Chapter 1 #2
Meg had nearly memorized the terms of her indenture, which deviated from a typical agreement.
Instead of seven years, she had one to learn dressmaking, a term she had accepted without concern when she signed it.
An experienced needlewoman, she had mastered the basics.
Unlike the four male apprentices, she fed and clothed herself and lived in her own home.
Otherwise, the contract read much like any other: Meg was to faithfully serve her master, keep his trade secrets, remain unmarried, refrain from gambling and theft, abstain from the alehouse.
She had also pledged to take no private commissions and work for no one but Sloan Tailoring for the duration of her contract.
For his part, Mr. Sloan promised to “teach and instruct, or cause to be taught and instructed, the art and mystery of dressmaking.”
Neither of them kept their commitments in full.
With each stab of her needle, her irritation sharpened.
The past year was wasted time and money.
Mr. Sloan’s refusal to instruct her had forced her to break the terms of their contract.
Apprentices were not paid during training, and without an income, she relied entirely on Lord Halverton—an untenable circumstance.
To earn customers, she had begun pinning notes to her work: “Dear Mrs. Smith, what a beautiful stomacher you wore when I saw you in the shop yesterday. Is the embroidery of your own hand? Please, call on me for tea Sunday.” With a few hints dropped and promptly finished garments delivered, Meg had begun to cultivate a small but reliable clientele.
If Mr. Sloan noticed a decrease in customers, he did not mention it.
It would be a lark if she became so accomplished that everyone in town came to her for their clothes instead of Sloan Tailoring. In a fancied world, she was both tailor and dressmaker for Stroud, and Mr. Sloan would learn what it felt like to yearn for a trade.
The church bell chimed a quarter to seven. Meg stretched a kink from her neck and went to the kitchen.
Grace was absent, but a bowl of porridge drizzled with cream and a hot pot of tea waited. Meg shoveled a spoonful into her mouth and scalded her tongue with a swallow of tea.
“I am off,” she called toward the stairs, then wrapped herself in her mantle and crossed the street.
Inside Sloan Tailoring, she exchanged her mantle for an apron and knelt before the first of four hearths.
She cleaned each grate, fetched coal, and started the fires.
Then she plunged her hands into a bucket of water, gasped at the cold, and scrubbed away any trace of black.
She memorized the lay of each unfinished project before pinning the pieces together and hooking them to the wall.
With the workspace cleared, she wiped the bench, swept the floor, sorted through debris for usable scraps, pins, and thread, and sprinkled water on the boards to settle the dust. The incomplete work she returned exactly as she’d found it.
Footsteps sounding from the apprentice’s quarters pounded down the stairs. Arnold, a boy of fifteen, entered. “Good morning,” she said. “I saved you the task of organizing the fabric. I’ll stock the worktable.”
Arnold fixed her with a glare and began stacking fabrics by type without a word. He liked her no better than Mr. Sloan or the other apprentices did, and she suspected his habitual tardiness was his way of punishing her for stepping into a man’s domain.
Meg placed scissors, ells, chalk, and other necessaries at intervals along the workbench.
By eight o’clock, the remaining three apprentices entered together.
Ignoring her greeting, they settled atop the table, crossed their legs tailor-style, and bent to their work, their sewing draped over their folded legs.
Meg moved to her corner apart from the apprentices and the needlewomen who stitched nearby and took up a basket of shirts requiring hemming.
At their first meeting, Mr. Sloan had declared it impossible for a lady to join the men sitting tailor-style atop the long bench, unseemly and impractical in skirts. She had argued that a chair served as well. Mr. Sloan had never acknowledged the rebuttal.
“This sleeve. I can’t manage this.” Giles, the senior apprentice, showed the twisted piece to Johnathan.
To Meg, the problem was plain.
“You must rework it,” said Johnathan.
“I have. Thrice.”
Meg watched Giles. She could help him, but her interference would anger him.
“Bah.” Giles tossed the silk dressing gown aside and folded his arms.
Unable to contain herself, she approached the bench. “Silk is difficult because it’s slippery.” She examined the discarded piece. “Lay paper between the layers to stabilize the fabric, and double-baste before sewing.”
“This problem lays beyond your sphere.” Giles snatched his work and took scissors to his stitches.
Holding in a sigh, she returned to her seat. He disregarded her advice and continued struggling.
Mr. Sloan entered the workshop. His eyes found her first, brows tightening, his habitual smile falling. Then his notice shifted to the apprentices, who straightened and opened like flowers after rain, a picture of cheerful industry.
“Johnathan. That’s ready for pressing. Don’t singe the fabric,” Mr. Sloan said. “Arnold, you look spent. Up too early? Heat the goose irons, please.”
He made his way around the room, Meg overly conscious of the space he occupied, furious at him for denying her the tutelage he offered freely to everyone else. Indignant he had opened her trunk and nearly discovered her secret.
“Nicely done, Freddy, but it’s puckering. Try adding a seam here. What is the problem, Giles?” He picked up the contrary piece. “Pin the silk with paper between layers and double-baste. Small running stitches, backstitch every inch. With patience, it will mend itself.”
An absurd assertion. Nothing fixed itself.
Meg’s satisfaction at the repetition of her own advice curdled into irritation.
Better than any of them, she remained almost useless, relegated to menial tasks.
She refocused on the tension of her thread.
At the rasp of shoes turning toward her, she clenched her jaw against the heat that traveled down her arms and gathered in her fingertips.
To prevent the necessity of undoing her work, she stilled the needle, nearly breathless as he approached, his gait loose and unhurried.
He looked down at her, thick dark lashes framing ice-blue eyes.
She rose, unwilling to gaze up at him like a supplicant.
He crossed his arms over an impeccably cut frock coat and leaned against the wall, smiling.
If his jaw were not so aptly defined, if he were not so stubbornly cheerful, if his voice did not rumble from his chest, if everything he was and did were not quite so effortless, she might endure his presence with some equanimity.
More than his simple perfection, his ease irked her.
He came by everything without effort and approached work with assumed good fortune.