About this story
Behind Lady Delacour's brilliant public wit lies a private collapse she hides even from her husband, behind a door only her maid Marriott may open. At a masquerade you overhear Clarence Hervey dismiss you as another calculated product of your aunt's training, and afterward Lady Delacour collapses again — asking you to trust her without proof rather than call the maid who guards her secret.
How it opens
Your aunt placed you in Lady Delacour's house for a London season designed as carefully as a campaign.
Mrs StanhopeFashion first makes a young woman visible, and judgment may guide what follows.
Mrs StanhopeClarence Hervey has fortune and connections; look pleased when he delivers your bracelet.
Your aunt advertises accomplishments as other people announce houses and horses.
In public your hostess animated every room; alone she moved through the emptied saloon in exhausted silence.
Lord DelacourDo not mistake applause downstairs for peace anywhere else in this house.