Posted on 2009-10-31

Sir Walter carefully smoothed the fabric of his newest waistcoat before turning to the mirror. This, along with the suit he had just commissioned from the tailor, would put him again at the forefront of fashion. (That unfortunate eau-de-nil pair of trousers had very nearly placed him as the Second Best-Dressed Man in Bath.) Such a flawless creation, when paired (of course) with his equally flawless face, could not help but demand respect and admiration. Nothing could go wrong...

He turned.

Evidently something could, indeed go wrong. Very wrong.

Only the reminder to himself that frowning begat wrinkles kept him from pouting at his reflection. Why, that fool of a tailor! The man had assured him several times over that this particular cut, along with being the most modish style ever imported from Paris, was particularly flattering in slimming the waist and accenting the shoulders. Nothing could be further from the truth. He, Sir Walter, a fine figure of a man (if he did say so himself, which he did, every hour on the hour) looked positively paunchy!

With almost undue haste, he ordered his valet to help him remove the offending article, undoing the last few buttons himself when the other man failed to hurry fast enough. Nearly trembling at the thought of the figure he might have presented had he ventured out in the other waistcoat, he called for his favorite waistcoat, an exquisitely striped number that never failed to flatter his figure and soothe his nerves. The Dowager Viscountess Dalrymple herself - his dearest cousin - had complimented him on it.

Once he had arrayed himself in the exquisite and expensive garment and retied his neckcloth lest the crumpled folds give him the appearance of a double chin, he turned again toward the mirror to preen.

Alas for vanity!

That same waistcoat that had so flattered his figure but a few days gone by now reminded one of nothing so much as a sofa cushion. The formerly slimming stripes bore a ghastly resemblance to ticking.

A half-hour later, every single waistcoat lay strewn about the dressing room, some on the floor, some on chairs or bureaus, and a few of the least fortunate – those that had been so tasteless as to make him seem quite corpulent – had been hurled in the general direction of the valet's head. (Sir Walter paid so little heed to his servants that he could not even be bothered to aim precisely – he considered it their duty to hurl themselves into his line of fire.) Not one had passed the mirror test. Horror of horrors! Could he, Sir Walter Elliot of Kellynch, paragon of male beauty, have grown fat?

The baronet took a few moments to calm himself. It was, he reasoned, just a mistake. His valet must have incorrectly tied the Cumberland Corset (worn for preventive purposes only, of course!) that morning, causing the stays to bulge. After all, no Elliot could ever be so coarse as to have a figure that bulged.

In the process of having his laces re-tied, it occurred to Sir Walter that perhaps some of the fabric had been so crass as to allow itself to snag. Much to his valet's disgust, Sir Walter turned to his favorite panacea. Gowlands' Lotion cured all skin ailments; surely it could cure snagging – it was, after all, a lotion, was it not? In short order, the Master of Kellynch had been thoroughly, perhaps excessively, greased anointed with the pungent substance. Satisfied that nothing could bunch now, he permitted his long-suffering valet to garb him once more.

The unfortunate valet had to ruin his trousers by bracing a knee against the back of the corset (where every pull caused a little more lotion to ooze out through the gap) before he could pull the laces tight enough that Sir Walter felt satisfied with his reflection. The maneuver left both men wheezing for a moment, one from exertion and one from lack of air. Although logic would have suggested that the ability to breathe outweighed any fashion concerns, Sir Walter vetoed his valet's halfhearted offer to re-loosen the string slightly. A true Elliot would rather die than offer himself up as a sartorial laughingstock. (On that note, he made a mental note to tell the butler to decrease the size of the meals)

At long last, though, he was re-clothed to his satisfaction and began to make his way out of his chambers, shoes squelching slightly as the Gowlands' Lotion continued to ooze down from his torso into his footwear.

Although Anne Elliot might - if pressed by a very old and intimate friend - have found some complaints with the Elliot abode in Camden Place, a few features had cemented its position in her father's and sister's minds as the most desirable of habitations. Along with the double drawing room, of whose spaciousness Elizabeth Elliot was wont to boast, there was the marble-tread staircase leading from the foyer to the upper floors of the house, and a pair of the large urns currently in vogue which flanked the bottom step. It was Sir Walter's greatest joy to contemplate (by means of the floor to ceiling mirrors which he had installed on either side of the front door) the picture presented by such a worthy looking man as himself descending in such an elegant setting. Moreover, lest this image be marred by so much as a single scuff mark, the staff had orders to polish the stairs every morning until they gleamed.

As was his custom, Sir Walter paused halfway down the escalier to admire himself in the mirrors. Hah! His dressing room looking glass had lied, after all. He was not in the least paunchy; indeed he might almost need to pad his coat and waistcoat. Reflexively, he swelled with pride... forgetting the old maxim, "Pride goeth before a fall."

That fatal puffing out of his chest pushed his torso even more tightly against the confines of his corset and sent another batch of Gowlands' Lotion running down his back and legs to ooze over his shoes. Still admiring himself in the mirror, the baronet misjudged his next step, and he attempted for one frantic moment to catch his balance. However, the well greased shoes could find no purchase on the mirror-smooth marble, and the master of Kellynch tumbled - elegantly, as befitted an Elliot - head over heels down the stairs to end with a neck-cracking crash against one of the ornamental urns.

---

Mr. Palmer set aside his morning paper as the butler brought in the post. Two redirected letters for "Reg. R. Mortiss, Esq." topped the pile. He had rather been expecting the one for a week or so, ever since he had read in the paper of the tragic accidental drowning of a well respected gentleman from Derbyshire. The other, coming from the west of England, required checking his files.

Ah, yes. Now he remembered that particular request for assistance. The trickiest part had been the mirror. Few glaziers were skilled enough to produce such a precise and subtle warping of the glass, let alone keep the change from being noticeable where the glass fit the frame. At least his client had been able to arrange for the actual replacement; it seemed that the victim's servants, being less than promptly paid, had a habit of sneaking off whenever the baronet went to fawn upon his important relations in Laura Place. It had apparently been a simple matter for the client to send a pair of trusted servants in and exchange one mirror for the other. (Apparently the frames had not been a perfect match, but the client felt confident that the victim spent far too much time gazing at his reflection to worry about such niceties as the details of the frame, so long as it was not too plain for pride)

He looked once more at the letter accompanying the bank draft.

...As you have doubtless deduced, your too good, too excellent advice has proven to be of invaluable assistance. Replacement of his idol was a masterstroke of ingenuity. Having long been sick of the name of E______, I can rest assured that I shall now hear it but half so much. As you accurately supposed, the man proved to be his own undoing...

Mr Palmer had to give the man full credit for intelligence. Nothing had been so deliberately explicit that anything could be proved, even if the letter had fallen into the wrong hands. It was the work of but a moment to finish the careful severing of the signature and forever render the letter anonymous before filing it away. He had felt a touch regretful over the Derbyshire contract, but the outcome of this commission left him satisfied with his covert profession once more.