Page 24 of The Rebel of Seventh Avenue

The next morning Julia Marshall arrived late and in a hurry, keen to get on with the final fitting of two summer day dresses. The fashion at that time was to have a long straight skirt, with a much shorter overskirt that almost ballooned at the hips. This worked well with tall, willowy women, but not with Mrs Marshall, so short and petite. The dresses I’d made her had high waists with long, straight skirts and deep slits either at the back or off-set at the front so that she wasn’t hindered when walking. This style made her seem taller, more authoritative; it was a style that gave her confidence.

That day she seemed unusually shy about undressing in front of me.

‘Would you mind going into your studio whilst I change?’ she said as she inspected the dresses hanging in front of her. She hadn’t met my eye since her arrival.

‘Don’t you want help dressing?’ I asked.

‘No, don’t be ridiculous,’ she snapped. ‘I’m perfectly capable of dressing myself.’

I took a slow, deep breath, keeping my frustration inside. Sometimes this was the way it was with customers. There were days when they weren’t in the mood for chitchat, didn’t want fussing over, had no time for fun and frivolity. This was rare for Julia Marshall, she’d recently told me that her afternoons with me in the salon would give her renewed energy, a boost of confidence, as if the act of dressing was putting on a fresh layer of paint, bright and hopeful.

‘Of course, Julia. I’ll just go and find the organdie roses we’ve been making that go with the sash and can be applied to your hat.’

‘I would suggest you refer to me as Mrs Marshall from now on.’ I could almost touch the frost in her voice.

As soon as she said this, I knew that this would be our last meeting.

‘I assume your behaviour last night means that you won’t be getting rid of those…’ It seemed as if she couldn’t bring herself to say what she was thinking. ‘…those girls.’ She spat the words out. ‘I assume you’ve been laughing at me behind my back ever since they started working for you. I won’t have them touching anything that I wear. I won’t have them anywhere near my outfits. Do you hear me?’

‘I’m afraid that’s impossible. They work on every gown we make.’

‘Then get rid of them. Get rid of them or I take my business elsewhere.’

‘But surely you still want this dress. Oti has spent hours over the hand-stitching on the sash. Have a look.’ I grabbed the dress off the hanger, trying to curb my rage. ‘Can you see those tiny stitches so that the gathers on the organdie sash ruffle up naturally.’ I wanted to bring the detail up too close to her face, but I held back, holding on to the shake in my hands.

Julia Marshall blanched, as if I had pushed a tiny dagger in under her ribs and then twisted it.

She looked at the sash, then down at the sleeve of the dress she was wearing, one we had completed about three months previously and touched the lace.

I couldn’t help it. ‘Yes, Oti made that dress too. And while we’re talking about Oti. Do you remember that dress I wore when you bumped into me at the St Regis and I promised I would introduce you to the person who had designed it?’ I was so angry now that I couldn’t stop. ‘Oti designed it. Why don’t I go and get her and I can introduce you?’ I made my way to the door between the salon and the studio.

‘Miss McIntyre,’ she almost shouted. ‘I do not want to meet this so-called Oti. I do not want this dress, nor the other one on the hanger. From now on I will be taking my business elsewhere and I will be telling all my friends what it is that you do here, what kind of women you employ. It won’t be a secret anymore.’

Furiously, she picked up her bag and left the building.

That rage, roaring in my chest, quickly turned to a strange euphoria. I wanted to laugh openly, knowing she would have been able hear me as she went down the stairs. I felt lightheaded, giddy with childish glee, with an unexpected relief; I wanted to throw open the salon window and shout out to her as she reached the street, shout about her prim rigidity, laugh at her shock that someone with black skin had made her dress, had made so many of her outfits. But, of course, I couldn’t do that. Those were the reactions of a hysterical person, someone who didn’t know what to do next.

But now I had a large mortgage to pay as well as an increasing wage bill. That euphoric anger quickly dissipated, leaving me shaking and needing to sit. Losing Mrs Marshall as a customer was a catastrophe for my newly expanding business. Not only did she commission us to make most of her wardrobe, but she encouraged all her friends and acquaintances to come to us too; she was our sales department, she helped us organise our fashion shows, she influenced the guest list, she had all the connections that we needed to get our work to the right audience. And now she was gone.

The ending of my working relationship with Mrs Marshall brought on a prolonged period of creativity. It was a kind of mania. I didn’t sleep, I worked long hours, and my ideas went well beyond my usual everyday designs. The atmosphere in the salon became more relaxed and, finally, I was able to make Oti our official Premier and introduce her to all our customers.

But, as predicted, we quickly began losing customers. Soon there were days when we didn’t have enough work to keep everyone busy.

About two weeks after Mrs Marshall had resigned her business, I was moving into the apartment that had belonged to my old landlord, Mr Franke and his family. It was a Saturday and I had the building to myself. The apartment vacated by the Frankes was glum and sparse: the ground floor window shutters were painted black, the walls a gloomy grey, spiderwebs in every corner, mould in the kitchen. The only furniture was a table carrying my old sewing machine, no longer used in the studio, new and more efficient models having been bought, but I loved that old sewing machine and I’d had it brought down to sit in front of the main window and where I could use it to make brightly coloured curtains for the main living area, and smaller, more discreet café curtains to hide the open shelving in the kitchen. My first job was to paint the small apartment – a living area, kitchen, bedroom and tiny bathroom. Since I had little work to do I’d decided I should do the painting myself, so was happily spending the morning up a ladder painting the room white. Paint was expensive, especially coloured paint, so using white and then dressing the room with colourful curtains, cushions and wall hangings was how I intended to turn the dark, cheerless area into somewhere that I wanted to be, somewhere that would be my very first home.

I’d completed one coat and was just preparing to get started on the second when there was a knock on the front door and a man’s voice saying, ‘Hello! Anyone at home?’

Frowning, I recognised the voice but couldn’t quite place it, I put my paintbrush down and went to the door to find Carter, Mrs Marshall’s chauffeur.

‘I have a delivery for you from Mrs Marshall. Going to need your help to get it in.’ He turned to the street where there was a small truck.

‘What is it?’ I asked, unable to think of anything Mrs Marshall would want to send me.

‘Every single dress, coat and skirt you have ever made for Mrs Marshall.’ The tall, ruddy-faced man gave me an uncomfortable look. ‘She’s been in a terrible rage these past few days, there’s nothing her staff can do that’s right. Even Mr Marshall has decided it’s best to keep away from her just now, staying at his club. She was going to throw these all away but, you’ll be surprised at this, Mrs Marshall Senior persuaded her to send them back to you. She thought you might appreciate them. I’m not so sure. Have you got the space?’

‘Space is about the one thing I do have,’ I said as I trotted down the steps towards the back of the truck. There were six hanging rails filled with Mrs Marshall’s wardrobe. The very first dress I saw was the peacock-blue evening dress. I climbed up onto the back of the truck and held the fabric between my fingers. A rush of nostalgia hit me: the terror after I’d stolen the bolt of peacock-blue material, the feeling of triumph as I found myself in first-class on the SS Furnessia , the whirlpool of emotions on my arrival in Manhattan, my first visit to The Plaza Hotel. All these sensations rippled through me, temporarily blotting out my lack of customers, my reputation, my need to look after the women who worked for me. That blue silk conjured up the optimism and na?ve confidence I once had in myself, reminding me that I could have that all over again.

‘Well, we’d better take them in,’ I said to Carter.

Half an hour later, Carter and I had wheeled and carried all the hanging rails into the other empty ground floor apartment.

‘What will you do with them?’ asked Carter.

I walked around the rails, picking up a skirt of chiffon, a dress of pale-green silk, a burnt-orange military-style coat. Just as I was beginning to think that I was flattered that she’d kept everything, every single outfit I’d made, I noticed that on the skirt I was holding there was a long cut from the hem to the waistband. I picked up another skirt and again, a long, precise cut had been made in the middle of the skirt. I looked at every piece on the hanging rails. Each one had been cut, just one long cut, in the front of the skirt so that it couldn’t ever again be worn as it currently was.

I looked up at Carter, showing him a large yellow satin skirt cut right up the middle. His face turned a deep red.

‘Oh, miss. That’s the behaviour of a spoiled child. Bad manners, that is.’

What spite. I never knew Julia Marshall capable of such malice. But an idea suddenly occurred to me and I started riffling through all the outfits again, noting the jumble of colours, textures and weights of fabric, and I began to think of how these dresses could be re-used, how I could keep everyone in work and how I could bring in some money quickly. I wasn’t sure that it could work, but it might just create an immediate stopgap for our current crisis.

‘Well, Carter, I think I’m going to cut them up. Destroy them.’

He took his hat off and nervously scratched at the back of his head. ‘Is that wise? Can’t you do something with them? Maybe patch them up? Re-use them.’

‘Don’t worry, Mr Carter, I have a plan. Please tell Mrs Marshall, with as much pleasure as you can muster, that I’m thrilled to have every item of her wardrobe and I’ll look forward to cutting them up into little pieces.’

I ushered Carter out of the front door and sat down at my sewing table to draw, all thoughts of painting gone from my mind.

Monday morning Oti found me in pile of cut-up dresses, skirts and coats.

‘Lord in heaven, what are you doing?’ She rushed over to the pile of fabric. ‘You’re cutting these up? Are you mad?’ It seemed as if she was stricken, her face full of horror as if she’d discovered pieces of art being defaced.

I told her about the delivery Carter made. ‘She doesn’t want them. We need work and we need money quickly. These have presented the perfect solution.’

‘How?’ She picked up Mrs Marshall’s pink dress worn at our first fashion parade.

‘Look at these,’ I said, pointing out five cushions that I’d made the day before. ‘These cushion covers have been made out of the fabrics from these dresses. And here.’ I pointed to a lampshade. ‘I’ve made this out of one of her summer coats. There’s a whole treasure trove here and we can quickly make cushions, lampshades and other small household items, using these fabrics. There’s nothing like these out there. If you look at the cushions in the shops you’ll see that they tend to be made from upholstery or curtain fabric. But here we’ve got all these wonderful colours, silks and satins, tweeds and jerseys. No two cushions will be the same, and we can combine two different fabrics, say two tweeds of differing patterns or a combination of three different coloured silks in a bold patchwork. The patterns and combinations are endless. We’ve got so much fabric here, all for free. All we need is the cushion pad, some thread, sewing machines and our women upstairs to work them up. We could get through this work in just a few weeks and we’d have enough stock to sell up to Christmas. Don’t you see?’ I stood up and started pacing the room. ‘We can open a small shop selling home goods, completely different to anything anyone has ever seen before. Do you remember Elsie de Wolfe? The woman who’s designing the inside of the new Colony Club. I bet you she’d be interested. And there must be others who’d take these. We’d have to think up a name to sell them under – not Maison McIntyre, that name isn’t too popular right now. Maybe something like Maison Rouge, or something else French, then that would give it some sort of mystery, make the customers think these have come from France. Then, maybe one day, we could branch out into furniture, other soft furnishings, turn it into an emporium. Oh, that’s what we should call it! An emporium, maybe the French Emporium, then that gives it an oriental feel. And we can use the cushions in the salon, give the room a little bit of a lift, and hopefully some of our customers will ask where they came from. We can send them to the emporium and they’d buy some for themselves.’ I was becoming a little breathless and the ideas bubbling over.

Oti put her hand to her forehead. ‘You’re giving me a headache, you in one of your design frenzies. Can you stop for just a minute?’

She picked up one of the cushions. I’d made it out of a bright pink, deep pink and an almost maroon, all of a thick silk, three large stripes graded in colour. The back of the cushion was one piece of bright-yellow taffeta.

‘I can tell I’m not going to change your mind on this one,’ Oti sighed. ‘Haven’t we got more important things to be dealing with, like finding new clients?’

‘We’ve got the new designs to finish for the August parade, so we’ll keep most of the staff on those. We only need a few to make up these cushions and lampshades and anything else I come up with. Once we get going I think we’ll only need two or three weeks to use up all the fabric we have on these dresses, and when those are finished, then, hopefully, I’ll have found a few new customers and we can get on with the business of haute couture. It’s just a stopgap, something to generate some money and keep everyone busy. I couldn’t bear it if we had to let any of those women go, it wouldn’t be fair, just because Mrs Marshall doesn’t like the look of some of them.’

‘How are you going to organise all of this, when we’ve got all the autumn designs to oversee or do we get one of the others to take charge of it?’

‘Flavia. She has a good eye for colour and design. I think that once I’ve told her what ideas I have she’ll easily work out what I’m trying to do.’ I picked up a piece of green fabric. ‘Wouldn’t it be lovely to have a cushion with these sequin embroidered birds on?’

Oti tutted, shaking her head, but there was a smile in her eyes. ‘Okay, have it your way. Just when we thought we might have a moment to catch our breath, you go all frantic and come up with new ideas.’

The next two months were spent creating a range of soft furnishings unlike any I’d seen in Manhattan. Having given Flavia the role of managing the project, the first thing she did was take the empty apartment across the hallway from mine and turn it into her own workroom, where she could work with me to create the designs and then supervise three of the women who were not busy in the upstairs sewing room. Cushions and table linens, lampshades and wall-hangings were soon piling up in what had once been a bedroom. Giving Flavia this responsibility made her stand taller, draw her head higher, no longer keeping to herself; now we could hear her voice and see her face. She used almost every single scrap of the material from Mrs Marshall’s dresses, producing a hum of excitement in the studio that I hadn’t heard since our first fashion parade, everyone seeming to understand that what we were doing was different, something that might get noticed. What would Julia Marshall think of her dresses being turned into household items? That simple question always made me smile.

But at the same time, we were still a couture house, albeit with far less customers. We were at the beginning process of designing for the autumn/winter season, agreeing fabrics, number of designs, anticipating our customers’ wishes. Appointments had dried up so we were surprised when we received a knock on the door a few weeks after Mrs Marshall and all her friends had deserted us. Oti and I were in the studio, working on the new season’s designs when a Mrs Bailey Parsons was announced, requiring an appointment.

Oti and I stared at each other. Harriet Bailey Parsons, a recent New York resident by way of her even more recent marriage to the wealthy Maximillian Parsons from an old and well-established shipping family, was seen as one of the beauties of her age. But she had a reputation for being intelligent, thoughtful and empathetic, used to dining with senators and presidential candidates, wealthy industrialists and financiers. A member of the WSP, she clearly took her responsibilities seriously, often photographed in the papers lobbying influential politicians for the women’s vote, and, I’d noticed, her sense of style was astute and singular. My ideal customer had just walked through the door.

‘Go,’ I said. ‘She’s all yours. You talk to her and then I can pop in later and introduce myself, I need to finish up here.’

Oti blinked. With a slow intake of breath, then an even slower exhale, she stood up, hung her tape measure around her neck, picked up our most recent Book of the Season , a pad of paper and perfectly sharpened pencil, and opened the door into the salon.

I couldn’t help myself, but I tiptoed to the door and kept it ajar just slightly, enough to be able to hear their conversation.

‘Miss McIntyre?’ a kindly voice asked.

‘Oh, no, I’m Miss Jackson, Miss McIntyre’s Premier,’ Oti said. Only I would have noticed the slight wobble in her voice.

‘Good, just the person who I need to speak to. I wondered if you’d have time to show me some of your designs. You see, I rather urgently need a suit for a lunch party I have to attend with our senator, a coat for an outdoor event I must speak at and also an evening gown. I know I haven’t made an appointment, but I was hoping that you might be able to fit me in at the last minute.’

I finally let out my breath. Oti was on her way, and she didn’t need me.

‘You cannot imagine how terrified I was,’ she said after Mrs Bailey Parsons had left. ‘She’s taller than me and big boned too, a booming voice – a presence in any room. But she was all smiles and kindness and proceeds to cosy down with me on the sofa, discussing these important lunches and dinners she needs to attend with stuffy politicians and fusty old men.’ Oti was sitting at her newly created desk, her pens and pencils neat and her notebook lying open, her tidy handwriting and a few small sketches filling the page. She was wearing her new Premier’s uniform – a black woollen suit with a tie-fronted shirt.

‘She was telling me that she’s been invited to give a street speech for the WSP, saying how nervous she is as she’s never had to make a public speech before, so she wants a coat that’s tailored “to perfection”. Those were her words.’ Her eyes were sparkling now. ‘I’m going to make sure we get it just right.’

That session with Harriet Bailey Parsons was Oti’s first as a Premier. And it wasn’t long before Mrs Bailey Parsons began sending her friends to Maison McIntyre.

Meanwhile we’d found a small shop for the proposed Emporium, as we’d decided to call it, on the corner of Fifth Avenue and 38th Street, just across from the new Lord our household range was eye-catching and radically different.

Two days before our autumn/winter fashion parade, I picked up my usual New York Times on my way into work.

ENGLAND DECLARES WAR ON GERMANY; brITISH SHIP SUNK; FRENCH SHIPS DEFEAT GERMAN; BELGIUM ATTACKED; 17,000,000 MEN ENGAGED IN GREAT WAR OF EIGHT NATIONS.

We all stared at the headline in the workroom, a quiet depression covering us all.

Simone picked up the paper, reading aloud the detail with a kind of fascinated glee that had me feeling a little sick.

Yulia crossed herself as Simone continued to read. ‘There are days when I curse the Lord for giving me five girls, but today I’d like to bless him. I’m sure we’ll be getting involved at some point. How can they ignore so much bloodshed in such a short time?’ She crossed herself again.

As the women chattered, surmised and speculated, I took myself into our tiny kitchen and put the kettle onto the stove.

‘You all right?’ came Oti’s voice from behind me.

I hardly knew what to say. ‘Just a little shocked at today’s news,’ I said, unsure how to tell her my real feelings.

She looked at me, crossing her arms, leaning against the wall. ‘Maisie McIntyre. I know you. You may well be shocked at what you’ve heard today, but surely this isn’t anything that you haven’t been expecting? I think you’re worried about the fashion show and if anyone’s going to turn up.’

I couldn’t help but smile. ‘Are you accusing me of being a ruthless businesswoman who only thinks about her profits?’ I teased.

‘Well, yes, ma’am, I do believe I am!’ She gave a little snort, looking down at her left arm and pulling a stray piece of wool off her jacket. ‘I know you better than anyone. I know you’re worried about how this business is going to survive without Mrs Marshall and now this happens. Couldn’t be worse timing. How can we possibly expect our customers to be going out and enjoying themselves in a brand-new Maison McIntyre dress when Europe is being decimated?’ As depressing as all of this sounded, she said this all with a wry smile on her face, as if she’d been expecting this reaction from me all along.

‘Maybe we should call off the fashion parade,’ I said quietly, checking through the door that no one was listening. ‘Since we hardly have any customers anyway, it’s probably the sensible thing to do.’

‘Oh no, don’t you dare.’ Oti wagged her forefinger at me. ‘Don’t you go getting all morose on me.’ She gestured towards the studio. ‘Think about those women out there, what would they think? What would Mrs Bailey Parsons think of you. I know what she’d say, she’d say you’ve got no gumption, no sticking power.’ She shook her head. ‘Oh no, missy, we’re all ready to go, there’s no backing out now.’

Three o’clock, the time for the parade to begin, was fast approaching and only ten women had made their way up our three flights of stairs into the salon, laid out with forty chairs. My stomach was churning, and my breath shallow. I would look a fool having to do this show with so few to watch. No press had even turned up. But just as I was thinking disaster had fallen on us, we heard running footsteps up the stairs and a young boy burst into the room.

‘There’s a note for you, miss,’ he blurted, so out of breath he could hardly speak, and thrust a piece of crumpled paper into my hand.

‘How do you know it’s for me?’ I asked, amused at the boy’s determination, his insistence that it be for me.

‘She said you’d be the lady that looked ill. She said your face would be white and that you’d be holding your stomach as if you wanted to be sick,’ he said at the top of his voice.

I had to smile.

‘I came all the way from the Colony Club,’ he breathed, still struggling for air, now bending over with his hands on his knees.

‘But that’s almost thirty blocks away. Surely you didn’t run all the way?’

He looked up, a cheeky grin overtaking his face. ‘I hitched a ride on the back of a carriage for twenty blocks, until they noticed and made me get off, so I only had to run a few blocks.’

I looked down at the note.

Miss McIntyre,

Please delay your fashion parade by half an hour. We’ll be with you as soon as we can. I couldn’t postpone our meeting at the Colony Club, but I’ve arranged for several cars to bring us to you the minute we’re finished.

Yours

Harriet Bailey Parsons

Again, I had to smile. I turned to the small group of women who had gathered in one corner.

‘We’re going to be running a little late, but perhaps you’d also like an exclusive preview of a couple of our dresses?’

Half an hour later, Harriet Bailey Parsons and twenty other Colony Club members made their way up our stairs and into the salon, chattering and full of enthusiasm for an intimate fashion parade.

Every single woman who attended that fashion parade ordered at least one of our autumn/winter models. Thirty-nine designs ordered, including three for Mrs Bailey Parsons. How on earth were we to deliver all of those and open a shop?

As we were putting together the last-minute touches for the opening of the shop, a note was delivered to the studio.

Dear Miss McIntyre

As you may know, Paris is too seriously occupied with war responsibilities to consider the question of dress, and this maybe for some time to come. Mrs Vanderbilt, Mrs Stuyvesant Fish, Mrs August Belmont and myself have decided to organise a fashion fête as an incentive to create new designs in New York, which has become the logical successor to Paris in fashion, with London, Berlin and Vienna also cut off.

The proceeds are to be devoted to the Committee of Mercy organised by Mayor Mitchel and Mrs J Borden Harriman for the relief of women and children made destitute by the European war.

I would like to invite you to submit two designs to this fashion fête for the approval by the committee. These designs should be available for our perusal on October 4th, with the fête taking place over three days, beginning on November 4th at the Ritz-Carlton.

If you could contact me at your earliest convenience for a meeting to discuss the event.

Yours,

Mrs Woolman Chase

Editor-in Chief, Vogue

Oti held the note in her hand.

‘You’re going to have to say no to this. How in God’s name are we going to manage that as well as deliver all those outfits? We’re overstretched as it is. No, you’ve got to refuse this one.’

‘Too late. I’m seeing her tomorrow,’ I said briskly.

We were having our regular early morning coffee, in the coffee house across the street from the studio, before anyone else arrived. ‘We can’t turn this down. All those ladies who buy their fashions in Paris and London, they can’t get there anymore, no designs are coming over, no fabrics are making their way from Europe. Don’t you see? We can’t wholly rely on the patronage of Mrs Bailey Parsons – look where that got us with Mrs Marshall. We need to make sure we secure the jobs for everyone in the studio, not just for the next few months, but for the foreseeable future.’ I paused, taking a sip of my coffee. ‘Besides, we should be doing something for the war effort. Making dresses for well-to-do women doesn’t exactly make us seem sympathetic to the war. I’m worried about Yulia, with all her extended family back in Russia. What if my sister’s husband gets called up? I want to be able to look them in the eye and say I did something to make a difference.’

Oti raised an eyebrow. ‘Look at you getting all selfless and big-hearted. You sure this isn’t just about you trying to prove yourself to Mrs Marshall? You know she’s going to be there, don’t you?’

‘Ach, who cares. We’ve moved on from her already. We have a new type of woman to dress. Women who are independent, women who have jobs, women who can think for themselves, women who want to stand out because they want to make a difference. We will stand out at this fashion fête, because we are like the women we want to dress, and we will produce designs that suit their frame of mind.’

‘Oh, Lord. Here you go.’ She stood up, straight and assertive in her Premier’s suit. ‘Well, you better let me go and find some more hand-sewers, and we should start looking to finding embroidery and finishing companies outside of our studio. We’ve got too much work to do it ourselves.’

Two days later the Emporium opened. The display window was filled with piles of cushions, draped wraps over armchairs, tables laid up with the linens and other homeware items we’d bought in to fill the space: candlesticks, picture-frames, table mats, crockery and cutlery, jugs and jars. Once inside, the room was a riot of colour, a mishmash of furniture, lighting, paintings, wall-hangings, tableware and more. It was the complete opposite to the organisation in the studio: nothing matching, everything appearing to have been thrown together, but in truth, Flavia had spent hours curating this space, she’d brought in all her family to help with dressing the shop, the women who’d worked on making the cushions and the other items had also come in after work to help. There was an air of excitement and exhaustion that you could almost touch.

We’d sent out invitations to all the old and new Maison McIntyre customers, not letting it be known who was behind this new venture. I didn’t keep it any particular secret, but I certainly didn’t mention my name on the invitations.

‘Oh Lord, look who’s coming through the door.’ Oti turned to me, her eyes narrowed. ‘Did you invite Mrs Marshall?’

A dual feeling of delight and horror swam through me. Smiling I said, ‘I might have mistakenly put an invitation through her door…’

‘Maisie McIntyre, you’re a wicked individual. You could ruin all of Flavia’s hard work, she could condemn this whole event, tell all her friends never to come here, spread the word that we’re frauds, that we’re taking advantage of her, that we’re…’

‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ I said as I watched Julia Marshall slowly walking around the shop floor. She greeted a few acquaintances, she frowned as she rubbed the fabric of a table cloth between her thumb and forefinger and then she became still. As she stood there, staring at a pile of cushions, all fashioned from the clothes we had made her, I could hear the banging of my heart in my ears, drowning out all other noise.

Slowly and deliberately she looked up and turned, watching to see what the other customers were doing. I could see her mind working at a frantic pace, her eyes taking in every item in the room. And then someone came up to her, greeting her effusively.

‘Julia, darling, have you seen these exquisite cushions? Can you imagine the use of these kind of fabrics? It’s as if they’ve taken my latest ball gown and rustled up a few soft furnishings because they had nothing else to use. I can’t work out whether it’s the work of a genius or someone who goes through the garbage bins of the Four Hundred. What do you think? Look at that embroidery on that pale-blue silk cushion. I could swear I’ve seen that somewhere before.’

Mrs Marshall blanched, doing her best to hide it as she coughed into her hand.

‘Well, I’d certainly say it’s the work of a clever seamstress.’ She threw a thunderous glance at me. ‘But I’d say it’s a bit of a fad, I can’t imagine how anyone would want these seen in their drawing rooms.’

As she spoke, I picked up one of the large paper carrier bags we’d had made, with the words Emporium printed on the sides, and rushed over to Mrs Marshall and her companion. I picked up two matching cushions made from the luscious olive-green velvet we had used in a sumptuous winter evening gown she’d worn only a few months earlier. It was embroidered with dark-green velvet birds’ nests, twigs sewn from metallic threads, the clusters of pearl eggs nestled between the fibres.

‘Mrs Marshall,’ I cried at the top of my voice. ‘How wonderful of you to join us today. I just wanted to make sure you got these two cushions, the ones we discussed. I know you wanted them for your drawing room as soon as possible.’ Carefully I placed them into the bag. ‘You know these are completely unique, you’ll never see another pair of cushions like this. I do hope they garner as much praise as you were hoping for.’ I handed her the bag. ‘Please do keep looking around, I’m sure you’ll find other items that will please you.’ I squeezed her arm before passing her the bag.

If it was possible for her to have become any paler, she would have done. Instead, her shoulders sagged, her hat seeming to follow suit.

‘The Lord will find a way of punishing you, Maisie McIntyre,’ Oti hissed at me as I returned to her side. But there was a smile in those dark eyes, a hint of impishness on her face. ‘Don’t you ever pull a stunt like that again or he’ll strike you down right in front of me.’ She crossed herself as if she was in front of the altar at church.