After a Fashion (2 page)

“What if she goes beyond shoe chucking and attacks me? Am I allowed to defend myself?”

“Certainly not.” Mrs. Fienman shook a plump finger in Harriet’s direction. “Defending yourself against a society lady would definitely sully the good name of my business. If that were to happen, I would terminate your position immediately.”

“But . . .” Harriet began as she struggled to come up with a plausible reason not to take on what was surely going to be a daunting task. “What about Mrs. Wilhelm’s hat? I’ve only put on ten of the fifty feathers she’s requested, and she’s expecting delivery of that hat tomorrow.”

“You’ll have plenty of time to finish Mrs. Wilhelm’s hat after you get back from dealing with Miss Birmingham.”

Harriet glanced at the clock, saw that it was after two, and felt a sliver of disappointment steal over her. By the time she got back from making the delivery
and
finished Mrs. Wilhelm’s hat, there would be no time left to celebrate her birthday.

Drawing in a steadying breath, she decided to throw caution to the wind and appeal to what little kindness Mrs. Fienman might actually possess. “I wasn’t going to mention this, not
wanting anyone to feel compelled to make a fuss, but today is my birthday. While I normally don’t mind working extra hours, I was hoping I wouldn’t have to work those hours today, since my two best friends have made arrangements to have dinner with me.”

“Ah, your birthday. How marvelous!” Mrs. Fienman exclaimed. “Why, I adore birthdays, and if I’d known today was yours, I would have ordered you a pastry.” She rooted around the papers strewn across her desk and pulled out a crumbly piece of dough that might have, at one time, been a tart. “Here, have what’s left of the pastry I got this morning.”

For a second, Harriet remained frozen in place, but since Mrs. Fienman was now waving the pastry determinedly at her, she had no choice but to rise to her feet and accept the woman’s offering. A sticky mess of frosting immediately coated her fingers. “Thank you. I’m sure this will be delicious.”

Mrs. Fienman beamed back at her. “You’re most welcome. Now then, you’d best be on your way.” She put a finger to her jowl. “Tell you what, don’t bother coming back to finish Mrs. Wilhelm’s hat today. You can come in early tomorrow morning and finish the job. Won’t that be lovely?”

Not giving Harriet an opportunity to respond, Mrs. Fienman gestured toward the door. “Timothy should be out front by now. Remember, be pleasant, and duck if you see shoes flying your way.”

“Ahh . . .”

“No dawdling now, Miss Peabody. Unpleasant matters are best dealt with quickly. Enjoy your tart.”

Harriet couldn’t find the incentive to move. She looked at Mrs. Fienman, who was once again thumbing through the magazine, then at the mess of a pastry clutched in her hand, and swallowed a sigh when she remembered her prayer only that morning.

It was a tradition, her birthday prayer.

Every year—well, for the past six years—she’d asked God to send her something wonderful. He hadn’t always sent what she asked for, but one year He’d sent her unexpected money to pay the rent when she’d thought she’d be out on the streets. Another year, He’d led her to Mrs. Fienman, which had given Harriet stable employment. Last year, when she’d turned twenty-one, she’d asked for a gentleman, and while she hadn’t received that particular request, her aunt Jane had given her—rather grudgingly, of course—a gown that had once belonged to her mother. Since she’d never met her mother, had never even seen a portrait of her, the gown had afforded her a glimpse of her mother’s slender figure. The fact that the silk was a delicate shade of violet had given Harriet no small sense of delight, given that violet was her very favorite color.

This year she’d decided to keep her prayer simple and had only asked God to send her something of His choosing, something she would find wonderful.

Surely His idea of wonderful couldn’t constitute a half-eaten tart and dealing with an overly emotional society lady, could it?

“Miss Peabody!” Mrs. Fienman suddenly yelled, raising her head from the magazine and causing Harriet to jump. “Oh, you’re still here . . . Good. Although I would have thought you’d gone to fetch your reticule, but . . . no matter. I almost forgot something.”

She pushed aside some papers, extracted one and held it up. “I need you to present Miss Birmingham with the bill—unless, of course, Mr. Addleshaw is in residence. He wasn’t in town when I met with his fiancée last week, but was off doing whatever it is important gentlemen do to earn their vast amounts of money. Make certain you make it clear that full payment is expected in a timely fashion.”

“You want me to give this bill to either Mr. Addleshaw or Miss Birmingham
and
inform them to pay it promptly?”

“Neither one of them will take issue with the request, if that’s your concern.” She glanced at the bill, smiled, and then lifted her head. “Good heavens, you’ll need to change that hat.”

“Change my hat?”

“Indeed. Not that there is anything remotely wrong with the hat you’re wearing, other than it’s entirely too tempting a piece to be anywhere near Miss Birmingham. I wouldn’t put it past the lady to snatch it right off your head, and we wouldn’t want that, would we? Especially since it’s your birthday.” Her expression turned calculating. “I’ll tell you what we’ll do. You may give me your hat in exchange for the one you so carelessly sat on. That way, I won’t be forced to extract your hard-earned money from you. You may think of it as yet another birthday treat.”

Pushing aside the pesky notion that the day was quickly turning disappointing, Harriet turned and eyed what remained of the hat she’d squashed. “Are those . . . birds?”

“They were,” Mrs. Fienman corrected, “before you sat on them. Now I’m afraid they resemble mice, and sickly looking ones at that.”

“And you believe it would be for the best if I dealt with Miss Birmingham while wearing sickly looking mice on my head?”

“Miss Peabody, you’re stalling again.”

“Too right, I am,” she muttered before she set down the remains of the tart on the edge of Mrs. Fienman’s desk. Reaching up, she pulled out a few hat pins, lifted her hat off, handed it to Mrs. Fienman, and turned and scooped up what remained of the bird hat. Plopping it on her head, she made short shrift of securing it, refusing to shudder when a mangled bird dangled over her left eye, obscuring her view.

“I don’t believe you’ll need to worry about Miss Birmingham snatching that hat off your head,” Mrs. Fienman said as she began twirling the hat Harriet had been forced to part with. “This really is a creative design, Miss Peabody. It’s the perfect
size for a lady who wants to look fashionable, yet it won’t hinder a lady as she goes about her day. Tell me, would you happen to have other hats crafted in this particular style, ones that might be put up for sale here at the shop?”

“I’m afraid that even though I do have an abundant supply of hats at home, none of them would be appropriate to sell here. The materials I use are scavenged from hats society ladies have abandoned to the poor boxes in churches throughout the city.”

“You take hats from the poor boxes?”

“I don’t steal them,” Harriet said quickly. “I have permission from the ministers to take whatever fancy hats or clothing I might have a use for because their donation bins were overflowing with far too many extravagant pieces.” She shrugged. “Ever since gentlemen have begun to amass such huge fortunes, their wives and daughters have become somewhat fickle when it comes to their fashions and are abandoning those fashions faster than ever. Unfortunately for the poor, though, they really don’t have any need for such luxurious items—which is why I’m permitted to take them.” She smiled. “I redesign the gowns, cut out any stains that might be marring the fabric, and then I provide ladies with limited funds a nice outfit they can wear to a special occasion, but for only a small fee.”

“Fascinating,” Mrs. Fienman exclaimed, “and a topic I’d love to explore further with you, but for now you’d best get on your way.” She waved toward the door. “Good luck to you, and don’t forget your pastry, but more importantly, the bill.”

Picking up the bill and then, reluctantly, the tart, Harriet walked out of the office, trying to ignore the broken bird bouncing back and forth against her cheek. She stopped at her worktable and took off her apron before sliding her hands into gloves. Scooping up her reticule, she stuffed the bill inside, picked up the pastry, and then nodded to the three ladies who worked with her before heading for the door.

Stepping outside, she moved to Mrs. Fienman’s carriage, the one pressed into service whenever a good impression needed to be made. When she opened the door, her gaze traveled over the stacks and stacks of hatboxes crammed into the interior. One quick glance upward explained why they weren’t attached to the carriage roof. It looked ready to rain, and since there was no room for her in the carriage, she was probably going to get wet.

She was beginning to get the unpleasant feeling that nothing wonderful was going to happen to her today.

God, it seemed, had forgotten all about her and her tiny birthday request.

“I’ve saved a spot up here.”

Harriet smiled. Timothy, a young man who worked as a driver for Mrs. Fienman, was grinning back at her with his hand held out. She took a second to throw the mangled pastry to a hungry-looking mutt sniffing around the sidewalk, moved to the carriage, and took Timothy’s offered hand. Settling in right beside him, she found her mood improving rapidly as Timothy began to regale her with stories about his new wife as they trundled down street after street.

“. . . so I made the small observation that the soup my missus served me was cold, and she hit me upside the head with a soup bowl, one that was still filled to the brim with chilly soup.”

Harriet laughed, but her laughter caught in her throat when Timothy steered the horses into a narrow alley. He pulled on the reins, and the carriage came to a halt, right in the midst of a large courtyard paved with brick, that brick leading up to the back of a formidable-looking mansion.

Craning her neck, Harriet took in the sight of four stories of superbly cut stone, inlaid with numerous stained-glass windows.

Her stomach immediately began to churn. She really
was
ill-equipped to deal with this particular situation, no matter that Mrs. Fienman seemed to think she’d handle it well. She wasn’t
even certain if she was supposed to curtsy when she met Miss Birmingham, or maybe she was only expected to incline her head, but . . . what
was
an acceptable response if shoes came flinging her way?

“That sure is something, isn’t it—all that stained glass on a back of a house where hardly anyone will see it?” Timothy asked, pulling her abruptly back to the fact she was still sitting on the carriage seat while Timothy was on the ground, holding his hand out to her. She took the offered hand and landed lightly on the bricks.

“Good thing my Molly isn’t here with us,” Timothy continued with a grin. “She’d probably start getting ideas, but I’ll never be able to afford anything more than a hovel.”

Harriet returned the grin before she pulled the carriage door open. “I’ve always thought that hovels have a certain charm, whereas mansions . . . What would one do with all that space?” Turning, she stood on tiptoes and pulled out a few boxes, handing them to Timothy. She grabbed two more, wrapped her fingers around the strings tied around them, and headed toward the delivery entrance. She stumbled to an immediate stop, though, when a loud shriek pierced the air. Turning in the direction of the shriek, she blinked and then blinked again.

A young lady was storming around the side of the mansion, screaming at the top of her lungs. But what was even more disturbing than the screams was the manner in which the young lady was dressed.

A frothy bit of green silk billowed out around the lady’s form, but it
wasn’t
a gown the lady wore—it was a wrapper. Sparkly green slippers with impractical high heels peeped out from under the hem with every stomp the lady took, and a long, feathery scarf, draped around the lady’s throat, trailed in the breeze behind her. Her brown hair was arranged in a knot on top of her head, but pieces of it were beginning to come loose
from the pins, brought about no doubt from the force of the lady’s stomps. The woman clutched an unopened parasol, and she was waving it wildly through the air.

“He’s a beast, a madman, and I’ll never have anything to do with him again,” the lady screeched to an older woman scurrying after her.

“You’re allowing your emotions to cloud your judgment, Lily,” the older lady returned in a voice more shrill than soothing. “Mr. Addleshaw was simply surprised by our unexpected appearance in his home. I’m sure once we explain matters to his satisfaction, he’ll be more than mollified, and then the two of you will be in accord once again.”

The lady named Lily stopped in her tracks. “I have no desire to be in accord with that man.”

“That’s ridiculous,” the older woman argued. “You know your father and I are determined to see a union between our families.”

“
You
marry him, then, Mother, because I certainly never will,” Lily railed as she shook the parasol in her mother’s direction before plowing forward.

“If I were a few years younger and
not
married to your father, believe me, I’d consider it.” Lily’s mother hustled after her daughter, grabbing the young lady’s arm when she finally caught up with her. “You need to be reasonable about this, dear. We have a lot at stake here.”

“I’m not feeling in a reasonable frame of mind, Mother.” Lily shrugged out of her mother’s hold, whacked the poor woman with the parasol, and then charged forward again. She came to an abrupt halt when her gaze settled on Harriet. Her lips thinned, her nostrils flared, and her brown eyes turned downright menacing. “Who are you?”

Harriet summoned up a smile. “I’m Miss Peabody.”

Lily’s eyes narrowed. “Are you here to see Mr. Addleshaw?”

Harriet took a step back. “Certainly not. I’m here at Mrs. Fienman’s request to deliver hats to Miss Birmingham.”