The Dressmaker (36 page)

Now it was Tess’s turn to be at a loss for words. Somewhat awkwardly,
she shifted from one foot to the other, her hand on the doorknob. “I haven’t had much of an appetite lately,” she said finally.

Lucile’s mood suddenly became exuberantly playful. “Well, I think we are through a rough patch. So now I want to tell you about a challenge that I think you will love. Maybe it’s not possible, but you’ll learn a great deal from taking it on. Can you sketch a design, cut, sew, and fit a dress between now and the show?”

“Oh—” Tess caught her breath. “My goodness, what … how …”

Lucile laughed. “Tess, I love seeing your surprise.”

Tess colored, flustered. Then she grew wary. “I don’t have the talent for that yet.… I’m not experienced enough. Why—”

“Answer my question. Well, can you?”

“Yes. I can, I think I can. At least”—and all the years of hoping and dreaming were in her answer—“I want to try.”

“Then that’s your job, dear.” Lucile smiled broadly. “And if it’s good—mind you, it has to be good—I will introduce your work at the show. You and I, we need to get on with life, don’t you think?”

Together they walked out of the office, stopped almost immediately by the sight of a strange man in a delivery cap waiting for them. Cosmo, his lips pulled tight, stood beside him.

“Who is this man, and who let him up here?” Lucile said as, expressionless and with a quick tip of his cap, he thrust a white envelope into her hand.

“Brace yourself, Lucy.” Cosmo stepped forward. “And, for God’s sake, don’t get hysterical. Senator Smith has issued you a subpoena.”

Lucile stared at the envelope. “How dare he?” she whispered.

“Too much gossip swirling in the air, I suspect. He couldn’t resist,” said Cosmo.

Lucile swayed slightly and went pale, then turned toward Tess with an oddly triumphal look. “Too bad, Tess. You may have to choose sides after all,” she said.

Cosmo took his wife’s arm, guiding her into her office. He closed the door on Tess.

“Before you say a word, please note that I am not screaming and crying.”

“Duly noted,” he said with the ghost of a smile.

Lucile brushed the sleeve of her jacket, irritated by a smudge. This city was so dirty; you couldn’t wear anything without some cleaning disaster. She took off the jacket and threw it to the floor.

“Lucile. Sit down.”

“I don’t want to talk about that impossible, strutting senator and what he’s trying to do to me!”

“Sit down.”

His somber face warned her not to object. Reluctantly, she sat down on the sofa. “Can’t you make this awful thing go away?” she pleaded. “All I want to do is put on my spring show and get out of this terrible place and home to England.”

“It’s not going to go away. I thought we had Smith’s assurance that we wouldn’t be dragged into this, but you can’t trust a politician. They move where the wind blows.”

“When do I have to testify?”

“Next week. He’s moving the hearings back to New York for a few days, so people like you and me can’t scatter. And, believe me, the place will be packed.” Cosmo was pacing, not looking at her. Keeping his distance.

“I’ll answer what I want to answer!”

“You will stick, word for word, with what our lawyers tell you to say. You will not say one extra word, do you hear me?” His voice, hard and even, was that of a schoolmaster.

Lucile was startled at his intensity but rallied quickly. “Don’t underestimate me, Cosmo. I can orchestrate this. I’ll dress for the occasion. A very large, black hat with plenty of powder. I can look very pale if I have to. By the time I’m done, the whole country will see how victimized I’ve been.”

“Good girl.” His smile flickered again, more tiredly this time. “All Smith will get out of this is anti-British rhetoric. But I have more bad news. There will be an inquiry in Britain as well, and both of us are going to be under subpoena to testify. I’ve not been able to do anything to stop it. The mood there is that we’re an embarrassment to the country. Certainly, my reputation has been destroyed.” His voice
turned bitter. “You think the newspapers here have been bad? My dear, wait until you see what happens there. We are heading into a maelstrom.”

At home? Impossible. Her reputation was unassailable, yet nothing seemed to be holding fast. “What are we going to do?” she asked.

“I am pulling every string I can. There will be no compromise on putting us both on the stand. Perhaps we can find a way to orchestrate that.”

“Of course, we can. It’s tragic, treating us this way.”

“You’ll have to do more than rehearse your performance.”

“What do you mean?”

“That sailor will probably be testifying in England, too.”

“The one called Bonney?”

“Yes.”

“That’s completely unacceptable.”

“I don’t think it’s up to you.”

“We’ll see about that.”

Cosmo regarded her almost coolly. “The investigating panel in Washington found him quite believable, I’m told. At least here you won’t have to testify with him in the room, waiting to deny your story. England will be worse. I would suggest that from this point on you do not speak of the sinking or anything of what has happened here to anyone, do you hear me?”

“Why don’t you just say it?” she demanded, furious. “You think I’m the one who got us into this muddle, isn’t that right?”

“Can’t you answer that yourself? Do you really need me to do so?”

“Don’t forget you were on that boat, too.”

“And what is that supposed to mean?”

“My dear husband, you were no hero.” She turned away, taking a deep, steadying breath. “I will not let them tear me apart in some courtroom. I’ll think of something.”

A
lmost a week of hard work gone by already. Tess’s hand ached. She was holding the pencil too tightly—the sign of an amateur. She leaned closer over the drawing board, softening her strokes. She could sketch in the tucked sleeves she had designed in Cherbourg; that would work. Think of the fabric. Don’t think of the subpoena. Don’t think of Jim. She looked at the skirt she was drawing. It should be in a stiff but moldable fabric; stay away from chiffon.

She sat back, eyeing her design critically. Hopefully. All these long hours, sketching and resketching, determinedly keeping her mind away from the feeling that everything was crumbling. Lucile would have to testify the day before her show, and the tension in the shop was spiraling upward.

But at the end of each day she would rise from her drawing board, bid the workers good night, and walk out into another world. Jack’s world.

There he would be, at her door, tipping his hat, offering his arm to take her to yet another elegant restaurant where the light shimmered and everything was beautiful. Bit by bit, she had pieced together some information about him. Mrs. Brown was right; he was going ahead with a divorce—which, he said, wasn’t his first. “Don’t make it a black mark—I’m a slow learner,” he had said good-humoredly, and she had smiled, not quite sure how she felt about that.

Then later, at home, staring at the ceiling: where was Jim? Would he show up for Lucile’s testimony? Or was he already heading West, having forgotten her? She had to face the possibility that because of the mislaid note, left unanswered, she might not see him again.

Come morning, she would be back at her drawing board, pushing both men out of her thoughts, concentrating on the most exciting challenge she had ever known.

And now the end of the fourth day. A stab of pain; she rubbed her fingers. She was doing it again, clutching the pencil too tightly.

“She’s taking this seriously,” Elinor said to her sister as they watched from Lucile’s office.

“She’d better, after what that sailor friend of hers did to me.”

“Don’t take it out on her; she’s caught between the two of you.”

“Her design isn’t half-bad, so far.”

Elinor raised one eyebrow, studying Lucile. “You know, I actually think you mean it.”

“Why wouldn’t I?”

“In another mood, dear sister, you might have given someone this opportunity to see how quickly they would fall on their face. And then come crawling back to the invincible Madame.”

“And what do you think now?”

“I think you want her to succeed.”

Tess glanced up at just that moment and saw the two women looking at her. Lucile acknowledged the eye contact with a brisk nod, but Elinor was smiling.

They think I can do it, Tess thought. And I can.

It was late. Her feet hurt as she stepped out onto the sidewalk; why not hop onto one of the streetcars heading toward home? One was coming her way now, bell clanging, people crowded inside and
jammed on the steps, holding on to whatever they could grasp. How did you do this? She hoisted her skirt with one hand, jumped on, and grabbed for a post with the other, almost falling off as the car lurched forward.

“You need some training,” said a girl, giggling, as she hung on to her hat.

A woman holding a bag of apples was running for the streetcar. “Slow down!” she yelled. Now the woman was hoisting her skirt, grabbing for the post. She tripped on the skirt, and Tess held her breath. But the driver, with an angry shout to hurry up, had slowed enough for the woman, breathless, to pull herself on.

“That was dangerous,” Tess said to the passenger next to her.

“Dangerous? Honey, we do it all the time,” the woman replied.

“She could move faster in a shorter skirt.”

The woman snorted. “Shorter skirts? Not respectable.”

Tess jumped off the streetcar at her stop, hoping for a soothing cup of hot tea before Jack arrived—something to bridge the two worlds in which she was living. She would not brood over what was going to happen at the inquiry; she could call this a good day. And tomorrow—her heart skipped a beat—tomorrow she would cut the gown. “Miss Collins?”

A man in a bowler hat was approaching her, the sound of his heels clicking against the pavement. She had been so engrossed in her thoughts that she hadn’t seen him.

“Please, an introduction. I’m Howard Wheaton, Mr. Bremerton’s secretary.” He tipped his hat, looking uncomfortable as he thrust his arm forward; only then did Tess see the bouquet of flowers. “He asked me to deliver these to you with his note, and with his apologies for not delivering them in person; he had important business downtown.”