Secrets of a Charmed Life (4 page)

EMMY
stood before the mirror in the upstairs bedroom she shared with Julia, analyzing the dress she’d plucked from Mum’s wardrobe. She had pressed away the wrinkles, but there had been no way to iron away the trailing scent of Mum’s perfume—a flowery, musty vapor that smelled like an invitation to other things. The midnight blue frock with its ivory collar and sleeve cuffs wasn’t Emmy’s favorite dress of her mother’s, but it was more fashionable than anything hanging among her own clothes, and she was unashamedly hoping there was luck still lingering in its threads. Mum had worn the dress two years ago when she interviewed to be a kitchen maid for the millionaire widow Mrs. Billingsley and had come home with the job. Emmy might not have remembered that detail about the dress except that Nana was still alive then and had been visiting.

It had been a roasting-hot day in July, and the war then was nothing more than a nasty disagreement between a couple of countries on the Continent. Mum’s mother, visiting from Devonshire, was teaching Emmy to embroider. The girls saw their grandmother only when she made the trip to visit, which wasn’t often. Emmy liked it when Nana came, even though Nana and Mum fought about nearly everything. She was always sad when Nana left except for the fact that the arguing stopped. On that particular afternoon, Mum had emerged from her bedroom wearing the midnight blue dress, and she posed like a model in front of the girls and her mother. Julia laughed and Mum laughed with her. Nana shook her head and told Mum it wasn’t wise to get her hopes too high. Mum had worked in a hotel laundry room up to that point. To Emmy’s knowledge, she had never been a kitchen maid before. And she had certainly never worked for someone with money.

“And why shouldn’t I?” Mum opened a compact mirror and ran a tube of lipstick across her lips. She sounded as confident as Emmy could ever remember.

“An upstanding heiress is a different employer than a busy hotel.”

Mum snapped the mirror shut. “And what is that supposed to mean?”

“You’re an unmarried mother,” Nana murmured, as though the walls of the kitchen might hear the scandalous truth and broadcast the news to the whole of London. “It matters. If this Mrs. Billingsley checks your references, she is sure to find out your daughters were fathered by two different men, neither of whom you were married to.”

Mum had narrowed her eyes and grinned at Emmy
conspiratorially—the way an older sister might. She thanked Nana for such loving and motherly advice, and slammed the door as she left.

Nana had asked Emmy where her mother had gotten the dress.

Emmy hadn’t known. Sometimes new clothes just appeared in Mum’s wardrobe.

“Don’t you wonder where she gets them?” Nana asked.

“She says the people she works with give them to her when they tire of them,” Emmy answered.

“Sure they do,” Nana muttered, and then she proceeded to show Emmy how to sew a perfect satin stitch.

An hour later, while Emmy worked on a dresser scarf and Nana showed Julia her wooden box full of colorful skeins of embroidery floss, Mum returned exuberant, and with a fancy black uniform over her arm.

Nana went pale. “They hired you?”

Emmy was astonished at the fear in her grandmother’s voice.

“Don’t act so surprised,” Mum said. “I bloody well know how to boil water.”

“I’m sure there are a lot of things you know how to do,” Nana said, softly. It was almost a whisper, but not quite.

Mum turned from laying the uniform over the back of a kitchen chair. “What did you say?”

“Nothing.”

Mum calmly walked to the front door and opened it wide. “I want you out.”

Emmy had looked from one woman to the other; surely she had missed something.

Nana’s lips flattened to a thin line. She slapped the wooden box of floss shut and slid it toward Emmy. “You
work on those stitches, Emmeline,” she had said. “It will give you something constructive to do while your mother is out earning her keep.”

Nana kissed Julia good-bye and left. It was the last time Emmy saw her. Four months later she died of a massive heart attack. A telegram came to the flat from Mum’s uncle Stuart, Nana’s older brother and a man Emmy had never met, bearing the news of her passing. Mum read the telegram, lowered the piece of paper to the kitchen table, and then went into her room. Emmy didn’t see her for hours. When she emerged, Emmy was full of questions. Julia, at five, had only one. Where was Nana now? But Mum didn’t answer any of Emmy’s questions. And to Julia, she said Nana was in heaven where everything was perfect, so she ought to feel right at home. Emmy didn’t understand what her grandmother and Mum had fought about that last day. As far as she could tell, Mum had been hired to be a kitchen maid, and that was exactly what she became. Nana made it seem as though Mum was doing something bad in exchange for her new job but Mrs. Billingsley wasn’t running a brothel; she was a respected widow. And there were no men in Annie Downtree’s life; not since Julia’s father had walked out on her a year before.

Not long after Nana died, Emmy was at the kitchen table embroidering asters onto a pillowcase. Mum, on her way out the door to go to work, had stopped to stare at the colorful collection of flosses in the box and then whacked the lid shut. Emmy kept the box in her and Julia’s room after that.

Julia now appeared in the doorway as Emmy studied her reflection in the mirror. “I want to come to the bridal shop with you.”

Emmy reached for her hairbrush on the dresser. “I need you to stay here.”

“I don’t want to.”

“I’ll be back soon, Jewels. I promise,” Emmy said, running the brush through her hair with quick strokes.

“Take me with you.”

Emmy replaced the brush, and then knelt by her sister and took her hands. “I’ll only be gone for a little bit. I’ll be back before you know it.”

“But it will be dark soon.”

“And I will be back before dark.”

Julia’s fear-filled eyes glistened with stubborn tears. Nights were the hardest. The sirens, when they whined, nearly only whined at night. They sounded like the agonized wail of the desolate.

“Be a love and get Nana’s box of embroidery floss,” Emmy said.

“Why?”

“I’ll show you.”

Julia walked to Emmy’s bed, dropped to her knees, and thrust her hand under the bed skirt. She withdrew the wooden box and brought it back.

“Can you take all the threads out for me? Just dump them on my bed.”

While Julia obeyed, Emmy reached for the satchel that she used for school, and then walked over to the bed and sat down next to her sister. In between them lay the pile of skeins, a tumble of color. From the satchel Emmy withdrew a folder marked
Geometry
, opened it, and pulled out a sheaf of sketches.

“What are you doing with your brides?” Julia asked.

“I might need to show them to the lady at the bridal shop.”

“Why?”

“When I tell this lady that I’ve never worked in a dress shop, she might not want to hire me, but if I show her the brides, maybe she will.”

Emmy reached for the empty box in Julia’s lap. Its hinges and clasp, at one time golden-hued, had aged to a mossy brown. Etchings of flowering vines scrolled the front and sides, as did scuffs and scratches from its earlier uses. Emmy thumbed through the sketches, pulled out her earliest attempts, and then tossed these on the bed. She opened the lid and placed the best ones—a dozen of them—inside the box.

“There. That’s better than a geometry folder.”

“What if she says no?”

“Then I will be no worse off than if I hadn’t shown them to her, right?”

“What if she takes the brides from you?”

“She won’t.”

“But how do you know?”

“I don’t think she’s that kind of person. Besides, I won’t let her. I won’t let anyone take my drawings from me, okay?”

Julia nodded but a trace of doubt lingered on her face. It was as if she already knew good things had a way of being taken from someone—especially in a time of war.

“What about those?” Julia pointed to the rejects on the bed.

“How about while I am gone, you give those brides some bouquets to carry? You can use my colored pencils and put flowers in their hair and bouquets in their hands. Yes?”

Julia seemed pleased with this assignment. “What if
I want to give them something else to carry? Does it have to be flowers?”

Emmy kissed the top of her sister’s fair head. “It can be whatever you want. Give them kangaroos to hold if that suits you.”

Julia laughed and Emmy pushed herself off the bed. “Do I look all right?”

“You look like Mum.”

Emmy nodded. Good enough. “I’ll be right back. Keep the door locked. Don’t answer the bell. Just work on those brides.”

She tucked the box under her arm and headed for the front door, her feet lifting slightly out of Mum’s too-big shoes with every step.

THE
broken glass had been swept away and several long sections of wood had been nailed to the window frame at Primrose Bridal. Emmy stepped inside the shop and the tinkling of two silver bells attached to the handle announced her arrival. Mrs. Crofton looked up from a white French provincial writing desk situated along the left wall. Two Queen Anne chairs upholstered in cobalt blue velvet sat opposite her. Emmy imagined one was for the bride, and the other for the bride’s mother or sister or maid of honor. Mrs. Crofton had probably consulted with a thousand brides from behind the desk.

“Flip the Closed sign, will you?” she said. “And set the latch.”

Emmy turned back to the door and did what Mrs. Crofton asked, using the few seconds to still the niggling nervousness that had suddenly bloomed inside her chest.

“Please have a seat, Miss—I’m sorry I’ve forgotten your name,” Mrs. Crofton said as Emmy completed the task. “Too maddening of a day.”

“Emmeline. Emmeline Downtree.” Emmy closed the distance between them and sat down on one of the chairs.

Mrs. Crofton finished making notations in a leather-covered ledger and closed it gently with a bandaged hand. “Eloise Crofton. If it’s not a drunkard crashing his car into my window, it’s daft suppliers who think just because there is a war, women aren’t getting married.”

Emmy had said as much to Mum earlier that day and nodded.

Mrs. Crofton set her pen down. “War makes brides as easily as it makes widows, Miss Downtree. And do you know why?”

“Because people still fall in love?” Emmy said hopefully.

“Because people need to believe love is stronger than war. A soldier marries before he marches off so that the ring on his finger will remind him who he is when he’s crouched in a trench with his weapon raised to kill. You don’t want to forget who you are then.” She opened a drawer and slipped the ledger inside it. “Now, then. Tell me how long you’ve been admiring my shop?”

“I guess as long as we’ve lived in Whitechapel. We moved here two summers ago when my mother got a new job.”

The woman waited for more and Emmy knew in an instant she’d probably already said too much. To mention a mother’s new job and say nothing of the father meant there was something amiss.

“Oh. I see. How very nice.” Mrs. Crofton tipped her head and Emmy saw the unspoken question in her eyes.

“Yes, I’ve walked past your shop every Saturday morning since then. I love your gowns. They’re just so beautiful. And . . . so full of promise.”

Mrs. Crofton regarded the dresses hanging all around them on hangers and dress forms and lithe mannequins. “Yes. They are very pretty. The prettiest dress a girl will ever wear on a day like no other.” She turned her focus back to Emmy. “And what is your experience?”

Emmy cleared her throat of the knob of anxiety bobbing there. “Well, my grandmother taught me all the stitches for hand-sewing. I know the satin, cross, whip, running, chain, blanket stitch—all of them, really.”

Mrs. Crofton leaned forward and steepled one hand under her chin. “What I meant was, what kind of retail experience have you had?”

The nervous knob bubbled its way back and Emmy tamped it back down. “None. But I’d be happy to show you my stitches. Your advertisement says you need someone to do hand-sewing and alterations, not someone with retail experience.”

Mrs. Crofton smiled. “Fair enough. Come with me.”

The woman rose from her chair and Emmy followed her into a back room. A long table was set up in the middle and a gown was lying across it. A black and gold Singer sat in one corner. Bolts of tulle and lace crowded into one another. Baskets of white thread, cards of silvery hooks and eyes, and little glass bowls of pearl buttons and rhinestones sat on the top of a cabinet in the farthest corner.

“I’ll give you twenty minutes to finish the blind hem on that wedding dress. If I like what you do, I’ll hire you on a trial basis. If I don’t, you have to take out all the stitches before you leave so that I can do it later. Deal?”

It took supreme effort not to hug Mrs. Crofton when Emmy told her yes.

“I’ll come back in twenty minutes, then,” Mrs. Crofton said.

Emmy sat down in front of the dress, a feather-soft chiffon, and placed her box of brides at her feet, a bit disappointed that she hadn’t needed to show them to Mrs. Crofton. The hem was a quarter of the way completed, the tiny pricks of the needle nearly invisible. Emmy lifted the gown to her lap, prayed to God Almighty for divine favor, and took up where the stitching had stopped. She made her stitches as even as the ones before hers, and as weightless. She was finished in seventeen minutes.

Emmy found a hanger and was just placing the dress on a hook on the wall when Mrs. Crofton came back into the room with a blue-and-white teacup in her hand. The air immediately became fragrant with the aroma of Earl Grey.

“My, my. Done already?” She set the teacup down, lifted the skirt, and studied the hem. “You’ve a nice touch with a needle, Emmeline.”

“Thank you.”

“Did your grandmother happen to also teach you how to use a sewing machine?”

Emmy gazed at the Singer in the corner. “I didn’t get to see her very often. She died a couple years ago.”

“Ah.” Mrs. Crofton released the skirt and studied the way it fell from the hanger. “Very nice. Quite nice, actually. Perhaps you might work out after all.”

Emmy looked at Mrs. Crofton’s face to make sure there was no joking sentiment behind the words. “Are you hiring me?”

“Let’s say Tuesdays and Thursdays, two to six. A
Saturday or two a month, depending. Twenty shillings a week. At the end of the month, we’ll see where we’re at. It’s an uncertain world right now.”

“Thank you, Mrs. Crofton. You won’t be sorry.” Again Emmy’s eyes were drawn to the Singer in the corner. “Might I be able . . . That is, perhaps you wouldn’t mind if . . .” But she couldn’t finish. Surely it was too soon to beg for favors.

Mrs. Crofton followed Emmy’s gaze. “You want to learn how to use my machine?”

“If it’s not too much to ask.”

“I can teach you a few things if you like. I’m thinking you’d pick it up fast enough. It would actually be better for me if you knew how to use it.”

The opportunity to learn to sew on a machine was more than Emmy had hoped for. She felt her mouth drop open in grateful wonder.

And then out of Emmy’s mouth burst words she hadn’t needed to say. They seemed to gush from the spring of elation that was bubbling inside her and there was no stopping them. “Mrs. Crofton, may I show you something?”

“Yes? What is it?”

Emmy reached for the box at her feet, undid the clasp, and handed the woman the sketches.

After paging through a couple of the drawings, Mrs. Crofton cocked her head, intrigue etched in her expression. “Where did these come from?”

“They—they came from me.” Emmy was unsure whether Mrs. Crofton’s wide-eyed gaze was one of delight or dismay.

“Are you telling me you drew these? You didn’t copy them from a magazine?”

Emmy nodded.

Mrs. Crofton leafed through the sketches a second time. She stopped at the one Emmy liked best, a form-fitted gown that fell from a ruched bodice with a dropped waistline into a petaled skirt. “This one reminds me of a dress I had in the window this past spring.”

“The one you had had a scooped neck and high waist. It was pretty but no one with long legs would have looked good in it.” Emmy’s heart skipped a beat. She had said too much.

Mrs. Crofton raised an eyebrow, but her eyes were smiling. “Is that so? And how did you come to that conclusion?”

“Because I look at how women wear dresses. I always have. Even when I was drawing paper dolls for my sister. All dresses start out the same. A bodice, sleeves, skirt, and waistline. But not everyone can wear the same dress. A wedding dress is still a dress.”

Emmy felt she was rambling but Mrs. Crofton seemed to be fascinated.

“And you’ve never touched a sewing machine?”

“I can learn. I want to learn.”

Mrs. Crofton looked down at the drawings in her hand. “It’s no small feat to sew a gown that you have to make the pattern for. You’ll have your work cut out for you, that’s for sure, if you want to sew one of these. Is that what you’re thinking?”

“I am. That is, if you think they’re good enough?”

“I like this one. And this one.” Mrs. Crofton held up two sketches, one of a billowy tea-length gown with an Empire waist and bell-shaped push-up sleeves; the other of a full-length draped confection with an open back and sleeves of illusion. “Where did you learn to sketch,
if I may ask? Do you have an art teacher at school? Or maybe one of your parents taught you?”

A laugh crawled up Emmy’s throat and she squashed it. “No. No art teacher.”

“And your parents?”

She cleared her throat so the laugh wouldn’t escape. “My mother doesn’t . . . She doesn’t draw.”

“And your father? Does he?”

“I wouldn’t know.”

An awkward silence followed. It was a wordless tension Emmy was familiar with when someone asked her a question about her father and she had no answer. Since she had already fibbed about her age easily enough, what was another fabrication of the truth? And she wanted Mrs. Crofton to have no reason to regret hiring her. “He’s dead.”

“Oh. I’m so sorry to hear that.”

“I don’t even remember him. It happened a long time ago. I taught myself to sketch, Mrs. Crofton. I checked books out of the library and I practiced on any blank piece of paper I could find. And then we moved here and I saw the dresses in your shop and I knew I wanted to design my own wedding gowns. This is what I want to do with my life.”

Mrs. Crofton paused for a moment before continuing. “I’m afraid I can’t help you make any of the patterns you’ll need. That’s a different skill. You’re going to need a dressmaker to help you with that.”

Emmy didn’t know any dressmakers and told the woman so.

“I know one. My cousin Graham. He might be persuaded to take you under his wing. He does that with young designers if he thinks they have potential. I can ask him, if you’re interested.”

It had been so long since someone other than Julia had taken an interest in anything important to Emmy that tears sprang to her eyes, stinging and sweet. Words failed her.

Mrs. Crofton smiled as if she knew Emmy was not used to favors. “Look. I know what it’s like to have other people stand around staring at you when they could just as easily help you, Emmeline. Who knows how long any of us will be around to think about bigger endeavors than just our own insignificant lives? Don’t thank me yet. I can teach you to use my sewing machine. And I will contact my cousin to see if he is interested in taking you on as an apprentice. But in the end, only time will tell if a future in bridal gowns awaits you.”

“I don’t know how to thank you.”

“You can help someone else down the road, when the time comes.”

Emmy fingered away wetness at her eyes. She knew she would remember that moment for the rest of her life, that moment when someone who barely knew her fulfilled every childhood wish she’d ever had to feel she mattered.

“I’m so sorry about your window.” Emmy’s voice sounded young in her ears.

The swift change in the focus of the conversation seemed to surprise Mrs. Crofton. “Oh! Well, glass can be replaced. Will be replaced. It could have been worse. It can always be worse.”

Emmy thanked her again and Mrs. Crofton walked her to the door to let her out. The sky had turned purple and ash, and Emmy would be rushing to get back to the flat before the sun set completely. Mrs. Crofton’s many kindnesses to her in the span it took for twilight to fall suddenly weighed on her like bricks.

“I’m not nearly sixteen, Mrs. Crofton,” Emmy blurted
as Mrs. Crofton lifted the latch. “I just turned fifteen in April. I’ve eleven months until my next birthday. And I don’t know who my father is. I don’t even know if he’s dead or alive.”

The woman said nothing. For a second Emmy was sure her late honesty had done her no favors. Then Mrs. Crofton swung the door open. “Good thing I’m not hiring him, then. I’ll see you on Tuesday, Emmeline.”

Emmy returned home floating on air, barely aware that the inky shroud of London at night was enveloping her. She ran the last block in darkness.

When she opened the door to the flat, Emmy saw that Julia had fallen asleep at the kitchen table. Colored pencils lay strewn about. She peered over her little sister to see how Julia had occupied the hour Emmy had been gone.

Instead of bouquets, the brides Emmy had left in Julia’s care now held enormous red polka-dot umbrellas.