The Crimson Thread (7 page)

James Wellington, The Prince of Industry
 

Three days later Bertie stepped beside Margaret to watch Elizabeth Wellington turn in the mirror of the sewing room. She was about twenty, pretty and petite, with a head of meticulously coiffed, upswept hair. The young woman was trying on the green brocade dress with the brown velvet trim and its matching hat.

            The Parisian sisters had fashioned a tall bonnet festooned with brown netting and an abundance of brown, green, and black feathers elaborately interwoven with brown velvet cord. Bertie thought the hat was gorgeous beyond any words she had to describe it.

            “Can you take it in a little in the middle?” Elizabeth requested, pouting fretfully at her image. “My waist is tiny, and I want to show it off. The hourglass shape is so popular this season.”

            “Certainly, miss,” Bertie found it odd, even a bit unsettling, to see the imperious Margaret so subservient.

            “And this hat…”Elizabeth squinted and cocked her head to the side critically. “I’m not sure about it. What do you think?”

            “It’s like a dream,” Bertie offered. Margaret glanced at her sharply, and Bertie realized she had spoken out of her place.

            Bertie lowered her eyes and went back to her own private thoughts. She was just as happy not to be involved. She was tired from staying up half the night, watching over Eileen, making sure her small chest was rising and falling evenly as she slept.

            Bertie worried constantly that Liam wouldn’t be up to the challenge of caring for a sick little girl. Luckily, Finn’s hours had been cut back at the firehouse. Even though it meant he was making less salary, at least he was able to come home earlier to relieve Liam of caring for Eileen.

            “You’re new here, aren’t you?” Elizabeth said directly to Bertie, jolting her from her worried thoughts about Eileen.

            “This is Bertie Miller,” Margaret introduced her, “the daughter of your new carriage driver. She’s my assistant.”

            “Oh, you’re the one my brother told me about,” Elizabeth said with an air of excitement. “I think he’s a little taken with you. He said how pretty you are.” She stepped back and regarded Bertie. “You know, you
are
pretty, at that. I’d kill to have your hair.”

            Bertie dropped her eyes down and flushed with embarrassment, flattered nonetheless. “Thank you, miss.”

            Two more young women entered the room, holding some dresses in their arms: one, a thinner, taller, yet younger version of Miss Elizabeth; the other a rounder, rosier, and still younger edition of the other two. Elizabeth introduced Bertie to them. “These are my sisters, Catherine and Alice.”

            “Are you the girl from Wales?” asked Alice, the youngest.

            “Don’t be daft, she’s obviously Irish,” said Catherine.

            Bertie’s heart jumped a beat. Was her father’s lie so obvious? If J.P. Wellington knew they were Irish, would he fire them? “Are you Irish?” Alice asked boldly.

            “Of course she is,” Catherine insisted. “Look at that hair! That’s Irish hair. I’d adore having dangerous red hair.”

            “Dangerous, miss?” Bertie questioned.

            “Oh, yes,” stated Catherine emphatically. “Red-headed women are glamorous and hotheaded, even a little crazy.”

            Bertie thought of her fantasy about being a princess. Maybe she was, indeed, slightly crazy. “Why would a person want to be crazy?” she dared to ask.

            “Because it’s daring and romantic,” Catherine replied. “In
Jane Eyre
, Mr. Rochester has a crazy wife locked in the attic. Have you read the novel? It was written nearly forty years ago, but it still seems modern today.”

            “No, I haven’t, miss.” At that moment nothing on earth could have compelled Bertie to admit she’d never learned to read. These young women lived in such a different world. What she wouldn’t give to be part of it.

            “But you haven’t answered me,” Alice kept on insistently. “Are you Irish? It won’t matter. We had one great-grandmother from the north of Ireland.”

            “Young ladies, Bertie needs to help me make some alterations on Miss Elizabeth’s new outfit,” Margaret cut in, relieving Bertie of the obligation to answer. “Forgive me for taking her from you. Is there something you would like me to do in regard to the dresses you are holding?”

            “Yes,” Alice told Margaret, handing the dresses off to Bertie. “They’re from last fall. Would you donate these to the mission for us as you always do? Some poor girl might as well have the benefit of them.”

            “That’s most charitable,” Margaret commended. “Let me know when you will be available to be fitted for new dresses.”

            “We will,” Catherine promised. “Father is downstairs, and he just brought home this season’s patter books from his factory.”

            “When did your father arrive?” asked Margaret.

            “Last night,” Elizabeth told her as she took off her hat. “His new coachman made excellent time traveling up the Jersey shoreline. He says that he rode like a madman, which he half suspects he is.” She glanced at Bertie and smiled, covering her mouth as if embarrassed at having spoken without thinking. “That’s your father, isn’t it? No offense intended.”

            “Yes, miss, none taken.”
 
Bertie wasn’t sure if the offense had been intentional or not. Her father did seem half-mad even to her sometimes, overzealous if always well-intentioned, and she could see how someone might take him for a lunatic upon first meeting.

            “We’ll be deciding on our new dresses once we look through the pattern books,” Catherine added. “That’s why we’re clearing out these old dresses to make room for the new.”

            “In that case we shall be quite busy and must get to work,” Margaret declared.

            Catherine and Alice stayed to watch, draping themselves along the arms and back of the one cushioned chair, while Elizabeth modeled her new outfit, wearing it inside out so Margaret would make the requested alteration.

            “I have some old dresses from last year to give you as well,” Elizabeth said, as Margaret nipped in the dress waist with the pins Bertie handed her from the little cushion she held.

            “But you know, Margaret, before you donate those dresses, you should offer them to the servant girls. I’m sure some of them would be happy to have them.”

            “The servants don’t want our old cast-off things,” Alice jumped in, with a glance at Bertie. “You don’t want those old dresses, do you, Bertie? I’m sure you have your own dresses that are perfectly fine.”

            Pride nearly made Bertie agree that she had no need for anyone’s old clothing. The words had already formed and were just waiting to be set free, when her eyes fell upon the dresses, which now sat in a pile on one of the cutting tables. They looked as though they had never been worn!

            How could she turn down such a gift?

            Her mother had always said that false pride was a sin – and in this case, it would have been utter foolishness – so she swallowed her self-important words. “I would love some of those dresses,” she admitted.

            “They wouldn’t fit you,” Catherine observed.    

            “I’m a seamstress,” Bertie reminded her. “Miss Alice is shorter than I am, but I could take that deep blue dress and remove the skirt of the ruffled yellow to use as an underskirt to lengthen it. Then I could detach the sleeves and add a yellow ruffle to the blue.”

            “You are a natural stylist, I see,” Margaret commented, sounding genuinely impressed.

            “My mother taught me to work with what I had,” she replied, recalling how her mother had never wasted anything, not even the buttons from torn or worn-out garments.

            “Take the whole batch of them, then,” said Catherine. “The other servant girls are probably too heavy to fit them anyway.”

            “Thank you. You are very generous,” Bertie replied, as she looked to Margaret to see if it ws indeed all right for her to accept the gift. Margaret nodded almost imperceptibly, and Bertie’s spirits soared, thrilled by this newfound wealth.

At six o’clock, Bertie varied the pile of dresses up into her small maid’s room and tossed them lightly onto the bed, eager to examine them more closely. She sat down hard on the end of the bed, blowing some hair from her eyes.

            It had been a long day, with hardly any time to even eat anything. Margaret had explained to her that when Mr. Wellington arrived from his mills with the new pattern books from Europe, it was the busiest time of the year. The Wellington girls scoured the catalogs, wanting every latest fashion. “You’d better be prepared to put in some long days from now until Christmas,” she warned Bertie. “September is half over now, and Miss Catherine will be making her debut in society in early November. After Thanksgiving there will be holiday parties and balls for them all. Each event requires a new frock. Even young Mr. Wellington will require several new outfits, though now that he’s graduated, his father will no doubt start having his suits tailored in London.”

            She picked up a taffeta dress with blue and green stripes that had belonged to Catherine. The dress’s full, shiny skirt was intricately pleated at the boned waist and swished deliciously as she held it in front of her. The other sisters were shorter than she, but Catherine was the closest to her size, and her things would be the easiest to alter.

            Where she would ever wear such a rich-looking gown as this she had no idea, but it was a joy just to own it.

            Spreading all the dressed out on the narrow bed, she allowed herself another minute to select one or two to bring back to the apartment to alter to her size in the evening. It had sadly occurred to her that there were other uses for the dresses than to keep them as gowns. They could be torn as the seams and their fabric used to make shirts and vests for her brothers and father, and she promised herself to make some blouses and smock dresses for Eileen.

            She sat on the edge of the bed, thinking about Eileen. Though she’d seemed to improve quickly after coming home from the doctor’s office, Eileen was still sick. Her fever had gone down, but the cough and filmy throat persisted. All she could muster the energy to do was loll on the mattress playing with her rag doll. Yes, one of these gowns would make several cute dresses for Eileen. And there was one that was a little looser fitting than the others; it might look good on Maria. Tonight when she came by to visit – which she did almost every evening lately – Bertie would offer it to her, and they could make any alterations there were needed.
            She was staring at the dresses and thinking of what to make for Eileen when her door burst open. Looking up in surprise, she gasped to see young James Wellington standing in the small room, facing her.

            “Sir?” she asked, startled.

            “James,” he reminded her. “We’re alone.”

           
You can call me James when we’re alone.

            She was very aware that they were alone – and standing quite close together, since the room was no more than a large closet. Up close, he was even more handsome than she had recalled. “Can I help you? I mean, why are you here?”

            “My cursed father!” he said angrily. “Things are so nice when he’s away, but he always returns!”

            “I’m sorry, but I don’t understand.”

            “I’m hiding! Don’t you see? This is the last place he would look for me. What are you doing here? Hiding from Margaret, I don’t doubt.”

            “This is my room,” she told him.

            He blinked, not understanding. “You’re not living here, are you?”

            “It’s a sort of changing room – a courtesy, I imagine. It comes with the position.”

            “Oh. Well, I am sorry, then. I didn’t realize.” He looked her up and down with a direct gaze. “Nice to run into you again, at any rate. You know, you’re even prettier than I remembered, and I recalled you as being very pretty indeed.”

            He smiled, and she retuned the smile despite her concerns about the impropriety of this situation. “Why are you hiding from your father?” she asked.

            “Blast him! He is so unreasonable. My illustrious father just discovered that I have been rejected from Harvard. Up until this moment I don’t think he was fully aware of exactly how badly I did it as St. Paul’s Academy. I tried to explain to him that it was no matter because I don’t even want to go to Harvard – or any university, for that matter. I want to join him in running the family textile mills. I’m his son. I’m old enough now.”

            “And he doesn’t want you to work with him?” asked Bertie.

            “No! he wants me to be a lawyer or the president of the United States or some other dull thing like that. But I’m built for business. I like making money, or rather, directing others to make it for me. Besides, I have no interest in academics.”