Chapter 8
The following day, Wednesday, wasn’t my day for thieving, and I went to Emma’s shop. As I entered, she handed me a folded note. “From James.”
My heart hammering, I opened it. No mention.
I crossed the room to the stove and put the note in to burn, feeling a small softening of my hard fear. Still, how could I find comfort in the absence of a sign?
Emma’s eyes were bright with curiosity, but she said not a word except, “Start with the napkins, would you? Then the shirts,” and I took my usual chair and began the delicate task of embroidering Ls on the linen.
Emma stood before a mannequin, fitting the white satin bodice of a wedding gown, pulling pins from the felt wrapper on her arm.
Not for the first time, I wondered why Emma had never married. She was pretty, with a wry, pleasant humor. Her eyes were the same warm hazel as James’s, her jaw a more delicate version of his angular one, and her hair a rich chestnut brown, scraped into a tight coil to keep it out of the stitches.
The napkins finished, I began on the gentleman’s shirts, whipping the thread over the raw buttonhole edges, double at the ends.
Meanwhile, Emma had moved to the sewing machine.
She pumped the treadle, working the needle at a reckless pace and bringing to mind what James had said about the Custom House being like a runaway train.
At last, the machine paused. Emma snipped the threads with tiny silver scissors, shook out the bodice, and laid it on the worktable. “There, all ready for Miss Parker tomorrow.”
“Did you leave extra at the seams?” I asked, remembering that Miss Parker’s waistline sometimes expanded with the state of her appetite—“delicate, very delicate,” she insisted—and once Emma had to recut a bodice at her own expense.
Emma grinned. “O’ course.”
The bells of the tabernacle clanged six as she turned the sign on the door to closed and clicked the bolt on the door. “Thanks, Kit. I’d never have managed if you hadn’t helped. Will you stay for tea? I know it’s late, but I made stew.”
It was the first time she’d invited me to eat with her, and it would have been rude to refuse.
Even as I thanked her, my stomach rumbled, reminding me I hadn’t eaten since breakfast. Her face betrayed nothing, but I sensed she wanted to discuss something; I hoped it wasn’t James or the note he’d left me.
I followed Emma back to the small kitchen, a whitewashed galley, neat as her thread box, the corner stove squat and well blacked, the single brass tap dripless, the sturdy wooden table no wider than three planks but polished and clean.
I wondered if James had built it for her.
She donned an apron, wrapping the ties around her slender waist to knot them in front.
I sat at the table with a cup of tea while she stirred the simmering copper pot on the stove.
My mouth watered as the flavor carried, and she served me a generous bowl before filling her own and sitting diagonal from me.
She cut a piece of bread from the loaf and pushed the plate to me so I could do the same.
I put the first spoonful in my mouth and didn’t want to swallow it was so good. Real lamb, potatoes, and some spice that gave it sweetness.
“Fresh lamb from the butcher,” she said.
“It’s lovely,” I said. “I’m trying not to gobble it.”
She let out a small laugh and let me eat. My bowl was mostly empty when she pushed away hers, and I felt the air shift and looked up. In the lamplight, I saw the skin around her eyes crease, the double furrow between her brows.
My pulse quickened. Here it was.
“I wanted to talk to you ’bout Amelia,” Emma said.
I swallowed the last bite of bread and set down my own spoon. I shouldn’t have been surprised. Despite the difference in their ages, Emma and Amelia had been friends for years.
Emma touched her apron to her mouth’s corners. “I know she told you she was letting go o’ the ring.”
“She told you why?”
“About Maggie? Aye.” Emma rested her sleeved forearms on the table. “I know you’re loyal to Amelia, but the best way you can show that now is to make it easy for Maggie. Don’t fight it.”
I squirmed inwardly at the thought of them talking about me as if I were a stubborn child, digging in my heels against the change. “I told her I wouldn’t. And Amelia seems not to mind much, so I suppose I shouldn’t, either.”
Emma blinked, and the corners of her mouth tucked in like a bodice dart.
“Does she mind more than she’s showing?” I asked.
“God’s sake, Kit. What d’you think?” She rose from the table with an impatient movement, taking our bowls to the sink.
I felt ashamed that I’d asked. My mother’s feelings had always burst out of her, but Amelia muted hers. It soothed my own unhappy feelings some to know Amelia shared them, at least in part.
Emma turned back toward me, setting her hips against the sink, her arms crossed. “The others’ll have questions. ’Twould help if you could answer them.”
“I’m sure Amelia will explain herself.”
“She will, but you know how rumors start. People will make guesses about what she doesn’t say. After she’s gone, just stick to Amelia’s story, a’ right?”
That caught me up.
“Is it a story?” I asked. “Because if there’s—”
“I’m asking you not to ask,” she said, her voice rising over mine. “If you care about Amelia like you say, don’t fuss.”
I sat back. “If you’re trying to make me less curious, it’s not working.”
Her hands dropped to her sides and curled over the chipped white enamel at the sink’s edge.
“God’s sake, Kit! Can you just trust me that Amelia’s doing the best she can for everyone, including you?
I know you have questions. But keep ’em to yourself and .
. . eventually Amelia may be able to tell you everything. ”
“Do you know everything?”
“I know enough,” she said soberly.
The look on her face ran a shiver down me. “Is she safe?”
“She’ll be fine.”
I wasn’t wholly reassured.
“Believe me, I don’t want her to go, either,” Emma added.
You’re losing a friend, I thought.
“You can tell her I’ll do what I can to help smooth things along,” I said.
Emma’s eyebrows rose in warning. “She doesn’t know I’m talking to you.”
“And I won’t tell her you did,” I said. “But if she asks.”
“Thanks.” She reached for the brass tap, twisting it until water burst forth then slowed.
I stood and came to her side. “Is there anything else?”
She met my gaze and held it. There was more, but she only said, “No, no. That’s all.”
I nodded. “Thanks for tea.”
“Wait.” She dried her hands on her apron, went to the wooden box where she kept money, and counted out fourteen shillings for two days’ work.
For the first time, I felt uncomfortable accepting it.
When she saw my hesitation, she took my hand and folded my fingers over the coins and spoke with the forthrightness I liked about her.
“Whether you’re keeping company with James, and if I share my tea once in a while, it doesn’t change anything.
I’m still paying you for your work. And come on Monday ’nless you hear from me. I’m expecting cloth at the warehouse.”
I bid her goodnight, dropped the coins into my pocket, fetched my coat from the cupboard in the shop, and headed toward my room.
As I crossed the cobbled square, my mind dwelled on what Emma had said and what I hadn’t thought to ask.
Emma had never thieved, but their mother, Adelaide, had been a thief with my mother, Amelia, and Maggie.
Had Adelaide ever told Emma about Maggie?
Did Emma know about the day Maggie was caught?
One thing was clear: It mattered to Maggie that we thieves didn’t cause difficulties. What might she do, if we did?