“Maybe if you told them to get a turkey?” Marina suggested delicately.
“Then they’d bring back a pheasant, I swear.” Margherita sighed again.
“Where first?” Marina asked, as Margherita took up the reins and glanced down the road after the uncles. Her aunt gave her a measuring look.
“Would you really, truly like a suit like Elizabeth’s?” Margherita asked, a bit doubtfully. “Personally, I would feel as if I’d been trussed up like the Christmas goose in one of those rigs, but if you really want one—”
“Oh, Aunt!” Marina said breathlessly, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. Margherita had resisted, quietly, but implacably, every hint that Marina had ever given her about more fashionable clothing. Nothing moved her, not the most delectable sketch in the newspaper, not the most delicious description of a frock in one of Alanna’s letters. “Do you think you’d really like that?” was one response, “It’s not practical for running about outside,” was another. And she couldn’t help but agree, even while, the older she got, the more she yearned for something—just one outfit—that was truly stylish.
“All right then. It won’t be a surprise, but it will be done in time for Christmas.” Margherita’s expression was a comical mix of amusement and resignation, as she turned the pony’s head and slapped the reins on his back.
“But, where are we going?” Marina asked, bewildered, as Margherita sent the pony out of the village, trotting along the road that ran parallel to the railway, into the west.
“Well, I don’t have the skill to make you anything like that! And besides, we’ll have to get you the proper corset for it as well; just compare what they’re showing in advertisements with what you own. We won’t find anything in Killatree; we might as well go to Holsworthy.” Margherita smiled. “You’ve never had anything other than the gowns I made or ordinary waists and skirts from Maggie Potter; you’ll have to be fitted, we’ll have to select fabric, and we’ll have to return for a final fitting.”
“Oh.” Marina was a bit nonplused. “I didn’t mean to cause all this trouble—”
“Nonsense! A Christmas gift needs to be fussed over a bit!” Margherita laughed, and flicked her whip warningly at a dog that came out of one of the farmyards to bark at them. “It’s not as if we were going all the way to Plymouth—although—” she hesitated. “You know, we could. We could take the train there, easily enough. The seamstress in Holsworthy is good, but she won’t be as modish as the one that creates Elizabeth’s gowns.”
For a moment, Marina was sorely tempted. Plymouth! She had never been to Plymouth. She had never been to any big city.
But that was the rub; she had never been to any big city. After a moment, her spirit quailed at the thought of facing all those buildings, all those people. Not Plymouth; not unless she’d had time to get her mind around going there. And then—well, she’d want to stay there for more than a day. Which meant she truly needed to get herself mentally prepared for the big city.
“I’d like something simpler than Elizabeth’s suit,” she said, after thinking of a good way to phrase it. “After all, couldn’t we do the ornamentation if I decide I want it later? And I’d like that better. If you can’t actually make the suit, I’d rather have your designs for ornaments.”
“We certainly could, Mari,” her aunt said warmly, which made her pleased that she had thought of it. “You know, this was Thomas’ suggestion for your Christmas present—and I suspect he had an ulterior motive, because it means that he won’t be in the Workshop from now until Christmas, trying to somehow craft something for you in secret and finish his commissions.”
“Well, I can’t blame him, since he’s running out of space in my room to put the things he’s made for me,” Marina replied, casting an anxious tendril of energy toward the sky. Was it going to rain? They had umbrellas, but Holsworthy was more than twice as far away as Killatree.
No. We’ll be fine. That was another lesson learned from Elizabeth; how to read the weather. Later she would learn how to change it, although that was dangerous. Little changes could have large consequences, and disturbing the weather too much could change convenience for her into a disaster for someone else.
So the pony trotted on, through the wet, cold air, along the road that smelled of wet leaves and coal smoke from the trains. Out in the pastures, sheep moved slowly over the grass, heads down, like fat white clouds—or brown-and-white cows raised their heads to stare at them fixedly as they passed. Jackdaws gave their peculiar twanging cry, and flocks of starlings made every sort of call that had ever echoed across the countryside, but mostly just chattered and squeaked.
In a little more than an hour, they reached the town of Holsworthy. It had a main street, it had shops, not the single, all-purpose little grocers, dry goods, and post office run by Peter Hunter and his wife Rosie. It even had a town square with a fountain in it, which had a practical purpose rather than an ornamental one. It provided water for anyone who didn’t have it in their house, and for man and beast on the street.
Cobblestone streets led off the main road, with the houses and shop buildings clustering closely together, huddling together like a flock of chickens in a roost at night. Marina had been here before, usually twice or three times in a year. There was an annual wool fair, for instance, that they never missed if they could help it. Uncle Sebastian ordered some of his artistic supplies here from the stationer, and Uncle Thomas some of the exotic woods he used to make inlays. This was where Aunt Margherita got her special tapestry wool as well as her embroidery silks.
Of course, there were things that could not be bought in Holsworthy; for those, Sebastian or Thomas went to Plymouth, or even to London, perhaps once every two years.
“While we’re here, oughtn’t we to do other Christmas shopping, especially since Uncle Sebastian and Uncle Thomas aren’t with us?” Marina asked, “I wanted to get them books, and there’s a lovely bookshop.”
“Exactly what I had thought.” Margherita pulled the pony up to let a farm cart cross in front of her, then reined him toward the fountain. The pony, nothing loath, went straight for the basin and buried his nose in the water. Margherita and Marina got down out of the cart, and Margherita led the pony and cart to the single inn in town. It also had a stable, and the pony could wait there in comfort and safety while they did their shopping.
The sign on the shop and in the window read, “Madame Deremiere, Modiste.” Now there was no Madam Deremiere, and had not been within the memory of anyone living in Holsworthy. Probably the lady in question had been an asylum seeker from the Great Revolution, or perhaps Napoleon. The current seamstress (also, by courtesy, called “Madame”) was the apprentice of her apprentice, at the very least.
The first task before them, once the greetings and mandatory cup of tea had been disposed of, was the selection of material—and here, sadly, the selection was definitely not what it would have been in Plymouth. There was no emerald wool like that of the suit that Marina had coveted. The choice of fabric was, frankly, limited to the sort of thing that the well-to-do yeoman farmer’s wife or merchant’s wife would want, which tended to either the dull or the flamboyant.
There was, however, a wonderful soft brown wool plush that Marina could see Margherita had fallen in love with. She resolved the moment that her aunt’s back was turned to purchase it and hide it in the back of the cart. In the colors that she preferred, there was a green velvet that was both utterly impractical and far too expensive, a pale green linen that was too light for a winter suit and an olive green wool that had too much yellow in it. She was about to give up, when Margherita said, “But what about gray? Something soft, though, like that brown plush. Something with a firm hand, but a soft texture.”