After a minute or two Madame Noelle whirled around and faced Pauline. “How’d you manage the pelisses?”
Ah,Pauline thought.She’d hoped to make it impossible for them.But how would that have served her? “We had some expert help.”
The woman nodded and pursed her lips.
And then, the oddest thing happened. Her face reddened, the corners of her mouth tensed, and her lower lip began to tremble ever so slightly. After that, Madame Noelle’s small, dark eyes filled with tears, which overflowed and trickled silently down her cheeks.
Before Pauline’s amazed stare, the woman who had been a veritable dragon, who wielded power over her underpaid seamstresses without mercy, seemed to cave in upon herself, as if whatever had stiffened her body so she could stand uprighthad been soaked in liquid and lost all its rigidity, like a starched neck cloth as it was being plunged into hot water. Pauline rushed to her, took her arm, and led her to the chair. “Let me get you some water. Or perhaps a cup of tea. Sally!” Pauline called.
The workroom door opened and Aloysius started to come in, but Pauline turned and shooed him out. He cast her a puzzled glance. When he caught sight of a distraught woman’s back, he nodded and retired again.
“You better tell me all, Madame—Miss Norton,” Pauline said, kneeling down next to her chair.
Miss Norton sniffed. Pauline fished a handkerchief out of her pocket and handed it to her. She mopped her eyes and blew her nose with a honk and said, “I thought I could do it. I said I could, but my girls, they’re no good. Not like you and Miss Hastings—Lady Bridlington as is now.”
For the next few minutes, Eunice Norton explained to Pauline that she had taken the order for these garments two weeks ago, but had been entirely unable to complete it. Desperate, she had tried to figure out how she might somehow salvage the situation. “I remembered you and Miss Hastings. Ye think yer all the crack now, like nothing could touch you, and I thought,I’ll see if I can’t make her squirm.So I wrote that letter and dropped it off to you. I figured if I could get you to do the work and then pretend it was mine, I’d save my shop.”
Pauline wanted to remain angry and unforgiving. How could she! This woman—who had treated her like a lowly servant when she worked for her—had made seven people who had better things to do on a holiday give up all their time for a job that they needn’t have done. It wouldn’t have been Madame Pauline’s that suffered if the order wasn’t complete. It would have been Madame Noelle’s. So it was all a lie, a hum.
She desperately wanted to be furious. She had a store of bitterness toward the woman who had worn throughseamstresses and kept those that showed any initiative from advancing themselves. She needed to hold onto her righteous anger.
But it was Christmas. And Augusta had a baby girl. And in the other room, only a thin door away, was a young man she had somehow fallen in love with during these two intense, stressful days. This thought brought an involuntary smile to her lips. Perhaps she should be grateful to Miss Norton for creating those unusual circumstances. She would never have got to know him, or seen how talented and capable he was, or realized that he liked her. Of course, she thought, sobering up instantly, it was more than likely now that Mr. Cooper wanted nothing to do with her. She had lost him his job, after all.
But the enigma of Miss Norton remained.
“If it’ll help you,” Pauline said after mulling over what Augusta might say in her place, “go ahead and take the gowns and pelisses and cloaks back to your shop and say you and your seamstresses made them. Make sure you’re paid a goodly amount for them! All I ask is that you give me enough to pay the seamstresses and tailors who gave up time with their families to help me, thinking that the reputation of this place hung in the balance.”
Miss Norton raised her red-rimmed eyes to Pauline, her mouth agape. “You don’t mean it. After what I did…”
“We can all do things we’re not proud of when we’re desperate.”
Or smarting out of jealousy, she thought. Pauline had spared little sympathy for the effect the new, popular modiste—the winning collaboration between a lady of theton,a canny seamstress, and an accomplished haberdasher—might have had on her old employer. While they all reveled in the joy of attracting so many of the customers who used to flock to Madame Noelle, no one considered the consequences theirsuccess could have on that lady’s business. Madame Noelle—Miss Eunice Norton. She had seemed so entrenched, so permanent. Although a part of Pauline thought Miss Norton deserved what happened to her after having been so unkind to the girls who worked for her, she never wanted her to lose her livelihood.
Miss Norton dried her tears and took a deep breath. “No,” she said, and looked straight at Pauline. “I don’t deserve to profit from your work. It’s true what everyone says, that you have something special here. I can see it. I gave you hardly any instructions, and you’ve created real beauty. It’s time I faced up to reality.”
She stood and held her hand out to Pauline. “I’ll see you are reimbursed for the materials and the labor. After that, I’ll wind up my business.”
“What will you do then?” A surprising lump obstructed Pauline’s throat, and she cleared it.
Miss Norton shrugged. “Does it matter? I’m too used to being my own mistress to be a seamstress again. I suppose I could apply to be a dresser to a fine lady.” She drew in a deep breath. “A servant. But at least it’s honorable work.”
Pauline felt the crushing weight of her former employer’s downfall. She wished she could do something, think of some way to help her overcome her difficulties, but at that point she was just too exhausted. Tomorrow she would go to see Augusta and tell her about Madame Noelle. She would know if there was anything they could do.
Miss Norton walked toward the door of the shop, chin high, back straight, without looking at Pauline again. The bells tinkled and a blast of cold air swept into the showroom as she left.
CHAPTER 15
The telltale bells told Cooper that Pauline’s customer had gone. Ah well. He thought he saw the hint of a smile in Pauline’s eyes in that brief moment when she realized the work had been completed in her absence. Was the smile for him? What did it matter though? Even if the customer paid her handsomely, his help with the task wouldn’t be enough to earn her respect, not now that he could no longer truly call himself a journeyman tailor. He would put a brave face on it. He needn’t spoil her Christmas, which should be full of joy, with Lady Bridlington’s baby and all.
But when Pauline entered the room, it wasn’t as the brisk, businesslike modiste who was ready to conquer the world of theton,and who had overseen a commission that should have been impossible.She was a small, fragile girl bending under a weight of responsibility. Cooper understood then how she must have to bear the burden of everyone who worked for her, especially those who had put themselves to great effort to help her in these past few days. What had happened in the other room? Did the mysterious customer refused to pay her? It had to be something.
Not caring whether he was being forward or what she would think of him, Cooper walked right up to her and said, “MissDawkins, why don’t you sit yerself down and have a rest. You look done up.” He took her elbow, intending to lead her to a chair at one of the worktables. But she turned such a pained look on him that without thinking, he wrapped his arms around her and pressed her head to his chest, nestling it beneath his chin. “That’s no way to look on Christmas morning,” he murmured into her hair.
What was he doing! He was about to apologize and let her go when she started to shake and gripped the lapels of his coat, pressing herself even more closely to him. When she sniffed, he realized she was weeping. Why? “’Ere now! What’s all this?” He took hold of her shoulders and held her a little away so he could lift her chin with his finger and gaze into her sorrowful eyes.
“Y-you must hate me. She must hate me! Poor Madame.”
Tears streamed down her face and she hiccuped with uncontrolled sobs. He understood. It had been quite a time, between the anxiety over the sewing and her concern for the countess. It was a lot for one small person to bear. But what did she mean “poor madame?” Cooper looked up toward Mr. Gordon, who raised one eyebrow and quietly slipped out of the room.
