The Crimson Thread (Once Upon a Time)

by Suzanne Weyn

  “You’re an angel!” said Bertie, hugging her.

  From the restaurant, she went to the cellar Ray had shown her. With a heavy pattern book gripped under one arm and a carpetbag of thread and needles in her other hand, Bertie climbed down the cellar stairs into the basement room. She had told Da to have a crate of fabric delivered outside the alleyway door, because it was the only place she could think of to work without constantly being interrupted by Liam or Eileen.

  She knew J. P. was right about the rage for everything Chinese. She’d noticed the trend coming in the fashion journals the Wellington girls left behind in the sewing room. She’d observed the shift toward rich, jewel-toned, embroidered hats in the bonnets in the Parisian sisters’ shop. How had James missed it?

  From the carpetbag she took an oil lantern and lit it. The loom and spinning wheel were still there and looked somewhat improved. Ray must have begun working on them.

  Going back to the alley, Bertie began dragging down the heavy crate of fabric. It thumped down the first two steps and then got away from her. She jumped out of the way as it slid past her, crashing open at the bottom of the steps.

  Hurrying down the stairs, she bent to inspect it. Dark blue material sat inside in a straw packing material that seemed flecked with gold strands. Sifting it through her fingers, she saw it was a mixture of straw and some other kind of gold-colored strips of material. It had probably been added to make the straw softer and less abrasive.

  She lifted the blue fabric, holding it out in front of her. It was indeed of good quality, with a slight shine to it, but not at all in fashion.

  Sitting cross-legged on the dirt floor that had been strewn with straw, she began to page through the pattern book. The designs were lovely, but she could think of no way to make them work with this material. Her father had promised something shining and remarkable and new. How was she supposed to accomplish that?

  It was hard to stay mad at Paddy, he was so well-intentioned. She knew he saw this as her chance to advance, to jump forward faster than years of steady toil would accomplish, to catch J. P. Wellington’s attention and to dazzle him. But he was such a dreamer!

  And now he had put everything in jeopardy: his job, her job. Without either of their salaries, how would they live? It was getting cooler by the day. If they lost the apartment, Eileen would never survive in a mission shelter for the homeless; her health had become so frail.

  This was hopeless! She had no idea where to begin. Why even try?

  Dropping her head, she let hot tears roll down her cheeks. Crying unabashedly felt like such a relief that she quickly worked herself into a state of fullblown sobbing. Bertie was crying so hard that she didn’t hear Ray come down the stairs until he was beside her. “Hey, now,” he said, squatting beside her, “what is the matter?”

  “Oh, it’s such a disaster!” she told him, wiping her eyes.

  “Tell me,” he prodded.

  Bertie tearfully recounted the day’s events.

  When she was done, he got up and examined the blue material. Then he flipped through the pattern book. He ran his fingers through the packing material, examining it with keen interest. “Do you still have the crimson thread I bought you that day?”

  “Yes. I had it in my room at the Wellingtons’. I figured that if I would ever need it, this was the time.” She took the spool of shimmering red from her skirt pocket and tossed it to him.

  “I can do this for you,” he said. “What will you give me if I do?”

  “I have nothing,” she replied.

  He grinned slightly. “You have more than you think. When this is done, we will negotiate the price.”

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN

  Spinning Straw into Gold

  The next morning Bertie entered J. P. Wellington’s study and greeted her anxiously waiting employer. With flaring nostrils she swallowed the yawn that welled up in her throat. “Good morning, sir,” she addressed him, covering her mouth with one hand.

  She’d come directly from the basement room, where she had slept for only two hours just before dawn, curled in the corner of the room, while Ray finished his work. She couldn’t imagine what she looked like and nervously pushed back some of the curled tendrils that had escaped her frayed hairdo.

  The bag she held contained the results of Ray’s labor. He’d drawn a pattern in tailor’s chalk directly onto the back of the blue material and pinned it using her as his model.

  While he had labored on the dress, he’d put her to work picking out the gold cloth from the straw. She’d worked until exhaustion finally closed her bleary eyes.

  Just before she fell asleep, he had been working at the old hand loom. In his lap he held a pile of the gold strips she had sorted out of the packing straw and the spool of crimson thread.

  In the morning he’d shaken her awake, thrusting a gown wrapped in the blue fabric into her hand. “You had better hurry,” he advised as she’d sleepily brushed the straw from the floor out of her hair. “It’s six thirty,” he added, looking at a watch he took from his pocket. “I just finished.”

  Having rushed uptown, sometimes running, she now stood before J. P. Wellington without even having seen the gown. “I see you have brought the dress,” J. P. prodded. “Should I call one of the girls to model it?”

  “It’s fitted to me, as I was the only model available,” she explained.

  “Then go put it on!” J. P. exploded. “What are you standing there for?”

  “Yes, sir.” She hurried into the library and locked the door behind her. Freeing the dress from the cloth, she took a swift, sharp breath in amazement.

  How had he done it?

  Holding the gown out in front of her, she beheld an exquisite strapless evening gown the likes of which she had not seen in any of the sketches in the pattern book. The blue fabric formed the body of the gown, which was nipped in at the waist with a skirt that gracefully draped to the floor.

  Appliquéd and embroidered up the entire side of the skirt was a swirling, gorgeous design of Asian-inspired red chrysanthemums.

  Immediately she saw that he had used her crimson thread to expertly create the embroidered design.

  And incredible as this was, even more spectacular was the crimson cape meant to be worn on top of the gown. The staid blue fabric had been re-created into a luxurious, rich material with a pattern of swirls and lines as if the starry cosmos had been captured within the folds of the fabric. And the pattern appeared to have been woven of pure gold!

  But where had he gotten this gold?

  A closer inspection gave her the unbelievable answer.

  The packing material!

  That’s what he had been doing on the loom. He’d woven the bits of gold fabric, interspersing them with more bits of the golden thread—and even with the straw pieces—to create this magical cape!

  Someone pounded on the door. “We’re waiting to see your creation, Bertie,” James spoke from the other side. “Are you ready?”

  “One minute,” she called, delaying him.

  As she pulled off her dress, the last pins in her hair came loose and her thick curls tumbled past her shoulders. She would have to pin it back up after she put on the gown.

  She stepped into the gown and fastened the cape just as another knock came on the door. “Are you dressed yet?” This time it was J.P.’s demanding, impatient inquiry.

  Frantically she clutched at her hair, but there was no more time left. “Yes, I’m ready,” she said, unlocking the door.

  J.P. and James stepped into the library and circled her. Both looked thunderstruck, and they gazed at her speechlessly.

  J. P. stepped closer and took the hem of the cape between his fingers, examining it. “Beautiful,” he murmured.

  “Yes, beautiful,” James echoed, gazing at Bertie as though seeing her for the first time.

  Alice, Catherine, and Elizabeth hurried into the library at that moment. “Holy horses!” Catherine cried. “What a dress!”

  “Oh, it�
�s divine,” Elizabeth agreed. “Is it in your new line, Father? I didn’t see it in the pattern book. I must have it. The Autumn Ball is next week. I had a gown I was planning to wear, but I hate it now.”

  “Bertie is closest to my size,” Catherine argued. “Have her make a different one for you.”

  “Margaret can adjust it to fit me,” Elizabeth argued. “It’s much too grown-up for you. You’re only just making your debut this fall. I simply have to wear this gown.”

  “Bertie, I need two more dresses of this type, but in styles more suitable to younger girls,” J. P. said. “I can give you two days to create them. Can you do it?”

  “I don’t know, sir, I—”

  “If you can, I will give you a sizable bonus. I will also hire you to work alongside James at Wellington Industries for a handsome salary—a very handsome salary, indeed. If not, I will assume that this was a fluke, something you could do only one time, and it will be of no value to me. Your services here will no longer be required, nor will your father’s. Do you understand?”

  “Yes, sir,” she replied.

  “Please agree to do it, Bertie,” Alice pleaded. “I would so love a dress even half as beautiful as this one.”

  “Yes! Yes! Please!” Catherine cajoled. “If I can’t have this one, I need something like it.”

  “But I stayed up nearly all night,” said Bertie. “I can’t do it another night.”

  “Can she have more time, Father?” James requested. “It’s reasonable. The poor girl is only human.”

  “All right. Today is Thursday. You may take the rest of today and tomorrow and the weekend to work,” J. P. allowed. “But I must have the dresses by Monday so they can be fitted properly. I want my daughters to wear them to the Autumn Ball and create a stir. I need a calendar full of orders by the end of the month.”

  “Do it, Bertie,” James urged her. “We would make such a great team.”

  She nodded, her nostrils flaring once again with a suppressed yawn. “I’ll try,” she said.

  She would do it too. For the chance to work side by side with James, she would do anything.

  CHAPTER FOURTEEN

  Angry Words

  Bertie was hurrying home around nine in the morning. J. P. Wellington had told her to go start on the other dresses immediately. She was lost in thought when Ray stepped out of a doorway just before her building. “So?”

  “They loved it! You’re a magic man!” she said, throwing her arms around him impulsively. “You have saved me yet again. Thank you, a million times, thank you.”

  He put his hand on her back and rocked her joyfully. “I was glad to do it, princess.”

  “They want two more, but I’ll make them myself,” she said, stepping out of his embrace. “I can’t ask you to do it again.”

  “They won’t be as good,” he said.

  Bertie wanted to take offense and call him conceited, except that she knew he was right. “Your work is better than mine. It’s amazing, in fact,” she admitted. “I truly think you are a genius.”

  “I know it, though it’s always nice to hear,” he said with a grin.

  “If you wouldn’t mind helping me one more time, perhaps this time you could show me how you did it, so that later I could do it myself without asking you for help,” she suggested.

  “You need sleep,” he noted. “Be at the room at seven tonight and we will make two more dresses.”

  “Thank you,” she said again.

  “Don’t thank me. Remember, we are negotiating a payment.”

  “Of course,” she agreed, without giving her words much thought.

  Bertie got home and found Liam sitting in bed with Eileen, showing her the pictures in a book Maria had brought with her the night before. “Maria will be coming back at lunchtime with something called spag-haddy for us,” he told her.

  Eileen stretched her arms to Bertie for a hug. “Ria is nice,” she said, her flaxen curls bouncing around her pale face.

  The little girl puckered her lips for a kiss, and Bertie kissed her lightly. “How is my girl today?” she asked.

  “Eila loves Bridgy,” she said with a smile. Bertie took hope from these words. Maybe Eileen was finally improving. She seemed livelier than she had in weeks.

  “Liam,” Bertie said, fishing five dollar bills from her dress pocket. “Run an errand for me, would you? See if you can find some cod and potatoes for supper. And with the money that’s left, go to the thread man and look for the red, shiny thread exactly like the kind I had. Remember the spool of it I showed you? Buy as much of it as you can afford. Tell the man you want crimson thread.”

  “Sure thing,” he agreed, clearly happy to be set free from the apartment for an outing.

  “Be back in time for the spag-haddy,” she reminded him as he flew out the door.

  Bertie played with Eileen until the child went down for her nap. Since she’d become ill, Liam had reported that she slept more than ever. This day it was a relief, since it allowed Bertie to nap beside her.

  She awoke with the noon sun blazing in her eyes and Maria shaking her shoulders. “Lunch is here, sleepyhead. I brought you something from the restaurant. Come eat and tell me everything.”

  Liam ran in with his bag of groceries for supper and poured the change onto the table. “The thread man says he’s all out of the crimson thread,” he reported.

  “Oh, no!” Bertie cried, throwing her hands up despairingly. She swiped the change into her hands. “I’ll look later and maybe find something equally nice, though I doubt I’ll find anything as beautiful.”

  With Eileen on her lap, she sat at the table with Liam and Maria and shoveled spaghetti into her mouth. “Slow down. Are you starved?” said Maria, laughing.

  “I had no supper or breakfast,” Bertie realized. “This is wonderful.”

  “I told you it was.”

  They looked at Liam and Eileen, both of whom were completely covered in tomato sauce, and laughed. “Spag-haddy is the best!” Liam announced gleefully.

  When Liam and Eileen left the table and began a game of tag around the apartment, Bertie told Maria everything that had happened. “If they like these two dresses, Mr. Wellington will hire me to work alongside James,” she concluded.

  “The boss’s son, the one you’ve been mooning about after?” Maria asked.

  Bertie nodded excitedly. “Maria, I wouldn’t be a servant in his eyes any longer. I’d be his partner, his coworker. He said he thought we’d make a great team. Suddenly it might be possible for . . . well, you know.”

  Maria clapped her hands together delightedly and hummed “The Wedding March.” Then she frowned with concern. “But what about Ray?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Does he know that he’s making these dresses so you can be with the rich and handsome man of your dreams?”

  “He doesn’t, but I don’t see what difference it should make,” replied Bertie.

  “Of course it makes a difference, Bertie,” Maria insisted. “It will make a big difference to Ray. Don’t tell me you don’t see it. The man keeps helping at every turn because he’s madly in love with you.”

  That night, once again, Bertie left Liam and Eileen with Maria and went out to meet Ray at the basement room. He was already at work when she climbed down the cellar stairs, this time at the spinning wheel. Beside him was a piece of the blue material that had been hacked into with a blade and was almost completely shredded.

  “I am spinning it into new material,” he explained. He was twisting the blue into the gold pieces from the packing material and even with the bits of straw. The resulting thread was a luminous blend of gold and blue. The straw produced a skein of thread that had body and an unusual nubby texture. “This will be our accent material for the new dresses. Once I weave it together into cloth on the loom, I can use it for collars, belts, cuffs, flounces. No one will ever have seen anything like it; at least not in this country.”

  “Did you learn to do this as a boy?” she
asked.

  He nodded. “The cloth making is from my grandmother, yes. People said she had magic hands and that I inherited them from her. The dressmaking I learned from various dressmakers and tailors I’ve worked for.”

  “The design of the first dress was so unique,” she said. “Did you see it somewhere?”

  He tapped his head. “I saw it in here. I imagined it on you.”

  Watching him work, she remembered Maria’s words. Was he really madly in love with her?

  Of course he was. He’d made it clear enough.

  And did she feel something for him in return?

  This was a more difficult question to answer. She felt something, to be sure. But what was it? It was certainly nothing that the logical part of her brain could give a name to. He was not what she would rationally desire in a man.

  “You are so kind to me,” she said, stepping closer to him, and then faltered. How could she possibly tell this man that she could never love him? That was what she needed to say, because it was the right thing to do. But he had been kind, and she didn’t want to hurt him.

  “You keep telling me you expect payment, but you don’t say what it will be,” she said, deciding on another approach. “I would feel better if I could pay you and I hope that if I get this job with Wellington Industries, I will someday be able to do so.”

  “I have money,” he replied with a note of irritation as he continued his work. “I don’t need your money. I do this for you.”

  “You know that we will only ever be friends,” she said, speaking quickly.

  He stopped spinning. “And why is that?”

  “Because I don’t love you.”

  He turned and looked at her with that direct, piercing gaze that made her feel he was seeing into the depths of her heart. “You’re wrong,” he stated.

  She shook her head. “I’m not wrong.”

  He returned to his spinning. “I can see you more clearly than you can see yourself,” he insisted.

  She sat on a crate, her head on her hands. What could she do now? She had told him honestly how she felt.