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A Song Twice Over

Page 8

by Brenda Jagger


  And then, of course, she had become acquainted with the Larks of rural ‘Queen Anne’Moorby Hall.

  But Gemma, intimidated neither by Captain Goldsborough in the flesh nor the portraits of his ancestors still hanging in the upstairs gallery, had always loved these dim, quiet rooms, cool and serene with age and full of unexpected light and shadow, the garden, rich with ancient trees and crumbling stone pathways, thickly enclosed by an ivy-clad wall, as hushed as a cloister on one side, a raucous city street on the other whose teeming life was a source of stimulation rather than offence to her.

  She loved it. As a married woman she could – with a little contriving – live here as its mistress, ordering her life according to her own judgement. Yes. There seemed no doubt that if she handled matters correctly her life as a fully adult woman could now – at last begin.

  ‘Petticoats,’ she heard her mother say. ‘And chemises. At least four dozen of each, wouldn’t you think? Oh dear. I wonder how Miss Baker will ever cope with it? What with the bridesmaids’ dresses and the evening gowns, and something decent to go-away in. And then all our guests will be ordering new things for themselves, I dare say. Such a heap of work for the poor woman – Easter bonnet time and Christmas rolled into one. I shall have nightmares, I do assure you, in case she lets me down.’

  ‘There are plenty of other milliners,’ murmured Linnet. ‘Manchester, perhaps? Or London?’

  Yes. Why not a trip to London for the trousseau? Linnet, with an eye to a trousseau of her own, would enjoy that and would certainly benefit, in the silk mercers’shops, from the overflow of Amabel’s generous heart. But Gemma, her mind on her own well-charted future, feeling that she was more than half way to taking the reins into her own hands, suddenly remembered the Irish girl, still waiting, she supposed, with her heavy bag and her bravely painted hat-box, her sparkling chatter of French and Venetian lace, the failing eyesight of her rival Miss Baker, and her own triumphs in the fabled rue Saint Honoré.

  ‘Oh mother – by the way,’ she said, speaking briskly so that Linnet might hear her authority. ‘A young woman has called to see me – quite a talented dressmaker, I’d say, by the things she showed me. She’s waiting in the back parlour. And since we’re talking of petticoats, I’ll just fetch her.’

  And hurrying along the passage – not quite the mistress of the house as yet but, there again, no longer quite its unmarried, dependent daughter – she opened the parlour door and said pleasantly ‘Miss Adeane, I have just become engaged to be married. You may congratulate me.’

  ‘That I do, Miss Dallam.’

  At once Cara’s eyes were swiftly, expertly measuring her, clothing her in bridal brocades and satins, a going-away dress for a winter honeymoon, feathered bonnets, embroidered, lace-topped gloves.

  ‘You’ll be needing a trousseau then? A big one?’

  ‘I do believe so. Would you come into the drawing-room to discuss your part of it?’

  Cara’s smile, banishing all traces of exhaustion, was dazzling. ‘With pleasure, madam.’ And to her surprise, the smile with which plain, sturdy, serious Miss Dallam answered her held a hint of mischief, the unremarkable brown eyes a most becoming twinkle.

  ‘Good. But I wouldn’t mention your Madame Récamier. It may cause confusion. And as to the lace you showed me earlier, my mother won’t know the difference between Chantilly and Point de Venise. But my fiancé’s sister is there, and one has the distinct feeling that she will.’

  Chapter Four

  Linnet Gage did not take kindly to Gemma’s ‘Protégée’as she at once chose to call her, although her objections were no more than soft-voiced little hints as to the unreliability of strangers, addressed carefully to Amabel. ‘One can’t help wondering where girls like that come from. Or, indeed, just where they go.’

  And had Amabel been slightly less enchanted by her new status as the mother of a bride she would have heard, drifting on the cool air behind Linnet’s voice, the suggestion of squalid city tenements, immodesty, strong drink and – above all – the dread, ever present in Amabel, of disease conveyed in the hem of a dress, the sole of a shoe, the point of an embroidery needle as it pressed typhoid or cholera or the pox into the lace insertions of her only daughter’s wedding lingerie; the four dozen petticoats, nightgowns, chemises and ‘everything’ – Amabel knowing no word she cared for to describe that other undergarment – she had ordered as a trial from a girl Linnet had instinctively mistrusted because she was beautiful and because Gemma, rather than Linnet herself, had recommended her.

  But, leaving the cloistered manor garden and hurrying back through the rows of brewery houses and foundry houses to the street called St Jude’s, her carpet-bag and her hat-box feeling light with triumph in her hands, Cara remained untroubled by Miss Linnet Gage’s hostility. She had sensed it, certainly, for it was her business to be aware of such things, forewarned and then forearmed, always careful, always guarding her back, which had been aching rather more than she liked these last few days. Nor did she underestimate the influence a penniless, clever woman like Linnet might come to have in a rich household, particularly over a woman such as Mrs Dallam who could surely be influenced by anybody. But, miraculously and for reasons she had no time to question, Miss Gemma Dallam, the young bride soon to be a young matron with her own household staff to clothe, her own money to spend, had taken a fancy to her. And what mattered was that after these three weary months of finding nothing but a bonnet here and there to be cheaply remodelled, an old evening gown to be laboriously unpicked and made over in the latest fashion, she was going home with some real work to do.

  Not by her own hands alone, of course. In fact, thinking of the quality of the needlework which would be required to impress Mrs Dallam and pass the scrutiny of Miss Linnet Gage, perhaps not by her hands at all. But by Odette’s, her mother’s; a far finer craftswoman than Cara herself ever hoped to be. Although she had taken good care at the Dallams’, not to mention that.

  For if Odette had grown stronger – looked stronger, at any rate – since the night of Cara’s arrival in Frizingley, she was still far too quiet, too reticent, too ‘dreamy’to make the right impression of flair and self-assurance on a customer.

  Cara had found her mother soon after leaving Daniel that night in a state very much as she had expected, grieving inwardly and hopelessly, without tears, as Cara had seen the widow-woman grieving in Liverpool, sitting down on the ground to wait, with blank despair, to be comforted or condemned, to be locked up in official custody or left at liberty to starve; not much caring about either.

  So too had been the face of Odette Adeane: beyond anxiety, quite ready to place her patient neck into the noose with dignity – the only coin she had left – and even a certain measure of relief, until Cara had hugged her and shaken her, reminded her of Liam, of how her grandson – and her daughter – loved her and needed her.

  ‘Mother, I love you. Maman, je t’aime. J’ai besoin de toi. So does Liam.’

  Smiling wanly Odette had acknowledged her daughter’s words to be true. And even then she had been reluctant to push aside the veil of damp air in which she seemed to have been moving since her husband’s departure, a veil so heavy that although its dragging pressure had wearied her and slowed her down, it had also prevented her – as she stood very quiet and cold on its other side – from seeing anything too clearly, from feeling anything too sharp.

  ‘He has gone such a long way, Cara – this time.’

  ‘Yes, mother.’ And Cara’s hot words of blame and accusation had faded on her tongue, not worth the dissipation of her energy. He would not come back. Her mother knew that. Nor, while he remained dependent on his sister, would he be likely to send for her. She knew that too. And if Miss Teresa Adeane of New York made life sufficiently agreeable then he might, in his middle years entirely lose his appetite for chasing rainbows. In which case – as his daughter at least could grimly acknowledge – he would put those shimmering colours out of his mind altogether. And forget.
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  He would make a new life for himself without them.

  So must they.

  ‘He was tired,’ Odette had whispered. ‘And he was afraid.’

  ‘I’m not afraid, mother.’

  But, as they had stood close together in the gathering twilight of an alien city, her courage had been a lie. It often was.

  She had been afraid. Only a fool, she thought, would have been otherwise.

  ‘I don’t think – Cara – that there is anything we can do.’

  But Cara’s youth, her vanity, her quite ruthless appetite for the nineteen years already lived and at least a hundred more to come, would have none of that.

  ‘There’s always something to be done.’

  Odette, retreating again behind her veil – her shroud – had smiled gently, pityingly, and shaken her head. No. Her money had gone. Her employment had been terminated in such a manner that no one else would employ her. Unjustly? Of course. But what of that? There was money owing. A debt which never could be paid. And she too was tired. Not afraid precisely. In fact, and most oddly, not afraid at all. What would happen would happen. Perhaps she would just sit down somewhere and wait for it.

  Taking her roughly by the elbow Cara had hurried her at once and with all the speed she could muster to the Thackrays, pushed her through the door to be claimed and held fast by Liam and then, before Sairellen could stop her, had dashed off again down the cobbled street straight into the clamorous heart of Frizingley, to find Miss Ernestine Baker, dressmaker and milliner, whose arid, virginal heart had been aroused – most likely, she thought, by accident – to love and cruelty by Kieron Adeane.

  And there, in the dark, discreet shop with its odours of thread and fabric she had stood with meekly bowed head, offering herself as a new victim to appease Miss Baker’s jealous ire; her bewildered outrage that she could have entertained such sentiments about an Irish wastrel in the first place and that he – when he had deigned to notice them – had spurned her. Had preferred, in fact, his sad little foreign drab, Odette.

  ‘I have considerable experience in the dressmaking trade,’ Cara had murmured, meaning ‘You have abused my mother until it bored you. Now – if you like – you can abuse me.’ It was almost a promise. Odette had not understood Miss Baker’s need to punish. Cara did not consciously understand it either. She simply knew that jealous old cats require to scratch and that this one might scratch as hard as she pleased if it opened the door to employment.

  ‘What experience?’

  And Cara had not spoken of Paris, neither Miss Baker’s restrained appearance nor the discreet quality of her merchandise having much in common with the rue Saint Honoré, but of her apprenticeship in the more serious-minded city of Edinburgh, her work as a skilled journeywoman in Dublin.

  ‘It has long been my view,’ replied Miss Baker, ‘that persons of Celtic origin are not reliable. An opinion not unshared, believe me, in this locality where you will find many doors completely barred to – Celts.’

  But Cara had merely breathed ‘I am sure you are right,’ her voice promising to be humble, to do penance for her father’s sins in any manner Miss Baker liked, for as long that is, as she continued to pay living wages.

  And Miss Ernestine Baker, immaculate spinster of the parish of Frizingley, had been tempted.

  ‘Our hours of work in this establishment,’ she had said, tight-lipped, straight-backed, quite certain that this flibbertigibbet would never stand it, ‘are twelve daily, from six in the morning until the same hour at night, including Saturdays. That is, of course, when conditions of work are normal. During periods of increased business – Easter, for example, when all my ladies are requiring new bonnets, or a ball at the Assembly Rooms to which all my ladies are naturally invited – then my women are required to remain at their work until it is finished. Simply that. Eighteen hours. Twenty. For as long as the busy period lasts.’

  ‘Of course, Miss Baker.’ As much would be asked of her anywhere else. And she had too much sense even to imagine that Miss Baker would pay overtime.

  ‘Very well.’ Miss Baker drew back her thin lips, exposing prominent, well-regimented teeth in a satisfied smile. ‘Let me give an example – Adeane – of the effort which will often be required of you. Last winter, shortly before the festive season, my orders for ball gowns and dinner gowns were such that my women, apprentices included, had no time even to change their clothes for seven full days and nights. They remained here, in the workroom, for the whole of that time, taking turns to rest on the mattress I provided, not even leaving their work for meals which I had served to them at their work-tables. I even had their meat cut up for them by the good woman who cooks for me, to save delay. Such – you see – is my reputation for excellence in my trade, that the ladies of Frizingley and hereabouts refuse to go elsewhere.’

  ‘You are to be congratulated, Miss Baker.’

  ‘Yes. I am. And furthermore, I require my women to be of good behaviour and good character. Milliners, who often leave their place of employment at a late hour to walk home alone in the dark, inevitably find themselves accosted from time to time by men – one assumes of the lower sort. As a result of which the trade has acquired a reputation for moral laxity which I do not tolerate in anyone in my employ. It has even been alleged, perhaps with good reason in some quarters, that needlewomen, in the off-season, are much inclined to supplement their incomes by – well, shall we say by according their favours to men for money? You take my meaning?’

  ‘I do.’

  ‘Then also take note of the fact that I do not expect seasonal fluctuations of trade to affect the moral standards of my women. I had a competitor – once – whose business never recovered after the loose behaviour of her girls during the slump of 1831 came to light. Ladies do not care to be pinned and fitted into their dresses by hands which are morally unclean. It is not only the indecency they mind, but the possibility of disease.’

  ‘Of course, Miss Baker.’

  ‘I repeat. No breath of scandal. Nor do I expect you to put yourself forward in front of customers nor to pass comment of any kind unless specifically invited by me to do so. In which case you will simply agree with whatever opinion I happen to have been expressing. Otherwise keep your mouth full of pins when called upon to assist with a fitting, and your eyes on your work.’

  ‘Yes, Miss Baker.’

  The wages would suffice to pay for Odette’s board and lodging – hopefully Liam’s – with Sairellen Thackray. But there remained the matter of a lodging for herself. And the spectre of her father’s debt for which, not the law of England perhaps, but the personal legal code of the landlord of the Fleece Tavern might oblige her to be responsible.

  She had still a long, hard way to go.

  Liam had shared Odette’s bed that first night. Happily, Cara supposed. Although she had had no time to ask him. No energy either, as she had attempted to ease herself into the wooden chair which was all Sairellen had seen fit to offer her, the kitchen grown chilly without its daytime steams and odours of drying laundry and simmering broth. But Luke Thackray, without any expression of concern or sympathy – just getting on quietly and competently with what he thought to be right – had brought her a pillow and a blanket and had made up the fire, in his unhurried manner, with enough coal to last the night.

  ‘Aye, that’s right, lad,’ his mother had told him with heavy sarcasm. ‘Don’t stint. Just pile it on. There’s plenty more coal in the pit, I reckon. So I wouldn’t want you to worry about what’s left in my cellar.’

  But it was no more than the gruff-textured, sharp-edged quality of their affection and instead of reminding her – as he certainly could have done – that, having paid his fair share for the coal he was entitled to his share of the use of it, he merely grinned up at her and went on constructing, with his engineer’s precision, a pyramid of fuel designed to burn slowly and steadily and evenly throughout the night.

  Such a man was Luke Thackray, who had brought her a mug of hot tea at hal
f past four the next morning, an even more welcome jug of hot water and a shallow metal basin so that she could wash and tidy herself for her first appearance in the workroom of Miss Ernestine Baker. And even Sairellen, with her inbred understanding that a family which fails to feed its workers loses its livelihood, had broken her rule about waifs and strays and offered Cara a slice of the bread and pork-dripping she was putting up for Luke to eat in the mill at breakfast time.

  He would come home, of course, at noon for his bacon and potato pie and his barley broth, the fuel a working man needed as much as those infernal machines of theirs needed their steam. What would Cara Adeane find, throughout the next twelve captive hours, to still her hunger? And roughly, abruptly, before she thought better of it, Sairellen had thrust into her hand another slice of bread and lard tied up in a clean red and white spotted handkerchief. A proper mill worker’s bundle.

  ‘Not dainty enough for Miss Baker, I reckon. But if it stops you from swooning into the hat-boxes – like your mother …’

  And smiling a ‘thank you kindly’she had known better than to say out loud, Cara had gone off into the damp Frizingley air of a quarter past five o’clock, Luke Thackray beside her, his own spotted calico bundle under his arm, to join the slow-moving ant-stream of workers hurrying three and four abreast to the mill, some of them – the less fleet-footed – fearing to be late and locked out already. For the mill-gates of Mr Ben Braithwaite and Mr John-William Dallam were closed tight shut five minutes after the warning hooter at half past five, to be opened again only at eight o’clock breakfast time. And who, in this crowd, could afford the fine for late arrival and the loss of two and a half hours pay?

 

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