The Dressmakers of London

Chapter Twenty-Four

Chapter Twenty-Four

Sylvia clutched her umbrella, doing her best to steady it in the rain. It was not the usual misty drizzle that often hung over London during the winter, but the sheeting rain of the spring that pounded the pavement so hard that it bounced back up and soaked the tops of her leather shoes as she hurried along.

She was just turning the corner onto Glengall Road when a lorry roared by, driving through a deep puddle. The mucky water splashed up across the pavement, drenching her.

Sylvia screamed in horror as the lorry sped off and left her standing dripping on the side of the road. Everything from the bodice of her dusty-rose dress to her stockings and shoes was now soaked and stained.

“Would you look at that!”

Sylvia turned to see Mrs. Reynolds, broom in hand, looking on from her shop doorway. She braced herself, expecting the grocery owner to click her tongue and say something caustic about how Sylvia had probably done something to deserve the soaking. Instead, Mrs. Reynolds asked, “Are you all right?”

“Yes, I think so, but my dress is ruined,” she said with a sigh. She would have to go home to change—when, she didn’t know because she had a stack of invoices to pay and a committee meeting looming over her afternoon before she would need to return to the shop to finish her work.

“Inconsiderate man,” grumbled Mrs. Reynolds. “He looked hale and hearty and young enough to serve, so I don’t know what he was doing behind the wheel of a lorry in London.”

“If ever there was an argument for women drivers, it’s this,” Sylvia said. A woman never would have driven off without a word.

“Is that what your sister’s doing?” asked Mrs. Reynolds.

“I beg your pardon?” she asked.

“Those of us around the neighborhood have been wondering about her. We know she joined the WAAF, but no one’s had any word from her,” said Mrs. Reynolds.

Sylvia hadn’t had much word from Izzie either recently. The last letter she’d sent Izzie had been a risk. When she’d sat down to write it, she hadn’t meant to detail their mother’s humiliation at the hands of the Sheltons. It had simply come out as she grasped for a way to try to make Izzie understand that there might only be four years between them but the sisters might as well have been from different generations.

“She’s on a barrage balloon unit in East Anglia,” she said.

Mrs. Reynolds nodded her approval. “All of that silk needs someone good with a needle to keep an eye on it.”

“I suppose it does,” she said.

“Do you know if she has to be out in air raids? I hate the thought that she might be in harm’s way?”

“I don’t know. I try not to think about it too much,” she said.

“I remember when your mother first opened her shop. You two were just children.”

“That was a long time ago,” she said.

“You were a bit of a terror, truth be told,” said Mrs. Reynolds.

“I don’t know about that,” she said with a laugh. When she saw Mrs. Reynolds’s brows raise, she quickly added, “I apologize.”

“It’s a lovely thing watching children grow up, even if they aren’t yours,” said Mrs. Reynolds. “We were all so proud of you when you married that man with his beautiful suits and his elegant manners. What was his name?”

“Hugo.”

“Mrs. Meed from the tea shop and I used to take tea with your mother every Wednesday afternoon. Mrs. Shelton managed to stretch out the details of your wedding for weeks,” said Mrs. Reynolds.

“My mother talked about my wedding?” she asked in surprise.

When she and Hugo had become engaged, she had been deluded enough to think that her mother and Izzie might play a central role in her wedding. That hope had lasted only until Mrs. Pearsall, Hugo’s mother, had set her straight. In one afternoon, Mrs. Pearsall had made her see what a burden planning a society wedding would place upon her mother and Izzie. Her fiancé’s mother told her how naturally a dress shop owner would be happy to see her daughter clad in the undeniable quality of a Worth gown. And it had been Mrs. Pearsall who had pointed out how awkward a fourteen-year-old would feel when standing up as a bridesmaid among all of those distinguished men and women who would naturally attend Hugo’s wedding.

The afternoon had been overwhelming, and Sylvia had walked away conceding everything Mrs. Pearsall had wanted. Yet it wasn’t until later that she realized that it would fall to her to deliver the news to her mother and Izzie. There would be no Mrs. Shelton’s Fashions bridal gown or trousseau. Izzie would not be a bridesmaid. Even wrapped up as she had been in Hugo and concerned as she was that she do nothing to embarrass him and risk the engagement, she could see the hurt in her mother’s and Izzie’s eyes as she told them.

Sylvia cringed now at the memory of it even as Mrs. Reynolds said, “We were all so proud. A Glengall Road girl made good. We hoped there might be news about a baby one day.”

“Hugo and I were not blessed,” she said quietly.

Mrs. Reynolds lifted her chin. “Your mother never said, but I suspected as much. Mr. Reynolds and I found that children were not in God’s plan for us either.”

There had never been any question of God for Sylvia and Hugo. It had been one of science, and one that, despite all of the years of appointments with specialists and recommended treatments, even a doctor of Hugo’s skill could not conquer. They’d never stopped trying for a child—not officially—but it simply had faded away from all of their conversations.

“You have my sympathy, Mrs. Reynolds,” she said.

A flicker of understanding seemed to soften the grocer’s expression, but then Mrs. Reynolds nodded curtly. “I should go back to my counter. Please pass along my well-wishes to your sister in your next letter.”

As Sylvia watched the other woman turn, she could feel where the cold water from the road had seeped into her dress and through her girdle. When she reached the dress shop door, she pushed it open, dropped her umbrella into the nearby stand, and immediately made her way to the back of the shop in search of a towel. She was picking at the fabric of her skirt when she nearly ran into Miss Reid.

“Oh! I didn’t see you there,” she said by way of apology.

Miss Reid’s brow crinkled. “You’re all wet. Didn’t you bring an umbrella?”

“Yes, but that didn’t stop the passing driver from dousing me with water from the road. I can’t greet customers like this.” She glanced at her watch. “And I’m due at a meeting at two o’clock. With the buses the way they are right now, I don’t know if I’ll have enough time to go home and change.”

Miss Reid pursed her lips and then turned on her heel and marched back in the direction of the workshop, leaving Sylvia watching her until Miss Reid called over her shoulder, “Are you coming?”

Something about the seamstress’s determination set her feet into motion.

In the workshop, she watched Miss Reid lift one of the shop’s cardboard delivery boxes and set it on the cutting table. Miss Reid worked the top of the box off and folded back the tissue.

“I can’t take one of our customers’ dresses,” Sylvia protested as Miss Reid drew a black garment free from the tissue.

“This isn’t an order,” said Miss Reid, shaking the dress out and revealing a simple garment with a slim skirt, gathers under the bust, and three buttons marching up the bodice. A modest shoulder pad gave the dress a slightly military effect.

“Then what is it?” she asked, peering at the dress.

“I didn’t see the harm in trying my hand at some patternmaking with your sister’s designs, so I fetched the sketchbook from the office bookshelf.” Miss Reid glanced her way as though trying to read Sylvia’s reaction. “I worked for your mother for nearly twenty years, Mrs. Pearsall, and I won’t say a bad word against the woman. However, she was wrong about Miss Shelton. This is a good design, and it’s not the only one. There are good pieces in that sketchbook. Ones we can sell. Mrs. Shelton would have been able to see that if she hadn’t been so stubborn, and so would your sister.”

Sylvia could feel appreciation bloom in her chest as she took a step closer to finger the fine wool. She lifted the hem of the dress to examine the nearly invisible stitches.

“You didn’t tell me you were making this up,” she said.

“I wanted to see how it turned out before I told you. I…” Miss Reid cleared her throat. “I didn’t want to disappoint you if it didn’t work.”

Wasn’t that the same excuse she’d given Izzie?

“Where did you find the fabric?” she asked.

“The inventory room. It’s too good not to use. And technically, you own it, so it’s off coupon,” said Miss Reid.

“I suspect that the Board of Trade would find that a rather creative bending of the rules, so perhaps we won’t tell them. Just this once.” Sylvia smiled at the older woman. “Do you think it will fit me?”

The seamstress’s cheeks flushed. “Well, I didn’t make it for you, but yes. I should think so.”

She thought about thanking Miss Reid, but she suspected it would only cause more embarrassment for them both so instead, she asked, “Well, why don’t I go try it on and see?”

She picked up the dress to carry it to the fitting room, but she didn’t miss the look of pride on Miss Reid’s face as she went.