Page 2 of Native Hawk
Considering her long journey, she didn’t look too dreadful. A splash of cool water on her face, a few loose strands of her hair tucked in, a dab of perfume behind her ear, and she’d be ready to interview for a position.
She examined her jacket, from the dark cording along the edges to the tiny tucks beneath the bust and the perfectly turned cuffs. She perused the sleek, cocoa-colored skirt, gathered up into trim, flat panels on the sides and finished with cream cording. She whirled to make sure her bustle was straight and that the pleated train was centered.
It was suitable. The dress displayed her talents withoutbraggadocio. Anyone with an eye for clothing would note her attention to detail, her sense of color, her clever stitchery. Yet it wasn’t so ostentatious as to be inappropriate to the position of a dressmaker.
Her position. It was curious, this fall from grace she’d taken. In Italy, she belonged to a noble family. She dressed in the finest silks and velvet. Her complete collection of apparel filled several wardrobes.
But in America, she was only a woman like any other woman. She’d brought just what she could squeeze into one trunk. She would have to earn her way into this new life on her own merits.
Nothing had ever sounded more exciting.
With renewed enthusiasm, she poured water from the pitcher into the bowl on the dresser, washed her face, smoothed her black chignon, and carefully pinned her hat on again. Then, pulling on her gloves and grabbing her parasol, she left to explore Paradise.
Half an hour later, her élan became somewhat diminished. First, she’d received numerous impolite stares. And second, in her quick tour of the town, she’d passed two dry goods stores, a school, a jewelry shop, a number of saloons, a bakery, an assay office, a barbershop, a boardinghouse, two churches, a blacksmith’s forge, and three hotels. It seemed Paradise had no dressmaker’s shop.
Considering the outdated and poorly tailored dresses she’d seen, she should have realized the clothes were homespun.
Returning to the covered porch of The Adams Hotel after her rounds, she closed her parasol, looping it over her arm, and flicked open her silk and sandalwood fan. Perhaps the lack of a proper dressmaker here was agoodthing, she thought, fanning herself. Perhaps that was just what the town needed. If she somehow managed to start up her own shop, she would have no competition.
But it took a lot of capital to start a shop. Even if she lived and ate in a boardinghouse and took in hand sewing, she couldn’t make enough money to earn her keep. In a town where the women did their own sewing, only bachelors would pay to have their sleeves altered, their trousers patched, or their shirts hemmed by hand.
If only she had her sewing machine, things might be different.
It had been heartbreaking to bid farewell to the thing in Italy. But it was too heavy to bring. Besides, as far as anyone knew, it didn’t actually belong to her. Since her father would never have allowed his daughter to toil like a common servant, Catalina had pretended to order the machine for their housekeeper, Paola. Many a late night, she’d crept down to Paola’s quarters to sew by candlelight, rocking the treadle with such practiced skill that it sounded like the clickety-clack of a speeding train.
Her father assumed Paola sewed all of Catalina’s beautiful gowns. But the truth was Catalina had been designing and making her own clothing for years, right under his nose.
She sighed, rapping her fan closed against her palm. A good dressmaker’s shop would have had at least one sewing machine. With a good treadle, a dress that might take all day to sew could be finished in an hour. An industrious seamstress could make a decent living as a dressmaker with that kind of speed.
Of course, the women of Paradise probably didn’t spend as much money on their clothing as titled ladies did in Italy. In Ferrara, sumptuous attire was expected as a display of prosperity. Indeed, with the money that her cousin had spent on a wedding gown last year, Catalina could have purchasedfivesewing machines.
She opened her fan again and waved it slowly in front of her face, deep in thought as she gazed down the street. Most of the women on the boardwalks were dressed in simple fabrics—calico, muslin, linsey-woolsey, gingham.
After a moment, it came to her. She could designaffordabledresses. After all, much of the cost of a dress depended on the fabric. And Catalina knew how to cut a pattern to get the most out of a piece of cloth. She could think of clever ways to use inexpensive cloth where it would never show while saving richer velvet, silk, and fine lace for beautiful trim and accents. She could even take old dresses—like that awful maroon monstrosity the woman walking toward her was wearing or the yellow calico sack on the young lady with her—and re-style them into something more fashionable.
She didn’t realize she was staring until the two began whispering furiously behind their hands and looking in Catalina’s direction.
She politely lowered her eyes and rapidly fanned her warm cheeks.
Suddenly, to the disapproval of the woman in maroon, the young girl in yellow broke away and scurried directly up to her.
Catalina froze. What did she want? Had she guessed that Catalina was secretly ridiculing her clothing?
“Pardon me, ma’am,” the girl blurted before the frowning older woman could stop her, “but is that a…” She looked about for witnesses, then lowered her voice to a murmur. “A bustle?”
“Agatha!” the older woman barked, picking up her ugly skirts and making her indignant way forward.
Catalina exchanged a conspiratorial, amused glance with young Agatha.
“Is it?” Agatha’s brows shot up in delight.
Catalina nodded.
Then the old woman grabbed Agatha by the elbow. “Come along, Agatha.” She dismissed Catalina with a rude perusal from her hat to her shoes and back up again. “I won’t have my daughter palaverin’ with one o’ your kind.”
Catalina was stunned. She had no idea what palavering was. But she recognized an insult in any language. Her uncle had warned that, in some circles, foreigners were not welcome. She just hadn’t expected rejection to come so soon. After all, she’d been in Paradise less than an hour.
Still, Catalina had never been able to keep silent in the face of an insult. Her father said her temper was a curse. Already the blood simmered in her veins.
