The Crimson Thread (Once Upon a Time)

by Suzanne Weyn

  “Please! Don’t call me sir! You can call me Master Wellington when my father or anyone else is around, and James when we’re alone. And what is your name?”

  “Bertie Miller.”

  “I like it. What a modern name. My friend here is George Rumpole, a former classmate at the illustrious St. Paul’s Academy, where we went to school until just barely graduating last June.”

  “Congratulations,” said Bertie.

  “No congratulations warranted, you can be sure,” said George Rumpole. “James was last and I was second to last in our esteemed class.”

  “Not for lack of brains, though,” James insisted.

  “No, not at all,” agreed George. “It was merely for lack of expending any effort whatsoever.”

  “Absolutely right,” James said proudly. “We graduated, did we not? And we had a blazing good time while getting to that point. I believe we should be congratulated for accomplishing our goal while economizing on effort and preserving our precious time so that it could be spent in the pursuit of far more entertaining endeavors.”

  “Well done, then,” Bertie said. These two were a lot of fun, and though they might be scalawags, they made her smile.

  “See? This girl understands what’s important,” James praised her. “Listen, Bertie Miller, there are some shirts on the chair in my room that are in need of buttons. Could you go in later and get them?”

  “Yes, sir.”

  “James.”

  “James.”

  That evening Bertie left her smock up in her quarters and went home wearing her plain blue dress. She knew she should have changed to keep it clean, but she couldn’t bear to take it off. As she made her way downtown through the increasingly noisy, odorous, dirty streets, she lifted her hem as high as she dared to avoid the filth from the streets.

  As she went, her mind swam with all the new terms and techniques she’d learned from Margaret. She could hardly believe the skill and speed with which the woman had cut out and sewn up the exquisite gown.

  Her journey to the milliner had taken her through the garment district, where she had seen shops of every kind specializing in all aspects of clothing manufacture. She’d seen shops dedicated exclusively to ribbon, lace, and many kinds of trimming, and some that displayed only one thing: a seemingly infinite variety of buttons of all descriptions. She’d seen large factories and small shops set side by side.

  The shop where she had been sent was narrow and wedged between two much larger establishments. On the front glass, etched in swirling calligraphy, was the name: LADIES’ HATS OF PARIS.

  Inside were two fashionably dressed ladies, whom she guessed, based on their resemblance to each other, to be sisters. The younger one smiled at her cordially when she came in. “Bonjour, mademoiselle. How can I help you this day?” she said in a French accent Bertie found musical and completely charming.

  The same younger sister studied the picture of the dress and examined the fabrics. “Madame Margaret is a genius! I can design a chapeau trés joli to set off this dress. I know just the thing.”

  Now, as Bertie approached her block, filled with peeled paint, dull browns and grays, and all the earmarks of dire poverty, she thought of these things: J. P. Wellington’s fine home, the gorgeous hat shop, even her neat, lavender-scented room on the servants’ floor. She hated to leave it all.

  A fierce longing welled up inside her. How could she get a life like this? It didn’t have to be a house like the Wellingtons owned. But to own a shop like the sisters from Paris—that seemed like paradise, and it wasn’t such an impossible dream, was it?

  She would watch Margaret closely, learn from her. She would acquire every skill that she could. Bertie stopped and leaned against a building, shutting her eyes to bring her little shop into focus in her mind. She saw her name engraved on a front window in the same fine hand as that on the hat shop: BERTIE MILLER’S FINE AMERICAN DRESSES. Using her new name would instantly announce that her shop would be modern and chic. Bridget O’Malley’s Dress Shop didn’t sound nearly as fashionable.

  Her eyes opened and she hurried on. As she left, James Wellington came into her head.

  You can call me James when we’re alone.

  A guilty shiver ran through her. Did he intend for them to be alone? It would be so lovely to be alone with him, to have his handsome, lively eyes focused only on her.

  That afternoon she’d picked up the shirts from his chair, and before bringing them in to Margaret, she’d lifted them to her face and smelled them. She’d inhaled the heady scent of woodsy cologne, and it had stayed with her. She could call it up even now.

  She stopped for a chicken thigh and a carrot on the way home. She added three potatoes to her bag, feeling that she could afford to spend all she had on a decent meal. With her groceries under her arm, she climbed the stairs to her building and was met by Liam on the top landing.

  “What is it?” she asked urgently, instantly reading the worried look on his face.

  “It’s Eileen. Something is wrong with her,” he said.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Crisis

  That night Bertie sat on the fire escape with Eileen in her lap, mopping the little girl’s feverish brow with a damp cloth. It was ironic, she thought; she now had enough money to feed the child properly, but Eileen couldn’t eat. Her throat was red and swollen. The glands under her fragile chin were like two eggs. At intervals, she hacked out a barking cough that seemed to rattle her small frame.

  A young woman appeared at the window—Maria from Mrs. Howard’s sweatshop. “I came by to visit you, and your brother told me you have a sick bambina,” she explained, climbing out onto the escape.

  “It’s true. I don’t know what to do for her,” Bertie said fretfully. “I’m glad to see you, anyway. Are you still with Mrs. Howard?”

  “No. I got a better job. Now I’m making pasta in the kitchen of a tavern. You ever heard of spaghetti?”

  Bertie shook her head and chuckled. “I don’t think I could even say it.”

  “You’ll love it. I’ll bring you some with tomato sauce.”

  “Potato sauce?”

  “Tomato sauce! Haven’t you ever had a tomato?”

  “Never,” Bertie admitted.

  “Oh, this is a strange city that has people who never ate tomatoes!” exclaimed Maria. “My mother grows them on our fire escape. I’ll bring you one, Bridget.”

  “It’s Bertie now—I’ve gone American,” she told Maria, and then filled her in on her new job at J. P. Wellington’s. She was just about to mention the good-looking James Wellington when Eileen interrupted them with another fit of coughing.

  “I hope it’s not the diphtheria,” Maria commented, frowning with worry.

  “The what?” asked Bertie, alarmed.

  “Has she got a sore throat?”

  “Terrible sore, and swollen.”

  Maria felt the girl’s swollen glands and nodded seriously. “It could be. Is her throat red or is it all filmy white?”

  “Red.”

  “That’s good. If it gets the film over it, it could be diphtheria. A bunch of children in my building had it.”

  “How long did it take for them to get well?”

  A guarded expression appeared on Maria’s face.

  “Tell me what happened to them,” Bertie insisted.

  “Two of them seem to be getting better,” said Maria, not meeting Bertie’s eyes.

  “And the others?” Bertie pressed.

  Maria shook her head.

  “They’re not improving?”

  “You’d better get her to a doctor,” Maria said.

  “What happened to those children?” Bertie demanded.

  “They didn’t make it,” Maria murmured.

  Bertie left Eileen in Liam’s care in the morning, not knowing what else to do. “Maybe it’s just a bug of some kind,” she said hopefully. “Keep wiping her all over with a damp cloth—that will keep the fever down. There’s chicken broth on the stove. I
t’s full of healthy things for a sick person. See if you can feed her some. We can’t let her get too weak.”

  “I don’t feel so good, Bridget,” Liam complained.

  She felt his forehead and shook her head. “I don’t feel a fever. Be strong, Liam. If you get sick now, what will I do? Try to stay healthy.”

  “How do I do that?”

  “I’m sure I don’t know. Try your best.”

  She arrived at the townhouse, panting from running the last several blocks, fearful of being late. She ran from the kitchen up to her room on the top floor and threw on her smock. She heard the grandfather clock in the front hall gong seven as she entered the sewing room.

  “Were you out carousing last night?” asked Margaret, who was already seated behind the sewing machine.

  “Pardon, ma’am?”

  “You have circles under your eyes, you’re pale, and your hair is a mess.”

  Bertie clutched the red curls that she’d thrown into a quick bun at home and realized they’d come mostly undone in her dash uptown. “Sorry, ma’am. It was a hard night because my little sister was taken with some kind of ailment and we didn’t sleep much.”

  “What kind of ailment?”

  “I’m not sure. My friend thought it might be dip-something.”

  The look of horror that ran across Margaret’s face made Bertie wish she could pull her words back out of the air.

  “Bertie,” said Margaret, “if your sister comes down with diphtheria, you are to inform me at once. We cannot have this household infected. Is that understood?”

  “Yes ma’am.” All Bertie truly understood was that she would say no more about Eileen’s sickness, and if asked, she would claim that the girl was better.

  Margaret kept her busy with sewing chores all day, and she didn’t have a moment to find Paddy or Seamus in the carriage house. At six, when she was dismissed, she went to look for them. “Da has gone to pick up Mr. Wellington at some ferry or boat or something,” Seamus told her excitedly. “I think it’s pretty far away.”

  “Tell him I need money for a doctor for Eileen,” she said.

  “I don’t think he has any,” said Seamus.

  “What do you mean he has none? He’s working, isn’t he?”

  “He went out with Mike O’Fallon last night and paid him back the money he owed him. He said he’s tapped out until next payday. Don’t you have any?”

  “I spent what I had on food before I knew Eileen was sick. Maybe she’ll be improved when I get home.”

  But that night a thick film formed over Eileen’s throat and tongue, as Maria had predicted it might. The little girl wheezed and coughed. “She can’t breathe!” Bertie realized, scooping the child into a blanket and heading out the door with her, not sure where she was going.

  She hit the street, wondering what to do.

  Ray Stalls was leaning against a building across the street, talking with another man. When he saw her, he crossed. “What’s the matter?”

  “She can’t breathe!”

  “Come on, follow me.” She ran behind him through the crowded street, racing down alleyways that led to other alleys. They hurried between two buildings where drunks weaved in front of them and a thuggish man stood with a shotgun. She had no time to worry about them. Eileen was wheezing harder and turning paler by the moment. “Come on. You’re too slow. Hurry,” he urged her over his shoulder.

  Then he stopped and took Eileen from her. “Go up these stairs,” he said, directing Bertie into a dark building and down a narrow hallway. When he reached the top, he yanked open a door and they hurried into a crowded waiting room. “Tell Dr. Umberto that it’s an emergency,” he told the nurse.

  The nurse, a short, dark-haired Italian woman, looked at the child in his arms and disappeared into an inner office. In a second she waved them in.

  Dr. Umberto was short and bald. The sleeves of his white shirt were pushed up to his elbows. “How long she like this?” he asked in a heavy Italian accent.

  “Since yesterday,” Bertie reported.

  The doctor laid Eileen on a table and took a narrow tube from a case. Prying her small mouth open, he fed it down the child’s throat. Eileen began to sputter and wheeze. “She’ll choke,” Bertie objected.

  “She no choke,” Dr. Umberto stated, without looking away from Eileen.

  “It’s called an intubation,” Ray told her. “I’ve seen it done before. They used to cut the throat open. This is much better.”

  The doctor nodded. “It’s true.”

  Eileen’s chest began to rise and fall more steadily. The nurse wiped the sweat from her face. “You should leave her here until her condition stabilizes,” she said with only the hint of an accent. “Come back in an hour.”

  “I have no money!” Bertie blurted without thinking.

  “I have money,” said Ray. “I can cover it.”

  “It is good thing you bring her in,” Dr. Umberto said. “You just make it in time.”

  A cracked, anguished gasp shot from Bertie’s lips. What was he saying?

  Would Eileen have died?

  She clapped her hand over her mouth, nauseated at the thought of it. Afraid that she would vomit right there, she lunged out of the office through the busy waiting room and into the dark hall. Leaning against its wall, she put her arm up and panted. The still coolness of the hallway slowly settled her lurching stomach, and her breath slowed. Ray stood beside her silently.

  Turning, she fell on his shoulder, sobbing. “I can never thank you enough. Never.”

  CHAPTER TEN

  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 some poor pheasant’s iridescently shimmering 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,” replied Margaret. 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 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 fire-house. 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. “Redheaded 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.”