by Abigail Agar
Her grey eyes looked up from a heart-shaped face, encompassed by hair that was nearly black and she observed how far Amelia had come in her project since that morning.
“Almost finished with Lady Washam’s gown?” Emma asked.
Amelia pursed her lips. Her complexion, so different from Emma’s, was turning red with frustration. She brushed back a red hair, her blue eyes looking back at Emma.
“That old bag thinks she can snag a young earl. What a riot,” Amelia said, rolling her eyes.
Emma laughed, knowing that she shouldn’t. It was a dangerous thing to mock clients, but Amelia was right.
They were very fortunate, however, to have the job in the dress shop. They were not forced to be factory girls like so many. They had the dignity of being the only two employees at Bonham’s Dressmaker and were free enough to enjoy their work.
Not to mention the fact that they had wealthy clients and were making a marginally higher salary than at the factories.
“I know it is wrong of me to mock her so freely, but what am I to do? That is precisely the life that I ought to have had,” Amelia said.
Emma had heard only snippets of Amelia’s story. Enough to know that she was born out of wedlock, but she was not aware what sort of life Amelia would have expected to have been from.
“I’m sure that it’s not all that great. Think about it, being paraded around constantly, having to prove your worth for a wealthy man to accept you,” Emma said.
“Oh, right. Surely it is awful. Wearing the gowns that we slave over and being offered anything you wish. The freedom to lavish your days away in reading and embroidering for entertainment rather than survival,” Amelia said, the sarcasm dripping from her lips.
Emma shrugged. Amelia was right in many ways, but wrong in others. It wasn’t really so bad, the work that they had to do. Certainly, it hurt their fingers at times and it was difficult when the light started to dim before they had finished, but that was only a problem during the winters and they had far fewer gowns to make during winter.
“I only meant that we ought to be glad that we have certain freedoms that they do not. Nor do we have to live like slaves in the factories. I must confess that I think we are in as decent a position as we may be given, considering our ill fortunes,” Emma said.
“I am certainly relieved not to have ended up in a factory, but I should like to live the life of luxury that belongs to those for whom we make these gowns. That is my true wish,” Amelia said.
“Then tell me why you do not have that life. You have mentioned that you should have. So why don’t you?” Emma asked, forthrightly.
Amelia sighed and shook her head.
“My father abandoned my mother. Had he not, all would have been well,” Amelia said.
“That is dreadful that he abandoned her. Was he a drunkard or something?” Emma asked, knowing a woman in her tenements who had been abandoned by an alcoholic husband.
“Probably. Who knows? What I do know is that he was a very wealthy earl and my mother was a maid in his house,” Amelia began.
“Oh, dear,” Emma said, already knowing this story too well. Husbands who drank too much and ran off were common enough, but nobility who treated their maids as mistresses? That was a frequent occurrence that she had always been appalled by.
“Anyway, the man’s wife sent her away, my mother thinks it is because she presumed the affair. And once she was gone, she continued to have a correspondence with him, but once she told him that she was pregnant with me, he never replied,” Amelia said.
Her anger was clear, and Emma recognised that this was something that still wounded her to talk about. Nevertheless, she was sorry that Amelia was holding on to these things rather than having freedom from her resentment.
“What did your mother do then?” Emma asked.
“She wrote to him many more times. He never wrote back. So then, one evening, she went to the man’s estate. She begged to be let in, but by then they had told the housekeeper that she had been fired for immoral behaviour. No mention of the earl’s behaviour, of course,” Amelia said.
“Well, we could not have that now, could we?” Emma added, feeling equally irritated on that front.
“Eventually, my mother’s friends and family all distanced themselves from her. She was an unmarried, pregnant woman. They could not continue to be associated with her,” Amelia said.
“Really? Even her family? There are many young women who find themselves with child out of wedlock. Why would they treat her so dreadfully?” Emma asked.
“You know the image in society that falls upon a young woman to whom it happens. Her mother and father were not so forgiving of the degradation of their reputation. Anyway, it has harmed our family greatly,” Amelia said.
It was sad to hear the story. Now she understood why Amelia was always so angry when the topic of her father would arise. She was bitter and angry that he had not cared for her mother.
Nor had he cared for her.
She had been abandoned and that was not something that she had taken lightly.
“I am sorry that you and your mother had to face something so awful as that. I can only imagine how hard it must be for you and how upsetting it was for her,” Emma said.
Although she and Amelia were close and had been very good friends for well over a year, this was the first time that Amelia had fully opened up on this matter. Emma was glad for learning a little bit more insight into her friend.
“Anyway, it is what it is. But you can understand now why it angers me to have to make gowns for these people,” Amelia said.
“Yes, I understand. It is very different from my own situation,” Emma said.
“Well, I don’t think we have ever talked about all of this. Why did you end up having to work? What sort of people are your family?” Amelia asked.
Emma shrugged.
“We have never been in the poorhouse, but we certainly don’t have any nobility in our veins. We have always made ends meet, but we have struggled to do so. And my mother and father have always had hard luck. Wealth, fortune, all of that? It has always escaped us, no matter how hard we work,” Emma said.
“I am sure that is difficult as well. Are they planning to try and marry you off?” Amelia asked.
“They intend to when they are able to find the right young man for the job,” she said with a laugh.
“Well, good luck to them,” Amelia said.
“Yes, good luck. But they, like most, want me to marry someone better than us. They work very hard to keep our reputation clean. They think it will help me to find the right sort of man who can help us to climb the ladder of society.”
It was an irritation that she would always have. Could she not have value on her own? Without the attentions of a man?
No, that was not the life afforded to anyone. Not to the elite nobility, nor to the young women who stitched long into the night. In these things, they were given no freedom.
“Why can they not just accept that we will marry whomever we will marry? My mother learned the hard way that even having the child of a nobleman is hardly going to give a woman an opportunity to be more or to have more,” Amelia said.
Emma shrugged once more. She understood Amelia’s point, but did not think it was worth grieving. Nothing would be changed for them, no matter how much they desired it.
Thinking about the fact that she was already of the age to marry, Emma had been trying to keep her mother and father happy by being polite whenever they had friends to tea. Friends who had sons that were also of marrying age, that is.
But not one of them had interested her as of yet. She was still waiting for the right one and she feared that, eventually, her mother and father would simply choose for her and she would just have to go along with it.
It was not the way that Amelia had been raised. No, Amelia was always complaining about men. Her mother had encouraged her to stay single as long as possible, which was so different from anything else that Emma had eve
r heard.
The very idea of it was a bit of a shock.
But her own mother and father were quite typical, and she did not mind it for she understood that the times required they be intent upon her marriage. They were good people and they wanted to see their daughter happy and well, but she also wished that they were not quite so determined.
She had loved living in their home. She had always been happy there and could not bear the thought of living far away from her own mother who was such a good woman with a tremendous reputation in the community despite their lower class.
Of course, she did look forward to marrying. It was just that she was not yet ready, and she wanted to have some choice in the matter.
“Do you think that you will ever find the sort of man that your mother and father want you to marry?” Amelia asked.
“Perhaps. But if I do not, I think they will just have me married off to the next best option. They love me, but they are the sort of people who will honour society’s rules and I am simply expected to accept that,” Emma said.
“I would never stand for that,” Amelia said, rather boldly.
Emma giggled.
“I did not expect that you would. You are cut from a very different cloth than I,” Emma said, snipping a length of ribbon for the full effect of her statement and eyeing it against the waist of the gown she was hoping to finish before the day’s end.
“I simply cannot abide the thought that my fate is in the hands of those who have already wronged my family. It is not right and I cannot allow for them to take what little happiness we have away from us now,” Amelia replied.
For a moment, Emma imagined her future. She saw it bright and bold before her. A simple life, maybe in tenements similar to where she lived now or, if she was truly dreaming, a cottage on the outskirts of London. Married and surrounded by four children, maybe even pregnant with a fifth.
And then she thought of Amelia’s future.
Growing aged, seated with her mother and talking bitterly of society until it had consumed her. Once her mother passed, she would be alone, still angered that her fortunes had been so determined by a man that she had never met and had nothing at all to do with.
Yes, if things continued as they were, they would have very different futures.
Emma decided that she would simply have to keep dreaming.
Chapter 3
Eric had called upon Reginald Day, his closest friend and ally, to accompany him in his search for his sibling.
Although the chances of actually discovering him or her would be very slight, he hoped for the best and was determined to do all that he could to find success.
“So, this is Finchley?” Reginald asked.
Eric looked at him with a perplexed amusement.
“You have never been to Finchley? It is hardly far from London,” he said.
“You know how much I love the city. Why would I ever leave it? I only go outside of London to travel south when my mother and father wish to visit family,” Reginald said.
“Of course, of course. Anyway, I am not entirely certain where to begin. The town seems nice enough, but who am I to ask?” Eric wondered.
“I haven’t the faintest idea. This is your mission. Why do you think will be the best resource?” Reginald asked in reply.
Eric thought for a moment and finally decided that he would start by going to some of the places that nearly anyone would go into regularly.
“The bakeries? That makes sense, I suppose. Everyone goes out to buy bread,” Reginald reasoned.
“Yes, the bakeries and the butchers. Surely one of them will know Liza Lockhart,” Eric said.
They began to wander about the town and, one-by-one, entered the bakeries to ask if anyone knew of Liza Lockhart.
“I do not know if her name has since changed, but that was her family name twenty years ago,” Eric said.
“Don’t know her. Sorry, lad. Maybe she married,” the baker said in one of the shops.
“All right, well, thank you anyway,” Eric replied.
The baker looked at him with his brows drawn together and Eric felt as though he had done something wrong.
“Wh-what is it?” he asked.
“You’re not going to buy nothing?” the baker asked.
Eric looked and Reginald who tried not to laugh.
“Oh…um…yes, I will take a loaf of bread,” Eric said, gesturing to the loaf on the counter.
As they left, Reginald finally began to laugh.
“So do you plan to buy a loaf of bread from every bakery in Finchley in the hopes that one of them might lead you to your sibling?” he asked.
Eric shook his head in dismay.
“If I have to, I have to. And as we make our way back into London, I can always share it with those on the street,” Eric said.
They had visited two more bakeries and a butcher, none of whom required a purchase, before Eric began to realise that he would need a better strategy than this. His heart leapt only too high when he saw the postman making his way down the street.
“Hurry, come with me,” Eric urged Reginald.
They crossed the street and rushed over to the man. Eric stopped him quickly.
“Excuse me, excuse me,” he said.
The postman looked at him as though he were a madman.
“Yes? May I help you?” he asked warily.
“I am looking for a family by the name of Lockhart. At least, that was once the mother’s surname. Liza Lockhart. She would have a child as well, perhaps nineteen or twenty years of age,” he said.
The postman smiled and nodded.
“Ah, yes, of course! Liza and her daughter, Amelia,” the man said.
Eric’s heart flooded with relief, but also excitement. He had a sister. He now knew that he had a sister.
“Yes, of course. I am looking for Liza, but also Amelia. We are…cousins. I have news about my father,” Eric said, suddenly showing his forlorn mood after the loss of his father.
The man appeared to have sympathy for him.
“Of course, I understand. Well, they live along the western edge of the town, but you are close to the dress shop where Amelia is employed,” he said.
“Really? Which shop is that?” Eric asked.
“Bonham’s. Bonham’s Dressmaker. It’s just right up the road there. Take a left when you see Monty’s Metals and then it will be on your right,” the postman told them.
“Thank you, thank you, sir. We will go straight there,” Eric said, already starting back across the street in his hurry to find his sister.
With Reginald behind him, Eric moved as quickly as would be considered socially appropriate for a man of his station. He had no other goal than to reach the dressmaker and find her.
Amelia.
His sister.
Seeing Monty’s Metals, Eric took the left onto the small road and there is was.
Bonham’s Dressmaker.
Eric took a deep breath. This was it. He was about to learn the truth about the secret that he had only just discovered hidden in his father’s trunk. He was about to meet his sister.