Chapter 18 #2
Margaret Cooper
She, aware the end of the season approached, had not asked for his identity.
The simple honesty of her gratitude produced a glowing hush inside him.
That she had selected him for such a confidence both pleased him and flooded him with sorrow for her loneliness.
It pained him that she thought herself so isolated that he, a nameless admirer, was the chosen receptacle of her grief.
She preferred anything over becoming a burden.
A more candid self-evaluation, he could not imagine.
He certainly lacked the courage to look at himself with so frank an eye.
Forty yards of cotton lay in the dyehouse, prepared and ready to receive pigment.
The kalam waited. An urgent desire to create something that expressed his admiration for Margaret Cooper pulled him from the tailoring table.
With fifteen yards he could experiment. The remaining length must be perfect. Miss Cooper must have her chintz.
The kalam between his fingers, time and space disappeared.
Only color and pattern remained. He consciously created for Miss Cooper, aware that the curve of her neck to jawline echoed the stem and base of the flowers, that the shape of her eyes lived in every leaf reaching from the vine.
He captured the strength of her back, the tirelessness of her hands, the fortitude of her determination in the pattern’s dynamic repeat.
He imbued the fabric with her softness, the gentle care she took of her brother, the thoughtful compassion she demonstrated when his father died.
He colored her past in deep purple shadows that strengthened and contrasted with the sunrise of floral hues signifying her promising future.
The cloth would hold her when he could not, express what he was beginning to understand.
He wanted to display it for her, allow her to see what he saw, feel what he felt.
The door flew open followed by Lucius’s resonant voice. “We’ve come to fetch you and will not hear… Merciful powers, Peter. What have you done? Charlotte, do you see this?”
They paused, their identical slack-jawed incredulity making Peter wish to splay himself over his work, guard the intimate exhibit that revealed Miss Cooper and his regard for her. He also did not want anyone to know what he could do, else they would not understand his doing anything else.
“It’s gorgeous. How did you manage?” Charlotte asked.
Peter said nothing.
Lucius clamped his lips closed.
“He will badger you about it another day,” said Charlotte. “Now, you must prepare yourself. We are going to the tavern and will not take no for an answer.”
Everything in Peter urged him to return to his work, but his mother’s death had taught him not to ignore his friendships. He changed his clothes, covered himself in his father’s moss-colored frock coat, and followed them out the door.
Over their ale, Lucius turned to him. “We must discuss the matter too large to ignore. You’re printing chintz.”
“Ineptly,” Peter said.
“It looked excellent to me.” Charlotte rapped his knee.
“You have the method for Turkey red and will soon conquer the art of stamping. This is too great a thing to call a diversion.”
“It isn’t good enough. Look at it in the light of day, compare it to what India is producing, and you won’t be so impressed.”
“I know you, Peter,” Lucius insisted. “You will perfect it. Do you really think your grandfather would have his knowledge kept in the pages of a book? All his work, for what?”
“He spoke so earnestly when he bade me promise. It’s a memory I cannot shake,” Peter said.
“I admire your honor, but I do not think he intended to create a prison out of an oath from an eight-year-old.” Lucius tipped his mug toward Peter. “Clearly you love working with dye. Make it your trade.”
A lovely wish, but a heavy one. He knew he would be happier working in the dyehouse all day, but such a venture meant betraying his grandfather as well as discarding everything he’d built at Sloan Tailoring—the customers, the apprentices he trained, the legacy he carried.
Was he not selfish to consider trading all that for his happiness?
A change of subject was in order. “How is the factory going?” Peter asked, reaching for his tankard.
“You know, your father would have loved watching fine cotton spin so steadily off the loom. I wish I’d taken him before…”
Would have loved.
The words lodged solidly into Peter’s chest. He watched himself set his drink back on the table, the room blurring at its edges, Lucius’s speech fading into the tavern’s muted clatter.
How many times had he and his father sat at the table he now gripped?
Even so, Peter returned to old habits as though his life was unaltered, as if death were something temporary.
“I best return home.” He stood, stumbled over his chair, and returned to the quiet of his house.
In the comfort of his father’s chair, he reached for Miss Cooper’s letters, finding in them a solace unavailable elsewhere.
She wrote of her desire for independence; he watched her manage his shop and her own household with enormous aptitude.
She described her fear of failure; he watched her dismiss compliments as if deaf to them, then pick up her next project in resolute pursuit of excellence.
His apprentice astounded him beyond all measure.
He could not desist his sending valentines simply because Easter had come and gone.
If wishes were horses, she would be his.