Shadow Baby (35 page)

The material now being displayed was neither grey-blue nor bluegreen, but Mr Arnesen was working his way towards the colour he wanted his client to pick. Evie listened to his quiet, authoritative voice explaining that this blue would not highlight the delicate tones of the dowager’s complexion and was more the sort of thing for a florid person who did not care about the effect. He signalled to Miss Minto and Evie to roll that bale up and bring out another. ‘This may look dull, your ladyship,’ he said, ‘but it is very sophisticated and subtle. You can see the way the light falls upon it, how soft the blue becomes, and this is a material which drapes beautifully, there is nothing stiff about it.’ Evie saw the dowager was almost won over, but to convince her another bale was unrolled, of the very pink she so desired. Her lorgnette went up and a sigh escaped her. ‘Lovely, don’t you think?’ she said, hopeful still. Mr Arnesen shrugged. ‘A pretty enough young colour but brash, I always think, though if your ladyship insists I’m sure something can be made of it. Evie, hold it up and show her ladyship how it falls.’ Blushing furiously, Evie did as she was told, knowing this was all to remind the dowager she was not young and also to make the colour look only suitable for the lower classes.

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The grey-blue was chosen. Next, Evie had to bring in artists’ sketches of proposed styles. The dowager pored over them, with Mr Arnesen pointing out various features in each dress and steering her away from plunging necklines and nipped~in waists towards more matronly designs. When the style was chosen and material agreed, Miss Minto disappeared into the dressing-room to take measurements, and Mr Arnesen wrote down everything that had been decided while Evie removed the bales of material one by one. She was rolling up a length of the pink from the last bale, when he stopped her. ‘Don’t take that back to the racks, Evie. I would like my wife to see it. It would look very striking on her. I will take it home with me tonight and see what she thinks. Leave it in the front office and tell them so.’ But later, when Evie had done as she was instructed and returned to the machine-room where she was being allowed to machine straight seams at last, there came another message. Mr Arnesen wanted her to take the material to his home now, where his wife was waiting to look at it, and bring it back promptly after she had made her decision. Thankful that she was wearing her fitting-room dress, and therefore looked as well as she was able, Evie obeyed orders.

The carriage stopped, to her surprise, outside the house next to the one she knew to be Miss Mawson’s. Evie got out, carrying the material, wishing Miss Mawson would happen to look out and see her looking so prosperous and fine compared to that last occasion, but there was no sign of her. Instead she had been seen by Mrs Arnesen, who had sent the maid to open the door promptly and usher her in.

‘You’re Evie, I believe,’ Mrs Arnesen said, smiling. ‘A pretty name.’ Evie wondered if there was something sad in Mrs Arnesen’s smile as she said this or whether she had imagined it. ‘It is Evie, is it?’

‘Yes, ma’am.’

‘And a very good worker, I’m told.’

‘Thank you, ma’am.’

‘This is a mad idea of Mr Arnesen’s, don’t you think, Evie, to suggest such a pink for a woman of my age?’

Evie said not a word. She couldn’t agree that her employer was mad and she did not want to pass any comment on Mrs Arnesen’s age, which in any case she did not know. But as she watched the

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material being held up under Mrs Arnesen’s chin she saw her husband had been right. The pink did look striking.

‘I’ve never worn pink, certainly not this shade of pink, perhaps a very pale pink once,’ Mrs Arnesen was murmuring to herself, ‘and I believe I am too old now and it is not suitable for a mother of two great girls. What do you think, Evie?’

If there was anything Evie dreaded most it was being asked directly what she thought, but there was no escape. ‘The colour is right for you, ma’am,’ she whispered.

Mrs Arnesen laughed. ‘Right, you say? Why right, Evie?’

‘Your skin, ma’am, it is pale but full of warm tones.’

Mrs Arnesen stared at Evie, astonished. ‘Are you an artist, Evie?’

‘No, ma’am.’

‘Are you from an artistic family, dear?’

‘I don’t know, ma’am. I have no family, not that I know of.’ Evie took a deep breath. Usually, this was all she ever managed to say on the subject of her origins, but Mrs Arnesen was so very nice, nicer even than Miss Mawson, that she felt emboldened. ‘I was brought up by my mother’s cousin,’ she offered. ‘I do not know, ma’am, if my mother is alive or not. She is lost to me and always has been.’ Evie hung her head. She always felt flooded with shame whenever she was compelled to reveal her lack of knowledge about her mother. She did not see Mrs Arnesen’s face change in expression but when, after there had been no response to her confession (for there usually was some response, if only a word of sympathy hastily uttered), she again looked up, she marked its stillness. Mrs Arnesen, from being animated and smiling, seemed to have gone into a trance. She was standing holding the pink material still but now she turned very, very slowly to look in the mirror above the mantelpiece and stared into it so intently and as though what she saw shocked her that Evie was alarmed. She did not know whether to ask Mrs Arnesen if she had been taken suddenly ill, or to keep quiet until what was surely some kind of fit was over. As ever, she chose to keep quiet. Mrs Arnesen did not, in any case, appear to notice she was there. She touched her own face, fearfully it seemed to the watching Evie, and the pink silk hung dejectedly now from her hands. ‘No,’ she at last said, ‘no, I think not. But thank you for bringing it, dear.’

She looked so hurt and sad. Evie could not understand why. Was it because Mrs Arnesen had seen herself as old all of a sudden? Had the pink silk made her feel this? Was this a case of vanity? But Evie

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could not reconcile this judgement with the manner in which Mrs Arnesen had greeted her and her animation until the moment she had held up the silk. Or was it up to that particular moment? She felt confused. But as she struggled to understand, Mrs Arnesen said, very gently, and Evie could swear with tears in her eyes, ‘Take the material back, dear. Tell my husband I don’t care for it.’ Distressed and still wondering what had happened to change Mrs Arnesen from a smiling happy woman to this downcast creature, Evie rolled up the material and wrapped it in a piece of calico. Mrs Arnesen had already left the room and was opening the front door, but before Evie could go through it and into the waiting carriage, two girls came in, making a great deal of noise, and her way was barred.

‘Mother!’ shouted the older of the two girls, ‘Polly deliberately tripped me and look, my skirt is torn, it is ruined?

‘I did not trip you, Rose!’ yelled the younger of the girls. ‘Do not tell such fibs!’

‘Girls, girls,’ said Mrs Arnesen, closing her eyes and pressing herself against the wall of the hallway, ‘my head aches as it is.’ She put a hand to her forehead, but to Evie’s amazement the two girls simply carried on as though she had never spoken. Evie, unable to get past the still furiously arguing sisters, crouched helplessly against the wall, clutching the material, and waited for them to stop. Neither of them seemed to notice her, so intent were they on claiming their mother’s attention. Finally, Mrs Arnesen herself shouted, her hands over her ears. This seemed to bring her daughters to their senses and they both flung themselves upon her, kissing and hugging her. Still Evie stood there until at last Mrs Arnesen detached herself and said, ‘Let Evie through, girls. You have made such an exhibition of yourselves.’ Head down, Evie edged her way out of the house and into the carriage, further confused by what she had seen and heard in the last few minutes.

In her room that evening she lay on her bed and thought how little she knew about families. Those Arnesen girls mystified her how could they shout so and cause their mother such pain? And all over a tear in a dress, a tear that Evie with her experienced eye had seen could be mended in a trice. Big girls too, not children. Neither of them was as pretty as their mother, though Rose, the older one, had the same hair, if already several shades darker and likely quite to lose its blondness later. But she struggled to be fair. It was not fair to judge Rose and Polly Arnesen on that scene. Perhaps they were

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usually as charming and content as they ought to be with such a mother and had merely been caught at a bad time. She imagined them apologising to their mother after she had gone, and making up for their selfish behaviour. Mrs Arnesen would forgive them of course. She looked the sort of person kind enough to forgive anything. She was kind enough to be interested in me, Evie thought, and marvelled at this. Her own mother, wherever she was, if she was still alive, would not be a fine lady in the same situation as Mrs Arnesen. It was not realistic to think so and Evie had cured herself of romanticism. Her mother would be working hard for her living somewhere. In her bones Evie knew this. Sometimes she had visions of a woman like herself but older scrubbing floors and cleaning grates, a woman looking worn and tired, and she shuddered. Finding her mother might have been a sad business after all.

She was no nearer finding her even though she had been in Carlisle nearly two years. She’d finally seen the baptismal register in Holy Trinity church and it had told her nothing more than she already knew. She’d even plucked up the courage to ask to see the marriage register but there had been no marriage recorded for Leah Messenger. As for choirs, no church Evie attended had middle-aged women in their choirs; and if her mother were singing away in the congregation, she could not be identified. Evie despaired of herselfhow could she ever have imagined that knowing her mother had a fine voice would lead her to her? She needed to know facts and they proved impossible to establish. She knew that she ought to go back to St Ann’s and seek help from the matron, but surely the matron would have changed and would know nothing. Records must be kept, but for how long? And what sort of records? What was ever recorded about girls like her? It would be better to let go of the vision which had filled her mind for so many years and acknowledge that she was on her own and motherless. Why, after all, did it now matter? She was grown-up, not a child. She could be a mother herself if she so wished. It was too late for dreams of being mothered.

She thought about her life and her future differently, once her position at Arnesen’s was confirmed. The panicky feeling that she would never belong anywhere had gone. She belonged at Arnesen’s. She was known there. Every day a score of people greeted her and said her name, and she could feel recognition if not affection buoying her up. If she wanted, she could have friends - it was only

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her natural reticence which prevented her from exploiting the possibilities before her. She had even been asked to take a Sunday stroll by a young man, Jimmy Paterson, one of the apprentice tailors. She had said she could not and left it at that, and she could see he was hurt. Like her, Jimmy was shy and awkward. He had big, red hands which looked more suitable for butchering than tailoring, and a long narrow face to match his tall, thin body. Jimmy was nice enough but she didn’t want to go walking with him or any boy. She was afraid of all men except Mr Arnesen. The best part of every week was when Mr Arnesen smiled at her as he went in and out. She felt she had made a little mark and was no longer quite so insignificant. If, after several more years, she had done well enough to be a proper seamstress, trusted by Mr Arnesen with skilled work, then she would be content.

It was harder to envisage contentment at home. Her Warwick Road attic could not be called a home, it was not at all what she needed to make her content. But it was cheap and it meant she very soon could save a little money, and that was important for any kind of happiness. Mrs Brocklebank had offered her another room, a much better one on the second floor at the back, a room with a washbasin and running water in it, but she had declined. The rent was twice as much, even if reduced from the normal rate because Mrs Brocklebank liked her. She had made her mark in this house just as she had made it at Arnesen’s and came and went quite comfortably. Her landlady was always trying to find out where she came from: she was very inquisitive, but Evie’s evasions finally defeated her and she switched to inquiries about her work at Arnesen’s.

It was from Mrs Brocklebank that Evie heard more about Mrs Arnesen, though she tried not to listen, knowing the teller loved gossip and was far from reliable. ‘There are folk around who remember her before she married Henry Arnesen,’ Mrs Brocklebank said. ‘Folk in the market, they remember her. She used to come in from Wetheral on a cart, selling flowers and eggs.’ Evie thought this very interesting but could not bring herself to ask questions. ‘She wasn’t always a fine lady,’ Mrs Brocklebank went on, ‘but she did well for herself, she chose the right man, though to do her justice she couldn’t have known he’d prosper as he did. He only had a little place in Globe Lane and he kept a stall in the market too, at one time.’

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Wandering in the market on Saturday afternoons Evie tried to imagine Mr and Mrs Arnesen there all those years ago. It was hard. She could not imagine Mrs Arnesen as one of the butter women. It was impossible to see that slim, lovely figure among all the bulky rough-looking matrons. Dreamily, Evie stood with her back against the far wall and looked through the crowds of Saturday shoppers at the benches crowded with the butter women. She screwed her eyes up, trying to create an image of Mrs Arnesen there, but all she could see was old Mary, who had looked after her. Mary had sat there once, she was sure. Mary had reminded her of it and urged her to remember Wetheral too, but she never could to any useful extent. Maybe they had come in on the same cart as Mrs Arnesen? She wished she had not been so very young and could remember more. Opening her eyes properly again, Evie began walking slowly around the stalls. Easier to imagine Mr Arnesen here. There were several stalls selling material. This market had been the place where the Arnesens met and it gave her a pleasant sensation to think of it. She thought about going to Wetheral to try to stimulate some recollection of her first three years, but didn’t know how to get there. Maybe she could find a way to go there and walk about. It would be something to do on a summer evening.