Read Secrets of a Charmed Life for Free Online Page A

Crofton released the skirt and studied the way it fell from the hanger. “Very nice. Quite nice, actually. Perhaps you might work out after all.”
    Emmy looked at Mrs. Crofton’s face to make sure there was no joking sentiment behind the words. “Are you hiring me?”
    “Let’s say Tuesdays and Thursdays, two to six. ASaturday or two a month, depending. Twenty shillings a week. At the end of the month, we’ll see where we’re at. It’s an uncertain world right now.”
    “Thank you, Mrs. Crofton. You won’t be sorry.” Again Emmy’s eyes were drawn to the Singer in the corner. “Might I be able . . . That is, perhaps you wouldn’t mind if . . .” But she couldn’t finish. Surely it was too soon to beg for favors.
    Mrs. Crofton followed Emmy’s gaze. “You want to learn how to use my machine?”
    “If it’s not too much to ask.”
    “I can teach you a few things if you like. I’m thinking you’d pick it up fast enough. It would actually be better for me if you knew how to use it.”
    The opportunity to learn to sew on a machine was more than Emmy had hoped for. She felt her mouth drop open in grateful wonder.
    And then out of Emmy’s mouth burst words she hadn’t needed to say. They seemed to gush from the spring of elation that was bubbling inside her and there was no stopping them. “Mrs. Crofton, may I show you something?”
    “Yes? What is it?”
    Emmy reached for the box at her feet, undid the clasp, and handed the woman the sketches.
    After paging through a couple of the drawings, Mrs. Crofton cocked her head, intrigue etched in her expression. “Where did these come from?”
    “They—they came from me.” Emmy was unsure whether Mrs. Crofton’s wide-eyed gaze was one of delight or dismay.
    “Are you telling me you drew these? You didn’t copy them from a magazine?”
    Emmy nodded.
    Mrs. Crofton leafed through the sketches a second time. She stopped at the one Emmy liked best, a form-fitted gown that fell from a ruched bodice with a dropped waistline into a petaled skirt. “This one reminds me of a dress I had in the window this past spring.”
    “The one you had had a scooped neck and high waist. It was pretty but no one with long legs would have looked good in it.” Emmy’s heart skipped a beat. She had said too much.
    Mrs. Crofton raised an eyebrow, but her eyes were smiling. “Is that so? And how did you come to that conclusion?”
    “Because I look at how women wear dresses. I always have. Even when I was drawing paper dolls for my sister. All dresses start out the same. A bodice, sleeves, skirt, and waistline. But not everyone can wear the same dress. A wedding dress is still a dress.”
    Emmy felt she was rambling but Mrs. Crofton seemed to be fascinated.
    “And you’ve never touched a sewing machine?”
    “I can learn. I want to learn.”
    Mrs. Crofton looked down at the drawings in her hand. “It’s no small feat to sew a gown that you have to make the pattern for. You’ll have your work cut out for you, that’s for sure, if you want to sew one of these. Is that what you’re thinking?”
    “I am. That is, if you think they’re good enough?”
    “I like this one. And this one.” Mrs. Crofton held up two sketches, one of a billowy tea-length gown with an Empire waist and bell-shaped push-up sleeves; the other of a full-length draped confection with an open back and sleeves of illusion. “Where did you learn to sketch,if I may ask? Do you have an art teacher at school? Or maybe one of your parents taught you?”
    A laugh crawled up Emmy’s throat and she squashed it. “No. No art teacher.”
    “And your parents?”
    She cleared her throat so the laugh wouldn’t escape. “My mother doesn’t . . . She doesn’t draw.”
    “And your father? Does he?”
    “I wouldn’t know.”
    An awkward silence followed. It was a wordless tension Emmy was familiar with when someone asked her a question about her father and she had no answer. Since she had already