Chapter 20 #2
“How should I?” Heat enveloped him like an August afternoon.
“There must be men hovering about Margaret. Who are they?” Lady Halverton had not relinquished her fork and was making stabbing motions in his direction.
Escape was not an option. To Miss Margaret’s playful smile, he said, “From what I have observed, Miss Cooper frequently interacts with Freddy, Giles, Arnold, and Johnathan, my other apprentices. My dear friend Mr. Lucius Ivy visits my shop often and so of course always says hello. Several other men regularly patronize the shop, but the single hovering man is Mr. Quincy.”
Miss Margaret laughed. “Mr. Quincy thinks only of his waistcoats. My valentine, in contrast, is quite observant.”
“Oh.” Lady Halverton made a circle of her mouth. “Very good. Mr. Sloan, you must keep a sharp eye. If he is observant, he must know her well.”
The habitually composed Miss Margaret squirmed and glanced sideways at Peter. “It is mere diversion.”
“If it were a game, you wouldn’t make that face,” Samuel said, triumphant.
“Do you think the roads will dry by tomorrow morning?” Lord Halverton asked. Miss Margaret shot him a grateful look.
The room fell silent, save the muted hiss of rain.
“I shouldn’t think so, no,” said Lady Halverton. “How fortunate, as the weather will give us more time to interrogate our dear Margaret.”
“I dare you to try, Louisa. I have nothing more to say.”
Miss Margaret’s good humor seemed to astonish everyone except Samuel, who said, “You’ll get nothing from her unless you have something she wants.”
“You paint a mean picture of your older sister,” Miss Margaret said, but she smiled and he grinned back.
“You do realize your unwillingness to talk incriminates you, Mr. Sloan,” said Lord Halverton.
“As I told Miss Cooper, I would never willingly add my name to the lottery,” Peter said. “I have little patience for such nonsense.”
“Not you, too, James.” Miss Margaret’s eyes slid toward Peter. Her attention to him dropped like a rock into his stomach. “Mr. Sloan is far too busy to entertain a valentine, especially beyond the season. He is too interested in Indian chintz and paints cotton in all his spare time.”
“Does he?” Lord Halverton turned an interested glance upon Peter.
“It is mere experimentation. My friend Mr. Lucius Ivy owns a prosperous mill and gifts me yards of cotton.”
“Oh, I am dying for chintz,” said Lady Halverton. “Can you make me enough for a gown? Or twenty?”
“I am learning the process.” He wished to promise yards and yards fashioned solely for her, for Peter liked Lady Halverton. As a tailor his acquaintances spanned the highs and lows of society, but this lady never made him feel inadequate.
“But he’s good. He will soon have it mastered.” Miss Margaret nodded in his direction, which turned the rock in his belly molten. Ridiculous that every glance she sent his way left him as breathless as a twelve-year-old receiving his first smile from a pretty girl.
Lord Halverton pushed his plate aside. “Will you retire from tailoring once you’ve mastered the art?”
“I will always be a tailor.” The phrase seemed tired.
“It seems a lost opportunity,” said the dowager, leaning toward him as if finding him interesting for the first time.
No one seemed to understand that Sloan Tailoring depended upon Peter, or that he required an income.
If he changed his trade, the guild would dismiss his membership and might not allow him to rejoin should the venture fail.
His clientele would find clothing elsewhere and might never trust him again.
“How is it done?” Lord Halverton asked. “There are plenty of block printers in the country. Why are they inferior to those of India?”
“Indian chintz is bright and colorfast,” Peter said, “with reds and indigos we’ve not been able to replicate, and it has a certain sheen to it.”
“Yes, yes, but how is it done?” the dowager asked.
“Complicated stages—more washing, fixing, and boiling. The fabric is treated with tannin and fatty milk, and Indian cotton is finished with a glaze. It requires the greater part of three weeks simply to prepare the fabric to receive color.” While Peter would never share these secrets with a dyer, no one at this table threatened the promise between himself and his grandfather.
Besides, his descriptions were vague enough that none of them would truly understand all the work that went into developing the colorful patterns.
“It seems the colors are what we are missing. How will you make a good replica if the reds and blues are not available in England?” Lady Halverton asked.
Before Peter could consider how much to give away, Miss Margaret said, “He makes a red as bright as poppies. It’s brilliant.”
Her statement knocked his heart off its stride.
Miss Margaret sent him an apologetic look.
He waved her off. “I doubt anyone would believe it, but it is true. I have reasons for keeping the method to myself.” Though more and more he wished to share it.
He felt liberated to have discussed what little he’d revealed to the Halvertons already.
“Yes, of course,” the dowager said, seeming to sense his hesitancy to speak further.
“If you would like to discuss your enterprise further, do let me know,” said Lord Halverton. “Such a discovery will be an economic boon for England, and every woman on our great island would bless your name.”
Lord Halverton’s offer appeared genuine, though the words were too grand for Peter to swallow.
He envisioned the vast change such an enterprise would entail.
After perfecting the method—which alone presented a great obstacle—a massive amount of equipment and supplies must be procured.
He would need to negotiate with suppliers, create contracts with distributers, find and train craftsmen.
But Peter could imagine tables stretched over with plain, white cotton in the process of changing into something alive and colorful.
The image shattered his thoughts into a thousand more, ideas rushed to his mind, patterns, methods, plans, arriving in frenzied fragments.
Among it all, his grandfather’s smile—and his parents’.
Would sharing the secret to red dye emulate his parents’ teachings and heal a grudge that had been suffered too long?
More importantly, did Peter possess the bravery they demonstrated?
Could he be as courageous as Miss Margaret?
It remained far too easy to practice painting cotton in the darkness of his dyehouse, but hope was fixing within him like madder red clings to cloth, deep and unrelenting.