The Day the Falls Stood Still

by Cathy Marie Buchanan

  I cannot wait much longer for her to return to the sewing room, for Father to implement the plan he is surely working out as he walks. Eventually the few dollars Mother set aside while dressmaking will be used up. Eventually no more prosciutto and minestrone will be brought to the door. Eventually winter will come and there will be nothing for coal. Eventually Mr. Morse will demand what he is due, as will the Municipal Electric Light and Power Company and the City Water Works.

  I asked Tom’s advice a while back, and he said I could likely find work as a clerk in an office even though I cannot take shorthand or type. Even in Niagara Falls the businesses are having to make do with so many men overseas. He went on to say he would do his bit, too, and sign on with the next battalion recruited in Niagara Falls. It was the conversation we had circumnavigated time and again but never quite broached. Tears welled in my eyes at the thought of a parting and spilled onto my cheeks at the idea of losing him. “There are sacrifices being made all over the world,” he said. Of course I was proud, but mostly I was afraid and, in the end, altogether sorry we had spoken of work.

  I wonder if I could take in sewing, even hire myself out as a dressmaker after I have had the chance to fill in what I do not know. I have never conceived a design from its beginnings, never turned a customer’s vague notion of a “smart coat” into a sketch of a fitted, velvet affair with neck, cuffs, and hem trimmed in wide bands of krimmer fur. Nor have I accompanied Mother to Toronto, to the Spadina Avenue shops full of the finest silks and wools, and even if I was able to find them, I do not have the faintest idea what a yard of charmeuse should cost, much less what a gown cut from it is worth.

  When I have finished hemming Mrs. Woodruff’s navy skirt, I push needle into pincushion and flip through the Niagara Falls City Directory until I find the handful of entries listed under “Dressmaking.” If Mrs. Goddard or Miss Percy knew the extent of my work in sewing her gown, I could ask for a reference letter. If the tea dress I made for Isabel had not been torn and then incinerated at Morse and Son, I could have shown it alongside the letter. Still, there must be a way, and, because surely Mother knows what it is, I head up the stairs to her bedroom.

  Once she notices me in the doorway I say, “I need to find work and I’m thinking about dressmaking.”

  “Oh, Bess.” She sits down on the coverlet she was smoothing over the bed.

  “It seems to come to me easily enough. I know I have more to learn.”

  Mother picks up yesterday’s Evening Review from the bedside table and flips through pages until she finds what she wants—a recipe for “Canada war cake.”

  “No butter, no milk, no eggs,” she says. “I just wonder how long it’ll be before no one will wear anything but the plainest ready-made frock.”

  I want to say there will always be women too vain to give up pretty frocks and use the women at the Clifton House as proof, but I have no wish to bring up the night we lost Isabel. “But you were run off your feet with dressmaking.”

  Sadness comes to her eyes, and I wonder if it is the realization that I must go elsewhere to learn what she is not rousing herself to teach me at home.

  “I could apprentice with someone else,” I say, “just until you’re feeling better.”

  She pats the bed beside her, and I sit down. “There are employers who will keep a girl busy pulling out basting threads and sewing on buttons and running up seams, and then let her go before she’s got enough experience to demand a fair wage. But you ought to be worth ten dollars a week to the right dressmaker, maybe even fifteen.”

  What I know is a pound of butter costs twenty-five cents, also a dozen eggs. A large loaf is ten cents and sugar, fifty cents for ten pounds. My weekly visit to the grocers on Bridge Street is the sum total of my experience in household economics; still, fifteen dollars a week seems an extraordinary amount, as does even ten. With a bit of luck there might be a bit left over for a victory bond.

  “I’ll write a letter,” she says.

  It all seems quite possible, that I will work, that I will be paid. She sees my hopefulness, and it seems to annoy her, after all I have done. “A reference from Mrs. Atwell would have helped,” she says, and I feel a familiar pang. My recklessness has caused suffering, and, worse still, the fellow who has borne the brunt of it is entirely good.

  The afternoon of Isabel’s burial, I spoke with Edward on the telephone and asked him to meet me so I could explain. “There’s only one explanation for what you’ve done,” he said. “You aren’t the girl I thought you were. You’ve made a fool of me and disgraced your family. And haven’t your parents had enough heartache without you parading around like a harlot, even though you were engaged, and all within days of your sister throwing herself over the falls?” When it became obvious I was weeping, he relented. “All right,” he said. “I’ll bring the cuff links.”

  But then I told him that I could not return the pearl choker, that it was buried with Isabel, and the telephone line went dead. When I called back and Kit finally answered, she said, “How dare you be so hateful to my brother? Don’t you ever call here again.”

  I wrote letters to each of them, letters filled with regret, and sent them through the post. And I thought a long while about what penance I could make, but the only thing that seemed adequate was to give up Tom. But it seemed foolish to throw away what I had already hurt my parents and Kit and Edward to get. It seemed impossible. I had not gone to the Windsor Hotel on a whim. I could not have done otherwise.

  In the morning I go to Mother’s room with a pot of tea as an excuse. Really I am wondering about the letter she promised the day before. And sure enough it is there, a sheet of notepaper folded in thirds on the table beside her bed. “Forget Mrs. Langley and Mrs. Cavell,” she says. “From what I’ve seen neither one of them can teach you a thing.

  Mrs. Hoffmann is good. Start with her.” I read the letter in the hallway, the moment I close her door.

  To whom it may concern,

  My daughter, Elizabeth Heath, apprenticed as a dressmaker with me for a period of several months. Prior to the apprenticeship she had shown a natural ability in sewing and won the Prize for Sewing at Loretto Academy. She has proven herself diligent and capable. Her skills include pattern layout, basting, construction, finishing, and detailing, such as embroidery and beadwork.

  I realize it is unorthodox for an applicant’s mother to provide a letter of recommendation. Thus, I propose a weeklong trial period, after which wages will be owed only if you are satisfied with her work. I believe you will decide her skill merits ten dollars a week, with an increase due once she has gained your confidence and begins cutting and fitting.

  Yours truly,

  Mrs. M. Heath, Dressmaker

  Mrs. Hoffmann answers her door, looking somewhat put out until she takes in the delicate cutwork of the dress I changed into after Father saw me in black and said no one would want to take on a girl who might mope and weep. But it seems I had not chosen wisely. The frock is exceptional, the sort of finery a paying customer would wear. “Mrs. Hoffmann?” I say.

  “Yez.”

  “I’m looking for work.” I hold out the letter from Mother.

  Mrs. Hoffmann’s false smile collapses, and she says, “I have no verk.”

  I flap the letter slightly, hoping to remind her of its presence.

  “Who made duh drez?” she says.

  I gather a fold of skirt in my hand. “My mother, Margaret Heath,” I say. “She taught me. It says so here.” I flap the letter again.

  “Fine drez.”

  “My mother sent me,” I say, “because you’re the best dressmaker in Niagara Falls.”

  She exhales a short huff of air from her mouth. “Still, I have no verk.”

  Maybe Mother was right about the war and thrift and ready-made frocks.

  “Try Mizez Androovz,” Mrs. Hoffmann says.

  “Andrews?” I say, remembering the name listed in the city directory, and Mrs. Hoffmann nods.

  After I kno
ck a second time, Mrs. Andrews comes to the door looking quite severe, with her silver hair pulled back into a tight knot and reading glasses perched on the end of her nose. I have interrupted; in one hand she holds a small tool used to rip apart seams and, in the other, a collar. “May I help you?” she says.

  “I’m Elizabeth Heath and I’m looking for work.”

  “Can you sew?”

  “My mother taught me. I have a letter from her.” Instead of taking the letter, she hands me the collar. “Look at it,” she says, and I do, noticing the poor workmanship straightaway. “Well?” she says.

  Hoping it is a critique she wants, I say, “The seams aren’t graded. They aren’t understitched, and the corners of the stiffening layer haven’t been clipped. And, I can’t say for sure, but given the rest of the work, I doubt the under-collar was properly trimmed.”

  “Come inside,” she says. “I let the girl who made it go.”

  We stand in the hallway while she reads Mother’s letter. “Why don’t you sew for her?” she says.

  “She isn’t taking any more work.”

  Mrs. Andrews is pensive a moment, and I expect she is wondering why a woman well-off enough to give up her livelihood ever worked as a dressmaker. Or maybe she is sizing up my cutwork dress, my Loretto girl ways, and thinking me too refined for a working girl. “I cannot train someone,” she says, “and then have her flitting off.”

  “I want to work,” I say and then hang my head. “I need to work.”

  “You’ll sew here, where I can keep an eye on you,” she says. “I don’t pay carfare and I won’t promise an increase, even if you take on cutting and fitting. Your mother has a lot of nerve suggesting it. You can tell her that.”

  I want to gush, to leap, to run and tell Tom. But Mrs. Andrews has no time for foolishness, and I am no longer a child.

  “You’ll start tomorrow. I’m up to my knees in work. Half of Mrs. Hoffmann’s customers are coming to me.”

  I am perplexed, and she sees it in my face. “Mrs. Hoffmann’s a German,” she says.

  16

  CITY OF TORONTO ARCHIVES, FONDS 1244, ITEM 973

  It is mid-October as I pin my hat in the front entranceway, a final act before departing the stillness of Glenview and heading off to the bustle of Mrs. Andrews’s sewing room. Father appears on the stairs, and I say, “You’re up early.”

  “I’m off to Buffalo,” he says. “I’ve got an appointment with Mr. McMicking.”

  My grandfather had worked in Mr. McMicking’s Buffalo tannery as a laborer, also Father as an errand boy. I know the story well—how Mr. McMicking was the first to see Father’s potential, how he convinced Father to attend business college, how he footed the bill. “The tannery owner?” I say.

  He nods, and I fill with trepidation. Surely Father is not considering a position in the Buffalo tannery where he worked as a boy. He cannot mean for us to restart our lives away from Niagara Falls.

  “Buffalo?”

  “A war ought to be good business for a tannery,” he says. “Oh.”

  “Well, I’m off,” he says, crossing the threshold of the front door. “Wish me luck.”

  I stand silent, dismayed, as a gush of cold air hits me. Eventually the briskness of the weather sinks in and I make an about-face, heading up the stairs to find a cardigan somber enough for mourning yet warm enough for the day.

  I pause at Isabel’s wardrobe, fingering the clothes still hanging there, a tailored wool suit Mother made for her trousseau, a sea green chiffon gown. The spring before, Isabel had worn the gown to the pageant marking Mother Febronie’s silver jubilee and was easily the most beautiful woman in the dining hall, also the most envied on Boyce Cruickshank’s arm. Leaning into the wardrobe, I spread my arms wide, embracing the clothing hanging there. But there is nothing of substance, just silk and wool and linen, all limp, lifeless, easily crumpled.

  On River Road I walk quickly, as I do each morning, and wait for fresh air and sunshine to clear away the rain cloud that accumulates in my head each night. This morning I will sew welt pockets and loop buttonholes, the sort of finicky work that causes Mrs. Andrews to pat my shoulder and say, “Not bad for a girl as coddled as you.” Still, the cloud is stubborn, foreboding.

  I spend the better part of two hours stitching a welt pocket, ripping it out, and then restitching it, all the while wondering if a move to Buffalo is the comeuppance that has seemed just around the corner, inevitable, every time my thoughts linger on poor Edward. Mrs. Andrews says, “What is it, Bess?” and my worries shift. With all the fuss over a single welt pocket, is she regretting increasing my wages to twelve dollars a week on only my fourth day?

  “Nothing much.” I cannot say that my family might be pulling up stakes, not when she hired me just weeks ago.

  “Too many late nights.”

  “I suppose so,” I say, glancing up at the wall clock and wishing away the final half hour remaining before noon. Tom and I will meet in the corner of the athletic field at Victoria Avenue and Bridge Street, and share a picnic lunch as we have each day since I began working for Mrs. Andrews, and I will tell him about Mr. McMicking and Buffalo.

  In the athletic field, he does not dismiss my worries, as he sometimes does. He does not say that nothing has been decided, that things have a way of working themselves out. He becomes still midway through spreading the picnic blanket and says, “Buffalo?” and I twist Isabel’s aluminum bracelet around my wrist and say that Mr. McMicking thinks the world of Father, that he paid Father’s tuition at business college, that he gave me an entire set of sterling silver flatware, just for being born. After a long silence Tom gets back to spreading the picnic blanket, and, once I have unpacked a lunch of hard-boiled eggs and apples, and the lemon squares he especially likes, he motions for me to sit and squats at my knees. He takes my hands in his, looks me firmly in the eyes. “Will you marry me?” he says.

  I have imagined waking in his arms each morning and sharing his pillow each night. I have dared to dream the question he just asked, dared to whisper “yes” into my sheets, into the upturned collar of my coat, into the air as I sew. And now I whisper, “Yes,” for real, to him, and then I say it louder and again and again. I push myself to my knees and throw my arms around his neck and lean into him until he topples over. I am on top of him and I do not care a bit that we are conspicuous in the athletic field. We are engaged.

  We laugh and kiss, and he calls me Mrs. Cole. “We’ll get married in January, as soon as you’re eighteen,” he says, which makes perfect sense since we would need Father’s consent otherwise. But even a few months is a long time away, or so I have consoled myself when I am thinking about Tom going off to Belgium or France.

  “What if you’re gone?” There has been more talk of a battalion being raised in Niagara Falls, and Tom has said more than once he will sign up. Of course he is courageous and has a mind of his own; still, there are recruitment posters and parades, and clergy preaching duty, and women wearing badges embroidered with the words “Knit or Fight” and pinning men on the streets with feathers to show their cowardice. There is instant respect and honor the moment a fellow signs up, respect and honor for the soldier, also for his family. And the message—that you are a yellow-bellied shirker and an oddity if you do not enlist—very often seems too loud, too harsh. And even if all the nonsense has had as little impact on Tom as I expect, there is the possibility that he will not come back.

  “Everyone says the recruiting won’t happen until late in the year, and I’ve heard we’ll be trained here, at Camp Niagara, instead of being shipped off to Valcartier,” Tom says.

  I smile as brightly as I can, as brightly as a newly engaged woman should, and, yes, I am happy, but still, I cannot return to the elation of moments ago.

  He walks me back to Mrs. Andrews’s, as he does each day, and says good-bye to me in front of her house. It seems peculiar that I will spend the afternoon as I spend every other, coaxing form from a length of silk or wool. It hardly seems po
ssible that so momentous a change is inconsequential to everyone else.

  Because I feel I might burst if I do not, I tell Mrs. Andrews that Tom proposed, that we will be married before he goes overseas. She says, “You’re hardly old enough to wipe your own nose,” but then she is out the door and halfway down the street, calling out for Tom to stop, with me on her heels. When he finally glances over his shoulder, she embraces me and says, “Go on and celebrate with your young man.”

  And so we end up in the glen, unexpectedly, and we lie wrapped in the picnic blanket, my cheek against his chest. We talk about children and someday a small house with a view of the river, and a garden bursting with tomatoes and cucumbers, also a cherry tree, and maybe a couple of chickens, enough to keep us in eggs, and a cow for milking. He will trap and fish and show me the book where Sadie kept her recipes for tinctures and groundnut root. And making do, living by our wits, sounds decidedly less dull than trying to remember the correct placement of an oyster fork when shellfish is served.

  We talk, too, about finding me an inexpensive room, on the off chance that my parents pick up and move to Buffalo before we are wed. Ideally, I would board with a family at the north end of Crysler or St. Clair Avenue, midway between the Windsor Hotel and Mrs. Andrews. “Or better yet,” he says, “Mrs. Andrews might let you stay with her.”

  Her house has four bedrooms: one where she sleeps, a utilitarian affair with a narrow bed and plain wardrobe, nothing as extravagant as a rug or shelf of books. Another where she sews, with hanging patterns, bolts of fabric, spools of grosgrain and roleau and embroidery floss. Tacked to the window casing is a curious collection of postcards—the Great Wall of China, the Taj Mahal, the Hanging Gardens of Babylon. From time to time I have caught her gazing and once ventured to ask, but she only waved away the question as though she had not the faintest idea about the significance of the cards. The doors of the other two bedrooms are kept shut with rolled-up mats along the bottom edges to block any draft. She had meant to fill the rooms with children, she once said, but her Everett had been killed in a rail yard accident before they were even married a year. “She’s been alone a long time,” I say to Tom. “She likes it that way.”