by Sarah Lark
“We eat; we don’t wrestle,” she said sternly. “And we say hello first.” She indicated Claire, whom neither boy had taken notice of yet.
Sean responded, immediately sobered, by offering his hand and a perfect bow. Colin grinned winningly at Claire, bowed, and asked how she was. Kathleen noticed this difference more and more. Sean was polite but discreet whereas Colin used every opportunity to engage someone in conversation and thereby wrap her around his little finger.
“The fruits are from my mother,” Claire finally answered. “I wrote her about Chloe’s birth, and now she’s sent a crate of things.”
“More porcelain?” Kathleen asked skeptically.
“No, books! A dictionary! And candied fruit because I like it so much. Material for a new dress—I wrote her that I’ve been sewing for myself.”
Kathleen smiled. This was a slight exaggeration. Claire showed just as little talent for sewing as for all other housework, but at least now she could mend her and Matt’s things, and she even managed to make simple children’s clothing.
Claire searched the generous crate from England for the material and held the fabric up just under her face. “Won’t it look good on me?”
It really was lovely, a light gold-brown that made Claire’s eyes shine. The crate also contained cream-colored hand-fashioned lace. She could adorn the dress with it or even make a bonnet.
“You’ll help me sew it, won’t you?” Claire asked. “Look, I’ll show you what I want. Can we make it?”
She pulled a stack of magazines out of the crate and spread them out in front of Kathleen, who studied them, wide-eyed. At twenty-two, Kathleen Coltrane was looking at women’s magazines for the first time, and she was stunned by the drawings of women wearing the latest Paris fashions and by the design variations: puffed sleeves, round and square collars, whalebone corsets.
Claire pointed to the dress she had already picked out. The tight bodice would emphasize her slender waist and, naturally, would be worn with a corset. The skirt fell in flounces, which would look good decorated with lace. The neckline was round and could also be set with lace. Claire could never sew a dress like that. But Kathleen?
“It needs to be a little shorter,” Kathleen finally replied. “If you let it touch the ground here, you’ll ruin it. Otherwise, it’s beautiful. And of course, we’ll manage it. Matt will love it.”
Claire nodded but did not seem overly hopeful, which filled Kathleen with concern. What had happened to Claire’s frothy optimism and her conviction Matt loved her more than anything? In the past Claire would have replied immediately to such a remark with an excited smile, but now she needed a few moments to compose herself after Kathleen mentioned her husband. Only then did she laugh.
“We’ll start right away,” Claire said, pleased. “You can take my measurements and cut. And then I’ll help sew. Will there be enough material?”
The material not only sufficed for a dress for the petite Claire but also for a skirt for Kathleen. She suggested a little dress for Chloe instead, but Claire refused.
“If you’re going to do all this work for me, you should have something for yourself. Ian’s just like Matt—he’ll never buy anything for you.”
That was true, though Kathleen was surprised by how Claire had said it. “Just like Matt”—was Claire’s unlimited enthusiasm for her husband cracking? Yet it could hardly be missed that neither Matt nor Ian was very generous with his wife. Claire was always mending her old clothes, and Kathleen had not worn anything for years but cotton dresses, the material for which Ian acquired cheaply. Whether it suited Kathleen’s complexion, hair color, or eyes did not matter at all to him.
The fabric from Claire was lovely—so lovely that even as a skirt it emphasized the gold tone of her hair and made her eyes shine. It was just a shame that her blouses were made from the same cheap material as her dresses. Claire, generous as ever, insisted Kathleen take the rest of the lace and use it to decorate her delicate green blouse.
Kathleen could hardly get enough of her appearance when she finally looked at herself in Claire’s old mirror. And Claire looked even more enticing in her new outfit.
“I don’t believe it,” Claire said. She turned around in front of the mirror, which was, of course, too small for her to see herself fully. “It fits perfectly. Really, Kathleen, in Liverpool we had the city’s best tailor make our clothes, but he never did anything this lovely. Where did you learn to do this?”
Kathleen shrugged. The use of needle and thread had always been easy for her. Her father had been a tailor, and she had been able to pick up a thing or two, but James O’Donnell had rarely sewn such elaborate women’s dresses. In good years, there had been an order for a wedding dress, and even Lady Wetherby had ordered something altered now and again. Making dresses had always interested Kathleen, and when she served in the manor, she took care of alterations for Lady Wetherby.
“You could make money with this,” said Claire enthusiastically. “You know what we’ll do? When Ian’s gone for a few days again, we’ll go to Christchurch together.”
Claire occasionally went on such excursions now that the Edmundses possessed the new mule, Artemis, which Claire named after the virginal hunter. If Artemis—or Missy as Kathleen and Matt called her—was not needed for work, Matt had nothing against it. Though he seemed to find it tiring when Claire came home bubbling with excitement and spread out all her novelties in front of him. Kathleen had twice seen the way he sharply criticized her for it. Her friend had fallen silent, disappointed.
“We’ll put on our new clothes and go in old Mrs. Broom’s shop. Her eyes will fall out of her head. And then we’ll stop by the hotel and perhaps go see the reverend. Yes, what a good idea. His wife’s horribly vain, and they have a stupid, ugly daughter as well. When they see us, they’ll believe even that girl could be pretty if she only had nice clothes.”
Kathleen had to laugh. “But there’s nothing as nice as this cloth in Christchurch,” she said.
Claire shook her head in disbelief. “You haven’t been there in a long time, have you?”
Strictly speaking, Kathleen had never been to the bustling little city. She had visited Mr. and Mrs. Broom’s shop once or twice with Ian, but everything was still being built then.
“There’s an abundance of fabric in Christchurch, and even a men’s tailor,” Claire said. “In a few years, you’ll be able to get anything there you could in London. The city’s growing so rapidly. But you’ll see all that. We’ll stroll as we shop.”
Kathleen smiled wearily. This enterprise would falter on the fact that neither she nor Claire had her own money. But her friend was in such a radiant mood that she did not raise the subject, nor did she object by bringing up what Ian would say if he discovered that Kathleen had strolled the streets of Christchurch in her Sunday best.
No, going to town without her husband’s blessing was unthinkable.
But Claire could be very convincing, and once she had decided on something, she was loath to let it go. This time, without even asking, she showed up with her wagon in front of Kathleen’s house. She climbed down from the box in the manner of a princess in white gloves, which she had to remove to hitch the mule. These gloves had also come from her mother’s gift crate; while not at all useful in New Zealand, they clearly made Claire happy. Claire had done her hair, and her corkscrew curls showed from beneath an old hat to which Kathleen had added some lace so it would suit the dress, and her eyes shone adventurously.
“Let’s go. Get dressed: Christchurch awaits!” she called to Kathleen. “All the children may come. Into the back, boys, but don’t let Chloe or your sister fall out.”
The Edmundses, of course, did not possess a chaise. Claire had yoked Artemis to a covered wagon. There was only room for two on the box, so the children would need to ride in back. Sean and Colin found that especially exciting, though, and Kathleen had to work to convince them to wash up and change for the adventure. Claire waited outside until everyone was re
ady and was taken aback at first when she saw Colin. He strutted proudly in a checkered jacket, which made him look like a cute caricature of his father.
“Well, didn’t you get dressed up?” said Claire when she had composed herself. “Now, who sewed that for you? Kathleen, did you?”
Kathleen looked at her, pained. “The tailor in town. Ian brought it home last weekend. He had one made for himself, and there was material left over.”
“Not for me, but I wouldn’t wear something like that anyway,” said Sean, but his voice betrayed his aggrievement. “You look like a leprechaun!”
Claire burst into laughter. While Claire loved to tell stories, Kathleen possessed a remarkable gift for drawing. She particularly liked to draw the fairies and gnomes of Irish stories, and the similarity between Colin in his suit and Ireland’s rustic dwarves was obvious.
“You’re just missing a top hat,” Sean added mockingly. He was wearing his own Sunday suit, which, though it was made of cheap fabric, had been properly tailored by Kathleen. “I’d rather wear a sailor’s outfit.”
Claire let the boys climb into the wagon and handed them the little girls.
“When your mommy makes some money, she’ll sew you a sailor’s suit,” Claire promised Sean. Once everyone had finally sat down, she snapped her mule’s reins and they were off.
Kathleen shook her head. It was a crazy idea. No one would pay her for her sewing. And surely she would regret this “shopping stroll”—no matter how happy it made her.
The first thought quickly proved wrong, the latter correct.
Starting in Mrs. Broom’s shop, their clothing met with praise. Two customers immediately showed excitement about the designs and, a short time later, they bent over the fashion journals Claire had brought in anticipation. Both found the dresses of their dreams within, but neither trusted herself to sew it.
“Kathleen will do that for you,” Claire suggested, “though not for free, of course.”
Kathleen blushed deeply, hardly daring to name a price when the women asked. “I don’t know, a pound?”
Claire was just as perplexed, but now fat, gossipy Mrs. Broom interceded. She was best known for dispensing advice, but she was also a businesswoman.
“A pound? Do you mean to insult the woman? The men’s tailor, Mr. Peppers, wouldn’t thread his needle for that!” she yelled at her customers. “No, no, Mrs. Coltrane, don’t do that. You can’t make that dress for less than two, more like three, pounds. If someone can’t pay that, she’ll have to try to sew it herself.”
Mrs. Broom gave her two customers a look that immediately put their reputations as well-off citizens in question, so they quickly ordered the dresses.
“I can’t make the corsets for them, however,” Kathleen explained carefully. Both customers had decided on dresses for hourglass figures.
“I’ll order those from England,” Mrs. Broom said. She winked conspiratorially at Kathleen as the two customers left happy. “And you can make this one for me,” she declared, pointing at a sophisticated black lace dress that had caused a furor in Paris. “But for one pound—after all, I just got you two customers.”
“While selling cloth and two corsets for you,” retorted Clair. “We really ought to get some of those profits. No, if Mrs. Coltrane gives you a discount, then no more than two shillings.”
The women finally agreed that Kathleen would sketch the dress designs from the fashion magazines and leave the pictures with Mrs. Broom. For every customer she acquired this way, Kathleen would give her a discount of one shilling on her own orders.
“You’ll end up sewing her that dress for free,” Claire said. “And she’ll look horrible in it. Like a cream pie in mourning. But she’ll provide you with more customers than you’ll know how to handle.”
The next stop was the parsonage. “Reverend Baldwin is getting his hopes up about Christchurch as a diocese. Could you tell him you’ve already done work for, what do I know, the wife of the pope?”
Kathleen crossed herself. “One, I don’t lie, and two, Catholic priests can’t marry,” she said distractedly.
Claire furrowed her brow, obviously thinking of an alternative. “But they wear rather spectacular robes, right? A ball gown for the Bishop of Ireland?”
Kathleen categorically refused to tell any lies, especially one that involved blaspheming against her church. As a Catholic, she was even a little ashamed to pay her respects to the Anglican priest, but the reverend’s scrawny wife and fat daughter each ordered a dress. Claire rejected Mrs. Baldwin’s attempts to negotiate as shrewdly as Mrs. Broom.
“Although it would not be bad to place a few fashion magazines in the church,” she considered on the way back, “or at least in the parsonage. Old lady Baldwin would do it if she could get her dresses made more cheaply, but I think the reverend would say no.”
Claire insisted they celebrate their success with tea at the Crown Inn. She entered the tearoom with the assurance and grace of a well-bred lady. But Kathleen was uncomfortable among the heavy, expensive furniture, the baroque curtains, and the silver chandeliers. Though she kept her head lowered, she received admiring looks. Claire was cute, but Kathleen’s beauty outshone that of all other women and girls in the room, despite her shyness. Claire watched with a smile as the waiters tried to outdo each other in serving Kathleen. Male guests pulled her chair out for her, and all the other women looked at her jealously.
Only Claire did not begrudge her the luck, which her friend could not properly savor.
“Well, smile at least,” she instructed Kathleen. “You’re something special here. Everyone’s admiring you.”
The attention made Kathleen so uncomfortable that she felt as if she could barely keep down her tea and cake, so she focused instead on feeding Heather and Chloe small bites of the pastries. Sean ate a piece of cake very properly. He tried to use the dessert fork as naturally and skillfully as Claire did. He said please and thank you and tried to show perfect manners. Colin stuffed pastries into his mouth. Even though he showed poor manners, he smiled through it all, winning over the people in the tearoom.
Colin had certainly garnered a lot of attention, but Claire couldn’t help but feel as though everyone was suppressing a “but why do they dress him like that?” as Colin proudly reached for his checkered jacket when they were on their way out of the tearoom.
Claire had knowingly deposited it at the tearoom’s wardrobe, hiding it under the other coats. “Here, it’s better we don’t say you’re a tailor,” she whispered to Kathleen.
As Kathleen expected, news of her trip to Christchurch quickly reached Ian. He came home in a rage, and by the end of the evening, he had beat Kathleen black and blue and taken her customers’ advance payments for himself.
“Whore’s wages!” he screamed.
The next day, Kathleen sobbed to Claire about the lost money. She would need to sew for a month without receiving a shilling for it.
“I thought I could save something, to send Sean to university.”
“And you will. Something like this won’t happen to us again.” Claire hugged Kathleen and spread cooling balm on her bruised face. “I’ll bring in the next orders myself, and you hide the work when Ian’s home. And it’s best you show Colin as little as possible, the little traitor.”
Kathleen looked at her indignantly. “Colin is only five.”
Claire arched her brows. “But he brags about his adventures. You hear the fantastical things he reports from his excursions with Ian. He told his beloved daddy every compliment the waiter at the Crown Inn paid you, guaranteed. You know very well what Ian makes of these things. And Colin knows what Daddy wants to hear. Yes, even at five. Don’t fool yourself.”
The new arrangement worked well. Claire drove to Christchurch once a month, delivering finished dresses and bringing in new orders. She also asked her mother to send a new batch of fashion magazines. They weren’t needed too urgently, for Kathleen had been inspired to create her own designs ever since she had sk
etched the dresses during that first visit to Mrs. Broom’s shop. Claire was enthusiastic about her designs, and their customers even more so.
Soon Kathleen had to refuse work because she could not keep up with all the sewing. That was in no small part because she could only pick up the needle at night when she finished the farm work and Colin was asleep. Kathleen didn’t want to admit it to Claire, but she, too, noticed that the boy was acting as Ian’s spy at home.
In the meantime, the sheep were shorn, fortunately without precipitating a new crisis in Kathleen’s marriage. Claire had sent the shearers over on one of the few days when Ian was at home, and Kathleen did not set foot outside. Ian used the opportunity to sell their leader a horse.
“That means we’ll have to find different people next time,” Kathleen said, sighing. She glanced at the lovely fleece and the animals properly freed of their wool. “The man will soon notice that the gelding is lazy as sin and lame on top of that. But maybe we won’t have any sheep by this time next year.”
“Oh, we will!” said Claire.
The Edmundses did not change their livestock continuously, and in contrast to Kathleen, who only saw the sheep as runaways and manure factories, Claire rather liked the animals. She was also on the best of terms with the sheep shearers and had even shorn two sheep herself. Now she was eager to learn how to work the wool. Kathleen showed her, and it was not long before Claire achieved some skill in spinning. She offered her wool for sale in Mrs. Broom’s shop—and the town’s women loved it.
“I told you we’d do well with the wool,” Claire said, packing another load into her wagon. “Teasing wool and dyeing and spinning it—you can’t do it in a town house, and it’s really only worth it if you have your own sheep.”
Kathleen and Claire sold the whole wool yield of both their farms—and were happy their husbands didn’t think to demand the money from them. Neither Ian nor Matt had ambitions to become a sheep baron. For Ian, the animals were merely burdensome things that ate money; he was trying to sell them as soon as he could. And Matt rode back and forth between Christchurch and Lyttelton day after day. He did good business transporting the settlers’ belongings to the plains or merchandise from the plains to the ships. It must have occurred to him that he was loading more and more wool for England. Either he did not think his own dozen sheep worth mentioning, or he simply did not take interest in the goods he moved.