Slammerkin - Emma Donoghue [73]
Mrs. Jones put her hand under the hem to catch the light. 'My draper in Bristol assured me it's the very latest thing. This one's promised to Mrs. Fortune for the Shrove Ball. She says if I sell stripes to any other lady in Monmouth, she'll see me ruined!'
Mary joined in the laughter a little absently. She walked up to a riding-habit in fine green wool and brushed it with one finger. Her mouth watered as at the smell of a cut lemon.
She turned to Mrs. Jones. 'You made all these? Madam,' she added belatedly.
'Aye, but not the hats,' said Mrs. Jones modestly. 'Them and the gloves I have sent down to me from Cheltenham.'
Mary tried to remember what she'd made her mother say in that letter about the poor orphaned daughter's sewing skills. She'd never seen finer work in the shops of Pall Mall. Her eyes took the measure of a jacket in blue watered tabby. 'This'll be a casaquin, I suppose?' she said casually.
'Lord bless you, no, you innocent!' laughed Mrs. Jones. And for the next hour she explained the difference between a fitted casaquin and a caraco like this one, and a pentelair which was really a cross between a jacket and a sack gown but shorter, and a palatine and a mantelet and a cardinal, and, most importantly between a round gown and an open gown, not to mention a wrapping gown and a nightgown (which was worn only in the day). Mrs. Jones had strong views on what was à la mode, what was démodé, and what was likely to be the coming thing. The first rule of cut was, Be true to the cloth. The first rule of business was, Give the customers what they want.
As she spoke, Mrs. Jones unfolded a length of brown silk so thin Mary thought it would feel like the wings of a moth. Mary kept nodding, but she was too distracted to take it all in. She watched the chintzes, satins, and damasks eddying in the draught.
'And this is Mrs. Morgan's slammerkin, or some would call it a trollopee; a loose sort of morning gown. She's wife to our Member of Parliament, you know.'
Mary hid a grin. The harlots all wanted to dress like ladies and the ladies returned the compliment, it seemed. Mrs. Morgan's unfinished dress was white velvet; it hung from a hook in the ceiling as if it were being poured out. 'Is she beautiful?' she asked, on impulse.
'Mrs. Morgan?' The dressmaker's mouth pursed in mild distress. 'Well, no. I'd be telling a falsehood if I said so.'
'A pity,' murmured Mary. Above the flaring scalloped edge of the gown's train a tiny pattern had begun to spread. She looked closer: apples and snakes, in silver thread.
'I've been flowering it for a month already,' said Mrs. Jones, with a tiny sigh. 'If I do a very good job and it's finished by August, Mrs. Morgan might be persuaded to come to us for her daughter's first season, don't you know!'
Looking up into the silvery folds, Mary promised herself something: she would learn to make clothes like these. And what's more, someday she'd wear them. Her fingers closed on the ice-white hem; the pile felt as deep as fur.
'Have a care,' said Mrs. Jones.
Mary pulled her hand back as if she'd been burnt.
She knew she wasn't trusted, yet. It was only to be expected.
After tea that afternoon, for instance, Mrs. Jones locked up the little chest and pocketed the key. As if Mary would nick a scoop of her cheap China tea!
The first thing Mary did when she finally reached the attic room, late that night, was to pull The Whole Duty of Woman out of her pocket and drop it into the stained pot under the bed. The last thing she wanted was a book to tell her how to be a good maid. She could rip out the pages one at a time to wipe her arse.
On the flat pillow, Abi's face was blank with sleep. She wore no night-cap; her hair was a bristling storm cloud. The bones of her face caught the faint starlight. She looked older now; something about the set of the jaw.
Mary slid in beside her and lay at the edge so as not to wake the maid-of-all-work.