It was a used clothing shop. But the clothing here was more than a mere cut above the neighborhood; it was remarkably good. Some of the gowns she sorted through were several social strata above the shop girls at the boarding house.
She confined herself at first, however, to the merely “good” clothing, buying a skirt and jacket that were identical in color and style to her own but of much better materials and repair, and three shirtwaists. But then, at the cat’s urging, she bought beautiful under-things of the sort she had only seen on the kept etoiles. She asked for, and got, permission to change into these things in a stall at the back of the shop, discarding her old clothing. She scarcely felt like herself in the soft, delicate bloomers, the finely crafted corset, the dainty corset-cover and petticoat, the silk stockings that were tea-stained, but not where anyone would see them. And the new outer clothing . . . it was strange, very strange, because it looked the same but—it was unmended and only a little worn. It felt more substantial.
And, at the cat’s prodding, she bought a sturdy umbrella. You will need it, he told her laconically. There are only two sorts of weather in Blackpool. Raining and about to rain.
Finally, as a girl came in with a bundle while she was looking at cloaks, it dawned on her what this was. Often part of a maidservant’s wages was the cast-off clothing of her mistress. This was where the superior maidservants came to sell their windfalls.
So it was with a little surprise, as she waited for the shopkeeper to bundle up the items she wasn’t wearing, that she heard the cat say from under her skirt, Ask about the cut-up dress!
Too surprised, in fact, to do anything other than stammer, “And would you have a ruined day gown, velvet perhaps, or silk twill, that has been cut up badly?”
The shopkeeper looked at her in astonishment, pausing for a moment, before answering, “Why . . . as a matter of fact . . . I do. But why do you need such a thing?”
Fancywork, hissed the cat. Shoes. You are covering shoes.
“I am re-covering dancing slippers,” she said, and the man nodded with understanding, and pulled a basket from beneath the counter.
There were three gowns in there, but the cat was only interested in the blue velvet one. They were all in rags; it looked as if someone had taken a knife to them and slashed them up.
“The girl works for the most mean-spirited woman I have ever heard of,” the shopkeeper said, shaking his head over the ruins of what had once been a magnificent gown. “Rather than let her maids have her old clothes, because she can’t bear the idea of someone of lower rank than she wearing what she once wore, she slashes the things to rags before throwing them out. The girl brings them here anyway; I generally sell them to the rag and bone man—”
“My great fortune then, that you had not yet,” smiled Ninette as he added that to her purchases. He did them all up in a brown paper parcel, which she carried out, wearing her new clothing and new cloak. The cat led her onwards, back to better neighborhoods, where he directed her purchases of other small items, and then it was time to return to the boarding house for luncheon.
She slipped carefully up the stairs, keeping her parcel hidden as best she could in her cloak. It wouldn’t do for Madame to suspect she had been doing anything other than dutifully visiting the supposed sister. She quickly unwrapped her new things and put them away in her bag, putting the brown paper into the fireplace where it burned nicely. She made very certain that the ruined dress was hidden under the rest of her clothing, and sat for a moment in quiet contemplation of her new “wealth.” Not since she was a little girl had she had a nightdress; she and her mother had simply gone to sleep in their underthings in summer, or fully clothed in the winter when you needed everything to keep warm. She touched the soft linen, the bit of lace, with wondering fingers. And as for the dress and jacket she was wearing, perhaps they were plain by the standards of the woman who had discarded them, but . . . they were scarcely worn. The skirt had never been turned. The hems had not been taken up or let down. There were no patches, no darns, no mended seams. For the very first time in her life, she had an almost-new gown. To be sure, she was very glad it had been gaslit night when she went down to dinner; those girls would have known her for an imposter if they had clearly seen her clothing.
Finally, she closed the bag and left the window open for the cat to come in. Then she went down to the much-diminished group for luncheon.
When she arrived at the table, there were only three other girls here. One of them was a dark-haired, studious-looking girl with very short hair and gold-rimmed spectacles. Madame was not in evidence, but luncheon was. Tea, bread and butter, currant jam, cucumber sandwiches. Clearly there was only one sandwich apiece, but as much bread and butter as a girl would want. The two who were sitting together, still wearing shop-girls’ aprons, gave Ninette a friendly nod, but did not stop their gossip, which was entirely in French. They must have known she could understand them, but since it was inconsequential stuff about other girls in the shop, she ignored them. The dark-haired one was engrossed in a book that did not look at all like a novel; that left Ninette alone with her meal. This, she did not at all mind. Plain as it might be, she savored it, at the same time trying not to let on she was very nearly in transports of joy over the fact that she was eating real butter and a piece of fresh bread she had herself just cut from the loaf, and not salted lard or the grease carefully saved from cooking scraped thin over the top of old, stale bread sold cheap at the corner bakery.
The two girls together—Marie and Jeanne—ate quickly and were as quickly gone; likely their time for luncheon was very short, and allowed only because the English tended to scant luncheon and eat a large tea, which meant they would be there to serve customers at an hour when the other girls would be gone. The bookish girl ate slowly, absently, and methodically, as if she were a steam engine and food was only fuel. Ninette was done before she was, took her plates to the serving hatch as the others had, and left them there.
Then, because she was supposed to be going back to this nonexistent sister, she went out again. The cat went with her, of course. She felt far less conspicuous in her “new” clothing; she no longer looked like the scullery maid, but as if she belonged on this street. Frankly, she had to wonder if Madame would have turned her away if she had spoken English instead of French.
But perhaps the gold sovereign had done the speaking for her.
For some time, she just followed where the cat led. Finally he turned around and looked at her over his shoulder. Where do you want to go? he asked, sounding a bit baffled.
She thought about that. It wasn’t raining, so there was no reason to seek shelter inside a shop or some public building. Finally, after making sure there was no one near enough to hear her talking to a cat, she replied. “Actually, just somewhere we can talk. I want to know just what you plan. I know you are planning something, but I can’t keep living at that house, pretending to visit a sister that does not exist. And are you going to keep stealing purses?”
She stopped then, because someone opened the shop door just behind her. The cat flicked his tail and moved off.
Follow me, was all he said, and so she did.
He led her to a pretty little park, where there were young mothers with toddlers and babies in prams. That is, she assumed that the women were the children’s actual mothers. This neighborhood did not look as if the people living here could afford nursemaids for their children. Like Madame, they probably had a cook and a maid-of-all-work, but looked after their children themselves.