find no way of ending the dispute… though it embarrassed her greatly’.
Of course it did. Juliette still had the sneaking, guilty suspicion that all of this was her fault. Possibly it was at this moment that she decided on a course of action which would change the nature of the wedding completely.
The Sensibility of Mistress Juliette
Émondeur was not by any means one of the great resistance leaders in Saint-Domingue. Unlike Mackandal (the Black Jesus), L’Ouverture (the great military martyr) or Dessalines (the doomed Napoleon of Slaves), he was no great commander or visionary. He was merely the head of one Maroon unit, one of many that kept the struggle going before the grand campaigns of the 1790s. But the encampment overseen by Émondeur was notable for one thing: the savage,