Nell Gwynne's On Land and At Sea by Kage Baker, Kathleen Bartholomew Page B

Pickett has invited us to a picnic supper this evening. I have accepted, so as to make sure that he, at least, is distracted. And should it require serious measures to keep him from the cliff tops, it would be better if there were nothing peculiar for him to find out about my corset. The man is an engineer, after all.”
    “If he can think about engineering after getting down to your corset, he’s a match for us,” said Herbertina gallantly. “Wear that one with the dozens of little bows, and he’ll spend hours as busy as a kitten with a ball of yarn!”

 

     
    As the afternoon went on, Lady Beatrice methodically replaced stays in one of Herbertina’s custom corset (plain white duck, in the masculine style favored by gentlemen of youthful aspirations but spreading waistlines).
    Mrs. Otley, having rejoined them all in the parlor, reported excitedly on Mr. Darwin’s agreement with her that the Kents Cavern skull was quite peculiar. She was preparing another letter regarding the vertebrae she had also found. Miss Rendlesham made a few rather perfunctory remarks about the general dreadfulness of the project, but finally allowed that a quasi-human fossil was indeed more interesting than yet another sea monster; of which, she commented, they seemed to have a sufficiency.
    The Devere sisters promised all and sundry that they would utilize Mr. Felmouth’s gifts at the very earliest opportunity; they then promptly went off to the beach for a splash, accompanied by the patient Herbertina as escort.
    “It’s like running a nursery sometimes with that lot. Or keeping kittens,” Mrs. Corvey said as they went chattering out. “But there—they’re good girls in a pinch and do liven the place up. You just have to keep them from getting bored.”
    “I cannot imagine the Devere sisters bored,” said Lady Beatrice dryly.
    In such pleasant ordinary pastimes the hours went by. If one were unaware that Lady Beatrice was replacing corset stays with an eye to enhancing the armour capabilities of her fellow whore, or that Mrs. Otley was lecturing Miss Rendlesham about the possible discovery of a prediluvian sub-human, it would have seemed the very ideal of a domestic scene. When Mrs. Corvey decreed that tea would be taken downstairs with their fellow lodgers (in part to forestall questions from anyone who might have observed the dandy horse exercises), the fossils and armour stays were laid aside and they went down discussing the replacement of Miss Rendlesham’s ill-fated seaside bonnet.
    The bathers returned as tea was finishing up, and the family adjourned en masse upstairs once more, with Master Herbert teasingly speculating on the horrible crop of freckles his sisters were sure to have incurred in their afternoon excursion. Their progress was loudly hilarious all the way up the stairs, to the amusement of the other lodgers below.
    “Right then,” said Mrs. Corvey briskly as the door closed behind them and the cover conversation was abandoned. “Herbertina, you go have a lie down before this evening. The moon doesn’t rise until quarter past nine or so, and you should be as rested as possible before you try that thing on the cliff path.”
    Herbertina saluted smartly and went off to the room she shared with the Deveres. The sisters busied themselves assembling a scratch meal of sandwiches and lemonade for themselves, and made up a packet for Herbertina to take with her on her next foray.
    “That gandy horse needs a basket or saddlebags or something,” commented Jane.
    “ Dandy , not gandy,” corrected Maude. “It would be useful to secure a light to it somehow, too, for night use.”
    “Not tonight,” said Mrs. Corvey. “Tonight, we want Herbertina to be as invisible as possible, and that full moon will light up her as well as the cottages. When you’ve finished that package, girls, see to it that she’s got clothes laid out that ain’t too bright or dark. Greys and browns, like; maybe that lavender coat of