Follow the Heart (10 page)

“Dorcas and I needed to see if you had any gowns suitable to be seen in society.” Edith tossed the afternoon gown onto the bed. “It is a good thing we checked. You have a few that are acceptable, and I do believe Miss Bainbridge will be able to alter others into something presentable before next week. Papa said we are to have Miss Bainbridge fill out your wardrobe with whatever else is necessary.” Edith tossed another gown onto the bed. “What have you in the way of jewelry?”

Kate clenched her teeth tightly to keep her jaw from hanging open at her cousin’s audacity. Taking a deep breath, she turned to the dressing table and took the large lacquer jewelry box out of the bottom drawer. She set it atop the vanity, opened it, and stepped away.

Dorcas smiled and exclaimed over several pieces, but her older sister seemed harder to impress. After fingering every piece in the box, Edith turned with a sniff.

“From what I can tell, there are many fine stones, but the pieces are small and terribly out of date. Have your maid take the box to the steward and tell him I said to have Father’s jeweler reset all the stones into more fashionable pieces.”

Kate rushed forward, slammed the lid of the box closed, and grabbed it to her chest. “I will do no such thing. These were my mother’s, and they will remain as they are or I will wear no jewelry at all.”

A flash of fury flickered in Edith’s icy eyes before her face settled into an expression of haughty indignation.

“Edith, I think the jewelry is lovely just the way it is,” Dorcas rushed to say before Edith could speak. “Once her gowns are altered, any jewelry she wears will look lovely.”

Kate had suspected since the day they met that Edith was not accustomed to being crossed. And rather than conciliatory, Dorcas’s tone just now had been nervous, as if she were unaccustomed to gainsaying her sister.

Fortunately, Edith backed down and didn’t fight with her over the jewelry, so Kate decided to give in on having her gowns altered. She would be the first to admit that the majority of her wardrobe was plain and out of date, most of her everyday gowns being more than five years old. She saw no reason to spend money on new clothes when what she had was serviceable. Also, Dorcas and Edith wore brighter colors and bolder patterns than her muted grays, lavenders, blues, and browns.

Right now, in fact, Edith wore a gown in a glaring blue-and-orange plaid—though with Edith’s black hair and flashing blue eyes, she could handle the strong colors and large pattern. Kate had fought with her dressmaker in Philadelphia over the garish pink taffeta of the ball gown her father had forced her to have made for the New Year’s Eve ball. Kate had seen a burgundy she’d much preferred, but the dressmaker had been ordered to put her in a bright color.

She shuddered, remembering the night of the party. No matter what the Buchanans’ seamstress did to Kate’s gowns, she’d still be the old maid no man in his right mind wanted to marry. Especially not when standing beside her younger, much prettier, wealthy cousins.

“Girl!” Edith snapped.

Athena stepped from the shadows behind Kate, with a timidity and fear that riled Kate’s anger toward her cousin. The maid bobbed her knees in a quick curtsy without raising her eyes from the floor.

“Fetch Miss Dearing’s trunk.”

Athena scurried from the room after another curtsy. Kate would apologize to her later, when Edith wasn’t around. Dorcas seemed to notice nothing amiss with her sister’s high-handed manner. Would something happen every day to remind Kate of how differently things were done here—and how much she missed her old life?

The next two hours were spent with Kate watching Edith and Dorcas—mostly Edith—go through every thread of clothing Kate owned and deciding which gowns were “serviceable,” “salvageable,” and “not fit for the rag heap.”

Much to Kate’s dismay the only garment Edith took no issue with was the pink ball gown, with its flounces and ruffles and fripperies that made Kate feel like mutton masquerading as lamb. She had a feeling her experience with the dressmaker would be even less agreeable.

“The first of our guests arrives within the hour.” Edith looked down her long nose at Kate’s afternoon dress, a light blue with a darker blue floral print. “I suppose that will have to do. But have that maid do something else with your hair. Ringlets do not become you. Your face is too long and narrow—the ringlets on the side make it look longer. See what she can do, but do not be late coming down to the great hall to greet our guests.” Edith swept from the room.

Dorcas followed her sister, throwing Kate an apologetic glance. “I think when your hair is swept up from the sides and the curls cascade down the back, you look lovely.” She raised her hand in a wave and closed the door behind her.

Kate dropped into one of the chairs at the small table. Every gown she owned lay draped across the bed, the second tall-backed chair, and the shepherdess chair beside the fireplace.

Crossing her arms on the table, she laid her head down. But instead of weeping, she laughed. Laughed at the absurdity of her life. Laughed at the cruel joke God seemed to be playing on her, allowing her to develop feelings for Andrew when she could never marry him. Laughed—because if she didn’t, she might not ever leave this room again.

C
HAPTER
S
EVEN

K
ate climbed out of the carriage in front of a row of buildings on a side street in Oxford. She turned to wait for her cousins to join her—but neither seemed at all in a rush to alight to the street.

Edith leaned forward, her ice-blue eyes matching the frigid air. “Dorcas and I have many calls to make, so it will be a few hours before we return for you. If you finish with Bainbridge before we return, there is an acceptable tea shop next door at which you can wait and watch for us.”

The footman snapped the carriage door closed at Edith’s nod.

Well, that was that. With a shake of her head, Kate lifted her skirts and turned. Overhead hung a shingle with faded blue lettering indicating this was indeed the establishment of
Miss Bainbridge, Seamstress
.

Kate turned in a slow circle, taking in the picturesque scene. On either side of the narrow, cobbled street stood two blocks of three-story row houses, each one differentiated by color or style, and each with a shingle hanging over the door to indicate the business that took place inside: Miss Bainbridge’s seamstress shop—with its tall windows, each displaying a ready-made dress to show her skill and knowledge of the latest fashions—the tea shop next door, a music shop across the street, a flower shop beside that with a display of hothouse flowers in its wide windows.

This street was Oxford’s High Street in miniature, and Kate quite liked the quaint quietness of it. She wondered if the greenhouses at Wakesdown provided flowers for the shop across the way, and whether Andrew’s plans for expanding the hothouses took into account providing flora and produce for the benefit of those who did not have the luxury of year-round growing. She would ask him next time she saw him—it would give her the perfect excuse to strike up a conversation.

Kate entered the seamstress’s shop. She paused just inside, allowing her eyes to adjust from the watery gray glare outside.

“I will be with you in a moment. Please feel free to browse the fabrics and notions while you wait.” A dark-haired woman looked up from where she measured ribbon for a customer.

Miss Bainbridge was apparently not only a seamstress, but a shopkeeper as well, with dozens, nay, hundreds of bolts of cloth piled from floor to ceiling on shelves lining all four walls of the room. Down the middle of the room were tables displaying spindles of ribbons, lace trims, buttons, ready-made collars and cuffs, undersleeves, and every other accessory a woman’s gown might need.

The bell on the door sounded, and Kate looked up in time to see another customer exiting. The dark-haired woman came out from behind her cutting table, sliding her shears into a deep pocket in her apron. Kate guessed the woman to be about her own age.

“I am so sorry to keep you waiting. Miss Dearing, I presume? I am Cadence Bainbridge”

Kate nodded. “It was no bother to wait. You have a lovely shop, Miss Bainbridge.”

“Oh, please, call me Caddy—everyone does.” She looked around the room with a critical eye, as if seeing only tasks needing doing rather than the wonder of fabrics in every color nature provided. “My shop girl is away visiting family.” She sighed, then turned a smile on Kate again. “But no matter. Shall we retire to the back room to get started, Miss Dearing?”

At Kate’s nod, Caddy Bainbridge turned over a wooden plaque hanging in the window of the front door so the word
Shut
showed to the street. She withdrew a key from another pocket and locked the door. “Now we shan’t be disturbed. Follow me, please.” She led the way to her workroom in the back where three young apprentices worked diligently on various projects.

After Kate declined tea or other refreshments, Caddy had her strip to her chemise and drawers—insisting on the removal of even Kate’s corset so she could get her true measurements.

Caddy moved around with an economy and speed Kate wished all dressmakers possessed. Even though a coal brazier glowed red in the corner of the room, Kate’s skin crawled with the chill creeping into the room by the time Caddy finished measuring her.

“You are very nearly perfectly proportioned,” Caddy declared, making a final notation in her book. “I was not certain when you came in—but now I realize your corset was doing you no favors.” She crossed to one of the many chests of drawers lining one wall of the room. She set her book and pencil atop it and opened the middle drawer.

The corset she withdrew was similar to the ones Kate owned, looking to be of white cotton; however, it appeared a different shape—and it had no straps to go over her shoulders.

Holding the front of it in place so Miss Bainbridge could lace it in the back, Kate could feel the differences. Rather than ending just below her waist, the front came to a point that almost reached the juncture of her legs. At the sides, the waist nipped in severely before flaring out over her hips.

“Blow out all your breath.” Caddy caught Kate’s eye in the full-length mirror, a determined glint in her eyes.

Kate took in a deep breath, then released it in a rush and held it while the seamstress pulled the laces as tight as she could.

Kate’s ribs protested the pressure of the new shape, and she wasn’t certain she liked the additional tightness around her hips and lower abdomen. She closed her eyes and prayed for Caddy to be finished tugging and pulling on the strings soon.

“Now . . . breathe.”

Breathe? Kate’s chest and stomach felt so constricted she wasn’t certain air would be allowed in. But by taking in slow, shallow breaths, she managed to right herself before dizziness could overwhelm her.

Opening her eyes, she saw herself in the mirror—and gasped. She set her hands to her newly defined waist, shocked at how much smaller it looked. Surely that was worth the pain she now experienced, wasn’t it? Her stepmother had always told her how much men prized women with small waists; thus the need for corsets. Would this help her gain a husband?

“Now, let us see what we can do about your gowns.” Caddy crossed to Kate’s trunk and opened it so the lid rested against the wall.

“What is wrong with them, really?”

She watched Caddy debate between giving an honest answer or a flattering one. Thankfully, she opted for honesty. “Most of your gowns seem to be several years out of date. You may have noticed that rounded waistlines are no longer popular. The style is now for the dropped point—though with the advent of ever fuller and wider skirts necessitating more and more petticoats and crinolines underneath, the deeply dropped waist of just a year or two ago is rising again. And the skirts on most of your morning and afternoon dresses are too narrow.”

“And what is to be done about narrow skirts? It isn’t as if they can be let out, can they?”

Caddy shook her head and helped Kate step into a plain linen petticoat. “The note Miss Buchanan sent over with the trunk said that if I was unable to match the fabrics or alter the gowns, new ones were to be made.”

Kate’s skin burned with embarrassment—and no little frustration—over the way her younger cousin was directing her life at the moment. “I see.”

Several starched and quilted petticoats later, Kate finally donned the first of many gowns under examination. With the new corset, the bodices of most of her gowns needed to be taken in. Yet most did not work with the addition of layers beneath.

She learned that her sleeves were all wrong—no one wore straight sleeves anymore. The rage was all for bell or pagoda sleeves, necessitating the undersleeves that covered her arms from wrist to just above the elbow. The shoulders rode too high, too close to her real shoulders. And the dinner dresses and ball gowns—why, the necklines were completely outdated. They should be rounded in front and covering just the tips of her shoulders, not coming to a point in the center and cut high enough on the shoulder to cover the straps of her old corset.

With each gown Kate donned and Caddy marked and pinned, the seamstress’s expression grew more grave. And Kate could understand why. With the new undergarments, none of her gowns fit her the way they should.

Finally, Caddy, who had been ripping out the hem of Kate’s brown traveling dress to try to make it long enough to cover the bottoms of the petticoats, sat back with a sigh. She pushed up to her feet, gave Kate’s figure a long look in the mirror, then met her gaze.

“I have an idea. Take this off, and I’ll be back in a moment.”

The dress buttoned down the front, so it proved easy enough to remove—though she did so with caution, since she had no desire to be stuck with any of the pins now glittering throughout the fabric.

Caddy returned with an armload of fabric in a blue-and-gray pattern. “I was making this for someone else, but when she saw the fabric, she decided she did not like it and chose something more colorful.” She held up the dress.