22 December 1904

Mavis is the chief clerk at Baron's Millinery of Bond Street. A lanky but hardy woman of thirty or so years, she is careworn with whisps of premature grey in her unkempt bun. With wide eyes that appear to have not seen a moment's rest in a fortnight, she is surprisingly alert and blithe. Always smiling, never sitting still for a moment, Mavis is the high-spirited, welcoming, and persevering façade of Baron's of Bond Street.

This morning she welcomes the shopkeeper at the door, a woman a good deal younger than herself. Miriam Davrincourt is immediately put into a cheery mood upon seeing her assiduous employee. Little is known of Mrs Davrincourt except that she is a young widow who only two years ago had returned to England, from the Continent, where she was set up with her own ladies' hat shop, under the clandestine auspices of the Hon Elisabeth Montverre Godwinson. Mavis has often wondered after the mysterious origins of her superior, but she has never had the cheek to make an enquiry.

Miriam Davrincourt withdraws the long, gem-studded pin from her hair and hands her stunning, black and purple, velvet hat to Mavis, who accepts it upon Miriam's entrance. They exchange smiles and good-mornings while Mavis takes Miriam's coat and gloves. "I'm sorry I'm late," Miriam says as she hastily helps her clerk with various hat displays in the parlour of the boutique. "There was a horse on Regent Street with a broken leg, due to the ice, making a frightful mess of traffic. Any calls?"

Mavis bit her lip and gave a superficial look of disappointment. "One. Lady Eccles' man stopped in this morning to countermand her commission for the Baroness."

"Oh, damn."

"Tuppence in the swear box, ma'am."

"Yes, yes."

"Is it as bad as all that, ma'am? Her pledge payment will cover the materials' expense, won't it?"

"She made no pledge payment, Mavis," Miriam says taking a look at herself in the large, hanging, gold-framed mirror. "Lady Eccles has no money. But she does enjoy a fair amount of social popularity and would naturally have been an ideal advertisement for the Baroness -- an investment I was keen to make. A shame."

Miriam tucks away a stray lock of her black hair and looks herself over. No older than twenty-one, Miriam Davrincourt (called Mia by her friends), is a striking beauty. Even dressed in her usual modest and respectable business attire, Miriam's alluring, symmetrical constitution and dark features make her something exotic to look upon. It is fitting that her millinery is likewise decorated with cunning gypsy motifs. Mrs Davrincourt even tells fortunes to delight her lady customers.

"Oh dear, oh dear, oh dear," Mavis mumbles, standing akimbo at one of the oriel windows facing Bond Street.

"What now?" Miriam turns from the mirror and hurries over to Mavis.

"It's Mrs Mercer-Smythe," Mavis says with genuine despair.

"God help us," Miriam concurs upon spotting the disagreeable woman. Mrs Mercer-Smythe is notorious for her horrific commissions. A stranger to good taste, she demands ghastly alterations to every decent design she is presented with until the finished product is a garish atrocity. Such hats are a nightmare for haute couture establishments like Baron's and may potentially spell professional suicide.

"Good morning, Davrincourt," Mrs Mercer-Smythe nearly shouts with sober, informal formality. "Coat," the pepper pot-shaped woman snaps, pointing a sausage finger first to her own coat, then to Mavis.

"Good morning, Mrs Mercer-Smythe," Mavis and Miriam mildly and cordially greet their second customer of the day. Their manner is a stark contrast to Mrs Mercer-Smythe's bantam demeanour. Millicent enters from the back room with tea things and, with Mavis's help, serves their guest.

"I'm afraid I cannot dally," the loud woman bellows, taking her tea and squeezing herself comfortably into a plush, olive armchair. "I have many errands to run before leaving for Lady Stanthwaite's house party." Mavis and Miriam share a secret nod to one another, acknowledging that the woman's visit will hardly be brief and that she is liable to engage their services for some all-too-near affair or other, as is so often the case.

As Mrs Mercer-Smythe prattles on, a thought comes into Mrs Davrincourt's head. She will sell this woman Lady Eccles's Baroness...somehow.

"...so naturally I will need something magnificent to go with the ermine," Mrs Mercer-Smythe continues, "and the fête is only next weekend, but Davrincourt -- if you mind me carefully, as you always do -- you will fashion something simply extraordinary, I know it."

Unable to consider the possibility of designing this dreadful woman another dreadful hat, Miriam employs a new tactic. If there is any impression that Mrs Mercer-Smythe would be loath to give anyone, it is that she is predictable. Hopefully this aversion will conquer her nefariously poor sense of fashion. "My speciality -- as you well know, Mrs Mercer-Smythe, is in your characteristically petite toque," Miriam states, hoping to strike a chord.

It does. Their customer's eyes get very wide, her expression grave, and then suddenly she chuckles. "Oh, my dear Davrincourt, you hardly know me well enough to know that I am anything but prosaic! In fact, this very morning I was resolutely decided that I would come to you for a wide-brimmed hat." Mrs Mercer-Smythe chuckles again, amusing herself with the fantasy that Miriam has her all wrong.

"Oh, I see," Miriam responds, feigning surprise. "How presumptuous of me! Do forgive me."

"Not a whit."

"A wide brim it is, then. And of course you'll want your ornamental, fuchsia doves. Dead-looking animals of unnatural colour are quite fashionable just now."

Mrs Mercer-Smythe screws her face up at the sound of this -- a decoration she has requested countless times before. "Heavens, no."

"Feathers, then?"

"Rather."

"If you'll be wearing it with ermine, you'll want a white velvet I think. And with a white gown -- just imagine -- you'll glow at night like a Chinese lantern!" Miriam punctuates her clever remark with innocent laughter.

Again, this suggestion was met with displeasure. "Oh, no, no, no," Mrs Mercer-Smythe grimaces at the mental image. "Something dark to contrast, of course."

By now Mavis has caught on to Mrs Davrincourt's strategy and is off to fetch the Baroness, which her mistress is dextrously selling, one feature at a time.

"And how many rosettes this time? One dozen or two?" Miriam exaggerates with mock sincerity.

"Why, none at all, thank you. Rosettes, I fear, are fading from view nowadays, Davrincourt," Mrs Mercer-Smythe says with an air of superior fashion sense.

About time you'd noticed, Miriam says in her head, her face masked with a naïve smile.

A moment later, Mavis emerges from the back room, holding the beautiful Baroness before her, upon her fingertips, as though she were presiding over a coronation ceremony. In a moment of impromptu playacting, she asks, "Pardon me, ma'am, but would you like the Baroness in the window?"

Keeping in character, Miriam gasps and answers, "Gracious, no, Mavis! We must not reveal her until Christmas Eve, remember?"

Recognizing the Baroness hat as the masterpiece Mrs Davrincourt adroitly painted in her head, Mrs Mercer-Smythe makes an unintelligible sound and cries, "Do you mean that you have my ideal New Year's Eve hat right here all this while? I'm surprised that it hadn't occurred to you to present it to me before!"

Truthfully speaking, Mrs Mercer-Smythe wouldn't have looked twice at it before. But now, knowing that it was a ready-made, first-of-its-kind, trend-setting work of art, it became all the more desirable to her -- nay -- necessary. After trying it on, doting upon it, and offering to pay ridiculously more than its worth, Miriam sells Mrs Mercer-Smythe the Baroness. Topped with brilliance, their dreadful customer left Baron's of Bond Street looking significantly less dreadful.

With any luck, Lady Stanthwaite and the rest of Hertfordshire would soon come flocking to Baron's for their own Baroness.