The Crimson Thread (Once Upon a Time)

by Suzanne Weyn

  “Enter,” came a low-pitched voice.

  The woman who sat behind the ornate desk in the study was possibly the thinnest woman she had ever seen who wasn’t falling over faint from starvation. On the contrary, this woman seemed quite alert, with probing eyes below a wide forehead under a high nest of upswept gray hair.

  “Allow me to introduce my daughter, the greatest seamstress New York will ever see, Bertie Miller!” Paddy announced in a booming voice as though she were the star attraction at some theatrical entertainment.

  Bridget’s head snapped around to stare at her father in surprise.

  Bertie Miller?!

  The greatest seamstress New York will ever see?!

  “What sort of name is Bertie?” the woman asked, eyeing Bridget critically. “Is it... Welsh?”

  “French by way of Wales,” Paddy said. “It’s short for Bertrille.”

  Amusement played in the woman’s eyes. Unlike the man who had interviewed her father, Bridget had the distinct impression that this woman was not fooled for a moment. No doubt she knew an Irish brogue when she heard one. “Have you brought any samples of your work?” she asked.

  “No,” Bridget replied.

  “All our things were lost at sea when the ship we were sailing was nearly shipwrecked in a storm,” Paddy jumped in to explain.

  Bridget couldn’t believe she was hearing this latest fabrication, it was so wildly untrue. The entire trip had been days of dull, sometimes nauseating, rocking under a monotonously overcast sky without a drop of rain.

  Paddy stepped forward, stretching out his arms proudly. “Fortunately, this very shirt I’m wearing survived the tempest. It was made by her hand.”

  Survived the tempest! Bridget tried not to let her face reveal her shock at this bold-faced lie. Her mother had made the shirt he wore! It was hard to accept that her father could be such an outrageous liar. But maybe that was too harsh. He was an avid storyteller, and all good tale tellers sometimes lost the line between truth and fiction. To him, anything might be true; it was only a matter of which version of the story he was telling. She almost had to laugh when she thought of how he objected to her flights of fancy, when she’d probably inherited her imaginative ways from him.

  “Of course, she made this garment some years ago, when she was only a child,” he went on. “But the workmanship has held up very well, weathered the storm beautifully. Come examine it for yourself.”

  The woman came out from behind the desk, revealing herself to be exceptionally tall. She examined Paddy’s sleeves and collar. “It is indeed well done,” she concluded.

  “The girl is a wonder,” Paddy went on. “Not only can she sew a perfect seam, but she can spin thread, tat lace, embroider, and weave. If you take her on, you will thank me for the rest of your days.”

  “Is that so?” the woman asked skeptically.

  “Mark my words,” Paddy assured her, deliberately missing the disbelief in her tone.

  “I would work very hard and do whatever you want,” said Bridget sincerely, hoping to bring some small sense of truth and reality into the proceedings.

  “Have you any references?” the woman asked.

  “We are newly arrived and this would be her first employment in America, and, as I mentioned, the many testimonies she brought from home were all lost at sea,” Paddy said.

  A tight, pinched smile formed on the woman’s lined lips. “I see.” She turned her attention to Bridget. “You will start as my assistant. I hope that is not too menial a position for one as gifted as yourself.”

  “No, ma’am, not at all,” Bridget answered.

  The woman nodded. “You may call me Margaret. I will call you Bertie. We will begin tomorrow morning at seven sharp and work until six in the evening. We will be making the clothing for Mr. Wellington’s eldest son and his three daughters, who are fashionable young women.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Mr. Wellington’s fortune has been made in the textile industry,” Margaret continued. “Fabrics and clothing are of the utmost importance in this household. Your work must be beyond reproach. You are being taken on in a conditional capacity, subject to dismissal if your work does not meet my expectations. Is that clear?”

  Bridget swallowed hard and immediately hoped the sharp-eyed Margaret hadn’t noticed. She’d thought her clothes-making skills were sufficient until Mrs. Howard had ripped her vest apart. Now she was no longer as confident.

  “Oh, you’ll be more than happy with her work,” Paddy interjected.

  “I’m speaking with your daughter now, Mr. Miller,” said Margaret. She returned her attention to Bridget. “Any number of girls have applied for this position. It is an excellent opportunity. You are being offered it based on your father’s recommendation. Mr. Wellington believes in employing members of the same family. I suggest you do your utmost to make the most of this.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  “Will you be requiring a room?”

  “Yes, she will!” Paddy answered for her.

  “No, ma’am,” Bridget disagreed. “We have little ones at home who require tending at night.”

  “Still, it would be good for her to have quarters in case she’s ever required to stay late and work on important garments,” Paddy insisted. “Work will always come first.”

  Margaret glanced uncertainly from father to daughter. “You may use the smallest maid’s room on the top floor at the end of the hall. It will be cleared out for you by tomorrow, but you will be free to go home in the evening if you so choose, as long as you return promptly in the morning. I will tolerate no lateness.”

  “That’s more than fair. Thank you,” replied Bridget.

  “And one more thing,” Margaret added. “Please return that doily around your shoulders to the hall table before you leave.”

  Bridget flushed with mortification. Why did she let her father persuade her to do these things? “Yes, ma’am,” she mumbled, not even able to meet Margaret’s eyes.

  “Very well, we will see you tomorrow,” Margaret said, dismissing her.

  Bridget turned and left through the tall wooden doors. When they were again in the hall, she exploded at her father in a furious whisper as she yanked the offending lace from her shoulders. “Why did you tell her I was an expert seamstress?”

  He stepped back as though she’d struck him. “You should be all smiles and thanking me,” he replied. “You got the job, didn’t you?”

  “And why did you tell her I needed a room? Have you forgotten about Eileen and Liam?”

  “That room is important. You want to live here and become part of the household. Liam can go stay at the firehouse with Finn or board with me in my room in the carriage house. They won’t even notice him.”

  “What about Eileen?”

  A thoughtful, slightly guilty look passed across his face. “I saw Mike O’Fallon last night. He has a sister who lives upstate who might take her on for a bit.”

  “No!” Bridget objected forcefully. “Eileen stays with us. We’re her family! I’ll not have you fobbing her off on strangers. We wouldn’t know how she was being treated. We might never get her back.”

  “That apartment costs money,” Paddy reminded her. “I’m sure Mike’s sister is a fine woman.”

  “Our apartment rent is paid to the end of the month, isn’t it? So, we’ll keep Liam and Eileen there until then, and I’ll think of something in the meantime.”

  “All right,” he agreed. “You three sleep there until the end of the month, and then we will discuss this again. At the moment, you might thank me for getting you this fine position.”

  “Thank you,” she said as she put the piece of lace doily back onto the hallway table.

  “How are you, my babe?” Bridget greeted Eileen as she came in the door almost an hour later. She scooped the girl into her arms.

  Bridget saw that Eileen had been changed into a clean jumper. “You’re doing a good job, Liam. Sorry you have to stay here all day. A boy of
eleven should be in school. Go outside and play for a while. Da gave me a whole dollar for supper, so I bought a beef bone, vegetables, and milk for a proper supper, and there are three eggs for the morning, too.”

  “Thanks,” said Liam, racing out the door.

  She found the old food-stained jumper and, with Eileen toddling beside her, washed it in the hallway sink, wrung it, and headed back to the apartment. She set Eileen on their shared mattress with a rag doll she had fashioned for her. “You play here while I hang this on the fire escape to dry,” she instructed her sister.

  Shoving open the window, she climbed out onto the metal perch and hung the dripping cloth over the railing. The heat and clatter of the outside immediately assailed her. How different this world was from the one she had just left, and yet only blocks apart.

  What would she wear to work tomorrow? What would the others in the household think of her in her shabby skirt and cloddish boots? She worried about the “fashionable” young daughters of J. P. Wellington. What would they be like?

  “Are you lost in the American dream?”

  “Huh! What?” she sputtered, startled from her thoughts.

  Ray Stalls was slightly over her head and to her right, climbing down from the roof on the fire escape beside the one she was on.

  “What are you doing out here?” she asked.

  “I like to sit on the rooftops and read,” he answered. “It’s cooler up there. These fire escapes are new, you know. The government made the landlords put them in not more than ten years ago. Before that, when these wooden tenements started to blaze, you were trapped like a rat inside. The landlords don’t care about the poor people who live in their buildings; they never would have put them in if they didn’t have to. I find them convenient for getting around.”

  “What are you? Some kind of burglar?” she asked, thinking of the cash he’d produced the night before.

  He chuckled scornfully. “If I were that, I would not be swinging around the monkey bars here in this neighborhood. What would I steal?”

  She flushed slightly, admitting to herself that this was true. She felt foolish for not realizing it herself.

  “Have you sobered up yet?” she asked.

  He gazed at her with that steady, deep stare that so unnerved her. “Are you really that stupid?” he replied.

  “I beg your pardon!” she exclaimed, scowling indignantly. “I’ll not stand out here and be insulted by the likes of you, who go swinging around on a building in the early evening and who was seen staggering drunk the night before.”

  “I wasn’t drunk, you silly girl,” he stated, his mouth quirking up at the side in an ironic grin. “One of the men I was talking with told me that the cops were looking for your father and your brothers. You can thank me that the three of them are not rotting away over in the Tombs.”

  “The what?”

  “Prison! At the very least they’d have sent them across the East River to Blackwell’s Island to the workhouse for the drunk and disorderly. Who knows when they would have gotten back if they’d been sent there?”

  “Why should I thank you for that?”

  “Why do you think?” he countered cannily.

  In truth, the reality of what had happened was dawning on her. He’d thrown himself on the police and enticed them with the sight of so much cash. Maybe he had even bribed them. “I see,” she admitted. “Did it cost you much?”

  He crowed with laughter. “Once I led them far enough away, I took off running.” He swung around the rail of his fire escape and leaped lightly onto hers. He stood there, balancing effortlessly on the railing.

  The precariousness of his position left her speechless. “Do come down,” she implored, “before you fall.”

  He dropped down easily in front of her. “I left them in the dust and kept my money,” he boasted.

  “And you risked all that for my father and brothers?” she questioned.

  “No. I did it for you.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Why do you think?”

  Before she could say anything more, he once again flipped over the railing and scrambled away with an acrobat’s ease.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  In the Grand House

  On her first day at J. P. Wellington’s, Margaret showed Bridget to the room that would now be hers, on the top floor where the servants lived. It was large enough for just a narrow cot and a small dresser. The only view visible from its high, narrow window was that of blue sky. Still, it was immaculately clean and even smelled of lavender. “There on the bed is your dress and smock. I have visually estimated your size, a skill you will learn,” Margaret told her. “Put it on and report to the sewing room on the floor below.”

  The outfit was a plain blue cotton dress with a loose-fitting, darker blue cotton smock over it. Simple as it was, it felt luxurious to her because it was clean and new.

  The sewing room couldn’t have been more different from Mrs. Howard’s sweatshop. Sunlight streamed in through many opened windows. Wide tables were strewn with the most gorgeous fabrics she had ever seen. Four headless dressmakers dummies were positioned throughout the rooms; three were female forms and one was a male of good height with broad shoulders. “Is this for Mr. Wellington’s suits?” she asked Margaret.

  “Mr. Wellington Junior,” Margaret clarified as she seated herself behind a shiny black sewing machine with the name SINGER printed in cursive lettering on its side. “Mr. Wellington Senior has his suits made for him exclusively in London.”

  “How old is Mr. Wellington Junior?”

  “He is eighteen,” Margaret answered. “Now, enough chatter. This morning I am making a gown for Miss Elizabeth, and you will assist me.”

  During the course of that day, Bridget quickly became accustomed to answering to the name Bertie. Margaret used it often.

  “Bertie, get the lace trim from that drawer.”

  “Hand me those shears, Bertie.”

  “Bertie, cut along these lines.”

  Bertie Miller. It had a nice, modern, American sound to it. New country. New life. New name. She might enjoy being Bertie Miller, she decided.

  She was relieved that the stern Margaret apparently had not believed any of Paddy’s false claims about her sewing ability. Margaret left Bridget, now Bertie, to do the mundane tasks of cutting pattern lines she expertly chalked onto the fabric. She had her do the pinning and the cutting, keeping the more complex aspects of the job for herself.

  By five o’clock, the largest of the female dummies wore a gorgeous green brocade dress with velvet trim of dark chocolate brown, with a lace collar edged in tiny pearls. In the back of the gown was the same kind of flounce she had observed on the women in the park on the day they’d seen the gigantic hand with the torch. “Do these women truly have such large rears?” she asked, fingering the extra fabric in back.

  Margaret looked at her in surprise, but then the smallest flicker of a smile crossed her thin lips. “A bustle goes in there.”

  “Pardon?”

  “It’s a kind of basketlike structure that gives the dress its fashionable shape.”

  “Well, that’s a relief, ma’am,” Bridget, newly Bertie, said. “I thought the poor things must be truly misshapen.”

  “You didn’t,” Margaret gasped.

  “Well, it was hard to believe, but I couldn’t figure any other reason for such a shape,” she admitted.

  Margaret studied her a moment. “I believe you will be learning a lot here, Bertie. Clean the scraps and toss them in the bin over there. Put the extra fabric into that paper bag over there.”

  “Yes, ma’am.”

  While Bertie tidied, Margaret took out a pad and swiftly sketched the dress and wrote some measurements on the paper, also an address. “Bertie, I’m sending you to the milliner’s shop.”

  The what?“Pardon?” she inquired.

  “The hatmaker,” Margaret explained. “This hat-maker’s shop is east of here at this address on Fourteenth Stre
et. Give them the material and trim on that table. Tell them I want a hat of the latest fashion suitable for making calls in the afternoon to go with this dress. Ask them to adorn it with feathers, preferably from a pheasant, and to spare no expense. Make sure to find out how soon they can have it ready. I don’t show Miss Elizabeth anything until all the parts have been completed.”

  “Yes, ma’am. I’ll be happy to,” Bertie agreed, smiling. She couldn’t believe she was being entrusted to leave the building and go out on her own on her very first day. She had never seen a hatmaker’s shop and was excited to embark on the adventure.

  “Don’t get too excited,” warned Margaret. “I expect you to return promptly.”

  “Understood, ma’am,” Bertie assured her. “I’ll be quick about it.”

  “See that you are,” Margaret said.

  In minutes Bertie was scurrying down the stairs, carrying a brocade bag full of the material. She was on the staircase, nearly to the bottom floor, when the front door opened and the hallway exploded with the sound of raucous male laughter.

  Two young men in their late teens stepped inside. The first one in was tall and broad-shouldered. Thick blond hair curled over the top of his opened white shirt collar. From the fact that his form so closely matched that of his dressmaker’s model in the sewing room, she assumed he must be the junior Mr. Wellington.

  His chortling companion was shorter and heavier, with tight curls cut close to his head. He had kept his jacket on but loosened his tie and collar. The two of them were engaged in the discussion of something that obviously caused them great amusement.

  As Bertie came toward them, they noticed her. “Hello. Judging from your smock, I’m guessing you’re the new sewing girl?” Mr. Wellington Jr. inquired.

  “Yes, sir.” She had never seen a fellow so good-looking. He was indeed like a prince from a story, though instead of a doublet and cape he wore a crisp white shirt and slung a town coat over his shoulder.